deerstalker

For starters, there was the Rampart Scandal: These are some thoughts on the early decades of the LAPD: https://www.laprogressive.com/the-racist-legacy-of-the-lapd/

I think this is where Marcia Clark is delusional. If you are hinging your entire case on the eyewitness testimony of the limo driver, and saying your entire theory of the case flows from there, asking the jury to put a man in jail potentially for the rest of his life, then that eyewitness better damn well be correct in his recollections. If he can't remember the small number of cars in the driveway, and is instead relying on police evidence, and parroting back incorrect information, how is your entire theory of the case not then blown? It was an unforced error on the prosecution's part, one of many. If you are going to coach your witness, make sure you are coaching them with the right information. But at that point, why would a jury trust his testimony. This wasn't a small thing, it was pretty much everything, because you staked the entire theory of your case on his testimony in your pitch to the jury.

It's not a matter of "if." The LAPD is on the record for routinely framing black and Hispanic suspects, planting evidence, and perjuring themselves on the stand in cases involving minority suspects. Cochran did not run with some crazy, wild-eyed theory, this is what the LAPD was well-known for. They seem to have zeroed in on OJ as a suspect very early on in the case, the detectives rushing from the blood-soaked scene of the crime to OJ's estate, jumping over walls to gain entry (and potentially cross-contaminating both scenes in the process). I think if the LAPD was routinely framing people for decades, and not being challenged on it, they had no reason to think that the OJ case would be any different than any of the others they had framed. Indeed, his case made a huge overhaul of both the crime lab and police crime scene procedures necessary, as the case exposed huge deficiencies in both. There is absolutely no way a detective should be walking around with a vial of the suspect's blood at both crime scenes. And given the fact that once again, you have a detective who has to plead the 5th when asked if he planted evidence in this case, you have more than enough reasonable doubt in my opinion. I think you have to be bending over backwards to give every benefit of the doubt to the prosecution to see it any other way. And that's not how it is supposed to work. I was reading an article with one of the jurors from the case. She said the deliberations were very brief, because the original vote was 10-2 to acquit, but what the show fudged, the two "guilty" voters refused to identify themselves, and they refused to discuss why they voted guilty. She said that everyone agreed that the state's forensic evidence was unreliable, especially in light of Fuhrman pleading the 5th. They did look at the limo driver's testimony that the prosecution was using to discredit OJ's alibi. He testified that that when he arrived, the Bronco wasn't there, but when he checked later, the Bronco had appeared. But the defense did a simple, no drama discrediting of his testimony and reliability. He had testified that there were two other vehicles (besides the missing Bronco) also in the driveway that night. But there should have only been one (OJ's daughter Arlene was out, but returned later on.) The prosecution had been coaching him using pictures taken that night, after the daughter had returned. Once again, an unforced error on the prosecution's part. After that, the jury felt confident there was more than enough space to find reasonable doubt.

What if you don't have a plausible alternative explanation? Sometimes the only defense is, "well, it wasn't me!" I'm thinking about the Chandra Levy case, where much hay was made about the Congressman that she had an affair with before she disappeared. The only thing he had going was, he didn't know what happened to her, but he had nothing to do with it. Her body was found years later off the running trail, and a man with a history of attacking women along this trail was implicated. But what if the DC police had taken it upon themselves to make sure that the Congressman, whom everyone was quite sure was guilty, paid for his crimes? Or the Central Park 5, who also had no plausible theory about who might have attacked the jogger, but only knew that it wasn't them? This is why the burden of proof is on the state to prove that defendant actually did do t, rather than the defendant having to prove that he is innocent of the crime. The burden of proof, and the stakes are much, much lower in a civil trial. In a civil trial, it is not a "beyond a reasonable doubt", but merely a "preponderance of the evidence", basically just slightly more likely than not. I don't think the two trials are comparable at all. The plaintiffs also had the benefit of public sentiment being strongly against OJ by that time, the judge ruled that Fuhrman did not have to testify, and he excluded a lot of the evidence showing that the evidence was mishandled, ruling it "too speculative." It was not substantially the same defense, in my opinion, and even if it was, the legal analysis for that defense is not the same.

Except that we have no evidence of that. The members of the jury who were interviewed have stated that in the beginning they leaned in the "Oj is guilty" mindset. But as the defense advanced the case, especially showing how the evidence was contaminated and mishandled, they did not think that the case was proved beyond a reasonable doubt. While they felt Cochran was very entertaining, the most persuasive lawyer, by far, was Scheck. I don't know if the defense's case was some insane conspiracy theory, when in fact, it we have seen time and time again that police and crime labs have done in thousands of cases, in LA and elsewhere, exactly what the defense has accused them of doing in OJ's case. The pressure to win this case must have been enormous. And the pressure to make sure the results match the prosecutor's theory of the case must have also been enormous. But the defense brought up many valid questions regarding the evidence, and the only answers the prosecutor's side could really give was a "just trust on this.". But the jury did not give the prosecution the benefit of the doubt in this area. Nor should they. The benefit of the doubt legally belongs to the defense.

Yes but the state can't rely on Occam's Razor. The burden of proof is upon them, to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that OJ committed those murders that he was accused of. The state felt they had enough physical and forensic evidence to show that. But the defense managed to raise some very credible doubts about the veracity and trustworthiness of the physical and forensic evidence. After that, the state could only show that OJ had motive. They could not show means, as they never found the knife. They tried to show opportunity, but gave themselves a very narrow window in which the murders had to have occurred. The eyewitnesses that they provided to discredit OJ's alibi appeared too flaky to trust (Kato, and Clark did herself no favors by treating him as if he were a stupid child), or contradicted his own testimony (the limo driver). Motive alone is not enough. The state has an affirmative responsibility to show that OJ actually committed those crimes. They could not do so. Crime labs and police officers have been getting dinged all over the country, time and again, for falsifying evidence, and we are not talking about isolated instances here, but thousands upon thousands of cases, some high-profile, but many others just your run-of-the-mill drug cases. Once the police have zeroed n on a suspect, it is apparently routine for the police/crime labs/prosecutors to ignore/fudge/sway evidence in the direction of convicting that person. The sad thing is, I don't think it was a grand conspiracy against OJ in particular, it was just another day at the office for most of them. The blood preservative they were never able to explain, the control samples with the victim's blood already mixed in, the sock where they "discovered" weeks later had a large bloodstain on it that pooled to the other side, almost as if no one was wearing it when blood was applied, the bloodstains on the fence appearing, with a fresh blood sample on them, weeks later, the bloody glove being walked from one crime scene to the other, etc. all raised some serious doubts about both the police work and the crime lab work. And then on top of all the points the defense raised about the forensic evidence, you have one of the detectives forced to take the 5th on whether he planted evidence in this case. It honestly doesn't get much more of a slam dunk case on reasonable doubt than that. OJ did not have to provide alternatives to who did it and why they might have done so. It is on the state to show that it was OJ that committed the crime. They could not do it, not with most of the evidence they had directly linking him to the crime being so thoroughly discredited. After that, all you have are inferences and logical leaps. And that should not be enough to convict someone of murder, not beyond a reasonable doubt. The state asked the jury to trust them on the evidence, while the defense showed that time and again, the state has behaved in a very untrustworthy manner in regards to the evidence. The jury was not dumb, they reached an imminently logical conclusion. If the state can't even show a case that is good enough, under normal circumstances, to make past a motion for preliminary dismissal without the discredited forensic evidence, what is there to debate or deliberate over?

Outside of the lab work, and the stuff "found" by the detectives, there really isn't any case at all. The cut on OJ's finger knuckle was very tiny indeed, here is a pic so anyone can judge for themselves. http://interactives-origin.wiat.com/photomojo/gallery/12714/238028/the-o.j.-simpson-case/cut-finger/

I think the problem is that you pretty much have to throw out most of the forensic evidence as either being unreliable, contaminated, or planted. You can't have your control sample of your suspect also containing the blood of the victims and ask the jury to rely on you as being trustworthy on absolutely anything else. Something is clearly wrong with your lab, either intentionally, or unintentionally fudging the results. So we don't know, if in fact, any of the blood samples truly matched Simpson or not, if all we have are the lab's say-so on this. And after that, what's left? Simpson's domestic violence history, which in and of itself is not enough for a conviction, and some timeline witnesses who contradict themselves and/or seem unreliable, and a tiny cut on Simpson's finger, which anyone of us might have on any day. Altogether, it was not even being close enough to convict.

I think it is not only possible, but highly likely that at least some of the evidence was planted by the LAPD. The defense did a good job of showing that much. We have seen time and time again that crime labs across the country falsify evidence to bolster the prosecution's case. I don't see why that is hard to believe that this is what happened here. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/csi-is-a-lie/390897/ There is absolutely no way to know who else might have done it. It was clear that Nicole was into the party scene, and that she knew some crappy people. Simpson's son has also often been offered up as a possible suspect, though I don't believe that as much either. It could have been a random crime, someone else Nicole might have been dating at the time, or even someone that Goldman may have pissed off. There is a whole world of psychos out there that do crappy things to people.

Ah, but you assume all these things happened on the night of the murder. The defense casts doubt on the idea that this "conspiracy" happened all at once. First, you do have detectives who were at one crime scene awash with blood going to a second scene, and probably contaminating the second scene, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Then you have the detectives continually "discovering" evidence even weeks later (like the blood on the back fence), after it was quite clear that Simpson was the suspect. Then you have Fuhrman discovering things like the blood in the Bronco, which would have been difficult indeed to do, given the amount of blood, and the angle at which the blood was found. After that, you have a lab who was probably under some pressure to make sure the samples matched the prosecution narrative. Whether they intentionally botched the evidence, or just grossly mishandled it, the results were the same, there was a lot of cross-contamination between all the samples, and some rather suspicious circumstances for some of the samples. Even rather recently crime labs everywhere, including the FBI's (!), have come under fire, and there have been some prosecutions, relating to the fact that they have falsified evidence to make prosecutions' cases stronger. They see themselves aligned with the police/prosecutors. Simpson's case was one of he first cases where the lab work in such instances was given a close look, and it turns out the results are not pretty. As I've said before, they defense did not have to prove the police planted evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. They merely had to show that it was plausible that it could have happened. They did so, quite masterfully in my estimation. As to the question of the "real killer", if it wasn't OJ (which I am about 60%-70% sure it was), then who is to say that the "real killer" left anything at all behind? And if s/he did, why wouldn't the police repress any "stray" evidence that takes away from who they believe really did it? Look at some of Scheck's Innocence Project cases. In most of them, you will find, time and again, evidence of police and prosecutorial misconduct where once they have honed in on a suspect anything that doesn't fit the narrative is repressed, withheld, and/or discarded.

So we have an LAPD that has been shown routinely framing minority suspects. We have a police detective who has to take the 5th when asked if he planted evidence in this case. We have a defense team lawyer who is an expert on DNA, and who shows that Simpson's, Nicole's, and Goldman's blood have already been mixed together in the comparison vial. That a percentage of Simpson's blood taken for comparison was "missing". That some of the evidence miraculously turns up weeks after the murders, but not in the original photographs, that some of the evidence spent the night over at detective's houses, and that blood taken from Simpson, instead of being logged immediately and taken to the lab, was driven over to the crime scene instead. Remember, the defense does not have to prove the "planted evidence" theory beyond a reasonable doubt. They just have to show that it was plausible. Even without all of the fine job Scheck did of doing just that, Fuhrman pleading the 5th would have been more than enough to provide plausibility.

I think the defense did a masterful job at showing that the LAPD "goosed" some of the evidence, whch I thnk the police tend to do as a matter of routine and convenience. It's just very rare that anyone has the resources to call them out on it. I think that anyone who thinks that the police framing OJ is wildly implausible, especially in light of LAPD's Rampart Scandal, where they uncovered hundreds of cases of LA police officers framing minority suspects, has willful naiveté. The truth is, the defense poked holes in pretty much all the forensic evidence, and much of the eyewitness testimony. They showed that the comparison blood vial, which was supposed to contain only Simpson's blood, also contained Nicole's and Goldman's blood as well. How can you trust anything the lab reports after that? They showed that the bloodstain on the fence, was not "discovered" until weeks after the murders, did not appear in any of the photographs that night, and curiously, was not anywhere close to being degraded as it should have been after being outside for weeks. Many of the blood samples that were supposed to have been taken that matched Simpson contained a preservative that was only added when blood is taken for lab work. And coincidentally, a portion of Simpson's blood that was taken for lab work was "missing/mislogged" by authorities. Add to that, one of your lead detectives has to plead the 5th when he is asked whether or not he has planted evidence in this case. For me the puzzle is why people think there was not reasonable doubt in this case. After Fuhrman pleads the 5th, that's pretty much it. It's hard not to clearly see that if a major part of the defense strategy is that the police planted evidence to frame your suspect, and you have an officer heavily involved in the case basically admitting such, your defendant is going to walk, pretty much 100% of the time, no matter who your defendant is. Why would any reasonable jury ignore that?

I think that the problem is that they didn't necessarily have to decide that night to frame OJ, or to frame OJ because he was black. I think the defense successfully showed that there was some indication that at least some of the evidence was probably planted and fudged by the police department (the missing blood from OJ's vial, the "miraculously appearing bloodstains weeks later on the gate, the sock with blood soaked all the way to other side, as if blood was put on it when no one was wearing it, preservatives in the bllod samples, etc) and more was mishandled. Once they knew that OJ was the suspect, evidence could basically be "backdated" by the lab and officers to fit within that narrative. Keep in mind that OJ probably did it, so some of that evidence was actually probably true evidence. But which ones? Once the police take it upon themselves to start framing a guilty man, all the evidence should be looked at quite skeptically. The jury reached the correct verdict. It sucks, but that is the way the jury system is set up in the United States. It's just a shame that more people cannot afford the high-powered lawyers that can competently point out the flaws that poorer defendants routinely have to put up with.

"Investigators took three weeks to collect samples from blood on the rear gate of the condominium where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered last June, a detective testified Wednesday. The lapse was one of several that Detective Tom Lange acknowledged under cross-examination as O.J. Simpson's lead trial attorney, Johnnie Cochran, continued his attempt to depict the investigators as bunglers."

From the link several posts above: O.J. Simpson's Blood Was Planted on the Back Gate. Most of the blood samples from the crime scene were collected on June 13, 1994, the day after the murders; but the three blood stains on the rear gate were not collected until July 3, 1994. According to the prosecution account, these stains were simply missed during the initial collection and were only noticed later. According to the defense account, these stains were not collected the day after the crime because they were not there at that time. The defense offered a powerful piece of evidence to support the planting theory. A photograph taken the day after the crime shows no blood in the area of the rear gate where the largest and most prominent stain was later found. Barry Scheck introduced this photo during his cross-examination of criminalist Dennis Fung. After displaying a photograph of the stains that Fung collected on July 3, Scheck then showed the photograph of the rear gate taken on June 13. In one of the more memorable moments of the trial, Scheck pointed to the area where the largest stain should have been and demanded, "Where is it, Mr. Fung?" Mr. Fung had no answer, nor was Scheck's question ever answered by the prosecution. The defense argued that the planting theory was consistent with the quantity and condition of the DNA in the samples from the rear gate. The other samples collected at the crime scene, including those from the front gate, were highly degraded and contained little typeable DNA. By contrast, the samples from the back gate contained high concentrations of undegraded DNA. The defense argued that these samples should have been somewhat degraded had they been exposed to the environment for three weeks before being collected. The planting theory was also supported by the FBI tests, which showed evidence of EDTA in the samples from the back gate.

The defense timeline theorizes that a large portion of the DNA evidence matching Simpson happened after they has already zeroed in on him as a suspect. The blood from the sock and back gates were not "discovered" until weeks after the murders. Blood matching the victims from the Bronco was also not discovered until weeks later as well. The vial with the sample of Simpson's blood was mysteriously missing a portion of the blood. And the defense argued that what was no intentional was incompetence. The cross-contamination of having the same detectives go from one crime scene, to a potential suspect's house, has to be pretty huge, and is reason enough to cause doubt about the veracity of any evidence found all by itself. If we are to take them at face value as to why they made that decision, I understand. But the prosecution's case was screwed from there.

This article gives a very detailed overview of the defense's takedown of the DNA evidence, and the outline of the allegations of a police conspiracy and/or incompetence in the case. I think those allegations, combined with Fuhrman's taking the 5th, and the glove not fitting all give rise to more than reasonable doubt. It is clear that that if there was not an outright conspiracy to plant evidence, at the very least there was a large amount of bad protocols and cross-contamination going on, enough to cast a bad light on all the evidence. ...The Bundy Blood Drops and Rockingham Glove Were Contaminated with Simpson's DNA at the LAPD Laboratory. LAPD criminalist Collin Yamauchi admitted that he spilled some of Simpson's blood from a reference vial while working in the evidence processing room and that shortly thereafter he handled the Rockingham glove and the cotton swatches containing the blood from the Bundy drops. The defense proposed that some of Simpson's blood was inadvertently transferred to these evidentiary samples, perhaps on Yamauchi's gloves or instruments... ....The defense argued that the pattern of the DNA test results fits neatly with the cross-contamination theory. The quantity of DNA found on the evidentiary items was small enough to be consistent with such an inadvertent transfer. On the glove, the allele matching Simpson was found in samples from the wrist notch, in an area where Yamauchi wrote his initials, and nowhere else. In the blood swatches, the quantity of DNA consistent with Simpson declined in the order in which Yamauchi handled them - that is, the first sample he handled had the most DNA, and the later samples contained much less DNA. To bolster further the cross-contamination theory, the defense presented evidence of sloppiness in the LAPD's handling of samples prior to DNA testing. The criminalists were poorly trained with respect to sample handling, were not following a written protocol, did not understand the purpose and importance of precautionary measures, such as changing gloves, and made serious errors even when attempting to demonstrate proper sample collection and handling techniques. Defense expert Dr. John Gerdes, who reviewed DNA test results at the LAPD laboratory during the year prior to the Simpson case, found a history of serious contamination problems that he attributed largely to cross-contamination of DNA due to poor sample handling procedures. Dr. Gerdes also found startling evidence of cross-contamination in the DNA test results of the Simpson case itself: it appeared that the reference vials containing the blood of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were contaminated with the DNA of O.J. Simpson! Extra alleles consistent with O.J. Simpson's appeared when the victims' blood was typed both at the LAPD laboratory and at two other laboratories to which the same vials were later sent... ...After they were used to collect blood at the crime scene, the Bundy swatches were sealed in plastic bags and stored in a truck. At the end of the day, they were returned to the LAPD crime laboratory and left in test tubes overnight to dry. The next morning, criminalist Andrea Mazzola packaged the dried swatches in paper bindles. In a pretrial hearing about two months thereafter, Mazzola testified that she had placed her initials on each of the bindles. When defense experts examined the bindles containing the Bundy swatches, they made two startling discoveries: none of the bindles bore Mazzola's initials, n14 but some bore what renowned criminalist and defense expert Dr. Henry Lee later characterized as wet transfer stains - the sort of stains that would be produced by contact with swatches that were wet with blood. These observations led Dr. Lee to a memorable conclusion: "something is wrong." The Bundy swatches should not have been wet when they were placed in the bindles, the defense argued. According to laboratory notes, the swatches had been allowed to air-dry in open test tubes for fourteen hours before they were placed in the bindles. Dr. Lee testified that the swatches should have been completely dry within three hours. A study produced by the prosecution stated that swatches dry within fifty-five minutes. The defense suggested that one of the detectives took blood from Simpson's reference tube, created swatches, and then stored the swatches in plastic bags until an opportunity arose to substitute them for the Bundy swatches (perhaps substituting the bindles as well). The tell-tale wet transfers occurred because the detective failed to allow the swatches to dry adequately after removing them from the plastic bags. The defense was able to establish, through cross-examination of the prosecution's experts, that LAPD detectives are trained in the collection of blood samples; detectives have swatches and plastic bags for that purpose and often submit blood swatches to the laboratory. Moreover, the lead detectives in the Simpson case had access to the laboratory. Lead detective Philip Vannatter also had access to Simpson's blood. Blood was drawn from Simpson by Thano Peratis, a nurse employed by the LAPD, the day after the crime. Peratis placed the tube of Simpson's blood in an unsealed envelope and gave it to detective Vannatter. The defense established that LAPD policy calls for evidence of this sort to be booked immediately, and that Vannatter could have booked it within minutes at either of two locations. But he did not do so. Instead, he kept Simpson's blood with him for at least several hours and, by his account, drove across the city with it to Simpson's residence, where he gave it to LAPD criminalist Dennis Fung. Whether Vannatter's account is accepted or not, the defense argued, it is clear that he had sole possession of Simpson's blood tube long enough to have removed blood and made some swatches had he chosen to do so. Furthermore, blood was missing from Simpson's reference tube. Nurse Thano Peratis testified at a preliminary hearing that he had drawn eight milliliters (ml.) of blood from Simpson. Under close questioning, he expressed confidence that the amount was between 7.9 and 8.1 ml. n21 However, records in the LAPD Crime Laboratory indicated that the tube had contained only 6.5 ml. when it was received by the laboratory. The prosecution responded that Peratis must have been mistaken about how much blood was drawn.

I don't think it was limited to Fuhrman. I do think the LAPD did (does?) routinely plant/fudge evidence in the interest of hurrying a case along and making it more solid. This was just another day for them. And usually, no one comments on it, so they can get away with being sloppy. Simpson could just afford to hire the best there was, so they could show the points at which the tampering could have occurred. Basically, the police framed a guilty man. And because the police goosed the evidence, the prosecutors were unable to counter the inference that *all* the evidence should be considered tainted. And rightfully so, I think. The police aren't supposed to get the benefit of the doubt, that is supposed to go to the defendant.

I think the jury made the correct decision, and I don't think the prosecution bungled the case. The investigation was pretty much a nonstarter by the time it got handed over to the prosecution. If the case was going to be proved by DNA evidence, Scheck absolutely destroyed and obscured the prosecution's case. He raised questions about their handling of the evidence, missing blood, lab preservatives in the blood that they found, and cross-contamination (all without really denying that the blood found was OJ's). Cochran raised the specter of police misconduct for the physical evidence, where his part of the case revolved around the police planting evidence, mostly due to racial animosity against OJ. So it was beyond fortuitous to have a tape of the lead detective, who found a lot of the physical evidence, on tape...admitting to planting evidence, hating black people in general, and interracial couples specifically. When this same detective takes the 5th (under the advice of his lawyer) chooses to take the 5th when asked if has planted evidence in *this* case, well, I think you have more than enough for reasonable doubt. It's as simple as "garbage in, garbage out." You probably don't need to deliberate for very long at that point. The defense raised valid points regarding the evidence at every step of the way. I do think race does belong in this case, if the defense's argument is that a virulently racist cop planted evidence against the defendant. The defense was considered a bit crazy and outlandish at the time, but in light of the Rampart Scandal, perhaps they were not too far off. The LAPD Rampart scandal refers to widespread corruption in the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) anti-gang unit of the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division in the late 1990s. More than 70 police officers either assigned to or associated with the Rampart CRASH unit were implicated in some form of misconduct, making it one of the most widespread cases of documented police misconduct in United States history, responsible for a long list of offenses including unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of false evidence, frameups, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury, and the covering up of evidence of these activities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal

A criminal defendant on the stand must assert a blanket 5th Amendment right, or have it deemed waived. But Fuhrman was not the defendant here, OJ was. He could have, if he so chose, answered questions selectively, only refusing to answer questions which may have implicated him. The fact that he asserted his 5th Amendments rights on the question of whether or not he planted evidence is pretty damning, but in light of the subsequent Rampart Scandal, not very surprising. At a criminal trial, it is not only the defendant who enjoys the Fifth Amendment right not to testify. Witnesses who are called to the witness stand can refuse to answer certain questions if answering would implicate them in any type of criminal activity (not limited to the case being tried). Witnesses (as well as defendants) in organized crime trials often plead the Fifth, for instance. But unlike defendants, witnesses who assert this right may do so selectively and do not waive their rights the moment they begin answering questions. Also, unlike defendants, witnesses may be forced by law to testify (typically by subpoena). http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-rights/fifth-amendment-right-against-self-incrimination.html