OJ

In My Humble Opinion
1

At the risk of being unpopular, I think OJ’s murder case was decided correctly. Almost everyone I’ve talked to either ridicules that or feels I’m insane

However, I cannot for the life of me believe that there was absolutely no possibility that OJ was framed. I feel people dismiss that conclusion too hastily, and with little justification.

Yes, I think OJ was a dick, and abusive, and a womanizer, and probably a lot of things. But no conclusive evidence points him to being the murderer except the blood, which was handled, by all accounts, very sloppily. Even those who thought OJ was guilty blamed the poor police procedures

And I get that people get upset when the race card was played. It made them think that 2 people died innocently just to atone for past racial mistake by this country. I get that

And I also understand that slick lawyers with memorable quips generate hostility that the trial was all style and no substance.

But even taking all that into account, what conclusive evidence was there to connect OJ? I simply dont believe it was enough to convict him beyond a shadow of a doubt. The brutality of the murders and the portray of OJ in the media seems to skew a lot of people against him, but we are not judging his behavior in the past here, we’re judging if he murderer those people.

Now in my heart, I do think he probably did it. But I dont believe the evidence bears that out and had I been on the jury, I wouldnt have regretted my not guilty vote

What do people on this board think? Can people look past the lawyers, the race card, the asshole abuser that he was, and their belief that the police couldnt have possibly framed him?

2

I think people were just mad at the fact that he ultimately got away with murder, but you’re absolutely right that the jury made the right decision with regards to the facts of the case and the plethora of ambiguities that made the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard hard to justify.

3

FWIW, I think OJ was guilty of killing his wife and Ron Goldman. But as I said in another thread, the police supposedly found copious amounts of blood at OJ house, in the driveway, in the foyer, in the bedroom and in the bathroom. If there was that much blood, why did they not arrest him until later that week. I don’t care that he was a celebrity he was a murderer.

he was a suspect and questioned on June 13th, after returning from Chicago. Not arrested until late in the evening on June 17th

4

One thing I’ve never been able to reconcile is how a 50-year-old man with arthritis was able use a knife to kill two people, one of whom was half his age: Ron Goldman was 26 and was, AFAIK, pretty fit (wasn’t he a part-time ski instructor?); Nicole Brown Simpson was 35 and, IIRC, in pretty good shape.

“The element of surprise” has been mentioned, but the math still isn’t working for me. I’ve seen clips of OJ trying to pick up one of his daughters, and he was really struggling at it. Yet he had the stamina to kill not one but two people, both in better shape than him? I’m not convinced.

NOTE: I’m not saying I think OJ is innocent, necessarily. I just don’t fully understand this aspect of the case.

5

If I were a prosecutor, I would say that the rush of adrenaline while killing could have given him the strength and stamina to committ the murders

6

If you would see the area where he died, you’d probably change your mind about Ron’s chances. Nicole’s condo had a very, very small yard and he died slumped against a palm tree in a fenced in area where he was cornered. The forensic specialists on both sides said he put up an incredible fight. The autopsy could not confirm the number of wounds because there were both stab and cutting wounds that intersected so many times, they couldn’t determine where one started and the other finished. He was stabbed multiple times in the face, neck, scalp, chest, arms, hands, flank, and legs.

Both forensic pathologists stated that he was on his feet fighting for over three minutes before he collapsed and died. The jurors went on a “tour” of Nicole’s house and yard and were able to see how narrow the corner was where Ron died. If an average sized man was standing between him at the opening with a six inch knife, it would be damned hard to get out.

As far as OJ being framed, I’ve always thought that to be a pretty silly defense. The police and DA’s office had no idea where OJ was at the time of the murder. He could have been on vacation for a week, across the country on business, or having dinner with the governor for all they knew. To believe that the county decided to build a conspiracy against him is just unbelievable as so many people would have to be in on it to work. For what purpose? To “get him”? They’d always treated him very well every time he beat his wife and they were called to investigate. It just doesn’t add up.

7

I don’t recall OJ being so feeble when the act took place 13 or 15 years ago.

If their were any doubts before that he did it; they should certainly be eliminated now since he tried to publish that book “If I did it”

I mean come on. He’s practicaly acting like a prepubescent kid singing “Neener neener neener; I got away with murder and you can’t do nothing about it.”
My armchair theory is celebs are f’d up in the head for the most part. They feel like they are above everybody. And whenever they get treated like the rest of us poor slobs in the world; they get super pissed.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve read about some celeb throwing a big hissy fit just because he or she wasn’t allowed into some trendy Hollywood pish-posh restaurant.

It all fits the profile is all I’m saying.

And as far as he was being framed because they heard that one detective (can’t remember his name right now) use the word nigger is just rediculous. Being a White boy from Texas myself, I hear lots of guys use this word when there aren’t any Black folks around. Yes, these guys are idiots, but I certainly don’t think they would ever do anything so malicious to a Black person just for shits and grins.

There are varying degrees of racism. Just because some dolt uses the word nigger doesn’t also make him a card carrying member of the KKK.

8

I think OJ was guilty and this was proven beyond reasonable doubt in court, but I acknowledge that this is a judgement and that it depends on how much doubt is reasonable. I also don’t feel very confident in my thinking because I wasn’t in the courtroom for the duration of the trial; I was just reading the news about it. Perhaps I’d think differently if I had been on the jury.

9

I was (and still am) living in Japan at the time, and before I was on line, so I know so little about the case, I’d have to say I would have no idea either way.

I think they may ask me to return my US passport.

10

It was during the trial that I saw those clips of him struggling to lift up his daughter.

11

At the time of the murder, OJ was 47. He holds athletic records most of us will never approach; particularly for outrunning people in a violent, emotional sport. Ron Goldman wasn’t a cage fighter. I regard OJ as so physically capable that any attempt to paint him as old and broken-down is tantamount to deliberately bending the truth to find excuses for him.

Generally, in crimes of this sort, “it’s always the husband.” Certainly it’s easier to understand OJ’s potential motivation to do it than it is to imagine that the LA police would spontaneously dream up a frame job on an out-of-work ballplayer from Buffalo.

Given that strange, slow flight from the police, and DNA evidence nailing him as the killer with two-billion-to-one certainty, I’d say we’re in prosecutable territory at the least.

Also, in the years since, neither OJ’s relentless search for the killer, nor the efforts of his lawyers, nor random chance, have turned up any plausible suspect(s) at all.

Plus, it now appears that other violent felonies are not outside the boundaries of OJ’s personality; look at his anger and recklessness in the memorabilia case.

And at the time of his acquittal, I don’t recall a sober jury convinced by the preponderance of evidence; I recall a lot of “that’ll show 'em!” crowing.

On the whole, while I wasn’t a witness, I’m comfortable that evidence indicates his guilt, and that the trial was pretty much a bungled sham.

12

Then again, during the trial they also showed a workout video he was making right before the murders where he was hopping around and throwing jabs. He even did a move where he was bringing his arms back quickly at shoulder level and quipped something along the lines of “On this one you need your space of you might accidentally throw an elbow on your wife.” and then laughed. What a peach.

It wouldn’t take a lot of physical strength for someone to stab two people the way he did. He was twice her size and the autopsy showed blunt force trauma to her head, and then they believed he cut her throat. Ron was trapped like an animal in a cage against a man with a six inch knife.

13

Burden is to prove guilt “Beyond reasonable doubt”. There’s a reason his acquittal was/is so controversial, and that’s because millions of reasonable people watched all the details of the trial, and their ‘stunned’ reaction was overwhelming.

14

Millions also heard evidence that wasnt allowed to the juries. That may be why theres a distinct gulf of opinions outside the jury room

Not to play up the conspiracy angle too much, but there was a lot of doubt thrown into that case by Simpson’s lawyers not just from race. It doesnt take a team of detectives to frame a man, just one or two guys leaving blood where it could implicate him. I dont believe that he was framed through an elaborate scheme that took months and dozens of men. I contend that it is possible that Mark Furhman, the “racist cop” in the case, to plant blood easily considering how terrible the evidence was handled

15

That would be a great theory if the blood was found by Furhman, but he wasn’t even on the scene when it was found.

I was in college when the trial started and my friends and I were trial junkies for the case. We watched constantly, even taping CourtTv when we had classes. After the trials, I read many of the books written on both sides. It was pretty clear that even some on OJ’s side didn’t believe his story.

16

For an arthritic man who couldn’t weild a knife he doesn’t have much trouble with a golf club. Maybe it’s the tight golfing gloves that make it possible. Hard to say.

17

I have no doubt that the man was guilty and that the jury made a terrible decision. That said, the prosecution put forward a very poorly organized case. They allowed the defense to tear down the DNA argument. Further, the defense played to the emotional and racial biases of the jury and it worked. Do remember that they actually moved the trial so that OJ wouldn’t be tried by a most-likely all white jury.

There was no conspiracy. He did it and he got away with it.

18

I was the only non-white (South Asian) employee in an office of about 60 people. When I admitted that I would have voted to acquit, my relationship with most of my co-workers took a nosedive, from which it never recovered. I went from being the “model minority” (a term I find terribly offensive) to being the dangerous closet radical.

I think based on the totality of the evidence, there is a 99+% chance that he did it. Problem is that the prosecution (and the police) put up a terrible show. The idea that the cops might have framed him is just impossible for most white people to understand. It is just not your life experience. It is at least reasonable for me to think that some cops tried to embellish the evidence. It is all very easy to think that only Mark Furman.

I’ll testify about something else, that happened two years after the OJ verdict. I was stopped at a stop sign, when a cop rolled up behind me. I had out of state plates, because I had moved 47 days earlier from Missouri to Georgia. Cop comes over and asks for my driver’s license, license and registration. I give him all my Missouri docs. He asks when I moved to Georgia, and I truthfully said Dec 1. He hauled me off to jail in handcuffs, because Georgia requires you to get your license, registration and insurance within 30 days. I will never believe that a random white person would get the same treatment. The cop showed up in court and testified that the reason he stopped me in the first place was to tell me that my brake lights were not working. This was a complete fabrication, and I know it because I had to get a vehicle inspection before I registered my car. My lawyer’s tack was that he had no probable cause to stop me in the first place, so the whole charge should be thrown out. My lawyer was a former DA, and even he said, he had never seen a white (he said “Caucasian”) person pulled up on such a charge, but a lot of African Americans. After the cops testimony, he asked for a recess, negotiated a plea with the DA, and got me off with an $800 fine and a suspended one-year license suspension. He said if the cop is willing to lie, there is not much we can do.

The reason I am sure I was targeted because of my race, is that he said to me in the police cruiser “You people come here and don’t think you need to follow the same rules as everyone else. This will teach you a lesson.” I don’t think he was talking about Missourians. Technically, you could say I wasn’t framed, but you can’t say I was playing by the same set of rules. I am sure this is true many times over for blacks. Probably every black male has some kind of story like this.

I also get stopped all the time when I am putting in recyclables into our town’s transfer station. The cop always want to see proof of my residence in the town. I have never seen anyone else ever get stopped. The town I live in now is 98.5% white. It’s the same cop who seems to be there every Saturday. I told the this story to one of my white co-workers. She said I should complain to the police chief. Now we see the real difference in attitudes. I would imagine the police chief would be fully supportive of what the officer is doing, and I fear for what kind of trouble I would get into if I were to make waves.

19

Where did he find golfing gloves that fit?

20

Believe it. I don’t know how they figured it out but they nailed a coworker of mine WITHOUT pulling her over. They had to be actively looking for out of state plates while driving around a residential neighborhood. In her case they just hauled the car away from in front of her house without her knowing it. It was just gone.

And you can believe that cops lie. I was totally jerked around by a cop this year because he had a bug up his ass. I got the destinct feeling that the older cop who backed him up thought the same thing.