O. J. Simpson "Confesses"

[crowmanyclouds]

From, O.J. Simpson, analysis of his murder trial - The Crime library

On June 15th, Christopher Darden called Richard Rubin to the stand. The former vice-president and general manager of Aris Gloves testified that the gloves were part of a batch sold to Bloomingdale’s, New York. He measured Simpson’s hand and estimated it to be size large to extra large. The police had already established this and had found three pairs of gloves in this size in Simpson’s belongings.

The prosecution team had arranged a trial run earlier in the day using Detective Phil Vannatter to try on a pair of identical gloves. His hands and fingers were as long and thick as Simpson’s, and the gloves slid on easily. Rather than wait for the defense to beat him to it, Darden made the decision to have a demonstration with Simpson trying on the gloves.

Cochran, however, insisted that his client wear latex gloves and he would attempt to slip the brown leather gloves on over these. Caught in full by the television cameras in the courtroom, Simpson was seen struggling to get the gloves on, saying, “They’re too tight.”

When asked later why the gloves failed to fit his client, Johnnie Cochran said, " I don’t think he could “act” the size of his hands. He would be a great actor if he could “act” his hands larger."

Rubin subsequently testified that moisture had caused the extra large gloves to shrink a full size and later in the trial, Simpson again tried on a brand new pair of the Isotoner extra large gloves, which fitted perfectly. But it seemed that the damage was irretrievable.

Cochran would make much of the glove trial that went wrong. In his final summation to the jury, he said that the prosecution’s case was slipping away as soon as they had his client try on the gloves.

“You will always remember those gloves,” he said “when Darden asked him to try them on and they didn’t fit No matter what they do, they can’t make them fit. The prosecution would do anything to contort and distort the fact, he reminded the jury as he repeated his theme, " If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

Interestingly enough, at least two of the jury who acquitted Simpson, were not that impressed with his performance that day.

Juror #98, Carrie Bess, a postal worker, later stated, “Those gloves fit. He wasn’t putting them on right… I do believe the gloves fit. I have no doubt about that. The glove demo didn’t impress me at all. Not one iota.”

Marsh Rubin-Jackson, #984, also a postal worker, agreed. “Sure, you know they fit they would have fit anybody,” she said.

Given that the major theme of the defense case was the proper handling of forensic evidence, there’s no way Cochran would have let OJ handle evidence in a way that differed from the way every other person handled evidence.
Darden chose to have the glove demonstration before Rubin testified that the gloves had shrunk a full size (and latex gloves or no, theres no testimony about how well OJ fit a XL glove, I.E. driving glove snug, comfortably snug, loose etc., only Rubin’s estimate).
Later, Darden had the opportunity to make OJ try on other gloves, why not insist he continue to wear the latex ones, why not make him try on gloves the same size that the glove had shrunk to?

Darden had to know that fit would be a problem.
He had to know (how could he not know) that Rubin would testify that the gloves had shrunk (he was Darden’s witness), unless that part of Rubin’s testimony was just an 11th hour attempt to rehabilitate the glove demonstration, which raises more disturbing questions. (If the gloves had fit would Rubin testify that the gloves had shrunk?)
CMC fnord!
BTW, I’d be interested to hear how much of the trial those with strong opinions actually saw. Court TV was in it’s golden era and broadcast the trial from preliminary hearings straight through to the verdict, and rebroadcast the same over-night, because of that extensive coverage (and a VCR) I saw 95% of the trial.
CMC, who thinks the verdict was correct, and that they tried to frame a most likely guilty man.

[you_with_the_face]

@crowmanyclouds

CMC, who thinks the verdict was correct, and that they tried to frame a most likely guilty man.

I agree with this characterization.

[Starving_Artist]

As do I.

The thing is, if you can’t believe all the evidence you can’t necessarily believe any of it, since you don’t know which has been fabricated and which is genuine. Had I been on the jury I’d have voted for acquital.

[Contrapuntal]

@Mince

He said explain to me in English, not long and protracted verboseness.

Did you read your cite? Did you not intend for it to be part of your explanation? Is it not longer, more protracted, and more verbose than the post you are complaining about?

[Pushkin]

A happy ending, it would seem.

[Tuckerfan]

@Pushkin

A happy ending, it would seem.

Hmm. Sounds like a brilliant ploy on the part of OJ’s lawyers to get OJ some money. He “writes” (come on, that thing was ghost written by some ghoul) a book sure to attract oodles of media attention, get’s a good sized contract for the thing, there’s all kinds of speculation about what’s in it, and then, Fox kills the deal, but carefully makes no mention of what happened to the money that they paid Simpson (at the very least, he’d get a “kill fee” if he didn’t get to keep the whole advance).

[Crotalus]

@Tuckerfan

<snip>at the very least, he’d get a “kill fee” if he didn’t get to keep the whole advance).

Indeed.