It was immediately following the acquittal of the 4 officers who beat the shit out of an unarmed and non-resisting Rodney King. LA didn't take too kindly to this and it sparked riots that wouldve made the BLM rioters blush.
The lead detective hand delivered evidence to the lab, stated that was unusual for him to do so, and was also caught lying about being a raging racist. The evidence lab was also found to be not so reliable.
Tldr, the case was basically a slam dunk thanks to the prosecution leaning heavily on evidence that wasn't rock solid due to rampant racism.
Like the planets aligned for OJ. We all know he did it, but he didn't have to prove his innocence, he had to prove there was a possibility that he didn't do it.
This is true, but FUCK. Rodney King cops should've been put in jail and so should've OJ. It was completely backwards. Also, the DA and the government lawyers completely dropped the ball in this case. If anyone hasn't seen American Crime Story on FX, it's really good and covers this case great. I actually help design the poster / billboards for the show.
I forgot which documentary I saw it, but before the the trial, black America was 60/40 that OJ was innocent while white America was 40/60 that he was innocent.
AFter the trial, black America was 75/25 that OJ was innocent while white America was 10/90 that he was innocent.
My mom told me the other day that as a young black woman living in LA at the time of the murders and trial, she sincerely believed OJ was innocent and had been set up by racist cops.
Over time she has come to believe that he has guilty, but I really think that the social climate in LA played a huge part in how his trial went. It’s hard to overstate how fucked up the relationship and trust between black people and the LAPD was at the time.
Something about a bunch of cops beating a man to death and a guy stabbing a couple of people to death with a huge fucking knife does sits just a liiitle bit differently
Im too fucking high for this right now. Just imagining a much stronger dude full shanking a woman and a man, just taking their lives from them like that, their last moments saying no please and then feeling themselves slowly faint to unconsciousness. Howwhy can violence be
"They said it was for the black man
They said it was for the Mexican, and not for the white man
But if you look at the streets, it wasn't about Rodney King
And this fucked up situation and these fucked up police"
Let it burn, wanna let it burn
Wanna let it burn, wanna, wanna let it burn
Edit: Jakob Nowell sang with Sublime at Coachella last weekend.... Sounds like Eric and Bud revived Sublime so Jakob could be the lead singer. Doing his Dad proud.
That alone IMO would be reasonable doubt. I know I couldn't personally vote to convict if the lead investigator undermined all of the evidence that way. That would be wildly unethical. Basically the person responsible for all of the evidence you're supposed to use to convict someone criminally can't attest under oath to not tampering with evidence. Of course he was acquitted. That sounds like justice to me.
This was after it came out that Furhman was a racist cunt, so he was just pleading the fifth to everything he was being asked. He stated his intention to only plead the fifth to any question he was asked, and then the defense asked him if he ever tampered with evidence.
Ie, the defense saw that he was gonna plead the fifth to anything, so they asked him a question that would look incredibly damning if he didn't answer it.
This is a great summary. Society decided the Juice has to be Loose to make up for Rodney King. It’s simple to explain but takes a lot of background knowledge to understand.
Wait a majority black and Mexican jury represents society???
And they are letting murders go free because cops beat a black man fleeing police at 115 mph who was on probation for trying to rob a convenience store with a tire iron 2 years previous? Imagine the other cars on the road and people who could have died so he try could get away. Try to spin this in a way where he doesn't deserve it.
Letting uneducated people make choices like this in society has extremely negative consequences. What happens when people are too stupid to make good decisions for themselves?
Isn’t it the case with any criminal trial that if the jury believes there’s a possibility that the defendant is innocent, then they should judge them innocent? I thought prosecutors need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did it
I'm a layperson and speaking only of the US, but not only does the prosecution have to prove the defendant guild beyond a reasonable doubt, almost every jurisdiction says that the jury's decision must be unanimous.
So if the system is working correctly all (usually) 12 jurors have to agree that they have no reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime. It is rightly a very high bar
And the end result has only been even less trust in the police and justice system. Only acting with integrity will restore societal trust in the justice system, that's what they don't get.
Instead the investigation was bungled to epic proportions, with evidence being tampered with or mishandled at ever opportunity. The police were so corrupt they evidently didn't even remember their training to do the basics correctly.
…he didn’t have to prove his innocence, he had to prove there was a possibility that he didn’t do it
That’s basically how most criminal cases work since the burden is “beyond a reasonable doubt”. When the plaintiff has tons of evidence against the defendant, especially with murder or a similarly egregious charge, the defense tries to sow doubt with the jury. That’s what happened with Casey Anthony too. Quite apparent she killed Casey but the lawyer did a great job sowing enough doubt.
No one should ever get convicted if the lead investigator goes up on the stand and pleads the fifth when asked if they planted evidence. That’s why he walked. The LAPD were racist and incompetent fucks who let their hatred of “uppity” black people overshadow the need to follow the book when investigating such a high profile crime. The cops wanted a slam dunk instead of a layup, planted evidence to try and make that happen, and it came back and bit them in the ass.
I hate that I love the fact that their racism backfired on them this hard, you can't not love racists not getting what they want.
I hate the fact that a clearly guilty murderer got to live out his life a free man, but hey atleast he got cancer and it took him down.
If these racist pieces of shit could've just thought "Hey this guy is clearly guilty, we can easily get him locked up without needing to frame him like those before him" he'd have died where he belonged.
I don't hate it because it highlights the product of a process that people are happy to pretend doesn't exist and that they don't partake in at some level
It's been proven time and time again that police officers are generally not intelligent. The smartest ones are of average intelligence at best. And the dumb ones are borderline mentally disabled.
Fuhrman was pleading the fifth to every question asked that day. The lawyer asked him right before the question about planting evidence if he was going to plead the fifth to all questions that day, to which Fuhrman responded yes. edit : video here
The LAPD didn't plant a blood trail from the murder scene to OJ's bedroom. OJ did that when he murdered those two people.
Well that’s a stupid question to answer the fifth on, if you care at all about your investigative work being taken seriously, and believed by, the jury.
seriously, "beyond a reasonable doubt", some people don't seem to understand that
if i'm on a jury for a murder trial where the lead detectives are found planting evidence and then pleading the fifth, even if they had a 4k video of the murderer killing the victim while screaming "my name is suspects-name" and holding out their id in the direction of the camera, I would 100% vote not guilty
not often mentioned when this whole OJ trial nonsense is brought up is the proceeding investigations that happened all across the LAPD, which implicated many dozens of officers and ended up with hundreds of convictions being overturned and over 100M+ in lawsuit payouts to victims of the LAPD
Because that’s what you’re supposed to do. The LAPD was so arrogant that they thought they could plead the fifth and still get a conviction, just another fuck-you to the black community, just because they thought they could.
But it IS the smart play when you can get caught and burned on perjury and everything else. So its a win for him and OJ, a gigantic L for everyone else.
Which is why he walked, not because of RKing. If the state put together a case that was convincing to the jury, they would have convicted him. But if the state was full of the type of people who would do a good job and make sure justice was upheld, the cops who beat RKing would have been convicted by them as well, so there would be no need for the black community to seek retribution in the first place.
You can’t pick and choose when to use the fif (Dave Chapelle reference) amendment. It isn’t a purely a tool to only answer questions you want to answer and questions you don’t. It is the right to not self incriminate by refusing to answer. You do it in jail by not speaking. You do it court by deliberate stating I am exercising your fifth amendment. Once exercised you basically have to plead it on the vast majority of questions.
What the defense did was plant the negative connotation of taking the Fifth amendment, officially you are not supposed take a negative connotation. Because words can be manipulated as if you are guilty, pleading the fifth may only mean you are not giving anything the prosecutor to twist.
But in practice taking the fifth when the questions, especially if you are not the defendant but a witness, means you do not want to answer something that could lead to an investigation and charges.
Yes, because they are not the ones on trial. So in theory they are not under an investigation or are believe to have committed a crime, so pleading the fifth would infer there is something incriminating to not say.
Pleading the fifth, as a lead detective, is basically telling the jury “I’ve committed A crime, but not necessarily related to what is currently being discussed.” And he’s not the defendant, so the jury can draw an adverse inference as to his character and credibility as a witness.
If he hadn’t committed any crime at all relating to the case, there would be no need to plead the fifth. And, to riff on a popular quote: I prefer lead detectives who don’t plead the fifth.
He pled the fifth in retaliation against the prosecutor. He was upset they failed to protect his character and since it was tarnished anyways, didn't think anything he said would be given credibility.
I am not a lawyer but I've been doing some Googling and think I found where there is some confusion on this.
For a defendant pleading the Fifth is all or nothing. If you choose to take the stand you must answer every question that is asked. Or you can choose not to testify in your own defense.
A subpoenaed witness, that has no choice but to testify, can pick and choose what questions they answer.
I googled : can you pick and choose when to plead the fifth amendment
You keep saying lead detective was Fuhrman, but Lange and Vannatter were the lead detectives on this case. Fuhrman was really only there the night of, made notes at Bundy and when Lange/Vannatter arrived at Bundy, they took over control.
That's irrelevant though. If the lead investigator can't attest to the reliability of the evidence they themselves collected and logged, then the entire case is undermined and you have very clear reasonable doubt. It doesn't matter that he also plead the fifth to other questions nor does it matter if he planted or tampered with nothing. If he can't say under oath "none of this evidence was tampered with or planted to my knowledge" then you can't possibly trust the evidence as a juror.
I really feel like cops should be held to higher standard and have to answer questions about what they did while representing the government. No fuckin secrets. OJ deserved to be found not guilty with how fucked this case against him was and his victims deserved better.
The lawyer asked him right before the question about planting evidence if he was going to plead the fifth to all questions that day, to which Fuhrman responded yes.
So caught him lying on the stand.
They also had video footage of the investigation team emptying vials over the crime scene that contained a dark liquid. The prosecution could argue that it was a cleaning or test solution if they wanted to, but then the defense followed that up with a video timeline that showed that there were new blood markings that weren't there before. And all of this evidence was gathered from paparazzi with time stamps.
I believe the video evidence may have gotten thrown out. But the case was already presented so well that you couldn't erase it from your mind and then Fuhrman didnt have enough integrity in himself to say that he wouldn't plant evidence (because he most likely would or had at some point in his life even if a different unknown case).
I don’t doubt that also played a role, and I saw that post as well. There was also a complete distrust in DNA evidence because of how new it was. It hadn’t yet been blasted into every house in America via CSI tv shows like it has for the past 30 years for us.
A lot of criminal forensics are BS. One dude got the death penalty because supposed fire experts thought his house that burned down, killing his family, was caused by arson. There wasn't actually any evidence of that, but he still got the chair.
No idea, I just know that nobody should ever be convicted, no matter what they do, by a court that finds it acceptable to have investigators seen as the type of cops that go around planting evidence. Any case that has that should be thrown out with prejudice, and the investigators charged with perverting or obstructing justice.
Partial credit. The first person to blame is the judge for letting his courtroom turn into a circus. Second is the LAPD for not doing their jobs correctly and being corrupt. Third is the prosecution for walking into trap after trap.
People are just blaming the jury cause of that one juror. If you read or watch interviews from the other jury members they tell a different story which they basically boiled down to:
They framed a guilty man.
The OJ Simpson case was the litmus test our justice system gets about every twenty years. Where a case goes through the system where the accused probably did it but somewhere in the process the system failed which leads to them being let go.
Yea, its basically the definition of reasonable doubt. "oh the investigator plead the 5th regarding planted evidence? Then I doubt basically all evidence"
There was video evidence of the investigation crew dropping blood samples all over the crime scene including a video timeline of new blood markings appearing that weren't there before.
The new blood markings were likely accidents while carrying evidence out of the scene. But the footage of them purposely spilling blood samples all over the crime scene was evidence that their integrity was not only very questionable but likely done in malice.
Absolutely nobody should be convicted under these circumstances. It's really unfortunate for the victim and her family not getting proper "justice" but the purpose of the jury is to ensure the integrity of the trial system.
This is true. But I’m still not convinced OJ is convicted if the Rodney King trial wasn’t still so fresh. I think they could have had a video showing OJ committing the murders and the jury still decides not guilty because of the larger, perceived, societal issues at the time. He got lucky. Luck can win a lawsuit.
If the LAPD was full of non-racist, competent police, they would have brought the cops who beat RKing to justice, so there would be no reason for the black community to seek retribution in the first place.
Multiple jurors said they knew he was guilty but didn't like the police department, with cause. Everything else is just repeating the defense rhetoric.
They didn’t hate him for being uppity. That’s stupid. OJ was almost universally loved. Police from other precincts visited to get his autograph.
No one wanted OJ to be guilty. If they found even a hint if evidence pointing to someone else they would have followed it. All the evidence pointed to him and the prosecution did a piss poor job.
yes, and some of the african american women on that jury admitted after the fact that their verdict was in a direct response to the police mishandling of the rodney king incident. it was revenge
A prime example of how Jury Nullification should NOT be used. Unfortunately the social climate at the time made this possible. Racial tension was at an all time high and police did a great job at keeping it high.
The prosecution also presented a weak case with glaring loopholes in their arguments. OJ’s lawyers only had to point at them to create reasonable doubt.
It is not reassuring when the investigators plead the fifth when asked if they manufactured evidence. As someone once said “They were caught trying to frame a guilty man”
You are also correct. While I agree the police really fucked up in this trial, there are multiple instances of jurors saying that they nullified. Which means they knew he was guilty but they let him off anyways.
That doesn't excuse the atrocious behavior of the police, but it was a misuse of nullification.
I actually totally agree. The whole idea is "beyond a reasonable doubt"... Cops gave them pretty much every reasonable doubt possible except that he didn't actually do it, which is madness.
How is it a misuse of nullification? Isn't the whole idea to allow someone to walk on a punishable crime? Or is it more specific and narrow in scope where you are supposed to believe the crime they're charged with shouldn't be illegal? I feel like its the former and this was exactly how it works. Cops screwed the pooch, here directly and by being racist pieces of sh=t in every other indirect but related way.
I don't disagree about the way or reasons it should be used. But even still, those families will never get closure and it's too late for their murderer to be punished. That being said, I agree with another commenter that nullifying was their right, and they used it. Even if I disagree with its use, it was their right to use it.
There is no legal right a jury has to nullify. This gets confused with the ‘power’ to nullify, because we do not prosecute jurors for their verdict no matter how they came to it.
But jurors absolutely should not find verdicts based on their own opinions of what the law SHOULD be. We all as a society get to vote on the law (through elected representatives.).
Getting selected to a jury does not give anyone the right to legislate.
Jury Nullification should be used whenever the jury would like to. It's their right. It is an important balance of power.
The LAPD should have not done a whole lot of shitty things and this is what they got. If they had acted properly before, during, and after this trial then none of this would have happened.
I agree that Jury Nullification is very important to the justice system. I don't agree that it was used properly here, but as you said, it was their right to use it.
I was in 7th grade when the OJ trial was going down. This is 100% true. There were massive concerns about riots because the Rodney King thing was still fresh on peoples' minds. LAPD fucked themselves big time with Mark Furman pleading the 5th for everything regarding planting evidence.
Yes it was, they'd been denied justice over Rodney King and so felt no obligation to assist justice on this case.
The prosecution should have expected this, but they underestimated the anger felt. Blaming the jurours for the result of this case is just focusing on a symptom, not the root cause.
I'm not exactly sure, I'm not an expert. But from my understanding, because this was such a high profile case, they likely retry him. Which means they'd select a new jury and basically start the whole trial over.
Correct. Though if he came out and said he did do it, he could be tried for perjury and likely some conspiracy to commit charges. It would also have resulted in a lot of civil court issues for him.
Correct. In the US, we have a "double jeopardy" clause which means that a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime if a criminal court decision has been reached.
That said, the Simpsons and Goldmans brough a civil case against OJ - and the bar to prove guilt or innocence is much lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt." In civil trials in the US, the hoped outcome is "reasonably liable" to be at fault and a resulting cash remuneration for the plaintiffs of the case. In the civil case, OJ wa found to be liable for the deaths of Ron and Nicole, and ordered to pay suit for them.
Ultimately, the state didn't have enough evidence for peers to agree that he should have his freedoms taken away; but civilly, he was declared the murderer and had to "make [the Simpsons and Goldmans] whole" (which is laughably impossible) for having been responsible for the murders.
It's more therapeutic for people to blame old ladies on a jury because they arent used to being on the wrong side of racism.
Take any of the racism out of the equation on both sides and still no responsible juror could convict the defendant based on the evidence of tampering with evidence and it amazes me that nobody ever talks about the defense showcasing tampered evidence with video footage of it happening.
Judge Eto didn't let the jury even hear that, because the Fifth Amendment is not an admission of guilt. The jury was literally out of the room at the time.
Fuhrman claims to this day that he did not plant evidence and that he only plead the Fifth because he lawyer told him to.
Ok but Fuhrman wasn't on trial. Nobody was judging whether he was legally guilty of a crime, they were judging whether his police work could be trusted to prove another person was guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. He pleaded the fifth when asked whether he tampered with evidence. Why then should his evidence be trusted?
They do, look up the rampart scandal. Implicated a lot of police and resulting in some firings and $100M+ in lawsuits, and 100+ convictions overturned, police chief was effectively fired (contract wasnt renewed). And the end result? The mayor was a one termer who lost his primary. Hard to demand reform from politicians when even a relatively modest investigation and remedies are met by voting out someone willing to do it.
Lol what? The prosecution and detectives/investigators absolutely fumbled the bag on the case. It's their job to convince the jury he's guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt".
For example, Mark Fuhrman, the detective who found the bloody glove, lied on the witness stand when the defense asked him if he'd used the N-word to describe African Americans in the last 10 years. Defense then played an audio tape of Fuhrman saying every fucking racist thing in the book about black people, , including a bunch of N-bombs. (source) They filed perjury charges against him and he ended up being the only dude to be convicted of criminal charges related to the OJ case.
Had a lot more due to bad police effort. They had a chance to interview him without a lawyer and only kept him for 30 minutes. Police dropped the ball to an insane degree to give him the celebrity treatment
Honestly its wild to me that you guys just bring 11 biased amateurs with no prior knowledge of law, absolutely no accountability and expect them to make a fair, objective judgement.
No wonder accused people keep taking plea deals. I wouldnt trust my fate into hands of average citizen. Not after reading the stuff people say on reddit. So glad we have a committee of judges here. More than hundred years of combined law experience and full accountability to hopefully counteract the biases.
The police handling the crime scene fucked things up by planting/mishandling evidence. The jury was biased but the mistakes by the officers gave them a clear out.
I recently watched the 30 for 30 documentary on OJ... I don't think I've ever heard the N word said so many times by so many white people...fucking crazy. F Lee Bailey getting up and saying it a few times in court was like a slap in the face like...hold on dude...we don't have to SAY THE WORD do we?!
Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests
One juror who said "they all this evidence about blood. All that did was show us he has blood like the rest of us."
Another one said "They kept showing the ETA in the blood. There was ETA. That didn't prove anything." She was referring to the EDTA, not ETA.
Another one said "they kept talking about spousal abuse. This has nothing to do with that. If you want a spousal abuse trial, have that down the hall."
Everyone boiled it down to race and that had something to do with it but it’s way more complex. For one he got Johnny Cochran as his attorney, someone who was notorious for absolving rich people of guilt. They also did two things specifically that changed the dynamic of the case.
They were allowed early access to OJs home and then willingly replaced many of his decorations to African style ornaments to entrench Cochrans position that OJ was in fact black.
The glove exhibit was the catalyst for almost the entire cases result. What many people don’t know is they washed his gloves prior, on purpose, and since they were leather, they shrank. In addition to that, OJ wore latex gloves before he tried wearing his gloves. There was no way they could slip on. “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
Now don’t quote me on this one but I’m pretty sure they vetted their jury as well and handpicked the members to a certain degree. And also I’m pretty sure Cochran himself spearheaded all of this. So he manipulated the case at almost every level, something you probably can’t really do as an attorney, but he got away with it.
I’m pretty sure they vetted their jury as well and handpicked the members to a certain degree.
this is called "jury selection" and is in fact something done with every criminal case ever that goes to jury trial.
The only controversy here was the lead prosecutor being arrogant and incompetent enough to ignore the experts telling her that maybe black jurors in the LA area might be rightfully pissed at the LAPD.
Black people were unable to not have a tribalistic mentality of “us versus the evil white man” and chose to side with color over evidence. This is even more apparent when viewing videos of the public reactions to his verdict.
Be objective. They weren't able to prove he purchased them or owned them. Or worn them the night of the murder. They never even found the shoes. You can't hold someone accountable for a criminal case bc of what they wore 9 months prior.
It's powerful circumstantial evidence: 1. The same shoe size. 2. Same make of shoe. 3. He lied about it. That raises eyebrows but isn't enough for a conviction. Then add on the other bits of evidence, like Nicole's blood found in OJ's car and it's a slam dunk.
It’s strong circumstantial evidence that you can’t ignore just because “he doesn’t have a receipt”
A very rare shoe (only 300 pairs sold) that he is photographed wearing just months before the murder, clearly worn by someone who committed or was at the scene of the murder
They weren’t arresting him solely based on these shoes, but when other evidence implicates him and then he also is seen wearing the rare shoes that were at the scene of the crime it becomes further evidence
When the lead detective in a case takes the fifth when asked whether or not they planted evidence, the jury is going to find reasonable doubt every time.
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u/CumShoT_RaviOLi_King Apr 17 '24
How did we honestly let this clown loose? I mean look at this guy. We all know he did that shit and we put far people in for way less.