OJ Simpson murder case

DATE: January 24, 1995–October 3, 1995

THE EVENT: Indicted for the 1994 murders of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, O. J. Simpson used his wealth and celebrity to assemble a so-called dream team of defense lawyers. He was acquitted at trial after his attorneys successfully attacked much of the forensic evidence presented by the prosecution.

SIGNIFICANCE:Simpson’s televised murder trial brought issues of legal procedure and forensic investigation to the attention of millions of viewers on a daily basis for months, even as it exerted a distorting influence on the proceedings. His acquittal brought home to legal professionals the need for higher standards in the collection, interpretation, and presentation of forensic evidence, but it also revealed how legal processes can be influenced by celebrity and race. In addition, it highlighted the education gap between forensic professionals and the public from which juries are drawn.

During O. J. Simpson’s murder trial, the prosecution produced what it called a “mountain” of to demonstrate Simpson’s guilt, and the defense explained the evidence away in terms of a conspiracy to frame Simpson. Reporter Jeffrey Toobin may have been right when he observed that “the sheer number of associations between Simpson and the evidence made the evidence seem too complex when in fact it merely showed just how guilty Simpson was.”

The Evidence

Evidence of Simpson’s guilt included the victims’ blood in his vehicle and on his socks, and his own blood at the murder scene and at his home. It included hair like Simpson’s on Goldman’s shirt and on a knit cap. It included fiber like the carpet in Simpson’s Ford Bronco on the knit cap and on a glove. It included bloody shoe prints in Simpson’s size, which were traced to a rare brand of shoes he denied owning. (Later, at Simpson’s civil trial, photographs of him wearing such shoes materialized.) It included a bloody glove at the and the glove’s mate at Simpson’s estate. It included motive, opportunity, guilty behavior (the Bronco “escape,” an apparent note), and suspicious circumstances (unexplained wounds on Simpson’s left hand). Some additional evidence—for example, Simpson’s statements in an early interview with police—was not presented.

The prosecution emphasized how much evidence remained unrefuted by the defense’s claims of police conspiracy, incompetence, and racism. The defense, intoning “garbage in, garbage out,” insisted that things “didn’t fit” and that there was “something wrong” with the prosecution’s case. For those appalled by the verdict, the idea of a vast police conspiracy was absurd and the appeal to racism without foundation, and much evidence withstood even those suspicions. Those who celebrated the acquittal felt the “something wrong” with the prosecution’s case tainted everything, even if exactly what was wrong had not been identified; enough had gone wrong with the investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and with the prosecution’s witnesses to justify reasonable doubt about whether the prosecution had met its burden of proof, even if one supposed Simpson was most likely guilty.

Reasonable Doubt

Opinions on the Simpson case divided largely along racial lines because the life experience of many African Americans made it seem reasonable, and that of many whites made it seem unreasonable, that racial motivations could lead authorities to trump up charges against a famous black man. It made sense to the prosecution to argue that LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman’s lies about his use of racial epithets did not mean that he had planted evidence, although many people believe that a who lies about one matter may be willing to lie about others.

Some believed that the prosecution had not met its burden of demonstrating guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. As others viewed it, the evidence of guilt was overwhelming, so doubt could not be reasonable. If there could be no reasonable doubt, then the jury was willful or incompetent or both. This was the jury both sides had accepted, however.

After Simpson’s acquittal, some commentators suggested that the jury system itself required amendment. A later jury, in the civil trial (October 23, 1996, through February 4, 1997), found the evidence compelling, and they found Simpson liable for the deaths. Was this outcome the result of better (or worse) lawyering, stricter judging, absence of cameras, racial makeup of the jury, difference in standard of proof?

Not only did the two juries disagree, the experts continued to disagree. Critics such as attorneys Vincent Bugliosi and Daniel Petrocelli have expressed their beliefs that the specious doubts raised by the defense in the criminal trial have been dispelled. In contrast, forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who testified as an for the defense at the criminal trial, years later lamented that blood drops on Nicole Brown Simpson’s back were not collected and suggested that “if the coroner’s staff at the murders had not turned over Nicole’s body, we might know beyond a reasonable doubt who killed those innocent people.” Baden went on to plead for better protection of crime scenes and more careful collection, preservation, and testing of trace evidence. Renowned criminalist Henry C. Lee, whose expert for the defense exerted immense influence on the jury, has continued, despite years of severe criticism, to view Simpson’s acquittal as a victory for the objectivity of forensic science.

In 2007, Simpson was arrested for taking part in an armed robbery that occurred at a Las Vegas hotel. Simpson said that a memorabilia dealer was in possession of items Simpson claimed were stolen.  He and a group of men, some armed with guns, confronted the dealer in a hotel room. Simpson was tried on charges and armed robbery and kidnapping, found guilty, and sentenced to nine to thirty-three years in prison. He served the minimum and was released in 2017.

Simpson died on April 10, 2024, at the age of seventy-six.

Bibliography

Baden, Michael, and Marion Roach. Dead Reckoning: The New Science of Catching Killers. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. Print.

Bugliosi, Vincent. Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. Print.

Erzinçlioglu, Zakaria. Every Contact Leaves a Trace: Scientific Detection in the Twentieth Century. London: Carlton Books, 2000. Print.

Lange, Tom, and Philip Vannatter, as told to Dan E. Moldea. Evidence Dismissed: The Inside Story of the Police Investigation of O. J. Simpson. New York: Pocket Books, 1997. Print.

McFadden, Robert D. "O.J. Simpson, Football Star Whose Trial Riveted the Nation, Dies at 76." The New York Times, 14 Apr. 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/sports/oj-simpson-dead.html. Accessed 16 Aug. 2024.

Lee, Henry C., with Thomas W. O’Neil. Cracking Cases: The Science of Solving Crimes. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2002. Print.

Petrocelli, Daniel, with Peter Knobler. Triumph of Justice: The Final Judgment on the Simpson Saga. New York: Crown, 1998. Print.

Toobin, Jeffrey. The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson. New York: Random House, 1996. Print.