S01.E09: Manna From Heaven

[tvfanatic13]

Ooh! Now I need to rush home!

[RemoteControlFreak]

For anyone interested, Esquire is showing the original trial all day today.  Fuhrman is on the stand.

Interesting. Just turned on and it's the famous scene with Simpson trying on the glove.  Watching this again, it's obvious that the gloves did fit. They had plenty of room in the palm and the fingers.  Simpson put on a show to make it look like they did not fit and we know how Cochran went to town with that.  Darden and Clark were so out of their league to handle this charade.

Edited April 3, 2016 by RemoteControlFreak

[smiley13]

I will take my comments to the real case thread.

[Kromm]

Interesting. Just turned on and it's the famous scene with Simpson trying on the glove.  Watching this again, it's obvious that the gloves did fit. They had plenty of room in the palm and the fingers.  Simpson put on a show to make it look like they did not fit and we know how Cochran went to town with that.  Darden and Clark so out of their league to handle this charade.

Yeah, and for those not glued to a TV, we can rely on YouTube.  Of course dramatic music has been added behind it (for the documentary this was in), but you get the idea.  There's a lot of hamming it up. Those rubber undergloves.  A lot of finger-tenting during the stage when he's mock-struggling to "pull them on". etc. On TV back then it was probably obvious to those who weren't inflamed by their passions, but in that jury box it probably looked real enough.

 

[Aethera]

Hey folks - let's take this discussion, which has taken a turn away from this episode, to the full case discussion thread, please :)

[ridethemaverick]

Darden wrote an entire book. He blasted the defense, blasted Ito, said justice was not done, and OJ was obviously guilty. His book is called "In Contempt." https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/02/bsp/contempt.html

There is more discussion about this in the book thread.

Yuck. I thought Darden was an intelligent man. That quote says otherwise.

[Ina123]

 

 

 

...  I like Cuba, and I do hope he gets more work from this, but in this series?  He is just so miscast, he's the only clunker.

 

So true. Fine actor. Just horribly miscast.

 

Everyone else is a standout. They all need Emmys.

[psychoticstate]

Yes. The police had always been deferential in their dealings with Simpson, before the murders and after them. To what other murder suspect, black or otherwise, would they give that much leeway in terms of surrendering himself for custody, with this much circumstantial and physical evidence? Read Simpson's conversation with Detective Lange during the Bronco chase, or listen to the audio recording of it.

 

 

Is that what you say when you didn't commit murders but you're being told by law enforcement that there's a ton of evidence pointing at you? Because if there were a frame in place, by that point wouldn't Simpson know it? Would he still think one of the chief detectives on the case was a good guy? 

 

 

Exactly.  I think Simpson's "run" and "suicidal" behavior spoke volumes.  If I were innocent, accused of butchering two people (one of whom was the parent of my children) and had two small children that now needed me there is no way I'd be running but most especially not contemplating suicide.  Simpson should have been angry THEN that he was being accused.  He's allegedly innocent, the police think it's him - - not only is that a horrible besmirching of his character and reputation but they are also wasting time on him while the real killer or killers walk free.  Why wasn't he yelling from the rooftops that he was innocent, ask him anything they want and take him to court, he has nothing to hide?  Instead, he's getting $10G, his passport, a disguise and some clean undies and heading toward the Mexican border. While commending one of the very officers his lawyers would later accuse of misconduct/mishandling/conspiracy for doing his job well and being fair.

[Catherinewriter]

Paulson, Brown, and Schwimmer are just breaking my heart - into three pieces.

 

Not to ignore the real time heartbreak of Fred and Kim and their family, but this series isn't primarily about them.

 

Don't know how we're supposed to get through Tuesday night's final.

 

By the way, commentors keep saying that Clark was out of her league. But previous to Simpson trial, she had won 19 out of 20 cases, so I'm not sure what this means.  

[Shannon L.]

 

By the way, commentors keep saying that Clark was out of her league. But previous to Simpson trial, she had won 19 out of 20 cases, so I'm not sure what this means.

When I think about her being out of her league it's because she wasn't about showmanship like Cocharan was.  He got it and she didn't.  Unfortunately, once she caught on, she just couldn't wrap her mind around it enough to start playing a different game. 

 

One thing that I found very telling was Johnny thinking that his grandeur and reputation would play well down south.  Did it not once cross his mind that he should take it down a notch or two or hand it to Baily from the start?  It makes me cringe that that thought should have ever crossed his mind anywhere in this country, but his whole play in this trial was about racism in Los Angeles and here he was outside a courthouse with a confederate soldier statue and flag flying over it not even considering another option.

[psychoticstate]

By the way, commentors keep saying that Clark was out of her league. But previous to Simpson trial, she had won 19 out of 20 cases, so I'm not sure what this means.

 

 

I don't think she was out of her league so much as not realizing exactly what a circus this would turn into.  The murders themselves had nothing to do with race, so she surely didn't think the case would become about that.  And she clearly had no idea about Fuhrman's background or the suggestion of police corruption/misconduct.

 

Despite her serious error in not listening to the jury consultant, I feel badly for her.  I think she really just wanted justice for Ron and Nicole. 

[ganesh]

I really don't think the best prosecutor in the history of  the USA was going to win this case once the defense team was assembled. The defense essentially had unlimited resources. 

[vibeology]

I agree. The resources available to Clark compared to the defense team were very different. She had a few junior people working with her. After all there were still other cases going on during this trial and the office couldn't just stop to try one case. The Dream team could throw money at anyone they thought could be of assistance and they only ever had one focus.

 

I do think it was problematic that the DAs office didn't have many black prosecutors at Clark's level that they could have put on the case from the beginning rather than add Darden partway through the investigation in an obvious attempt to try to appeal to the mostly black jury, but that's on the history of the office and Garcetti not on Clark or Darden.

 

I also think Clark didn't understand at the start how important those TV cameras would be in shaping the trial. Just because the jury was sequestered didn't mean the news coverage didn't matter. It clearly impacted Ito most of all and some of the witnesses as well. Plus information was still getting to the jury through family visits. Televised trials were not the norm, so again I can't really blame her but it did probably take her too long to shift gears once their impact became clear.

[RHJunkie]

I'm obsessed with this series. I was really young at the time of the actual trial so I haven't seen the real trail footage save for snippets. Why did they make him wear latex gloves when trying on the gloves? It's not like he would have used latex at the time of the murder. And looking at the actual footage (something that Cuba played up in the series), it seemed obvious that he was faking the struggle required to put the gloves on. What I don't understand is that while the jury may have seen him 'struggling' to put it on, the gloves weren't so 'small' that he could not have worn them. And how didn't anyone notice how quickly those gloves were removed? They literally slipped right off of his hands. If leather gloves are too tight, it would also be difficult to remove, even if not as difficult as it was to put on.

[whiporee]

"I agree. The resources available to Clark compared to the defense team were very different. "

She had the entire LAPD for resources. She had the entire power of the state behind her.

Don't feel sorry for the State for lack of resources. Simpson had to pay for everyone they brought in. Clark didn't have to spend a penny.

[vibeology]

The reality is that the State can't spend the same money as a private individual. Simpson was limited by how much he could spend and who was willing to work pro bono for the attention and potential earnings down the road.

 

Every case costs money to bring try. Just because Clark doesn't pay it out of her own pocket doesn't mean that she isn't limited by the budget of her office. The State has a budget set a year in advance by the government. They don't know how many cases there will be or what resources are required; they estimate based on past results. And they have to use that money for all their cases. The DAs office wasn't just trying one case; they probably tried a hundred cases during the Simpson trial. There had never been a case like OJ's before and there simply wasn't the budget available to match lawyer for lawyer. Clark had Darden and a few junior DAs with her. OJ had two tables full of lawyers plus people working out of state weighing in on his case.

[ganesh]

Seriously. The State already spent $6 million and the commish was running for re election. He told Clark that there's no way they could have a mistrial and retry the case. Maybe if he wasn't running for re election it would have been different, but you could easily see Cochran on the news "They spent $6 million of your taxes and couldn't get a conviction. Now they want to spend more?" 

 

Clark couldn't just hire investigators out of nowhere like OJ did. 

Simpson paying and Clark not is a hugely false equivalency. Clark was severely constrained in comparison to the defense. 

[whiporee]

G

Seriously. The State already spent $6 million and the commish was running for re election. He told Clark that there's no way they could have a mistrial and retry the case. Maybe if he wasn't running for re election it would have been different, but you could easily see Cochran on the news "They spent $6 million of your taxes and couldn't get a conviction. Now they want to spend more?"

Clark couldn't just hire investigators out of nowhere like OJ did.

Simpson paying and Clark not is a hugely false equivalency. Clark was severely constrained in comparison to the defense.

The state has police power. They have the ability to arrest you. They have the ability to get warrants and prison and compel testimony. They have guns and cars and an army of paid professionals to investigate. They also have, should they choose to use it, unlimited resources. The fact that they chose not to use it is on them.

If a defense team brings in experts to refute that collected evidence, they are still at a huge disadvantage compared to the state. The fallacy here is in thinking the state in a criminal trial is at some disadvantage in a trial, because they have all the power. All of it. The best a defense team can do is hire people wh know the rules and the game well enough to hold the state to the rules and make sure they've done their jobs well enough to convict.

[helenamonster]

One thing though, why would Clark pay for anything relating to this case? Her job was part of the state's budget. She got paid to try it. Her paying for anything would be like the (unfortunately) many cases of teachers in this country having to pay for their own basic classroom supplies.

 

None of the lawyers on the defense team paid out of their own pockets for any of their resources. They billed Simpson for all of it (though I guess some of them were working pro bono?). Which points to the larger problem of the way this country's legal system is skewed in favor of the wealthy. Not to take the race element out of this case, as it was obviously relevant to the trial, but if Simpson hadn't been wealthy or a celebrity, he would not have had the Dream Team. Even if he'd done moderately well for himself, wasn't famous, didn't have celebrity-level wealth, but had a high-paying yet ordinary job, he might have been able to afford one good attorney but not a whole team of them. And if he hadn't been wealthy in any way...well, I think Chris Rock said it best: "He'd be Orenthal the bus-driving murderer."

 

I will admit that a defense attorney's resources are usually limited to the resources of their defendant. But Simpson could afford more resources than most people.

[psychoticstate]

Which points to the larger problem of the way this country's legal system is skewed in favor of the wealthy. Not to take the race element out of this case, as it was obviously relevant to the trial, but if Simpson hadn't been wealthy or a celebrity, he would not have had the Dream Team. Even if he'd done moderately well for himself, wasn't famous, didn't have celebrity-level wealth, but had a high-paying yet ordinary job, he might have been able to afford one good attorney but not a whole team of them. And if he hadn't been wealthy in any way...well, I think Chris Rock said it best: "He'd be Orenthal the bus-driving murderer."

 

 

Very true.  To me it's like a sports team with an insanely wealthy owner; that team definitely has the advantage to buy better talent.

 

The opposite end of this in the legal world is the West Memphis 3 case.  Had the accused had access to defense attorneys they could pay for, they would NEVER have been convicted.  Not saying their public defense attorneys were poor but they certainly didn't have the resources they needed in order to perform DNA tests and other tests that would have cast doubt on their guilt or proven their innocence. 

 

I also think that Simpson had what I like to call the Celebrity Exception Rule in his favor.  Like it or not, celebrities are treated differently than your average Joe on the street.  He did enjoy a deference before the murders that continued after.  I'm sure that Lange and Vannatter did not routinely conduct interviews with a murder suspect the way they did Simpson's.  They never would have voluntarily concluded the interview after a whopping 30 minutes - -if the suspect is willing to continue to talk, you let him.  And especially one that is freely talking without counsel present. 

 

For whatever reason the public also seems to think that (insert name of celebrity other than Charlie Sheen or Lindsey Lohan here) would never do THAT.  They are given a far greater benefit of the doubt - - the same way that they are given an unsaid expertise on certain subjects (see Tom Cruise before couch jumping or celebrities that are shilling products.) 

[vibeology]

The state has police power. They have the ability to arrest you. They have the ability to get warrants and prison and compel testimony. They have guns and cars and an army of paid professionals to investigate. They also have, should they choose to use it, unlimited resources. The fact that they chose not to use it is on them.

 

This is just not true. Tax dollars are not an unlimited resource. Would you, as a tax payer, be okay with one trial costing $10 million? $20 million? There were 1,669 murders in LA county in 1994. The State is limited by their budget. The police are limited by their budget. The LAPD had to investigate all of those homicides and try to solve those cases. Some, I'm sure were very easy to solve and some took more time. It costs money to pay police officers, it costs money to run police cruisers, it costs money to have police stations and evidence storage, to run DNA tests, to run ballistics test, hold suspects. The police aren't this magical force that can do anything, money be damned. To have a trial the State is picking up the cost of the prosecutors, the judge, the court staff, the building and equipment, to house any sequestered juries, for offices to do the prep work in and on and on. I'm sure the police and the prosecutors would love unlimited resources when investigating and prosecuting a crime, but they do not. They live in the world where budgets exist and salary and bills have to be paid.

 

I'm not going to pretend that the State doesn't have home court advantage. They always do, but its never that simple. Trials like this one are the reason why people talk about a serious disparity between the rich and the poor inside of the justice system. When you have nothing, those State resources absolutely can crush you but when you're rich you are way out ahead of the State. OJ Simpson paid millions of dollars for his defense. He had way more resources available to him and the result was that Clark and the State were outmatched.

Edited April 5, 2016 by vibeology

[whiporee]

You think there's a check Garcetti wouldn't have written to help win this case?

They found the receipt for the gloves by sending two detectives to go through Brown's stuff AGAIN. They could have investigated anything they wanted. Anything legally obtainable was there for them. They brought in jury consultants. They didn't have to pay for DNA experts because they already employed them. And if Garcetti thought something was important they had the ability to pursue it.

Of course they had other cases. But it's not realistic to say they worked this case with severe monetary constraints, because while the defense had to pay for their experts, the state already employed them.

[Crs97]

Does anyone know how much OJ's defense cost?  I would love to know if he outspent the state's $6 million for his trial.

[vibeology]

Depending on who makes the claim, OJ paid $3-6 million dollars for his defense, with around $5 million being an often accepted number. Once the trial was all said and done, the State paid $9 million.  This is a great article about some of the costs from when the trial was going on. It's crazy to think about how quickly that money adds up. In March 1995, the DAs office put in  1,121 hours of overtime on this trial alone.

[starri]

You think there's a check Garcetti wouldn't have written to help win this case?

The man was putting his career ahead of the trial.  And again, he only won reelection by a hairsbreadth.

[ganesh]

If the state racked up 9 million, there's no way they could move for a mistrial and then a re-do. 

[Aethera]

OK we're getting heated again, and we've strayed far from the episode now. 

 

Please take further discussion of how much things cost, and the inequities between prosecution and defense spending, to the Full Case Thread, and take down the intensity a few notches, please!

[Cheyenne]

What a clusterfuck. Or, to use Darden's more court-friendly word, circus. Idk where to even start, except that this all makes for seriously great television.

 

Fucking Ito. Fucking Peggy York, man. Jesus. While watching this episode (and others, but it really stuck out to me in this one), I kept thinking how the outcome of this trial could have been different if even just one thing had changed. If York had been honest and put down that she had known Fuhrman, another judge would have been assigned to the case. Maybe they wouldn't have allowed cameras in a courtroom and it wouldn't have become the spectacle that it did. I know Sarah said in the review that the shot of the court camera and Ito was a little much, but I actually thought it worked. It felt like he was considering less what was his duty as a judge and more of what would make better television.

 

It's incredible (and incredibly sad) how not-outdated the racial aspects of this case are. The protesters. How Cochran would be received by North Carolina judges. This is weird to say but I might feel better about the outcome of this case if it had done anything to improve race relations in this country and force certain institutions to get their shit together, but it didn't.

 

But yeah, I was not familiar with the exact words of the Fuhrman tapes. Holy cow. Whether or not he was lying or it was for a screenplay, it doesn't matter, I don't think. Only someone seriously racist would use the n-word that many times, and with such ease. He was a piece of shit. And he played a huge part in fucking this case up. That's another thing I thought would have led to a different verdict, if the detective who found the glove hadn't been a documented racist.

 

Clark and Darden, man. I enjoy every second that Paulson and Brown are onscreen, no matter what they're doing. But their interactions with each other are electric. Have they ever worked together before? This chemistry, whether it's suggestively romantic or antagonistic, is truly something to behold. And I still shamelessly want them to fuck.

 

Kardashian is Over It. He is Done. He knows.

 

I feel like the episode ending on Clark getting primary custody of her children is leading us towards a resolution for her character where even though she lost the trial of the century and spent months of her life being made a laughingstock on national television, she has her kids and that's all that matters. Which is...a choice I'll let play out (if it even does) before I make a judgement.

 

Marguerite Moreau! I'm surprised we only saw her on camera for half a second. In other threads I know some of us have talked about how we'd like to see this show take on the Manson case, and she played Susan Atkins in the 2004 version of Helter Skelter.

 

I am so bummed that next week is the last episode. I am especially going to miss my new TV boyfriend Sterling.

"That's another thing I thought would have led to a different verdict, if the detective who found the glove hadn't been a documented racist."

 

I seriously doubt it.  That jury was looking for ways to acquit and Fuhrman and Darden handed them to them on a silver platter -- Fuhrman with the tapes and Darden with the gloves.

 

I have zero sympathy for Darden in real life.  To this day he insists that Cochran tampered with the gloves so they wouldn't fit.  In 20 years he hasn't learned a thing.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Cheyenne

[Umbelina]

No, what he said was "they did fit." 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I think that this episode perfectly encapsulated how complicated things got during this case. My loyalties were all over the place while watching. On the one hand, I totally understand Johnnie wanting the tapes to be heard by the public, not just for the case, but as concrete proof of what black people have always known but had not been able to prove. On the other hand, I was like nooooooo to anything that would help OJ's case.

Similarly, I had to give a Nelson-esque HA-HA when the first judge in North Carolina told Johnnie to quit showboating because there weren't any tv cameras around. Finally, someone who didn't put up with Johnnie's self created circus! But then I remembered that the tapes should be heard so that people would know what a racist Fuhrman was. Then I remembered that would help OJ. Ack!

The look on Robert Kardashian's face as OJ was whooping it up about how awesome Johnnie was in court said it all. He knew. But as he said in the previous episode, dropping out now would just make things worse for him, Kris, and the kids. He clearly felt that his only choice was to stick things out until the trial was over.

Hearing only some of the things on those tapes was horrible, and that's me sitting at home on my sofa. I know that doesn't compare to anyone who was actually on the receiving end of his shitty racist attitude.

[Spartan Girl]

On January 29, 2018 at 9:05 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I think that this episode perfectly encapsulated how complicated things got during this case. My loyalties were all over the place while watching. On the one hand, I totally understand Johnnie wanting the tapes to be heard by the public, not just for the case, but as concrete proof of what black people have always known but had not been able to prove. On the other hand, I was like nooooooo to anything that would help OJ's case.

Similarly, I had to give a Nelson-esque HA-HA when the first judge in North Carolina told Johnnie to quit showboating because there weren't any tv cameras around. Finally, someone who didn't put up with Johnnie's self created circus! But then I remembered that the tapes should be heard so that people would know what a racist Fuhrman was. Then I remembered that would help OJ. Ack!

The look on Robert Kardashian's face as OJ was whooping it up about how awesome Johnnie was in court said it all. He knew. But as he said in the previous episode, dropping out now would just make things worse for him, Kris, and the kids. He clearly felt that his only choice was to stick things out until the trial was over.

Hearing only some of the things on those tapes was horrible, and that's me sitting at home on my sofa. I know that doesn't compare to anyone who was actually on the receiving end of his shitty racist attitude.

Just rewatched this, and you summed it up perfectly. My loyalties and sympathies were all over the place.

One of the most amazing things this series did was that it gave me a (grudging) respect for Johnnie Cochran. Regardless of my distaste for his tactics and his personal life, it must be said that he did do good work trying to fight/expose police brutality. It's just too bad he thought getting OJ free would change all that. I said to my friend more than once that we sure could have used him with all the other horrible police brutality incidents going on right now...

As much as I dislike Ito and his double standards regarding women in the workplace, I couldn't help feeling a bit of empathy during his speech about how he loved his wife and hated hearing anything awful about her. That, I think, was genuine. Still should have recused himself.

The prosecution did make some mistakes, so I can't fault the jury for everything. But I still think some of them had their minds made up and overlooked/ignored a lot of the RELEVANT evidence.

And it can't be said enough: fuck you, Mark Fuhrman.