# OJ Simpson Murder Trial **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 20, 2015, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710 "2015-07-20T18:27:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/121 "2015-07-22T19:54:57Z")
> [@TennisMenace](#): > > Here’s an interesting question for you all… > > If Vincent Bugliosi been the prosecuting attorney of this case, would OJ be in prison for life today? I believe so, but of course can’t be certain. I’d bet heavily on it, though. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/122 "2015-07-22T21:45:45Z")
In his book Journey into Darkness, FBI agent John Douglass, who was a consultant for the Goldman’s civil trial, points out that for Simpson to have been framed, several LA policemen would have had to be involved, including one who was three months away from retirement with a perfect record! They were willing to risk loosing their jobs and going to prison to help frame Simpson? Does that even make sense? And, of course, nobody has been arrested and charged with the crime, and OJ is currently in prion, thinking he could get away with breaking the law another time. ---
**Author:** ![TennisMenace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@TennisMenace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TennisMenace)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/123 "2015-07-22T23:29:37Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > In his book Journey into Darkness, FBI agent John Douglass, who was a consultant for the Goldman’s civil trial, points out that for Simpson to have been framed, several LA policemen would have had to be involved, including one who was three months away from retirement with a perfect record! They were willing to risk loosing their jobs and going to prison to help frame Simpson? Does that even make sense? > > And, of course, nobody has been arrested and charged with the crime, and OJ is currently in prion, thinking he could get away with breaking the law another time. I don’t believe many people think the cops framed Simpson, but apparently the defense did a good enough job to make it seem like that was POSSIBLE. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/124 "2015-07-23T13:12:01Z")
> [@TennisMenace](#): > > Here’s an interesting question for you all… > > If Vincent Bugliosi been the prosecuting attorney of this case, would OJ be in prison for life today? I suspect that if the original prosecutors knew what wouldn’t work before the trial, the way Bugliosi did after it, they could have gotten a conviction. As previously cited, the attorney who got the civil verdict did. Of course, he had a different jury and a different judge as well. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/125 "2015-07-23T13:32:27Z")
And a _far_ lower burden of proof. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/126 "2015-07-23T13:43:36Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > In his book Journey into Darkness, FBI agent John Douglass, who was a consultant for the Goldman’s civil trial, points out that for Simpson to have been framed, several LA policemen would have had to be involved, including one who was three months away from retirement with a perfect record! They were willing to risk loosing their jobs and going to prison to help frame Simpson? Does that even make sense? Even a simple application of Ockham’s razor destroys most conspiracy claims. By the time you get down to close timings of coincidence and several people being closely aligned in their actions, and no one _ever_ breathing a word of these efforts over decades… you’re probably on the wrong track. I think _Outrage_ has a carefully-assembled timeline of what would have been required for the police to have framed or misrepresented the evidence against Simpson. It gets more absurd than a Three Stooges short. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/127 "2015-07-23T14:22:32Z")
So, OJ was found “not guilty” in the criminal trial; but was found “responsible” in the civil trial. Question: how does the law deal with this? The man wrote a book “IF I DID IT” which basically is a confession of guilt-why can’t he be retried on murder charges? ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/128 "2015-07-23T14:26:55Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > So, OJ was found “not guilty” in the criminal trial; but was found “responsible” in the civil trial. Question: how does the law deal with this? The man wrote a book “IF I DID IT” which basically is a confession of guilt-why can’t he be retried on murder charges? Because the guilty sometimes going unpunished is a small price to pay for protection from being re-tried over and over again for the same crime, which is a license for the government to basically destroy anyone they choose. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/129 "2015-07-23T14:27:36Z")
What do you mean by “how does the law deal with this?” They’re separate proceedings. The verdicts are not inconsistent because the burden of proof differs. Now, if he was convicted in the criminal trial but won the civil suit, we’d have a problem. > [@](#): > > The man wrote a book “IF I DID IT” which basically is a confession of guilt-why can’t he be retried on murder charges? He can’t be retried because of double jeopardy. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/130 "2015-07-23T14:43:43Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > What do you mean by “how does the law deal with this?” They’re separate proceedings. The verdicts are not inconsistent because the burden of proof differs. Now, if he was convicted in the criminal trial but won the civil suit, we’d have a problem. > > He can’t be retried because of double jeopardy. He can be “not guilty” but he was “responsible”? In what universe does this make any sense? The civil finding indicates that there was fraud/incompetence involved in the criminal trial-so on those grounds, why can’t the verdict be “set aside”?😃 ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/131 "2015-07-23T14:47:37Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > He can be “not guilty” but he was “responsible”? In what universe does this make any sense? A universe in which evidence in a criminal case must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt but a civil case is decided by a preponderance of evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/132 "2015-07-23T14:54:44Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > He can be “not guilty” but he was “responsible”? In what universe does this make any sense? The civil finding indicates that there was fraud/incompetence involved in the criminal trial-so on those grounds, why can’t the verdict be “set aside”?😃 The civil finding indicates no such thing. It indicates that enough evidence was presented in the civil trial to convince the jury that it was _more likely than not_ that OJ did it. The evidence in the criminal trial had to convince a different jury that OJ did it _beyond a reasonable doubt_. Even if identical evidence had been presented in both trials (and for the record, that cannot generally happen because a criminal defendant has more rights to have evidence excluded), it still would not indicate that there was “fraud/incompetence” in the criminal trial. Winning a criminal conviction against a defendant with good lawyers and abundant resources is _hard_. It’s the highest burden of proof we have in our judicial system. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/133 "2015-07-24T17:07:36Z")
> [@TennisMenace](#): > > Is this what you want to believe? > > What evidence was lacking that you would have needed in order to convict him? There wasn’t any lacking evidence, there was just a complete mistrust of the available evidence brought on by the utterly incompetent job of the police/prosecution at every single step of the process. Basically if you can’t trust the people who bring you the evidence then the evidence is not going to matter. It has nothing at all to do with what “i want to believe”, this was factually proven by the defense. ---
**Author:** ![TennisMenace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@TennisMenace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TennisMenace)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/134 "2015-07-24T17:14:03Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > There wasn’t any lacking evidence, there was just a complete mistrust of the available evidence brought on by the utterly incompetent job of the police/prosecution at every single step of the process. Basically if you can’t trust the people who bring you the evidence then the evidence is not going to matter. It has nothing at all to do with what “i want to believe”, this was factually proven by the defense. This is what I thought. Yes, the prosecution did not do the best job, but it seemed to me, they presented enough evidence to get the guilty verdict. Your point is persuasive- the evidence wasn’t trusted. That is probably the case. I think there is more than that, but I can accept it at that. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/135 "2015-07-25T17:14:44Z")
Trivia: The “guilty” verdict in the OJ civil trial came the same time as President Bill Clinton was giving his State of the Union address and fighting Monica Lewinsky’s allegatons. Most TV stations had a hard time deciding whether to cut away or not, but most did. As Don Imus put it: If they’d run a tag showing GUILTY under Clinton, a lot of people would have thought it applied to him. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/136 "2015-07-25T17:29:23Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Trivia: The “guilty” verdict in the OJ civil trial came the same time as President Bill Clinton was giving his State of the Union address and fighting Monica Lewinsky’s allegatons. Most TV stations had a hard time deciding whether to cut away or not, but most did. As Don Imus put it: If they’d run a tag showing GUILTY under Clinton, a lot of people would have thought it applied to him. The verdict came at 10 am Pacific (1 pm Eastern) time on October 3rd. I don’t know what Clinton may have been doing, but he definitely was not delivering the State of the Union address. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/137 "2015-07-25T17:37:20Z")
That was the CRIMINAL trial. I specified CIVIL trial. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/138 "2015-07-25T17:40:27Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Trivia: The “guilty” verdict in the OJ civil trial came the same time as President Bill Clinton was giving his State of the Union address and fighting Monica Lewinsky’s allegatons. Allegations? I think revelations would be more accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/139 "2015-07-25T19:12:06Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > That was the CRIMINAL trial. I specified CIVIL trial. Oops, so you did. Sorry, I should have read more carefully. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710/140 "2015-07-27T13:03:58Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > That was the CRIMINAL trial. I specified CIVIL trial. Technically, there was no “guilty” verdict in the civil trial. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oj-simpson-murder-trial/725710.md?page=6)