I don’t know if there is a factual answer to this, but I often wonder why they decided to make the bulk of their case the DNA evidence which at that time was rather new. I’m also under the impression the science of DNA at the time was primitive compared to now, and even experts were a bit unsure just how reliable it was.
The jury didn’t understand DNA very well, mostly because the general public wasn’t that familiar with it. I can recall a lot of poor laymans descriptions that said it was similar to blood type etc. And a lot of coverage says the jury was simply numbed by endless experts on both sides testifying about DNA.
There was an enormous amount of circumstantial evidence, pictures of a battered Nichole and 911 recordings of OJ outside her apartment trying to break in and threatening her. Witnesses that could testify he threatened to kill her, she had OJ barred from the hospital while she was giving birth to their second child because of his behavior during the first etc.
I guess it would be like if the same trial were to go to court today and the prosecution decides to use a new and baffling technology for their case, quantum matter entanglement readings will show these atoms came from the scene or something heh.
The OJ trial should have lasted no more than a week. The inept prosecution made the early choice to hammer down every single nail in the case, even though most cases choose a select list of points to prove.
All they were able to prove, even with the DNA evidence, was that he was at the scene after the attack but before they died. They may have hoped to convince the jury that that was enough to convict. Without DNA, they had nothing. Note that he lost the civil suit because he was there, after the attack but before they died, and didn’t call 911.
No witnesses, no murder weapon, no confession, nothing to put OJ at the scene besides DNA. Oj acted suspiciously but nothing definitive besides the bloody glove and the DNA evidence.
I recall Bugliosi claiming that the case could have been adequately made without any emphasis or reliance on the DNA evidence. The prosecution chose not to build a solid case on relatively strong and simple precepts, instead trying to create a flawless pointillist portrait from every dot of evidence they could muster. That “high school debate” approach nearly always backfires because a successful(-appearing) challenge to minor points - such as the glove - unravel the whole picture for juries.
Probably because the DNA proved beyond a reasonable doubt that OJ did it.
That, and because the jury was easily distracted. The defense did an excellent job of slinging mud and got some of it to stick.
Even if they didn’t have the tapes of Fuhrman playacting, I suspect the jury would not convict that nice-looking black fellow who was in the TV commercials no matter what.
That was my thought at the time - OJ was just shit-lucky that nobody saw him at the scene or nearby going there, and he left no definite evidence.
(IIRC there was one woman who claimed to have seen him driving nearby, but she sold her story to the tabloids and a witness who was paid to tell a story was useless.)
Another point was that the prosecution used jury selection to try to add some jurors who would be sympathetic to a battered and murdered wife. Unfortunately, they selected several black women to be on the jury. They did not realize that black women typically have an antipathy to blonde white women who steal the prime husband material.
What they should have done was hire a shoe expert and sit him down with all the pictures and footage of OJ to see if they could definitively place those expensive shoes on him. It turns out many such pictures existed, but they came out years later. Rare and expensive shoe positively identified on his feet matching the shoeprints at the scene- easy to understand.
Yes, they spent far too much time on the DNA. That jury was overwhelmed by the length and depth of the evidence and couldn’t tie it together. It was like hitting a teacup with a firehose.
DNA isn’t really that much harder to understand than blood type. It is more complicated, but the idea that each of us has letters that are unique except for identical twins (for the purposes of 1990 style forensic DNA) and that by matching up the letters - you can match(or exclude) a blood sample with some degree of certainty.
Juries rely on experts to interpret evidence for them. Tool mark, fingerprint, handwriting analysis, hair/fiber - it’s all a matter of listening to someone who is a scientist - using techniques that scientists agree work - to interpret the evidence.
The prosecution also has a duty to only go after people they think are guilty. It would be almost unethical to use one form of analysis to possibly send someone a way for life - when a newer more accurate technique will give you more precise results.
Leaving out the DNA wouldn’t have helped - the defense would have just hammered home how inaccurate blood typing is - and why aren’t they using this more accurate technique called DNA that gave numbers like 1 in a billion vs 1 in dozens or hundreds.
They were questioning technicians as to why they used a single stage presumptive test for blod versus the more accurate two stage. They literally were questioning people just to confuse the jury - stuff that was the non forensic equivalent of “why did you record that as an mp3 file - isn’t it true that mp3 uses compression and therefore destroys actual information that was in the original?” “Who ordered you to destroy the information?”
All the jury kept hearing is destroy, inaccurate, imprecise, unreliable, flawed…
When asked, while under oath, if he had tampered with or planted evidence, Fuhrman refused to answer on the grounds that he would incriminate himself.
OJ’s blood on the gate contained the exact same amount of EDTA that is found in lavender top test tubes.
The most important evidence of all, OJ’s blood on the driveway, was clearly tampered with. This according to testimony of the tech who originally processed it.
Hardly a grand conspiracy theory. I do DNA testing everyday, and think the jury made the right call.
I can never understand this stance. Fuhrman lied to the jury(he was later convicted of perjury), and then when asked if he had planted evidence in the case, he plead the fifth. On the on the Mark Fuhrman Wikipedia page:
And the racism of Fuhrman isn’t just mild white suburban racism to me, it seems closer to white hood racism:
“Yeah we work with niggers and gangs. You can take one of these niggers, drag 'em into the alley and beat the shit out of them and kick them. You can see them twitch. It really relieves your tension.” He went on to say “we had them begging that they’d never be gang members again, begging us.” He said that he would tell them, “You do what you’re told, understand, nigger?”
I don’t see how the term “slinging mud” properly describes the undisputable implications of this behavior on the effects of the case. If the DNA evidence was so clear, why would Fuhrman have had to conduct the investigation in any way other way than being able to say with absolute certainty that he did not manufacture or plant evidence?
I just don’t see how one arrives at the terms “play acting” and “slinging mud”. Those terms suggest that these facts are immaterial to the case. If there is something I’m missing (and there very well may be) I would be interested to know.
The prosecution was well aware of the biases a jury would have. There is a ton of case law regarding race and jury - prosecutors are known for trying to keep blacks off juries. Marcia Clark did seem to think that she would do better with women, but even if they had selected black men - it wouldn’t have mattered. There were polls ahead of time that showed black women most likely to be sympathetic to the defense.
She let more on cause she was overly confident in her abilities - anyone with a newspaper or tv new how the black/white men/women breakdown was on perceived guilt.
If the case was tried where it happened (like you are supposed to under the constitution) - they would have had a white jury (like they did in the civil case).
Of course when the prosecution wanted to move the case from a likely white jury pool to a likely black jury pool - OJ could have objected. I remember that it was the prosecutions idea - I’m going to not bother to look up to see if he did object and guess that Shapiro (I think he was lead in the beginning) had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling when answering “no objection, your honor”. The case was moved due to concerns about that court being to small to handle such a case (probably justified) - the prosecution was still overly confident at this point once they laid out everything - they would win.
It was “play acting” as the stuff he talked about didn’t happen (all of the stuff that had verifiable facts to it was checked - and didn’t pan out). She was writing a play and he went along to give her a character.
He lied, under oath, about using the term nigger - he may have been a racist.
It would have been material to the case - if there was any plausible way for him to have put that glove there. He was 18th (or 17th - don’t remember) to the original crime scene - there wasn’t some glove around for him to grab and plant.
Bugliosi claimed that they could have built a case on the cuts on OJ’s hands which he claims to not remember how they got there in the interview after the murder, the rest of the interview in which OJ is evasive and does not remember the time of the murders well, his previous actions, and the white bronco chase and suicide note. which was evidence of consciousness of guilt. He was a great prosecutor but from my reading of his books he is too convinced of his own arguments to see the flaws in them. I would think having OJ’s blood at the murder scene and the victims blood in his car is the best evidence.
Once you plead the fifth, you have to plead the fifth on every question. You cannot answer some questions, and plead the fifth on others. That’s why the defense worked so hard to get Fuhrman eliminated as a witness.
The tape where he said the n-word was a tape for a journalist who was writing either a book or a screenplay, and his claim was that he used the word to illustrate how other police officers talk, not because he was spontaneously using the word. However, strictly speaking, he did say it. His understanding of the original question was whether or not he had called someone that, not whether he had said it in any context, and he may have been truthful in answering “Yes,” as he understood the question, but the defense insisted on a strict construction of the question, and accused him of perjury, forcing him to take the fifth, and thereby eliminating his entire testimony.
I think the defense knew of the tape ahead of time and set Fuhrman up. It was brilliant, and very evil.
Brilliant. First trick him into obvious perjury…and then ask him if he planted evidence. Dude decided that more perjury was not really in his best interest, and took the 5th.
I think this is a great question! I was thinking of a thread along the lines of “How would you have prosecuted OJ”, and this basically covers the same ground.
It seems to me that DNA was overly complicated and subject to reasonable doubt, and the protracted length of the case was the undoing of the prosecution. I would think a better strategy would be to a) establish OJ’s violent past with Nicole (i.e. earlier 911 calls, domestic violence allegations, her fears about him), b) provide evidence that demonstrates his erratic behavior that night (i.e. the limo driver who had to wait for him to show up at his house, anybody who could attest to his demeanor on his flight, his unexplained cuts), c) demonstrate his nexus to the crime scene (i.e. they should have focused on the footprints and matching the shoe size and brand to OJ), and finally d) show the evidence which logically ties the scene to him (i.e. the blood on his car, the bloody glove behind his house, Kato’s recollection of hearing sounds where the glove was found).
Sure, the defense might have posited that the glove was planted by the police, and they would have certainly tried to show that witnesses weren’t reliable and the investigation was flawed. And I am presupposing that the prosecution could have come up with the evidence that Simpson owned Bruno Magli shoes (which I recall didn’t come to light until the civil trial). But, if the State had focused on the big picture, it would have limited the defense to nitpicking details, which (I believe) would have left the jury convinced that OJ was the killer; in such a scenario, I expect the jury would have convicted in the absence of some plausible defense argument about *who else *could have been the culprit (not that this is the legal standard, but I think it’s how their deliberations would have played out).