deerstalker

All the Supes aren’t sterile. Mesmer has a daughter, and Translucent had a son that was mentioned. So probably just Homelander. I dont think Stillwell is dead, nor did Homelander replace the baby back upstairs. He whispered something in Stillwell’s ear to make her relax, and after that they seemed to be overtly acting. I don’t know all of Homelander’s powers, but this seemed a little too pat for me.

I think Luke deliberately exposed himself and baby Nichole, in the hope that word would trickle to June that the baby is safe with him, and loved. I’m not sure that the baby ending up with Luke really implicates June. They “know” that Emily kidnapped the baby, and that Emily knows June. Once she escaped to Canada, why wouldn’t the baby eventually find its way to June’s husband? June’s knowledge or help is not needed for that to occur.

Exactly. I’ve been to watch cases at the Supreme Court. They confiscate everyone’s phones. They don’t want recordings getting out, or someone’s wayward phone ringing while oral arguments are going on, among other things. So that part was quite realistic.

I taut makes sense if Olivia thought he would kill all of her friends the same way. Yes, she would then be the “permanent loser” but she might find that preferable to all of her friends being killed. She knows her father would have set several things in motion to happen in the event of his death. So rather than risk it, she gives him his bones back.

I think that is very unfair to the jury, and making a lot of unwarranted assumptions about their decision making process based on the racial make up of the jury. Would it be fair to say that a jury of all whites would have voted to convict Simpson, no matter how much the defense showed that evidence was planted/mishandled/contaminated? Black juries convict black defendants all the time. It is not a noteworthy thing for a jury to do. But if you have a detective who is known for making racial epithets and boasting about planting evidence on minority suspects, and this detective just so happens to find key evidence on your minority defendant, it would be legal malpractice for a defense attorney not to point this out. It would also a key factor for a jury to consider, I would hope, whether they were black or white. And if you find that so much of the components of the prosecutions case does not hold up scrutiny, where their witnesses are forced to contradict themselves, explain missing pieces of evidence, the sudden appearance of damning pieces of evidence with no explanation, excuse botched procedure and sloppy police work, at what point does it become reasonable doubt? Because for me, at the first firm indication that the state has either falsified evidence, or hopelessly corrupted it and tried to cya, that's enough reasonable doubt for me. The state's hands must be completely clean for me to vote to convict someone. And it is obvious that the state's hands were quite dirty in this case. I do think too much has been made over the fist pump gesture by that one juror. From reading what the other jurors had to say, it doesn't appear that he had much affect on the deliberations (such as they were). After listening to what the people on both sides had to say for about a year, ten people on the jury all had the same conclusion. The other two people would not identify themselves during the deliberation period, nor make a case for conviction. After some discussion of the (few) parts of the case that did not involve any government actors, in which they found that the witness contradicted himself, on the next vote everyone was unanimous. I remember watching the case at the time, and listening to people's commentary, and feeling a little incredulous that people were so surprised at this result. I guess back then it was a little more unthinkable for some people to believe that police planted evidence and that lab technicians would corrupt/falsify results to ensure convictions. But in the intervening decades, after reading and seeing so many police departments being caught actually planting evidence, and so many convictions being vacated because labs (including the FBI lab!) were caught routinely falsifying evidence, or not even bothering to run tests and just saying that they had, all in an effort to ensure convictions, I don't see why it is still so unthinkable.

Nicole and Ron were beyond punishing. And trials should not be about victim's families seeking retribution. They should be about weighing the guilt or innocence of the defendant, with a presentation of the facts against the defendant by the prosecution, and a refutation of those facts by the defense. If at the end, the jury believes that there is some doubt as to whether the defendant committed the crime, even if they think he probably did it, then they must find the defendant not guilty. Here are the instructions for the jury in this case: Also, if the circumstantial evidence as to any particular count is susceptible of two reasonable interpretations, one of which points to the defendant's guilt, and the other to his innocence, you must adopt that interpretation which points to the defendant's innocence and reject that interpretation which points to his guilt. If, on the other hand, one interpretation of such evidence appears to you to be reasonable, and the other interpretation to be unreasonable, you must accept the reasonable interpretation and reject the unreasonable. ****************** A witness who is willfully false in one material part of his or her testimony, is to be distrusted in others. You may reject the whole testimony of a witness who has willfully testified falsely as to a material point unless, from all the evidence, you believe the probability of truth favors his or her testimony and other particulars. ******************* Reasonable doubt is defined as follows. It is not a mere possible doubt, because everything relating to human affairs is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. It is that state of the case which, after the entire comparison and consideration of all the evidence, leaves the minds of the jurors in that condition that they cannot say they feel an abiding conviction of the truth of the charge. The prosecution has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt each element of the crimes charged in the information and that the defendant was the perpetrator of any such charged crimes. The defendant is not required to prove himself innocent or to prove that any other person committed the crimes charged. I don't think the jury "punished" the LAPD for mistakes and past malfeasance. They simply had no prior confidence in them (as what technically should be the case in a trial, but so rarely is), so the prosecution actually had to do the work and prove the case, and each piece of evidence. And while doing that, it became clear to not just the jury, but people following along, that there were a lot of botched procedures, cross-contamination, and lying on the witness stand in the state's case, even setting aside the very solid possibility of falsification of evidence. Why should a jury convict under those circumstances? The state must prove its case. When it's shown that your agents are willing to lie, that they did not follow protocols so their results cannot be trusted, and that they have missing and magically appearing evidence, that allows a lot of room for doubt. The jury decision was not about "punishing" the LAPD. I think some people get angry/upset that the jury did not give the LAPD/prosecution the deference that is normally afforded them in cases, and acted as a truly neutral party. If I am to trust your lab work, then your lab cannot show cross-contamination. It cannot show that the defendant's blood is already been mixed in with the control vials of the victim's. It cannot show that swatches taken at the scene have a lab technician's initials, but the same supposed swatches shown later for testing do not have these initials You cannot have "mislogged" the amount of blood that you have taken from the defendant. You cannot have recorded and photographed a tear in the finger of a hotly disputed glove, and yet have the same glove examined later not have a tear, and then that same glove not fit the defendant. How much confidence should anyone have in a lab under those circumstances like that? Nor can a jury trust the word of detectives who must plead the 5th, or other detectives who think it is appropriate to take key pieces of evidence home with them, or be given a sample of the defendant's blood, and rather than logging it in, stroll around both crimes scenes with it, for no particular reason. I don't think refusing to accept unquestioningly the findings of the state is the same as "putting the LAPD on trial." There were some real verifiable questions raised by the defense that pointed to shenanigans not with the LAPD in general, or with their past misdeeds, but with both the LAPD and the crime lab in this case in particular.

I will state at the outset that I believe that Simpson probably did it. But "probably" is not good enough to convict someone, especially in light of police/crime lab malfeasance. And as far as the rare items go, if we know that Nicole and Simpson were still hooking up post divorce, why wouldn't Simpson still have clothing items left over at Nicole's apartment, including shoes and gloves? I know I still have some items from my exes hanging around, even years later. If that is the case, then it requires nothing more than the police already grabbing items at hand. And the problem is when the evidence strongly supports that the police already planted in one instance in the case, why would any other instance be unthinkable? I always wondered why Simpson would choose a pair of expensive dress shoes to go murdering in. And the gloves, well there enough shenanigans around those items that was already brought up in the original trial. That's the thing once the state is basically caught fiddling around and falsifying evidence. It opens up to a whole new world of possibilities. Which is why you can't find for conviction. "If this is so, then why not this?" It is on the state to be a completely straight shooter with the evidence, in all ways possible. We are trusting them with the power to take away someone's freedom or someone's life, based on the say-so and actions of its agents. If we give them this power, our trust that the process is uncorrupted must be complete. If they have not fulfilled their end of this bargain, then we must acquit. Otherwise, why have trials at all? Just a kangaroo court sham to make citizens feel better? Sometimes this results in a guilty man going free. So be it. Our system of democracy depends on citizens being the check against state abuse of its power, state incompetence, and state overreach.

I think even if the lab made some key, critical errors, but I don't think those errors were intentional, I would probably still discount much, if not all of the lab work. Some of these errors would include cross-contamination of the evidence, where the control vials of blood already had both the suspects and the defendant's blood in them, "mislogging" the amount of blood you have taken from a suspect, and keeping blood evidence in a hot car. How can you trust the accuracy and precision of the test results from this lab if they have already shown themselves not to be accurate or precise? If I am asking Allan Park about bananas, and he happens to get the number of cars in the driveway wrong, I might still be able to trust him on the subject of bananas. If I ask him about the number of cars he saw that night, and he gets the number of cars he saw that night wrong, I am probably not going to give much weight to the number of cars he says he saw that night. I can still probably believe his testimony regarding his own arrival and departure, especially since that is backed up by independent third-party evidence. Most attorneys are average, or adequate. That' how averages work. I think most attorneys, especially your run of the mill criminal defense attorneys, are slammed with clients, and if each and every one demanded a trial, could not ever possibly hope to represent them all (the same for prosecutors too). They have a vested interest in making sure a case settles quickly and quietly, especially if their clientele is middle-class or lower. Those clients simply can't afford a trial and expert witnesses at all, especially of the type and caliber that OJ could afford. Scheck et al simply tore about the DNA evidence, collection handling, and chain of custody. Many of the jurors cite Scheck, not Cochran, as the person who made them doubt the state's case, and believe that the defense's theory that some of the evidence was planted could actually hold some water. I think the defense's contention was that the original swatches were too degraded to be used at all, precisely because they were put in the hot car. The defense further suggested that those samples were switched out at a later date for other samples. The lab tech who collected the swatches put her initials on each swatch. Video taken at the scene confirmed that she followed this protocol. The swatches tested did not have any initials on them, and the blood on them was not put on the swatches in accordance with normal procedure. The prosecution did not really even bother to try to explain what happened there.

Yes, as a juror, I could cherry pick what evidence I think was planted, and what I thought was "real" evidence. But logically, why should I? If I think any evidence has been planted by an agent of the state, and/or the lab results tainted or corrupted by the state, I'm finding the defendant not guilty. The state is supposed to be neutral party, using only real facts at its disposal, not putting a thumb on the scale of justice and fudging results. If they have been found to lie about even one piece of evidence, then all of their evidence becomes suspect. If they were caught falsifying this one piece of evidence, what else did they falsify, and just not happen to get caught? At that point, it is all tainted. The state has enormous resources at its disposal, and as a juror, I have to trust that they are garnering those resources against the right person. Legally the state does not get the benefit of the doubt, not one bit, in recognition of this power imbalance. So yes, at the point where I have reason to believe that the state has falsified some, or even one, piece of evidence, you have introduced enough reasonable doubt to find the defendant not guilty. Which is how our whole legal system is set up. The bar for reasonable doubt is extremely low, and based on the idea that it is better to let ten guilty man go free, than one innocent man go to prison (not the other way around). If you find yourself having to handwave perjury and falsifying evidence on the prosecution's side, you are trying too hard, and ignoring the whole concept of reasonable doubt. And that, I think, is most lawyers, unfortunately. We are spoiled by too many tv shows, seeing extraordinary lawyers doing extraordinary things. Most are in the barely adequate range, and are compleely overwhelmed with the amount of cases they have, and are usually very cozy with the police and prosecutors, who they depend on to give them good deals for their clients. So it is a small wonder that almost all criminal cases end in a plea deal. It is in absolutely everyone's interest for it to (except the client's sometimes, but they are a cog in the wheel). The Dream Team were some of the best of the best, putting on a masterclass for reasonable doubt. Most of the police and prosecutors would have never run into even one such lawyer in their lifetime to poke holes in their stories and cases, let alone a whole team of them. Which is why , quite frankly, their falsification efforts were so sloppy. Blood on the sock weeks later? The magically disappearing tear on the gloves? The blood on the back gate that the detective spontaneously finds, and decides to test weeks after? But why not, if you have never been called out on such shenanigans before?

But you are trusting the word and the integrity of the LAPD and crime lab when it comes to how they came by the evidence, and their results from the evidence. Once it has been shown that you cannot take them at their word on some pieces of evidence, or even just one piece, why should they have your trust on the other pieces of evidence either? The defense could have still introduced the DNA evidence. It would have been extraordinarily stupid for them to have done so, but they could have done it. I think if the prosecution had only introduced the circumstantial evidence, OJ would have still walked. Remember, before he was "evil OJ", he was the guy who did not get cast as the Terminator, because producers thought people found him way too likable to be believable as a killer. The prosecution had to hang their hat on the DNA to try to get a conviction. But it came back around to bite them in the end. Very few people before OJ had the resources to challenge DNA results and evidence collection. Keep in mind that 95% of cases are plea-bargained, not tried in court. And defendants are much more likely to want to plead when confronted with a mountain of "irrefutable" DNA evidence against him. Just going by common sense and playing the odds, OJ should have probably pled guilty. I don't know what his thought process was that he decided not to. But whatever it was, he was correct.

The socks were examined three times, by both the defense and prosecutor's teams, and neither one of them found any blood. Somehow, on the fourth attempt, there was a rather large (comparatively speaking) amount of blood on the sock, in a weird drip pattern indicating that it was flat when blood was applied to the sock. The theory at the time was that it was not looking very good for the Rockingham bloody glove to be admitted as evidence, as it might have been ruled that there was no probable cause to jump the fence. So the sock was someone's idea of "backup insurance" just in case that scenario played out. These are very minute amounts of blood. If you are planting evidence, you want enough to be testable and make him guilty. Buuut...just in case someone unexpected pops out of the woodwork in the meantime and confesses to the crime, you don't want a slaughterhouse scene in there that would make prosecuting this other person difficult either. The bloody glove at Rockingham is interesting. In the beginning, prosecutors insisted that it had a cut along the ring finger, in the exact spot that OJ's hand was cut. And the photograph taken at the time certainly looks that way to me. Which would have been pretty damning evidence. Yet the gloves presented in the case had no cuts/tears, and the prosecution insisted that the tear seen in the pictures was just debris in the picture. But the lab tech, who saw the gloves live, noted the tear when he logged it in, but on the stand reversed himself, and admitted that he was mistaken, that it was debris. Which I can see, perhaps, on a photograph, but I do think it is hard to mix up debris and a tear in real life. I wonder what was going on there?

Shapiro, at the very least, definitely tried the gloves on: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Mason_moment "During a break, Robert Shapiro, one of Simpson's attorneys, picked them up and tried them on himself. They fit tightly, and he doubted that they would fit Simpson since his client's hands were much larger."

I don't know. Sloppy work and cross-contamination would have made it Simpson's sample appear in places, either by accident or design, where it shouldn't. They found traces of OJ's blood in both the Nicole and Goldman's control blood vials. At that point, how can you trust the accuracy of anything the lab is asserting? The lab technician admitted he spilled some of OJ's blood in the lab before he handled the bloody glove and Bundy swatches. And correspondingly, the amount of Simpson DNA found on the swatches went down in the order in which he handled the swatches. The blood collector at the scene made the swatches, and put her initials on each swatch before sealing them and sending them to the lab. The swatches that were later examined did not contain any initials. I don't think it takes much to look askance at the DNA evidence. And if you buy, even for a second, that the police or lab "helped" some of the DNA evidence along, then the natural question becomes, what else did they "help" along in this case?

Perhaps, but that's hardly reassuring either way, correct? "We didn't deliberately plant evidence. We merely cross-contaminated it! Please accept our findings, based on our assertions of precision and accuracy. Thanks!" If I am the defense attorney, I would instruct my client to make certain indeed that the jury saw that the gloves did not fit. Make sure there is no room for doubt about the issue. Or "ham it up", as they would say. You exaggerate how hard it is to put on, you wave the too-small gloves around making sure they see it, etc. Plus your client is probably relieved that the gloves do not, in fact, fit. Of course you make it very obvious. Why wouldn't you?

I'm pretty sure the gloves truly did not fit, for whatever reason. Shapiro and Cochrane both tried on the gloves beforehand. Their hands were much smaller than OJ's, and it did not fit them. That's why they were relatively serene about Darden calling OJ up there to try on the gloves. OJ may have been hamming up the fact that they didn't fit, as well he should if he hoped to get acquitted, but I think most agree that the gloves were indeed too small for OJ's hands.