“The Juice” Shouldn’t Be Loose: The Trial & After

TRIGGER WARNING! – THIS ARTICLE MENTIONS DOMESTIC ABUSE AND DETAILS OF MURDER!

Another day, another O. J Simpson blog. We have made it to the end of the trilogy. If you have been here from the start, I thank you for hanging in there. Let’s be real, this is the part we have all been waiting for. This is the trial we never tire of hearing about. No matter how many times you might have watched it or read about it you always leave wanting more. Well, I’m not sure I can give you more but I can tell you all about it for the 20^th time.  The gloves….we will never forget about THE GLOVES!

On November 9, 1994 twelve jurors were officially sworn in & on January 24, 1995 opening statements were made. The trial of the century had begun. The two lead prosecutors were Marcia Clark & Christopher Darden, they claimed that the years of abuse in the Simpson-Brown marriage had finally boiled over & resulted in murder. Their theory was that on the night of the murders, Simpson attended a dance recital for his daughter and was reportedly angry with Nicole because of a black dress that she wore, which he said was “tight”. Simpson’s then girlfriend, Paula Barbieri, wanted to attend the recital with Simpson but he did not invite her. After the recital, Simpson returned home to a voicemail from Barbieri ending their relationship. Simpson then drove over to Nicole Brown’s home to reconcile their relationship as a result and when Nicole refused, Simpson killed her in a “final act of control.” Ron Goldman unknowingly stumbled upon the murder in progress and Simpson had killed him too so there would be no witnesses. Clark & Darden opened their case by calling LAPD 911 dispatcher Sharon Gilbert to the stand while the court listened to the four-minute 911 call that Nicole Brown had placed on January 1, 1989.  During the call Brown expressed fear that Simpson would physically harm her and O. J himself is even heard in the background yelling at her and possibly hitting her as well. 

 Detective John Edwards who was the responding office on that night in 1989, testified next that when he arrived, a severely beaten Nicole Brown Simpson ran from the bushes where she was hiding and to the detective screaming “He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me,” referring to O.J. Simpson. Pictures of Nicole Brown’s (beaten) face from that night were then shown to the jury to collaborate his testimony. Denise Brown, Nicole’s sister, tearfully testified about many episodes of domestic violence that she witnessed in the 1980s. One episode she claims she saw Simpson pick up her sister and hurl her against a wall, then physically throw her out of their house during an argument. She also testified that Simpson was agitated with Nicole on the night of the murder (she attended Sydney’s dance recital with the family). Kato Kaelin (our buddy staying at the guest house) corroborated Denise Brown’s claim that Simpson was upset with Nicole because of the black dress she wore, which Simpson stated was “tight”. 

The prosecution planned to lay out 62 separate incidents of domestic violence, including 3 previously unknown incidents Brown had documented in several letters she had written and placed in a bank safety deposit box. That was some smart thinking on my girl Nicole’s part. Judge Ito only allowed witnessed accounts of the marital domestic violence to be presented to the jury because of Simpson’s 6^th Amendment right (if you guys know what that is can you tell me please).  The letters Nicole Brown had written and the statements she made to friends and family were ruled inadmissible as hearsay because Brown was deceased and unable to be cross-examined. Despite this, the prosecution had witnesses for 44 separate incidents they planned to present to the jury. That is right “he says-she says” is not upheld in a court of law, ain’t that some dookie? However, on June 20, 1995 the prosecution dropped the whole domestic violence portion of their argument from the trial. Marcia Clark stated it was because they believed the DNA evidence against Simpson was insurmountable. The media speculated the domestic violence argument was dropped because of the comments made by dismissed juror Jeanette Harris (Ito dismissed Harris on April 6 that same year because she failed to disclose that she was a victim of domestic violence from her ex-husband). Christopher Darden later confirmed that to be true reason.

The defense would fire back by retaining renowned advocate for victims of domestic abuse, Dr. Lenore E. Walker as a witness. Cochran said that she would testify that Simpson doesn’t fit the profile of an abuser that would murder his spouse. She does know that all abuser’s male or female don’t look or act the same, right? Dr. Walker’s colleagues were appalled by her decision to defend Simpson & accused her of betraying her advocacy for a $250,000 bribe. Get that money girl, I can’t lie, I might have done the same thing. Dr. Walker was later dropped by the defense as a witness for “tactical” reasons. Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, testified that on the night of June 14, 1995 Nicole Brown’s time of death was estimated as between 10:00pm and 10:30pm. Kato Kaelin testified that he last saw Simpson at 9:36pm on the evening the murders took place. Simpson was not seen again until 10:54pm when he finally answered the door for limousine driver, Allan Park. Simpson had no alibi for approximately 1 hour and 18 minutes during the approximate time the murders took place. 

 On March 28, 1995 Allan Park was called to testify in his testimony he told jurors that he arrived at Simpson’s home at approximately 10:25pm on the night of the murders and stopped at the Rockingham entrance: Simpson’s Bronco was not there. He then drove over to the Ashford entrance and rang the intercom three times, getting no answer, he stated this took place around 10:40pm. At approximately 10:50pm he saw a “tall African American shadowy figure resembling Simpson” approach the front door before aborting towards the southern walkway that leads to Kaelin’s bungalow. The interesting thing about this is when Park was asked off record, he just stated that he saw a shady male figure that possible resembled Simpson, he never stated before that he could make out the race or ethnicity of said figure. Park’s testimony was also significant because it explained the location of the glove that Fuhrman found on the Southern walkway on the day after the murders. A blood trail that led from Simpson’s white Bronco to inside of the house was easily explains but authorities had a hard time understanding why the glove was on the opposite side of the property. The prosecutors laid out their theory  that Simpson had driven his Bronco to and from Brown’s home to commit the murders, saw that Park was there when he arrived back home and aborted his attempt to enter through the front door and tried to enter through the back instead He was startled & panicked causing him to make the sounds that Kaelin heard when he realized that the security system would not let him enter through the rear entrance. He then discarded the glove, came back around the house and went through the front door. During cross examination, Park admitted that he could not identify the figure but said he saw that person enter the front door and afterwards Simpson answered and said he was home alone. Park also verified that he did not notice any cuts on Simpson’s left hand stating; “I shook his right hand, not his left.”. 

The prosecution presented a total of 108 exhibits, including 61 drops of blood, of DNA evidence allegedly linking Simpson to the murders. With no witnesses to the crime, the prosecution was dependent on DNA as the only physical evidence that could link Simpson to the crime. I will list them now (not all 108 of them): 

* Simpson’s DNA found on blood drops next to the bloody footprints near the victims at the Bundy Crime Scene. Probability of error & that it wasn’t his was 1-in-9.7 billion. 

* Simpson’s DNA found on a trail of blood drops leading away from the victims, towards and on the back gate at Bundy. Probability of error & that it wasn’t his was 1-in-200. 

* Simpson, Ron Goldman & Nicole Brown’s DNA found on blood on the outside of the door and inside Simpson’s Bronco. Probability of error & that it wasn’t theirs was 1-in-21 billion. 

*Simpson’s DNA found on blood drops leading from the area where his Bronco was parked at Simpson’s Rockingham home to the front door entrance (they didn’t list the probability of error for this one) 

* Simpson, Brown and Goldman’s DNA on a bloody glove found behind his home (again, no probability of error was listed) 

* Simpson and Nicole Brown’s DNA found on blood on a pair of socks in Simpson’s bedroom. Probability of error & that it wasn’t theirs was 1-in-6.8 billion 

 LAPD criminalist and hair fiber expert Susan Brockbank was called to testify on June 27, 1995 and FBI Special Agent and fiber expert Doug Deedrick testified on June 29, 1995 to the following findings: 

* The fibers from the glove found at Simpson’s home microscopically match the one found at the crime scene, proving they were each other’s match 

* Both of the victims, the two gloves, and the Blue knit cap worn by the killer had hair consistent with that of O. J Simpson’s 

*Dark blue cotton clothing fibers were found on both victims. The video from the Dance recital that Simpson attended earlier that night shows him wearing a similarly colored shirt. I watch enough Forensic Files to know that no matter how well you clean the scene of a crime you can never get all the fibers 

* Hair consistent with Ron Goldman was found on Nicole Brown and clothing fibers consistent with Brown was found on Goldman. 

* Fibers that were only used in the 1993-1994 model year Ford Bronco, the same car that Simpson owns, were found on both victims, the knit cap and on both gloves. I swear that Bronco did more bad than good for that guy 

* The glove found at Simpson’s home that belonged to the murderer had hair and clothing fibers consistent with O. J Simpson, Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman as well as fibers from a 1993-1994 Ford Bronco and Brown’s dog 

On June 19, 1995, FBI shoe print expert William J. Bodziak, testified that the bloody shoe prints found at the crime scene and inside Simpson’s Bronco were made from a rare and expensive pair of Bruno Magli Italian shoes, well, exxxxcuuuuse me. He determined the shoes were a size 12, the same size that Simpson wore, and are only sold at Bloomingdale. Didn’t Bloomingdale’s go out of business? On 29 pairs of those shoes in a size 12 were sold in the United States, with one pair being sold at the store where Simpson often buys his clothing. During cross-examination it was suggested that the murderer deliberately wore shoes that were the wrong size, which Bodziak dismissed as “ridiculous”. Well, that does happen a lot though. Simpson denied ever owning a pair of those “ugly ass shoes”. Bloomingdales employee Samuel Poser testified he remembered showing Simpson those shoes but there was no store record of him purchasing them. 

Simpson hired a team of high-profile defense lawyers, initially led by Robert Shapiro & then subsequently by Johnnie Cochran. You might know Cochran better as the “If the glove don’t fit” guy. The team also included notorious defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, Robert Kardashian, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Blasier, & Gerald Uelmen. Assisting Cochran were Carl E. Douglas, Shawn Holley, Barry Scheck & Peter Neufeld, the became known as the “dream team”. Total sidenote here, Simpson’s defense was said to have cost between US$3 million and $6 million. When you have money, you can afford an insane defense team, no wonder he got acquitted. The defense would argue that the DNA evidence against Simpson was “compromised” by the mishandling of criminalists during the collection phase of evidence gathering, and that 100% of the “real killer(s)” DNA had vanished from the evidence samples. The team claimed evidence was further “contaminated” in the LAPD crime lab, and Simpson’s DNA from his reference vial was transferred to all but 3 exhibits. The remaining 3 exhibits were ‘planted’ by the police and thus “corrupted” by police fraud. The defense also tore the timeline apart stating that they believe the murders were committed sometime around 11:00pm when OJ would already have been on his way to Chicago. 

On July 14, 1995 the defense called Dr. Robert Huizenga to the stand. Dr. Huizenga would testify that Simpson was not physically capable of carrying out the murders due to chronic arthritis and old football injuries. Really, that is the best you can do? Well, as lame as that claim is, I guess it worked. During cross-examination, the prosecution was like BAM BITCH here is an exercise video that Simpson made a few weeks before the murders titled “O.J. Simpson Minimum Maintenance: Fitness for Men”, which demonstrated that Simpson was anything but frail man riddled with old football injures. I’m sure he did have injures though; those guys get absolutely brutalized on the field. Dr. Robert Huizenga then came back and stated that he supposed Simpson could have committed the murders while he had a rush of adrenaline surging through his body. Ya’ll ever have a rush of adrenaline? Injured or not you could break and bone and probably not even feel it when your body is on an adrenaline high. On August 10, 1995 Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist, testified that the murders happened closer to 11:00pm, which is when Simpson has an alibi. If the murders happened at 11:00pm that would make it physically impossible for Orenthal James to comit them. He also stated that both victims remained standing and fought for their lives for up to 10 minutes after their throats had been slashed. If you guys have ever watched a true crime documentary you know that you don’t die instantly when your throat gets slit. It is a horrible death; it can take many minutes for you to bleed out and you are just gasping for air the entire time. You have to have ice running through your vains to stand there and watch a person suffer like that during their last moments alive….I’m gonna go vomit now.

After the trial Dr. Michael Baden would come forward and say that testifying on Simpson’s behalf was a terrible mistake and he wished he could take it back. He also admitted that he made a mistake with the timeline of Ron Goldman’s death and that his account of the long struggle he had with the attacker was grossly inaccurate. Come on Michael, did they pay you to lie. I won’t fault you if they did. Money is power and people have done crazier things to get their hands on some. I’m going to skip over a big chunk of the contaminated DNA evidence just for the sake of the length of this article. Bottom line, defense believed DNA evidence was contaminated and not treated properly. They also believe police went back to the scene of the crime after the fact and planted evidence. Mainly the blood found by the back fence that was believed to be Simpson’s. The defense also believe that said blood was collected from the scene of the crime was collected on July 3, 1995 rather than right after the murders occurred. Oh yeah, they also claimed the blood found in and on Simpson’s white Bronco had also been planted by corrupt police. Blood had also been planted on socked later found in O.J’s room, Ok, I think I got it all, but who knows, this case was all over the place.

Finally, we have come to THE GLOVE, WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THE GLOVE. THE GLOVE WAS LIKE THE SPOKESPERSON OF THE WHOLE DAMN TRIAL! The infamous glove was found by the back gate of the property by Detective Mark Fuhrman. Defense attorney F. Lee Bailey suggested that Fuhrman found the glove at the crime scene, picked it up with a stick and placed it in a plastic bag, then concealing it in his sock when he drove to Simpson’s home with Detectives Lange, Vannatter and Philips. Bailey suggested that he then planted the glove in order to frame Simpson, with the motive either being racism or a desire to become the hero in a high-profile case. The persecution obviously denied all of that bullshit. Anyhow, On June 15, 1995 prosecuting attorney Christopher Darden asked Orenthal to try on the gloves catching fellow prosecutor Marcia Clark completely off guard. The prosecution had previously decided against asking Simpson to try on the gloves due to them being soaked in blood and having been frozen and unfrozen numerous times. Instead, they had a witness who testified that Nicole Brown had bought an identical pair of the said gloves from Bloomingdale’s in 1990. Damn that was a very popular store. This will come as no shock to anyone but when Orenthal tried on the gloves they appeared to be TOO SMALL. I don’t know it could be because he had ANOTHER SET OF LATEX GLOVES ON UNDERNEATH THE LEATHER GLOVES. But, who knows, as you can tell I obviously don’t feel strongly about this particular piece of evidence. Clark claimed that Simpson was acting when he appeared to be struggling to put on the gloves, yet Cochran replied “I don’t think he could act the size of his hands.” HE COULD ACT LIKE THEY DON’T FIT THOUGHT ESPECIALLY BECAUSE OF THE LATEX GLOVE AND THE FACT THEY PROBABLY SHRUNK FROM BEING SOAKED IN DRIED BLOOD. Ok, I’m calm now.  

Christopher Darden fired back that if Simpson did in fact have severe arthritis in his hands that he would be on some kind of anti-inflammatory medicine & it is very possible that he just did not take that medicine that morning or the night before, causing his hands to swell significantly.  That sounds pretty damn plausible to me. On September 12, 1995 Richard Rubin, former vice president of glove maker Aris Isotoner Inc, testified on that the gloves had indeed shrunk from their original size due to the dried blood on them. After the trial, Johnnie Cochran revealed that Bailey had goaded Darden into asking Simpson to try on the gloves & that Shapiro had told Simpson in advance how to give the appearance that they did not fit. Cochran, you dirty dog, you. In closing arguments, Darden dismissed the notion that police officers might have wanted to frame Simpson. He stated if the LAPD was against Simpson, why hadn’t they arrested him during any of the eight times they were at his residence on domestic violence calls against Brown between 1986 and 1988, & that they only arrested him on charges of abuse in January 1989, when photos of Brown’s face were entered into the record. Clark put emphasis on DNA evidence, the white bronco, the gloves, and eyewitness accounts from the night of the murders. They did admit that Detective Mark Fuhrman was a racist but this in no way effected how he performed his job. During the defense’s closing arguments Cochran would piggy back off claims that Fuhrman was a racist and compare him to Adolf Hitler, and that he framed Simpson based completely off the fact that he did not like interracial relationships.  

The entire world held its breath as the jury deliberated. Fears grew that race riots, similar to the riots in 1992, would erupt across Los Angeles and the rest of the country if Simpson were convicted of the murders. As this all happened shortly after the Rodney King incident. Finally, the media announced that the jury had reached a verdict. A gigantic crowd grew outside the courthouse the day it was to be read, as a result more than 100 police officers were stationed in the area. On October 3, 1995 Orenthal James Simpson was found NOT guilty on both counts of murder. An estimated 100 million people worldwide watched or listened to the verdict announcement. That’s it, this dude got away with cold blooded murder so now he is going to lay low, right? That was not the case, not the case by a long shot. 

In 1996 the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown filed wrongful death suits against Simpson.O.J lost both and had to pay the families for damages.  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? This dude has huge balls, I will give him that. Like those things must be massive for him to say some bullshit like this. What a piece of shit. In April 1998, Simpson did an interview with talk show host Ruby Wax. In an apparent joke, Simpson showed up at her hotel room claiming to have a surprise for her, and suddenly waved a banana about his head, as if it were a knife, and pretended to stab Wax with it. The footage soon made its way onto US television networks, causing outrage. I repeat, what an absolute piece of shit. This is the kicker, in November 2006 Simpson released the infamous “If I Did It” book. In the book he basically admitted to the murder but ya know, double jeopardy & all that. As a result of a 2007 incident in Las Vegas, Nevada regarding an attempt to steal materials Simpson claimed were stolen from him, Simpson was convicted in 2008 of multiple felonies including use of a deadly weapon to commit kidnapping, burglary &armed robbery, he was sentenced to a minimum nine years to a maximum 33 years in prison. Some people believe his sentence was so high as a way to make up for the miscarriage of justice in 1995. On July 20, 2017 Simpson was released on Parole.

Well, we have come to the end of this saga. If you stayed with me up until this moment, I do appreciate it. I know this was a long and tiring one. If you couldn’t tell earlier, I do believe O.J got away with cold blooded murder. I believe he committed both of the murders and got off scot free. When his times comes, he will have to answer to someone for what has done. Who he will answer to is beyond me? But you know what they say, you can’t get away with murder forever.