Fear God (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

FEAR GOD

Revelation 14: 7 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, 7Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. 8And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. 8And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. 9And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 10The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: 11And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. 12Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.14For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Universality and Cosmology

ANALYZING UNDERLYING IMPETUSES AS REFLECTED IN HISTORY (1840's-present)
Religion Civil Rights Science and Technology Space Forms of government Wars and conflicts
Crimes against humanity Literature Entertainment

Universitarianism reflected in religions, military, and politics. (1800's) III

1833 (1) 1836 (1) 1844 (11) 1848 (2) 1850 (1) 1866 (1) 1898 (1) Brigham Young (1) Charles Taze Russell (1) Charles Whitman (1) Civil Rights Act of 1866 (2) Compromise of 1850 (2) Daniel Webster (1) Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (1) Dmitri Mendeleev (2) Evolution of the British Empire (1) General Mills (1) George Orwell (1) Great Flood of 1844 (1) H. G. Wells (1) Joseph Smith Jr. (1) Kolob (1) military and religion (1) Military and Religion (1) Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (1) The Devil and Daniel Webster (1) The New World Order (Wells) (1) The War of the Worlds (1) The War of the Worlds (radio) (1) Will Keith Kellogg (1) William Miller (preacher) (1)

Thursday, December 24, 2009

O. J. Simpson murder case




O. J. Simpson murder case
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The O. J. Simpson murder case (People v. Simpson) was a criminal trial held in the Los Angeles County, California
Superior Court in which former American football star and actor
O. J. Simpson was charged with the 1994 murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history.[1] Simpson was acquitted[2] after a lengthy trial that lasted over nine months—the longest jury trial in California history.[3]
Simpson hired a high-profile defense team initially led by Robert Shapiro[4][5][6] and subsequently led by Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey. Los Angeles County believed it had a solid prosecution case, but Cochran was able to persuade the jurors that there was reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence (then a relatively new type of evidence in trials) -[7] including that the blood-sample evidence had allegedly been mishandled by lab scientists and technicians - and about the circumstances surrounding other exhibits.[8] Cochran and the defense team also alleged other misconduct by the Los Angeles Police Department. Simpson's celebrity and the lengthy televised trial riveted national attention on the so-called "Trial of the Century". By the end of the criminal trial, national surveys showed dramatic differences between most blacks and most whites in terms of their assessment of Simpson's guilt.[9]
Later, both the Brown and Goldman families sued Simpson for damages in a civil trial. On February 5, 1997, the jury unanimously found there was a preponderance of evidence to find Simpson liable for damages in the wrongful death of Goldman and battery of Brown. In its conclusions, the jury effectively found Simpson liable for the death of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman.[10] On February 21, 2008, a Los Angeles court upheld a renewal of the civil judgment against him.[11]
Contents
[hide]
[edit] Events leading up to the trial
[edit] The murders
At 12:05 a.m. on June 13, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found fatally stabbed outside Brown's Bundy Drive
condominium in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, California. Her two children, Sydney (aged 8) and Justin (aged 5), were asleep inside in an upstairs bedroom. O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson had divorced two years earlier. Evidence found and collected at the scene led police to suspect that O.J. Simpson was the murderer. Nicole had been stabbed multiple times through the throat to the point of near decapitation; her vertebrae was almost severed,[12] and she also had a swollen face.
Brown's bloody Akita dog was found barking at the crime scene at 11 p.m., and the prosecution narrowed the time frame of the murders to 10:15 to 10:40 p.m.[8]
[edit] The low-speed chase
Lawyers convinced the Los Angeles Police Department to allow Simpson to turn himself in at 11 a.m. on June 17, even though the double murder charge meant no bail and a possible death penalty verdict if convicted (double homicide is a capital offense in California[13]). On June 17, 1994, over one thousand reporters waited for Simpson at the police station. When he failed to appear, confusion set in. At 2 p.m., the police issued an all-points bulletin. Robert Kardashian, a Simpson friend and one of his defense lawyers, read a rambling letter by Simpson to the media. In the letter Simpson said, "First everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole's murder… Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life."[14] To many, this sounded like a suicide note and the reporters joined the search for Simpson. Simpson was dating Playboy Playmate Traci Adell at the time and had been seen with her that night (she was questioned, but evaded controversy).
The police tracked calls placed on the cellular telephone from Simpson's van in Orange County. A sheriff's patrol car saw a white Ford Bronco belonging to Simpson's friend, Al Cowlings, going south on Interstate 405. When the officer approached the Bronco, Cowlings, who was driving, yelled that Simpson had a gun to his own head. The officer backed off but followed the vehicle with Simpson in a low-speed chase at 35 miles per hour.[15]
For some time a Los Angeles News Service
helicopter piloted by Bob Tur, and contracted by KCBS had exclusive coverage of the chase, but by the end of the chase they had been joined by about a dozen others. NBC interrupted coverage of Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the Houston Rockets to air the pursuit.
Radio station KNX also provided live coverage of the low-speed pursuit. USC sports announcer Pete Arbogast and station producer Oran Sampson contacted former USC coach John McKay to go on the air and encourage Simpson to end the pursuit. McKay agreed and asked Simpson to pull over and turn himself in instead of committing suicide.
Thousand of spectators and on-lookers packed overpasses along the procession's journey waiting for the white Bronco. Some had signs urging Simpson to flee and others were caught up in a festival-like atmosphere. Over twenty helicopters were following this chase. It was televised by local as well as national news outlets, with 95 million viewers tuning in.[16] The chase was covered live by ABC News anchors Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters on behalf of ABC's five newsmagazines, which achieved some of their highest-ever ratings that week.[16]
The chase ended at 8 P.M. at Simpson's Brentwood home, 50 miles later. He was allowed to go inside for about an hour. His attorney Robert Shapiro arrived and a few minutes later, Simpson surrendered himself to authorities.
Although Simpson had a loaded weapon, and though Cowlings, as the driver, had led authorities on a lengthy car chase, no charges of any sort regarding the chase were filed against either Simpson or Cowlings. The prosecution did not present evidence at the trial about whether Simpson had pointed a loaded weapon at Cowlings. However, the police did say they recovered a gun from the SUV.
[edit] Criminal trial
Simpson pleaded not guilty to both murders. A grand jury was called to determine whether to indict him for the two murders. Two days later, on June 23, the grand jury was dismissed as a result of excessive media coverage, which might influence the grand jury's neutrality. Jill Shively, a Brentwood resident who testified that she saw Simpson speeding away from the area of Nicole's house on the night of the murders, testified to the grand jury that the Bronco almost collided with a Nissan at the intersection of Bundy and San Vicente Boulevard.[3] Another grand jury witness, Jose Camacho, was a knife salesman at Ross Cutlery who claimed to have sold Simpson a 15-inch (380 mm) German-made knife similar to the murder weapon three weeks before the murders.[3] Shively and Camacho were not presented by the prosecution at the criminal trial after they sold their stories to the tabloid press.[16] Shively had talked to television show Hard Copy for $5,000,[16] and Camacho sold his story to the National Enquirer for $12,500.[3] As a result, neither one was called to testify during the criminal trial.
After a week-long court hearing, a California Superior Court judge ruled on July 7 that there was ample evidence to try Simpson for the murders. At his second court appearance, on July 23, Simpson stated, "Absolutely, one hundred percent, not guilty."
Leading the murder investigation was veteran LAPD detective Tom Lange. In 1995 the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson took place through 134 days of televised testimony. The prosecution elected not to ask for the death penalty and instead sought a life sentence. The TV exposure made celebrities of many of the figures in the trial, including Judge Lance Ito.
Covered and televised by Court TV, and in part by other cable and network news outlets, the trial began on January 25, 1995. Los Angeles County prosecutor Christopher Darden argued that Simpson killed his ex-wife in a jealous rage. The prosecution opened its case by playing a 9-1-1 call which Nicole Brown Simpson had made on January 1, 1989. She expressed fear that Simpson would physically harm her, and he could be heard yelling at her in the background. The prosecution also presented dozens of expert witnesses, on subjects ranging from DNA fingerprinting to blood and shoeprint analysis, to place Simpson at the scene of the crime.
The prosecution spent the opening weeks of the trial presenting evidence that Simpson had a history of physically abusing Nicole. Simpson's lawyer Alan Dershowitz argued that only a tiny fraction of women who are abused by their mates are murdered.
[edit] Defense attorneys
Simpson had hired a team of high-profile lawyers, including F. Lee Bailey, Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Gerald Uelmen (a law professor at Santa Clara University), Carl E. Douglas and Johnnie Cochran. Attorneys specializing in DNA evidence, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, were hired to attempt to discredit the prosecution's DNA evidence,[7] and they argued that Simpson was the victim of police fraud and what they termed as sloppy internal procedures that contaminated the DNA evidence.[12]
Simpson's defense was said to cost between US$3 million and $6 million.[17] Simpson's defense team, dubbed the "Dream Team" by reporters, argued that LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman had planted evidence at the crime scene. Police evidence collector Dennis Fung also faced heavy scrutiny. In all, 150 witnesses gave testimony during the eight-month-long trial.
[edit] Prosecution's case
Even with no murder weapon, no good fingerprints, and no witnesses to the murders, the prosecution was confident that they presented a solid case, supported by DNA evidence, and they fully expected a conviction. According to the prosecution's account of the murders, as Nicole Brown was lying face down, Simpson pulled her head back using her hair, put his foot on her back, and slit her throat, severing her carotid artery.[12] They then argued that Simpson left a "trail of blood" from the condo to his Bronco to his house on Rockingham Drive.[18]
According to the prosecution, Simpson was last seen in public at 9:36 p.m. that evening when he returned to the front gate of his house with Brian 'Kato' Kaelin, a bit-part actor and family friend who lived on the property of Simpson's estate, after the pair ate at a nearby McDonald's. Simpson was not seen again until 10:54 p.m., an hour and 18 minutes later, when he came out of the front door of his house to a waiting limousine hired to take him to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to fly to a Hertz convention in Chicago. Both the defense and prosecution agreed that the murders took place between 10:15 and 10:40 p.m., with the prosecution saying that Simpson drove his white Bronco the five minutes to and from the murder scene.[8] They presented a witness in the area of Bundy Drive who saw a car similar to Simpson's Bronco speeding away from the area at 10:35 p.m.[8]
According to his testimony, limousine driver Allan Park arrived at Simpson's estate at 10:25 p.m. Driving past the Rockingham gate, he did not see Simpson's white Bronco parked at the curb. Park testified that he had been looking for and had seen the house number, and the prosecution presented exhibits to show that the position in which the Bronco was found the next morning was right next to the house number (implying that Park would surely have noticed the Bronco if it had been there at that time). According to Simpson's version of events, the Bronco had been parked in that position for several hours. Meanwhile, Kato Kaelin was on the phone to his friend, Rachel Ferrara. Park parked opposite the Ashford gate, then drove back to the Rockingham gate to check which driveway would have the best access for the limo. Deciding that the Rockingham entrance was too tight, he returned to the Ashford gate and began to buzz the intercom at 10:40, getting no response. He then made a series of calls to his boss's (Dale St.John) pager and then to his home, trying to get Simpson's home number. At approximately 10:50, Kato Kaelin (who was still on the phone to Rachel Ferrara) heard three thumps against the outside wall of his guest house. He ventured outside to investigate but decided not to venture directly down the dark south pathway. Instead he walked to the front of the property where he saw Allan Park's limousine outside the gate.
At the same time Park saw Kaelin come from the back of the property to the front, he saw "a tall black man" of Simpson's height and build enter the front door of the house, after which lights went on and Simpson finally answered Park's call, explaining that he had overslept and would be at the front gate soon. Kaelin opened the front gate to let Park onto the estate grounds. Both Kaelin and Park helped Simpson put his belongings in the trunk of the limo for the ride to the airport, where both remarked that Simpson looked agitated. But other witnesses, such as the ticket clerk at Los Angeles International Airport who checked Simpson onto the plane and a few others, testified that Simpson looked and acted perfectly normal. Conflicting testimony such as this was to be a recurring theme through the trial.
Simpson's claim that he was asleep at the time of the murders was replaced by a series of different stories. According to the defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran, Simpson had never left his house that night and that he was alone in his house packing to travel to Chicago. Cochran claims that Simpson went outside to hit a few golf balls into the children's sandbox in the front garden, one or more of which made the three loud thumps on the wall of Kaelin's bungalow. Cochran produced a potential alibi witness, Rosa Lopez, a neighbor's Spanish-speaking housekeeper who testified that she had seen Simpson's car parked outside his house at the time of the murders. But Lopez's testimony, which was not presented to the jury, was pulled apart under cross-examination when she was forced to admit that she could not be sure of the precise time she saw Simpson's white Bronco outside his house.
Later, the defense tried to claim that Simpson could not be physically capable of carrying out the murders, for Ronald Goldman was a fit young man who put up a fierce struggle against his assailant. O.J. Simpson was a 46-year-old former football player with chronic arthritis, which had left him with scars on his knees from old football injuries. But Marcia Clark produced into evidence an exercise video that Simpson made two years earlier which showed that, despite some physical conditions, Simpson was anything but frail.
[edit] DNA evidence
Samples from bloody footprints leading away from the bodies and from the back gate of the condominium were tested for DNA matches.[8] Initial polymerase chain reaction testing did not rule out Simpson as a suspect, and in more precise restriction fragment length polymorphism tests, matches were found between Simpson's blood and blood samples taken from the crime scene, in both the footprints and the gate samples.[7][8]
Police criminologist Dennis Fung testified that this DNA evidence put Simpson at Nicole Brown's townhouse at the time of the murders. But in cross-examination by Barry Scheck, which lasted eight full days, most of the DNA evidence was questioned. Dr. Robin Cotton of Cellmark Diagnostics testified for six days.[12] Blood evidence had been tested at two separate laboratories, each conducting different tests.[12]
Despite that safeguard, it emerged during the cross-examination of Fung and the other laboratory scientists that the police scientist who collected blood samples from Simpson to compare with evidence from the crime scene was a trainee who carried the vial of Simpson's blood around in his lab coat pocket for nearly a day before handing it over as an exhibit. While two errors had been found in the history of DNA testing at Cellmark, one of the testing laboratories, in 1988 and 1989, the errors were found during quality control tests and had not occurred since.[12] In the 1988 test, one of the companies hired for DNA consulting by Simpson's defense also made the same error.[7] What should have been the prosecution's strong point became their weak link amid accusations that bungling police technicians handled the blood samples with such a degree of incompetence as to render the delivery of accurate and reliable DNA results almost impossible. The prosecution argued that they had made the DNA evidence available to the defense for its own testing, and if the defense attorneys disagreed with the prosecution's tests they could have conducted their own testing on the same samples.[12] The defense had chosen not to accept the prosecution's offer.[12]
On May 16, Gary Sims, a California Department of Justice criminalist who helped establish the Department of Justice's DNA laboratory, testified that a glove found at Simpson's house tested positive for a match of Goldman's blood.[12]
[edit] Mark Fuhrman
In 1983 Fuhrman was interviewed by Dr. Ira Brent in lieu of a disability claim for work-related stress. Mark Fuhrman confided to Brent that he beat up on suspects, and that he blacked out and became a wild man. In 1984, Fuhrman stopped a young black man named Jarvis Bowers for jaywalking, put him in a choke hold and threatened his life. This happened in front of a movie theater in a predominately white area with plenty of witnesses. This incident cost Fuhrman a day's pay.
In March, Fuhrman testified to finding blood marks on the driveway of Simpson's home, as well as a black leather glove on the premises which had blood of both murder victims on it as well as Simpson's.[8] Despite an aggressive cross-examination by F. Lee Bailey,[19] Fuhrman denied on the stand that he was racist or had used the word "nigger" to describe black people in the 10 years prior to his testimony.[19] But a few months later, the defense played audio tapes of Fuhrman repeatedly using the word – 41 times, in total. The tape had been made in 1986 by a young North Carolina screenwriter named Laura McKinny. She had interviewed Fuhrman for a screenplay she was developing on police officers. The Fuhrman tapes became one of the cornerstones of the defense's case that Fuhrman's testimony lacked credibility. The prosecution told the jury in closing arguments that Fuhrman was a racist, but that this should not detract from the evidence showing Simpson's guilt.[3] Fuhrman's testimony resulted in his indictment on one count of perjury, to which he pled no contest.
[edit] Glove
One dark leather glove was found at the crime scene, with its match found near Kato Kaelin's guest house behind Simpson's Rockingham Drive estate.[8] Kaelin testified that he had heard "bumps in the night" in the same area around the guest house the night of the murder.[8] Brown had bought Simpson two pairs of this type of glove in 1990.[8] Both gloves, according to the prosecution, contained DNA evidence from Simpson, Brown and Goldman, with the glove at Simpson's house also containing a long strand of blonde hair similar to Brown's.[8]
On June 15, 1995, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran goaded an assistant prosecutor into asking Simpson to put on the leather glove that was found at the scene of the crime. The prosecution had earlier decided against asking Simpson to try on the gloves because the glove had been soaked in blood (according to prosecutors, from Simpson, Brown and Goldman),[12] and frozen and unfrozen several times. Darden was advised by Clark and other prosecutors not to ask Simpson to try on the glove, but to argue through experts that in better condition, the glove would fit. Instead, Darden decided to have Simpson try on the glove.
The leather glove seemed too tight for Simpson to put on easily, especially over the rubber gloves he wore underneath.[8] Uelmen came up with and Cochran repeated a quip he had used several times in relation to other points in his closing arguments, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" often misquoted as "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit." On June 22, 1995, assistant prosecutor Christopher Darden told Judge Lance Ito his concerns that Simpson "has arthritis and we looked at the medication he takes and some of it is anti-inflammatory and we are told he has not taken the stuff for a day and it caused swelling in the joints and inflammation in his hands." The prosecution also stated their belief that the glove shrank from having been soaked in blood and later testing.[8] Prosecutors contended that Simpson's blood found at the crime scene was the result of blood dripping from cuts on the middle finger of Simpson's left hand.[8] Police had noted his wounds on June 13, 1994. They asserted these were suffered during the fatal attack on Ronald Goldman. However, the defense noted that none of the gloves found had any cuts. They also alleged that Fuhrman had planted the glove at Simpson's house and that the analysis finding that the hair could be Brown's could not be reliable.[8]
[edit] Racial differences
In closing arguments, Darden ridiculed the notion that police officers might have wanted to frame Simpson.[3] He questioned why, if the LAPD was against Simpson, they went to his house eight times on domestic violence calls without arresting him before eventually citing him for abuse in 1989, and why they then waited five days to arrest him for the 1994 murders.[3]
Cochran's jury summation compared Fuhrman to Adolf Hitler, a technique which was later criticized by Robert Shapiro and by at least one juror.[3] Cochran called Fuhrman "a genocidal racist, a perjurer, America's worst nightmare and the personification of evil."[3]
Fears grew that race riots would erupt all over Los Angeles, similar to the 1992 riots following the acquittal of four police officers for beating black motorist Rodney King. As a result, police officers were put on 12-hour shifts, and a line of over 100 police officers on horseback surrounded the L.A. county courthouse on the day of the verdict, in case of rioting by the predominantly African American crowd.
[edit] Verdict
At 10 a.m. on October 3, 1995, after only four hours of deliberation the previous day, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
[edit] Evidence
  • DNA showed that blood found at the scene of Brown's murder was O.J. Simpson's. The odds it could have come from anyone but Simpson were reported, incorrectly, to be about one in 170 million.[20]

  • DNA analysis of blood found on a pair of Simpson's socks found in his bedroom identified it as Nicole Brown's. The blood had DNA characteristics matched by approximately only one in 9.7 billion, with odds rising to one out of 21 billion when compiling results of testing done at the two separate DNA laboratories.[12][20] Each sock had about 20 stains of blood.[12]
  • DNA analysis of the blood found in, on, and near Simpson's Bronco revealed traces of Simpson's, Brown's, and Goldman's blood.[21]
  • DNA analysis of bloody socks found in Simpson's bedroom proved this was Brown's blood. The blood made a similar pattern on both sides of the socks. Defense medical expert Dr. Henry Lee of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory testified that the only way such a pattern could appear was if Simpson had a "hole" in his ankle, or a drop of blood was placed on the sock while it was not being worn. Lee testified the collection procedure of the socks could have caused contamination.[22]
  • Hair consistent with Simpson's was found on Goldman's shirt.[21]
  • Several coins were found along with fresh blood drops behind Nicole's condo, in the area where the cars were parked.
  • DNA analysis of blood on the left-hand glove, found outside Brown's home, was proven to be a mixture of Simpson's, Brown's, and Goldman's. Although the glove was soaked in blood, there were no blood drops leading up to, or away from the glove. No other blood was found in the area of the glove except on the glove.[21]
  • The gloves contained particles of hair consistent with Goldman's hair and a cap contained carpet fibers consistent with fibers from Simpson's Bronco.[8] A knit cap at the crime scene contained hairs consistent with Simpson's.[8] Dark blue cotton fibers were found on Goldman, and the prosecution presented a witness who said Simpson wore a similarly-colored sweat suit that night.[8]
  • The left-hand glove found at Nicole Brown's home and the right-hand glove found at Simpson's home proved to be a match.[23]
  • The LA County District Attorney's Office and the Medical Examiner's Office could not explain why 1.5 CCs of blood were missing from the original eight CCs taken from Simpson and placed into evidence.[24]
  • Officers found arrest records indicating that Simpson was charged with the beating of his wife Nicole Brown. Photos of Brown's bruised and battered face from that attack were shown.
  • Much of the incriminating evidence: bloody glove, bloody socks, blood in and on the Bronco, was discovered by Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman. He was later charged with perjury for falsely claiming during the trial that he had not used the word "nigger" within ten years of the trial. During the trial he pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination to avoid further questioning after his integrity was challenged on this point.[24]
  • The bloody footprints were identified by FBI shoe expert William Bodziak as having been made by a pair of extremely rare Bruno Magli shoes, of which it has been reported that only 299 pairs were sold in the US.[8] The large size 12 (305 mm) prints matched Simpson's shoe size.[8] In the criminal trial, Simpson defense attorneys had said the prosecution had no proof Simpson had ever bought such shoes,[8] however then free-lance photographer Harry Scull claimed to have found a photograph he had taken of Simpson in 1993 that appeared to show him wearing a pair of the shoes at a public event, which was later published in the National Enquirer. Simpson's defense team claimed the photograph was doctored, although other pre-1994 photos appearing to show Simpson wearing Bruno Magli shoes were since discovered and published.[25]
  • Evidence collected by LAPD criminologist Dennis Fung came under criticism. He admitted to "having missed a few drops of blood on a fence near the bodies," but on the stand he said that he "returned several weeks afterwards to collect them."[24]
  • Fung admitted that he had not used rubber gloves when collecting some of the evidence.[24]
  • LA Police Detective Phillip Vanatter testified that he saw photographs of press personnel leaning on Simpson's Bronco before evidence was collected.[24]
[edit] Evidence not presented at trial
  • Ross Cutlery provided store receipts indicating that Simpson had purchased a 12-inch (300 mm) stiletto knife six weeks before the murders. The knife was determined to be similar to the one the coroner said caused the stab wounds.[3] The prosecution did not present this evidence at trial after discovering that store employees had sold their story to The National Enquirer for $12,500.[3]

  • Jill Shively saw a white Ford Bronco speeding away from Bundy Drive, in such a hurry that it almost collided with another car at an intersection.[3] She talked to the television show Hard Copy for $5,000, after which prosecutors declined to use her testimony at trial.[3]
  • A women's shelter, Sojourn, received a call from Brown four days prior to the murders saying that she was scared of her ex-husband, who she felt was stalking her.[3] The prosecution thought that Judge Ito would rule the evidence to be hearsay.[3] In addition, friends and family indicated that Nicole Brown had consistently said that Simpson had been stalking her.[3] She claimed that everywhere she went, she noticed Simpson would be there, watching her. Her friends Faye Resnick and Cynthia Shahian said she was afraid because Simpson had told her he would kill her if he ever found her with another man.[3]
  • Former NFL player and pastor Rosey Grier visited Simpson at the Los Angeles County Jail in the days following the murders. Both he and a jailhouse guard, Jeff Stuart, testified to Judge Ito that at one point Simpson yelled that he didn't mean to do it, after which Grier had urged him to come clean.[3] Ito ruled that the evidence could not be allowed in court.[3]
[edit] Media coverage






O.J. Simpson on the cover of Newsweek and TIME.
The trial received extensive media coverage. The media coverage was itself at times controversial; the issue of whether or not to allow video cameras into the courtroom was among the first issues Judge Ito had to decide, ultimately ruling that live camera coverage was warranted.[26] Ito would be later criticized for this decision by other legal professionals, and Ito himself, along with others related to the case (Marcia Clark, Mark Fuhrman, Kato Kaelin) were said to have been influenced to some degree by the media presence, and the publicity that came with it. The trial was covered in 2,237 news segments from 1994 through 1997.[27]
On June 27, 1994, Time published a cover story "An American Tragedy" with a mugshot image of O.J. Simpson on the cover.[28] The image was darker than a typical magazine image, and it was obvious that the Time photo was much darker than the original, as shown on a Newsweek cover released at the same time. Time itself was now the object of a media scandal, and it was found it had employed photo manipulation to darken the photo, for the purpose of, as commentators have claimed, making Simpson appear more "menacing." The publication of the cover photo drew widespread criticism of racist editorializing, and yellow journalism. Time publicly apologized, and news organizations nationwide quickly instituted rules prohibiting such manipulation.[29]
[edit] Reaction to verdict
In post-trial interviews with the jurors, a few said that they believed Simpson probably committed the murders,[30] but that the prosecution bungled the case. Three jurors published a book called Madam Foreman, in which they described how police errors, not race, led to their verdict, and that they considered prosecutor Darden to be a "token black" assigned to the case by the prosecutor's office.[19]
Critics of the verdict contend that the deliberation time was unduly short, and that jurors did not understand the scientific evidence.[31] Prosecutors claimed to have heard a few of the jurors saying things like "Well, lots of people have the same blood type."[citation needed]
Defense attorney Robert Shapiro wrote a book, The Search for Justice, in which he criticizes F. Lee Bailey as a "loose cannon" and Cochran for bringing race into the trial.[19] He didn't believe Simpson was framed by the LAPD for racial reasons, but believed the verdict was correct due to reasonable doubt.[19]
Former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi (who had handled the Manson trial) wrote a book called Outrage: The Five Reasons O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder. Bugliosi was very critical of Clark and Darden. He faulted them, for example, for not introducing the note that Simpson had written before trying to flee. Bugliosi contended that the note "reeked" of guilt and that the jury should have been allowed to see it. He also pointed out that the jury was never informed about items found in the Bronco: a change of clothing, a large amount of cash, a passport and a disguise kit.[3] The prosecution felt these items of evidence would bring up emotional issues on Simpson's part that could harm their case, despite the fact that the items seemed as though they could be used for fleeing.[3]
Simpson made an incriminating statement to police about cutting his finger the night of the murders. Bugliosi took Clark and Darden to task for not allowing the jury to hear the tape of this statement. Bugliosi also said the prosecutors should have gone into more detail about Simpson's abuse of his wife. He said it should have been made clear to the mostly African-American jury that Simpson had little impact in the black community and had done nothing to help blacks less fortunate than him. Bugliosi pointed out that, although the prosecutors obviously understood that Simpson's race had nothing to do with the murders, once the defense "opened the door" by trying to paint Simpson falsely as a leader in the black community, the evidence to the contrary should have been presented, to prevent the jury from allowing it to bias their verdict. He also criticized the prosecution's closing statements as inadequate.
Rather than try the crime in mostly white Santa Monica, California where murders occurring in Brentwood would normally have been held, the prosecution decided to have the trial in mostly black Los Angeles. Bugliosi criticized this decision in his book. During the jury selection process, the defense made it difficult for the prosecution to challenge potential black jurors on the grounds that it is illegal to dismiss someone from the jury for racially motivated reasons (California courts barred peremptory challenges to jurors based on race in People v. Wheeler,[32] years before the U.S. Supreme Court would do so in Batson v. Kentucky.[33])
According to media reports, prosecutor Marcia Clark thought that women, regardless of race, would sympathize with the domestic violence aspect of the case and connect with her personally. On the other hand, the defense's research suggested that women generally were more likely to acquit, that jurors did not respond well to Clark's style, and that black women would not be as sympathetic to a white woman as victim. Both sides accepted a disproportionate number of female jurors. From an original jury pool of 40% white, 28% black, 17% Hispanic, and 15% Asian, the final jury for the trial had 10 women and two men, of which there were nine blacks, two whites, and one Hispanic.[9]
It has also been suggested that the biggest mistake of the prosecutor was to pack the jury with black women. It has been suggested that the black women in the jury could see the victim Nicole Simpson (a white woman) as the enemy who has been stealing successful black men away from black women and, therefore, deserved everything she got.[34]
Discussion of the racial elements of the case continued long after the trial. Some polls and some commentators have concluded that many blacks, while having their doubts as to Simpson's innocence, were nonetheless more inclined to be suspicious of the credibility and fairness of the police and the courts, and thus less likely to question the outcome. After the civil trial verdict against Simpson, most whites believed justice had been served and most blacks (75%) disagreeing with the verdict and believing the verdict to be racially motivated.[9] An NBC poll taken in 2004 reported that, although 77% of 1,186 people sampled thought Simpson was guilty, only 27% of blacks in the sample believed so, compared to 87% of whites. Whatever the exact nature of the "racial divide," the Simpson case continues to be assessed through the lens of race.
Judge Lance Ito was also criticized for allowing the case to become a media circus and not regulating the court proceedings as much as he could have.[35]
Computational simulations of inference to the best explanation in legal decision theory have shown different results depending of the model assumed. Amalia Amaya's model based on coherence concludes, in a paper presented in 2007, that acquittal for reasonable doubt is the best legal explanation for all the facts.[36]
[edit] Civil trial
The parents of Goldman, Fred Goldman and Sharon Rufo, brought suit against Simpson for wrongful death, and Brown's estate, represented by her father Lou Brown,[17] brought suit against Simpson in a "survivor suit," in a trial that took place over four months in Santa Monica and was not televised (by judge's order).[1][35] The Goldman family was represented by Daniel Petrocelli, with Simpson represented by Bob Baker.[1] Attorneys for both sides were given high marks by observing lawyers.[1] Simpson's defense in the trial was estimated to cost $1 million and was paid for by an insurance policy on his company, Orenthal Enterprises.[17]
At one point, Baker made a mistake that allowed Petrocelli to introduce evidence regarding Simpson's failure of a lie detector test about the murders.[1] Fuhrman was not called to testify, and Simpson was subpoenaed to testify on his own behalf.[1][9] The jury in the civil trial awarded Brown and Simpson's children, Sydney and Justin, $12.5 million from their father as recipients of their mother's estate.[1] The victims' families were awarded $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.[37]
Simpson came under fire following the civil verdict for "dodging" the jury's award against him by allegedly hiding assets from the Goldman family.[38]
[edit] Aftermath of trials
Some of Simpson's supporters changed their minds in the years following his trials, as he seemed to dodge the civil jury's verdict for the victims' families[38] and appeared not to search for the "real killer" as he had promised to do.[38]
[edit] Quasi-confessions
In September 2004, Jennifer Peace,[39] an adult actress who performed under the name "Devon Shire," came forward claiming that she was Al Cowlings' girlfriend, and that Cowlings had told her that Simpson had confessed his guilt. Peace was subpoenaed to testify before a Grand Jury by Clark and Hodgman, and later said that Cowlings had told her that Simpson was guilty of both murders, and that the weapon "sleeps with the fishes."[40] Peace sold her story to Star Magazine and American Journal for a reported mid-six figure sum, an action which discredited her and led to her not being called as a witness during the larger trial. Speculation at the time was that the prosecution was using Peace to try to put pressure on Cowlings to "flip" on Simpson and testify against him. When that strategy failed to work, the Grand Jury was dismissed and the case proceeded to trial.
In the February 1998 issue of Esquire, Simpson was quoted as saying, "Let's say I committed this crime… Even if I did this, it would have to have been because I loved her very much, right?" Simpson said that he would look for the real murderer, who he said he believed was a hitman. There is little evidence to suggest that Simpson has been actively searching for the "real killer."[citation needed]
In November 2006, ReganBooks announced a book by O.J. Simpson, as well as a TV interview, titled If I Did It, an account which the publisher pronounced a hypothetical confession. "This is a historic case, and I consider this his confession," publisher Judith Regan told The Associated Press.[41] On November 20, News Corporation, parent company of ReganBooks, canceled both the book and the TV interview due to a high level of public criticism. CEO Rupert Murdoch, speaking at a press conference, stated: "I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project."[42] Regan was fired in December 2006 for apparently unrelated reasons.
In June 2007, a federal judge ruled that Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman's father, could pursue the publishing rights to Simpson's book.[43] In July 2007, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the rights to the book to the Goldman family to help satisfy the $38 million wrongful death civil suit judgment against Simpson.[44] After Goldman had won the rights to the book, he arranged to publish it under the new title If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.[45]
The book was ghostwritten by Pablo Fenjves.[46] Fenjves stated in interviews that Simpson actively collaborated on the book, and that he "knew" him to be a murderer.[47]
Fox Television was to air a related interview with Simpson in late November 2006, in which Simpson would allegedly describe how he would have committed the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, "if he were the one responsible."[48]
In May 2008, Mike Gilbert released his book How I Helped O.J. Get Away with Murder[49] which details O.J. confessing to the killings to Gilbert.[50] Gilbert, a memorabilia dealer, is a former agent and friend of Simpson. He states that Simpson had smoked marijuana, taken a sleeping pill and was drinking beer when he confided at his Brentwood home weeks after his trial what happened the night of the murders. Simpson allegedly said, "If she hadn't opened that door with a knife in her hand... she'd still be alive." This, Gilbert said, confirmed his belief that Simpson had confessed. Simpson has denied ever having said this. Simpson's current lawyer Yale Galanter has said that none of Gilbert's claims are true, and that Gilbert is "a delusional drug addict who needs money. He has fallen on very hard times. He is in trouble with the IRS."[citation needed]
[edit] Alternative murder theory
An alternative theory is that Simpson's son, Jason Simpson, committed the murders. This is the central theory of a book by private investigator William Dear titled O.J. is Guilty, But Not of Murder.[51] Published in 2000, the book was the result of a six-year investigation by Dear. He attempted to explain Simpson's incriminating behavior and the incriminating evidence. In the book, Dear claimed numerous elements to support his theory.
The book is also the basis of a documentary film, including new evidence, entitled The Overlooked Suspect, released in late 2007.
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
  • Bugliosi, Vincent. 1997. Outrage: 5 Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder. Seattle: Island Books. ISBN 0-440-22382-2

  • Cotterill, Janet. 2002. Language and power in court, a linguistic analysis of the O. J. Simpson trial. Basingstoke: Palgrave. ISBN 0-333-96901-4
  • Felman, Shosana. 2002. The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-00931-2
  • Garner, Joe. 2002. Stay Tuned: Television's Unforgettable Moments. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 0-7407-2693-5
  • Hunt, Darnell M. 1999. O. J. Simpson facts and fictions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62456-8
  • Dear, William C. 2000. O.J. Is Guilty But Not of Murder. Dear Overseas Production. ISBN 0-9702058-0-5
[edit] References
[edit] External links
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case"
Categories: O. J. Simpson murder trial | Photojournalism controversies
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