If you’re going by baby steps, it might make it more helpful if you started out with correct statements. Fuhrman wasn’t the “lead cop”, that was Vannatter.
Of course one lie calls into the veracity of the officer’s others statements. Contrary to the strawmen thrown around here, I’ve conceded as much.
But it doesn’t, as som many have said, mean that everything else he said was a lie. The jury should have spent more time using the evidence and common sense to figure out whether everything he said was a lie or if there were truth. And the jury SHOULD do so with a skeptical eye toward his testimony. But this skepticism doesn’t entitle the jury to simply dismiss everything Fuhrman said, OR all the other evidence that Fuhrman had nothing to do with.
Those determinations are made in every trial, with every witness. The idea that, because one cop lied, all the cops lied is just stupid. John Meraz lied through his teeth for the defense, yet that apparently didn’t mean all the other defense witnesses lied. If you want to look at their testimony skeptically, have at it. But LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE while you do so.
Again, ask the questions. BUT ANSWER THEM TOO. Determine the answer to these questions by looking at all the evidence instead of simply dismissing it.
This is exactly the kind of conclusory statements that the jury falsely made. Again, it wasn’t a “battle of experts”, the DNA evidence was tested by two, sometimes three different groups, all with the same conclusions. The defense experts did nothing substantial to call into question any of it. But the jury, and apparently you, did exactly what defense counsel wanted to, get bored, stop paying attention, and dismiss it as a “battle of experts”.
No they didn’t. They did as you have done, simply dismiss it out of hand.
Do you know how long the jury deliberated in the civil trial? Roughly 5 of 6 full days. How long did the jury take in the criminal case? 3-4 HOURS. Even with a lower standard of proof, the jury in the civil trial spent roughly 10 times more time going over the evidence than the criminal jury. This, and the sometimes idiotic statements of the criminal jury afterwords, convinces me that the jury DIDN’T consider all the evidence. They didn’t have time. They didn’t bother to wonder how 15 officers could have missed seeing a bloody glove at the murder scene that Fuhrman supposedly planted. They didn’t bother to wonder why two officers would lie under oath about there only being one glove. They didn’t bother to determine, even if they believed NOTHING Fuhrman said, what other evidence was available.
The defense, as you pointed out, certainly raised some questions. The jury didn’t even bother to try and answer them.
Well, let’s face it-the criminal trial was a royal fuck up from the get-go. The prosecution, the witnesses, the judge, everyone. Taking such a short time was pretty pathetic. (From what I’ve read about the glove-they were ordering a new pair, so he wouldn’t have to try it on over the latex one, which obviously wouldn’t fit. But Darden didn’t want to wait for them to arrive, etc.)
It would have started out smoothly if you hadn’t misrepresented my position.
Here is what you said: “Hamlet’s apparent plerophory that a jury’s duty is to take the government’s case, reluctantly separate the stuff that’s biased or sloppy or mistaken or a big fat lie, assume that the rest is gospel and render a verdict based on that.” None of those quotes you listed said that the jury has to “reluctantly separate the stuff that is biased, or sloppy or mistaken or a big fat lie”. Nothing in what I’ve said supports the idea that the jury has to “take the rest is gospel”. The jury should look at ALL of the evidence. They should be skeptical of that that is truly called into question, and render a decision based on the EVIDENCE. The jury should decide which evidence it believes, and which it doesn’t, based on the evidence in court, including the credibility of the witnesses. The Simpson jury didn’t do that. They didn’t take enough time to even START doing that. They simply dismissed it out of hand, because one racist cop lied and the prosecution was unbelievably incompetent.
Bullshit. You want to pretend that I think the jury shouldn’t look at the evidence whatsoever and just accept what the government side says is true. Why you feel the need to misstate my position, I don’t know.
This is, in small part, what I’m talking about. This idea that, because one bad cop was involved in the investigation, means that all the other evidence is suddenly unpersuasive, is just silly.
This is, once again, another example of what I’m talking about. The jury’s dismissal of the DNA evidence was unreasonable. And while the government could have done a much better job presenting it and packaging it so that even the incredibly stupid can understand it, that does not relieve the jury of their duty to rationally consider the evidence. I already know what the jury thought of the smudge, stains, fuzz, etc. What I’m saying is that their “thought” are wrong.
Oooohhh. Every time I hear that one from the defense, I like it.
As I’ve said, repeatedly, the jury can be skeptical about the evidence presented. They can question the veracity of the witnesses, they can conclude that Fuhrman lied. What they shouldn’t do, however, and what they did, was simply dismiss the evidence out of hand without testing its truthfulness and weight in light of all the other evidence presented. Not everything Fuhrman said was a lie. He didn’t plant the glove, put blood on the Bronco, or put blood on the socks. And the jury heard, and ignored, the testimony showing all of that. Yet, rather than getting involved in a rational discussion and reasoned consideration of ALL the evidence, they simply dismissed it.
Whatever evaluations the jury made were clearly unreasonable, because they did not conclude as Hamlet concluded.
Well, Soup, I tried. And you tried, more eloquently and cogently than I. And our poor brother Hamlet comes right back, full circle, to the point where we started.
Enough for me today. Time to close the office. It’s sunny, about 80 degrees, and breezy enough that the vultures are having high times. I’m gonna go outside.
Do these pants make my butt look big? I believe that many people lie under a variety of circumstances. If I lied and said “no”, does that mean that when I testify later that I saw OJ w/a bloody knife that I’m lying about it? Just as I understood when Clinton lied about the affair, it doesn’t make everything else he testified about a lie. BOth lied about something personal and embarassing they’d rather not have public, that they believed wouldn’t be provably wrong.
“The jury should decide which evidence it believes, and which it doesn’t, based on the evidence in court, including the credibility of the witnesses. The Simpson jury didn’t do that. They didn’t take enough time to even START doing that. They simply dismissed it out of hand, because one racist cop lied and the prosecution was unbelievably incompetent.”
You, Hamlet, are a wonder. Of a sort. The idea that a jury should or even could evaluate a certain proportion of the evidence adduced by the state independently of the fact that the remainder is the product of racism/lies/incompetence is, um, quite a demand. For one thing, it presumes the jury has an independent means of evaluating evidence in the jury room, which it doesn’t, and for another, you’re hypocritically asking juries to “weigh all the evidence” while simultaneously asking them to disregard the credibility of the group, including all the incompetent racist liars in the cast, who are responsible for collecting, handling, safeguarding, interpreting and presenting that same evidence. Your position is trash, I didn’t misrepresent it, you do believe juries shouldn’t penalize prosecutors for proven lies by dismissing their assertions that haven’t yet been disproven, and you are the one fighting, strenuously and uselessly, against truth here.
If you represent the state, and you lie; or produce or countenance witnesses who lie, or who are materially flawed in some way that you know or should have known about but did not disclose; if you adduce evidence that is tainted but present it as if it is pristine; if you gather or handle carelessly or incompetently physical evidence that is vulnerable to tampering or accident and offer it without disclaimer to a jury, you are guilty of misconduct – you are cheating. And that probably goes double for whatever is/was in Hamlet’s box of Evidence Helper.
I have no doubt that prosecutors cheat in small ways as well as large, and that sometimes they take liberties that matter little to the verdict, and that sometimes they cheat when the honest truth is that the defendant is guilty. But whether they cheat in order to convict an innocent man, or just to make it easier or simpler or cheaper to convict a guilty one, or to influence the sentencing that will come later, or just out of habit, it is all misconduct, and the result should always be that the prosecution is forfeit and the cheaters lose their jobs and go to jail for violating the public trust.
Hamlet’s legal philosophy offers benefit only to prolific and promiscuous liars – “take seriously everything I say that hasn’t yet been discredited.” S/he’s either not really a current or ex-prosecutor, or s/he’s misrepresenting his/her attitude toward prosecutorial misconduct, or he/she’s seriously defending lies and misrepresentations as a state criminal prosecution tactic. In short, Hamlet is either a liar, or a liar, or…a liar. Kinda ironic for a poster who throws that accusation around so freely, huh?
I tried. Over and over. But you have your “mind” set on something and no matter how many times I try to dissuade you from your misperceptions, you cling to them like their a lifeboat.
Sorry, I only caught this part after my initial reply, because, in all honesty, you were simply repeating yourself and still missing my point. Which is further shown by your need to impugn not just my arguments, but also me personally. For that, you’ve shown yourself to be a complete and utter waste of human flesh. The fact that had to stoop to, not just misrepresenting my position, but also relying on that misrepresentation to malign me, my work, and my life, speaks volumes about you. And none of it is good.
Time someone learned to read for content. I *said *I was going outside, and I *did *go outside. The air was fresh, the vultures were soaring. And just at sunset a flock of turkeys came to scratch acorns under the oak in the back yard. So all was good.
Me, I think that my *last *post was my *only *“substance-less potshot”. But then, I’m vain like that.
Wring, liar, liar, pants – um – eh – make my butt look big? You just don’t get it, and neither does Hamlet, so let’s see if a child’s proverb can help you understand.
Remember the boy who cried wolf? The first time he did, people came running. Same the second time. But the last time, and (at least for the little brat) the only time it really mattered, no one came and the wolf ate his worthless ass up. Why?
Because he had demonstrated himself to be a fucking liar!!
So, even though he was really telling the truth the last time, the townsfolk had no means to evaluate his statement other than in the context of his previous statements. Which were, we all know, fucking lies!
Soup, my compliments, you nailed it. For anyone and everyone else, it is (or should be) enough said.
If the entire OJ Simpson case, and every piece of evidence, was solely handled by Fuhrman, you might (if you once again put aside the fallacy that proving someone lied once means everything they say is a lie) have a point. As it stands, you don’t. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, the Simpson jury didn’t have ONLY Fuhrman’s word on it, they had a plethora of other evidence to look at. And they should have used that evidence to test the veracity of ALL the testimony.
I’ve said it before, so I doubt it will help again, but "Of course one lie calls into the veracity of the officer’s others statements. Contrary to the strawmen thrown around here, I’ve conceded as much.
But it doesn’t, as som many have said, mean that everything else he said was a lie. The jury should have spent more time using the evidence and common sense to figure out whether everything he said was a lie or if there were truth. And the jury SHOULD do so with a skeptical eye toward his testimony. But this skepticism doesn’t entitle the jury to simply dismiss everything Fuhrman said, OR all the other evidence that Fuhrman had nothing to do with."
I never said that “lied once equals lied every time”. The little boy got eaten by the wolf, precisely because his (final) warning was true. But he was not believed because his earlier warnings were lies. Why do you have such trouble with this concept?
As Soup has so well pointed out, you expected the jury to use the other evidence, itself of questionable veracity, to evaluate the veracity of Fuhrman’s testimony and all the other evidence. This has become truly circular.
I don’t. I’ll repeat myself AGAIN. “If you want to look at their testimony skeptically, have at it. But LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE while you do so”.
I thought it fairly obvious that I disagreed (and gave reasons for my reasoning), that the other evidence was of “questionable veracity”. But, even if you think that questions were raised (outside of the "Fuhrman lied so this guy likely is too), about the evidence, and I’ll repeat myself AGAIN "“Again, ask the questions. BUT ANSWER THEM TOO. Determine the answer to these questions by looking at all the evidence instead of simply dismissing it.”
All right, since we’ve finally settled that, how about humoring me with a little hijack? I’ve always wondered about the fabled glove and its story. May we explore it? To me it has even more significance than Fuhrman’s demonstrated lies about the “n” word.
OJ butchered his victims then left one glove at the scene. This must have been (a) an accident or (b) because he didn’t realize its potential evidentiary value. The other glove he presumably took along with him.
Next step after the murders was to change his clothes. It must have been the next step, even before flight, because the car had very little blood in it, and it seems certain that the murderer would have been rather liberally covered in blood. So he gathers up his bindle of bloody clothes, including the single glove, and races homeward. Somewhere along the way he manages to dispose of the bindle. He must have done so, because it was never found. So he (1) disposed of it or (2) packed it up and took it on the airplane with him, for later disposal. All except for that one glove.
So he gets home, sneaks around back because the limo is calling for him. And he still has that damn glove. Which he could of course stuff in his pocket, to later add to the bindle for airport disposal. But instead he runs down the alleyway behind Kato the Vacuous’ apartment, presumably intending to hide it in the potting shed, maybe under a geranium. But instead he drops it. And leaves it there! After all of that trouble, he leaves lying there in his back yard an object that he must know is horribly incriminating. And he does all of that dashing down the alley, dropping, maybe searching unsuccessfully, then dashing back, without disturbing the resident spiders and their webs, which a crime scene tech finds to be filling the alleyway later that morning.
The very same spider webs that Fuhrman also fails to disturb when he walks down the alley and discovers the glove during his illegal search.
Why do I say illegal search? Because he had no probable cause to enter the premises. He was forced to invent a cause, and chose to claim that he and Vannatter were searching for additional victims. As if the murderer had left the original crime scene, and proceeded over to kill OJ too.
So they jumped the wall and woke up the residents. Both of whom explained that OJ was on a planned trip out of town, and surely wasn’t a murder victim. But Vannatter insists on further quizzing them, and then using the house phone to attempt to contact OJ. Meanwhile Fuhrman goes for a little walk. In the course of which he discovers the glove.
Why do I find all of that to be less than credible? And why do I think it demonstrates that both Fuhrman and Vannatter were willing to “enhance” evidence?
If you like. Can we do it civilly though? I admit to getting a bit rough earlier, so I’ll tone it down if you agree to also.
I’m with you so far.
I can’t agree to that. While there was evidence of blood on his shoes, I didn’t hear a whole lot of evidence that the murderer had somehow gotten covered in blood. Going strictly from my ever degrading memory, I thought the theory was that Simpson killed Nicole and Goldman from behind. Do you have a cite?
Just so we reach a point of agreement, I think it is fair to say that yes, Simpson left one glove at the crime scene and one at his house.
Do you really find the idea that a murderer would inadvertently drop a piece of evidence to be that stunning? He left his blood, a footprint, and a glove at the scene, why is it hard to believe he would drop one on his way into his house too? Because, to be honest, I’m not seeing it.
While we’re here, tell me, which do you find more reasonable. That a murderer who has already left his blood, a footprint, and a glove at the crime scene would accidentally drop a glove at his place, or that a bad cop would be the only one to see a major piece of evidence at the crime scene (somehow missed by the other 16 cops who found every other one), take it without anyone seeing, put it into an evidence bag or latex glove, and plant it at a scene of a guy who may be easily proven innocent (remember he had no DNA results, didn’t know where OJ was, had no idea who the glove, footprint, or blood belonged to), and somehow magically got OJ’s blood on it before anyone actually had the sample of OJ’s blood, all of that risking the death penalty.
I think it’s blatantly obvious.
You’ve made this point over and over. And, it is the closest I think you will get to any “fabrication” of evidence. I think that Fuhrman and Vannatter may have been less than completely honest about the reason they hopped the fence in the first place, in that they may have gone for safety reasons, but also to investigate the murder. So, again in an effort to find common ground, I will agree their reason for entering the estate was not simply to see if OJ was OK. But, as I’ve said before, taking that one thing and thinking it shows that all the other evidence is somehow automatically tainted and should be dismissed is patently silly.
Wasn’t there suspicion that Robert Kardashian disposed of a gym bag that contained the clothes, etc? I think there was even some footage… It was said by some at the time that Kardashian was only on the legal team so that he wouldn’t be forced to testify about it.
Or did I just pull that out of my ass? More than possible, remembering all the hype and conspiracy theories that were floated back then…
ETA- and looking at the film of the verdict, check out Kardashian’s face when it’s read out. He is stunned and a bit horrified at the verdict of “not guilty”- I thought he was gonna faint.
While there’s no accounting for people like Hamlet, other than that one day they left their ethics in the pocket of their other suit and never quite caught up, it’s very clear how that failure has led to his/her current moral idiocy on the topic of prosecutors, witnesses, and evidence. Hamlet simply does not realize or refuses to admit that, as telling lies or demonstrating bigotry impeaches a witness (and s/he doesn’t even fully accept that), and carelessness with chain of custody impeaches an expert witness(ditto), that presenting a lying, bigoted witness, and offering tainted evidence without disclaimer, impeaches the prosecution.
Hamlet clings to the frankly crackbrained notion that a corrupt and inept prosecution, caught throwing lies, racism and incompetence as well as honest evidence at a defendant, should have the privilege of just severing the discredited portion of its case and erasing its own misconduct from the minds of the jury, so the latter can somehow “evaluate” the remainder of its offered evidence (the part that hasn’t yet been impugned) as if it were not the offering of an inherently untrustworthy person(s) and process. It’s true, and a shame, that the worst of our state appellate courts sometimes behave this way, but juries have no obligation to believe or even consider anything a prosecutor offers up, especially after one of his witnesses turns out to be a bigoted liar, his evidence specialists can’t quite follow a chain of custody, and the prosecution at every turn appears at best competely surprised by and at worst complicit in every flaw in their own case.
To be honest, Hamlet does not seem to me likely to be or to ever have been a criminal prosecutor in the U.S., so it’s probable that her/his attitudes haven’t managed to do any real damage: nonetheless, if s/he does have anything, anything at all, to do with the justice system, we need to worry.
I think I’ve been civil the entire time, so I’ll just keep on.
I’m not gonna bother with cites for the purposes of this hijack, but I don’t think I really need one for supposing that when you slash the throats of two adult humans, there’s going to be a whole lot of blood gushing around. I can’t imagine OJ not needing to change. But leaving aside the issue of the rest of his clothes, we are sure that he left at least one glove at the crime scene.
The other glove he carried with him, you think, accompanied or not by his other bloody clothes. And then, whether or not he disposed of any other clothes along the way, he still had that glove when he got home. And so you say
But then you continue
I myself am not seeing it. The murderer obviously left some evidence at the scene, like footprints, and perhaps blood, and at least one glove. Nobody ever said that this was a perfect crime, or OJ a perfect criminal. But it strains credulity to believe that he made such special, and presumably incriminating, arrangements for this glove, alone of all the possible evidence.
He brings it home with him, unlike any other piece of evidence. In his pocket? In his hand? While he’s driving? Couldn’t he just throw it out the window? Or do with it whatever he must have done with the rest of the bloody clothes (assuming that there were some).
But no, he gets home and still has the glove! So he then rushes (or creeps, doesn’t matter) down a hardly-traveled walkway, in the direction opposite from his house. He knows that this path is a dead end, leading only to a garden potting area. He takes this diversion even while his driver is calling him from the front gate. Presumably he plans to hide the glove somewhere in the potting soil and flower pots. Not, perhaps, such a bad idea. But instead he drops it in plain view along the walkway. That might certainly happen. But he has to know that failing to hide it would be a gigantic mistake. So instead of picking it up and continuing the plan to hide it, or even abandoning the plan and sticking it in his pocket to be dealt with later, he simply leaves it there, in all its bloody glory. He turns about and proceeds on to the house, and to his fate.
But in the course of this aborted attempt to hide the last and most singular bit of evidence, and in Fuhrman’s later wandering excursion along the same pathway toward discovery, neither individual disturbs the spider webs that, by testimony of a crime scene tech, copiously festoon the entire walkway. Huh.
Well, now you mention it, so do I.
I think that Fuhrman and Vannatter were among the first on the scene. They had a history with OJ and Nicole, having responded to previous abuse calls. Abuse for which OJ paid zero penalty. And we know what Fuhrman (at least) privately thinks of dark skinned people, and the things they get away with, and what he would do to them if he had his druthers. I believe it would be fair to assume that Fuhrman (at least) hated OJ with an abiding passion.
So now they are called to the scene of this horrific crime. They look around, but “processing” the scene is a job for others. Theirs is a supervisory role, as the “lead detectives”. They phone OJ, but get no answer. And, under a palm frond or someplace, unnoticed as yet by the technicians and other cops who are only beginning the preliminary delineation of the scene, one of them finds a glove. Which he slips into a bag and pockets. As “insurance”.
The two then drive across town, on that specious errand to check on OJ’s safety. Really though, they *know *that OJ did it. It’s just what they would expect, the kind of escalation of abuse they’ve seen on the street time after time. And after all, he’s really an arrogant nigger anyway. He *must *have done it!
If they are proven wrong, and OJ had an air-tight alibi, like witnesses to his presence all evening or something, they could have driven back to the crime scene and “discovered” the glove in some obscure location. Or just disposed of it. But instead, after waking and extensively interviewing Kato and OJ’s daughter, they determine an approximate timeline for OJ. He was with people until shortly *before *the murders. And he flew out *after *the murders. But he did not seem to have any alibi for the actual time of the murders.
It was at this very point in time that Vannatter insisted that OJ’s daughter reach OJ from the house phone, and that Fuhrman took his little unaccompanied stroll around the yard. Where he “discovered” the glove. But not the spiders.
I think I’ve done a pretty good job of suggesting a motive, a means, and an opportunity for some enhancement, if not fabrication, of evidence. Yes, they lied about their reason for intruding into OJ’s “castle”. I believe they also lied about what was found there. I believe they did this intending to ensure a conviction. After all, at this point neither they nor anyone else had any idea how large the “pile of evidence” might turn out to be. DNA’s evidentiary value was in its infancy back then. A bloody glove would be exactly the kind of evidence an “old school” cop would like to have. The kind of “throw-down” evidence that is grudgingly admitted to by cops all over the country.
I believe that this kind of lie is profoundly more disturbing that a lie to simply cover up a bigot’s disgusting opinions of other humans.
And I believe that a prosecutor who allows and accepts this kind of blatant misconduct (the misconduct being at the least a trumped up excuse for an illegal search, even if the prosecutor had no suspicions him/herself about the glove) is also guilty of misconduct and is undeserving of trust.
Yes, this kind of crap *does *taint the entire case. I hardly find anything silly about it.
