Amen. The DNA evidence alone was incontovertible proof of guilt, beyond any reasonable doubt.
The person most responsible for losing that case was Marcia Clark: she assumed the guilt was so obvious that she didn’t have to work to prove it. She dropped all kindsa balls in that trial.
The person most responsible for winning the case was Johnny Cochran: by dishonestly telling the jury that a shred of doubt about any one piece of evidence equalled “reasonable doubt,” he lied to them about what that standard actually is: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” is an out-and-out lie. But again, it’s Clark’s fault for not rebutting that clearly. Her failure to do so simply confirmed the lie for the jury.
The best analogy I’ve heard was someone who pointed out that Cochran convinced the jury that the evidence was like a chain, and any one faulty piece of evidence destroyed the whole case. When, in fact, the evidence is more like a rope: the failure of one or two individual fibers does not necessarily destroy the rope. One single piece of incontrovertible evidence remains incontrovertible, even if other evidence doesn’t stand up.
Clark let the analogy stand and is entirely to blame.
I’ve a question about the trial procedure. Didn’t Cochran say that during his summation? I don’t recall which was first, the prosecution’s summation or the defense’s. Whose was first?
One juror later said that the glove argument played less a factor in their decision than others thought. They knew that it was possible to make the glove look ill-fitting depending on how Simpson flexed his hand.
Realize we all sit here Monday Morning Quaterbacking, and we all did during the trial
OJ was so guilty to us (people watching) but wasn’t the jury sequestered? They allegedly (I know I spelled that wrong) were working from just the admitted evidence. It may have looked different there.
And they’re really supposed to look at the stuff in front of them, not the gut feeling.
Though I’ve sat in a jury, and I can tell you, the people sitting there make a difference.
Which is why prosecutors don’t decide questions of guilt. No matter how strongly a prosecutor may feel about the case, it’s up to the jury of one’s peers or the impartial judge to assess the case and decide it.
The standard of proof is not a side-track - it’s a key protection for the accused person. It’s not enough that the evidence, when summarised overall, sounds persuasive. A trial is about convincing the fact-finder. The prosecution bears the heavy onus of proving every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
Based on the reported statements from two of the jurors in this case, it seems clear that the prosecution did not meet that burden. “Probably” isn’t enough to send someone to jail. If the evidence was as strong as you make it out to be, I would be more inclined to blame the prosecutors than the jury, for not having done their job properly.
I remember watching an interview with one of the OJ jurors a few months ago. He was a black male. He clearly said he believed that OJ probably did it. Straight out, no sidestepping or qualifiers. He just didn’t feel the prosecution presented a strong enough case to reach a guilty verdict.
Before someone jumps in talking about Judge Ito’s definition of beyond all reasonable doubt or trying to figure out my stance on everything, let me point out I’m just trying to answer the OP’s question as to how atleast one of the jurors feels today.
Surely that is hyperbole. While I have no doubt about Simpson’s guilt I am pretty sure that all of the cases with truly “some of the most persuasive evidence they had ever seen in a homicide trial” resulted in convictions. I would be pretty certain that wrongful convictions based on flimsy evidence ar far more common than wrongful acquitals on rock solid evidence.
The evidence in the Simpson case was all circumstantial and presented in a way that was so uncompelling that I would have bet my life on Simpson’s acquital rather than his conviction.
Less likely than what? It’s certainly a reasonable to think that professional athletes are statistically less likely to commit murders than, say, professional hitmen. It may even be reasonable to think that professional athletes (who tend to be highly paid) are less likely to commit murders than your average citizen, given that many murders have a financial motive.
You use the word circumstantial as if it is a bad thing. Almost all evidence is circumstantial. Most cases are built on circumstantial evidence. It holds equal weight with any other evidence. In fact eyewitness evidence is a much worse basis to go forward with on a case since a good defense attorney can pick apart just about any untrained witness. The OJ case had a tremendous ammount of circumstantial evidence that all pointed to Simpson being the killer.
And while many posters have speculated in this thread about what the members of the jury were thinking, better to let the sources speak for themselves. At least five of the jurors wrote books , and I believe that most (perhaps all) of the others have given lengthy interviews, including the alternates and jurors who were dismissed mid trial.
Loach is right. Circumstantial evidence is just as good, and many times better than eyewitness.
I suggest you check out the book Outrage by Vincent Bugloisi to get the whole story on how the DA’s office screwed the pooch on this one.
Has anyone considered that jurors are human, and cannot cope with information overload? I remember the trial, and the defence’s MO was to dredge up all kinds of irrlevant information-they even succeeded in putting LA Police captain Mark Furman on trial. The mere fact that these poor people had to sit through hundreds of hours on mostly irrelevant nonsense meant that the oputcome would be in doubt. Why can’t judges enforce some time limits? After I’ve heard the defence’s DNA expert, and the prosecution’s DNA expert, and the rebuttals, and the counter-claims, it all starts to get VERY difficult. if you add in the fact that most of the jurors were of limited intellectual capabilities, then you have some serious problems. would such a farce been allowed in a German or French courtroom?