Revisiting "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit"

[Hampshire]

I never understood why, during the OJ trial, the prosecution never pounced on the fact that leather gloves, when wet, then dried, SHRINK.
Was this not common knowledge? I remember as a teen borrowing my fathers leather gloves to go sledding. They got completely soaked from the snow. When I got home I just left them on the boot bench to dry for a couple days. They were completely ruined. They shrunk so bad they wouldn’t fit anybody so we threw them out.
Yet during the OJ trial they had him try on a glove that was recovered from outdoors, soaked by the elements or blood, then dried, and express shock at “OMG! That’s not his glove! It doesn’t fit!”
The prosecution could have even done a presentation allowing the jurors to find their size glove of that same brand by trying them on, then try on the same size of the same glove after it was soaked then dried out.
Did this not even occur to them to challenge? Or did they figure it was no big deal and didn’t want to waste their time on it?

[Trinopus]

Pure carelessness. If they’d been thinking, they wouldn’t have asked for the test in the first place. “Well, of course he’s going to squinch his fist up and claim he can’t make it fit.”

Sloppy reasoning. They didn’t think fast enough to recover. “Well, the leather shrank.” They screwed the pooch, that’s all.

[Bryan_Ekers]

As I recall, Simpson was allowed to wear rubber gloves, ostensibly to protect him from contamination. Wearing those would make putting leather gloves on very difficult even for someone who was trying to put them on and Simpson was incentivized not to.

The whole thing was a clusterfuck from Day One.

[Little_Nemo]

You’d think at least one of those lawyers would have a kid.

You ever try putting gloves on somebody who doesn’t want to have a glove on their hand?

[buddy431]

It’s not like the case was well handled by the police or prosecution in other regards either.

[crowmanyclouds]

{…} 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. {…}[RIGHT]CITE[/RIGHT]

You can’t have it both ways, either the gloves shrank a full size or OJ wasn’t really trying to get them on. Darden fucked up.

{…} Stunned by the scene, I {Linda Deutsch} called prosecutor Chris Darden on the phone at the day’s end, asking why he had Simpson try on the gloves.

“What did it look like to you?” he asked me.
“It looked like they didn’t fit,” I said.
“Well,” Darden said, “I looked at his hands and I looked at the gloves and I thought they would fit.”

Darden had violated a cardinal rule of courtroom law: Don’t demonstrate something in front of a jury unless you know the outcome. {…}[RIGHT]CITE[/RIGHT]

CMC fnord!

[steronz]

I remember watching that as a teenager and being completely confused at the conclusion everyone drew. I mean, here’s OJ Simpson wearing the gloves. They’re on his hands. They fit. Sure, he struggled a bit to get them on over his latex gloves, and then he stood there with his hands all splayed out to exaggerate the effect, but the bottom line is that they were on his hands, which means he was wearing them, which means they fit. Were they a little snug? Even if it wasn’t that they’d shrunk a little and he was wearing latex underneath, why would any killer give a shit if his gloves were a little snug?

It just seemed to me like he declared that they didn’t fit, everyone ignored what their own eyes were showing them, and then the prosecutor never bothered to mention that they really did fit.

[lucid-nonsense]

Yep, I really don’t see how gloves fitting tightly prove they’re not yours. I like my gloves tight and have to struggle a bit to put them on. They’re still mine.

However, I think the real reason OJ got acquitted is because they tried to frame a guilty man and messed that up beyond any sense, allowing the defense to sow doubt in the jury’s mind about every piece of evidence.

It’s like the DARE programs where they tell students one puff of a joint is a one way ticket to jail and/or overdose. Then someone sees a friend who smokes and still has his life together, and thinks: “Well, if they lied about that, maybe they’re lying about the rest?”.

Basically, no one would’ve fallen for the glove thing if there hadn’t been the sock thing as well.

[Barkis_is_Willin]

If I recall, the sock was still quite controversial as to whether the blood was planted or not. O.J. had the best lawyers on the planet and they planted enough doubt to make the jury question the sock. And if you question the sock, then yeah, you have to question every other piece of evidence shown. Meanwhile, Darden and Clark flubbed up the prosecution about as hard as they could.

[Moriarty]

@Barkis_is_Willin

Meanwhile, Darden and Clark flubbed up the prosecution about as hard as they could.

No doubt! I’m still amazed that they didn’t introduce his “slow speed chase” into the trial, especially given that he finally surrendered with a fake beard, passport, and thousands in cash.