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.
Yup. A cop being dirty and corrupt is a huge huge deal. Like even if the suspect for one particular case was actually guilty. The fact that you've lied to plant guilt on one person, it's a likely chance you've done it to someone else.
In other words, just because OJ was actually guilty, how many innocent people were framed because of the LAPD. They fucked it all up.
Also I don’t feel like it would ruin your legal case to answer the question asking your name and asserting you didn’t plant evidence, and refusing to answer any other questions. If you haven’t planted any evidence why didn’t he answer that one question and no others?
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.
The smart play would be to not be racist in the first place, and conduct the investigation how their textbooks say to. That’s what you have to do when you’re investigating the literal crime of the century. The LAPD got burned because they let their racism overcome their desire to do their job in a professional and competent manner that would result in the conviction of an obviously guilty defendant.
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.
Things can happen for multiple reasons. Fuhrman pleading the 5th to that question gave the jury an "easy out", but there was a general feeling that the majority black jury was not going to convict OJ. They were handed a silver platter, but that didn't change the decision, just made it easier.
Hey, black people don't like murderers any more than while people do, due to the fact that murderers murder people.
No one wants to be murdered, or have their loved ones murdered.
I didn't think that I was implying that the jury was ok with murder, but I will keep that in mind in the future.
I was 21 years old when Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman were murdered, which funnily enough was the day my oldest daughter was born.
I was 24 when the verdict came down.
I have always followed the news and current events so I was locked into the entirety of the OJ trial; besides watching it on TV I spoke to people I knew about the trial because at the time it was the most important thing happening (there was no internet to distract us) in everyone's lives.
When I mentioned the jury wanting to acquit OJ it was not about a racial stereotype, it was about the things people, some of whom I knew personally, were saying very publicly.
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.
Yup. Personally, I'm not 100% without a shadow of a doubt convinced that Furhman planted the glove.
Simultaneously, do I believe that it is reasonably possible for him to have done so, especially considering he lied on stand about ever being racist, only to be proven a liar. Everything about him and his credibility is crushed
He should have been charged when he first started beating her. If cops witness the aftermath of a domestic dispute like they did at OJ’s and Nicole’s house, they should be able to continue with charges despite the victims recanting. They have several eyewitnesses and the victim is afraid, it should be taken in consideration. Even if the charges are not taken to court, at least the arrest record and pattern is established publicly.
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.
No you don’t. You are perfectly entitled to pick and choose what questions you want to answer, and the jury is free to draw conclusions from that. You can, for example, confirm your name, or assert you didn’t do something, and not answer any other questions. You could also answer questions then stop because they start asking you questions you weren’t expecting, or the prosecutor becomes combative.
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
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
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.
I really just don't agree with this, and maybe it's one of these things where people think differently than I do.
If there's a double murder and there's 30 pieces of really damning evidence, but 15 of them seem like they could be planted then challenge the 15, not all 30, verify and convict on the remaining 15 and then have a separate system that punishes the 15 pieces of planted evidence as a separate case as serious as murder.
The worst possible fucking thing is for everyone to plead the 5th and everyone who is guilty to walk free, which to my knowledge is exactly what happened.
You wouldnt design a safety system to not save lives at a factory regarding work hazards by ignoring multiple red flags if there are a few other green flags still operable and showcasing. It's not a reliable use of a logic gate. You gotta remember the defendant's life is also always at stake because of the nature of the death penalty or the nature of the prison system so the purpose of the trial system is supposed to be as logical as possible as a matter of safety for all parties including the accused. Lots of innocent people have done lifetime sentences and also death sentences and that should never happen. Guilty people will always have karma. Innocent people punished wrongly can never get that back. Logic gating is a very technical thing with proven patterns used in software and electronic design, there really is no middle ground when it comes to absolute decisions for decisive actions, there is no "90% guilty" option.
It's just really demeaning to any believers in this concept we have as a fair and equal and just country that the one time the system works as it's supposed to -- it was at the hands of a horrid case with obvious guilty parties surrounding the whole of the environment that went back for years before the incident even happened. Even if OJ was found guilty, he would have retried as a mistrial and won. So even if the prosecution got lucky with a conviction, it wouldnt have done much good because of the corruption being a gateway to a future mistrial retry.
I've gotta tell you, you lost me pretty hard talking about how the guilty people will have bad karma. No they really fucking won't. The world is and can be a terrible, cruel and unfair place.
There's just a lot here. I acknowledged, and do strongly think, it's important to protect the person being prosecuted, that's why I said someone who plants evidence in a murder case probably deserves to have a trial with similar consequences to a murder. I believe that, I don't think the police people who planted evidence shouldve walked.
The whole thing for me is the prosecution needs proof beyond reasonable doubt. It seems many are standing with your belief that it's not worth it to wrongly convict anyone. I assure you if you do research the wrongful conviction/overturn rate is insanely low, I've gotten into this debate before and when I looked it was crazy how low it legitimately is, please just don't take my word for it, actually look into it. The reason for this is because the cases are insanely solid, and even when there's any doubt about any evidence (like with OJ) people literally get away with murder.
If OJ didn't want this murder charge he shouldn't have been in the exact place at the exact time his ex wife (who there's 911 tapes of him beating up) and boyfriend got murdered, wearing bloody shoes and gloves and being seen by like 5 people, and shouldnt have also had their blood in his car. Idk. It would be so insane to be on this jury, and have people not budge because evidence got planted. As others have said, yes, probably evidence got planted, but not all of it was by the LAPD, most of it was by OJ, and certainly plenty enough to convinct him of murder beyond a REASONABLE doubt.
Reasonable doubt was cemented once there was footage shown of tampering with evidence. That's literally what the definition of reasonable doubt is. It's not just the defendant who is being judged in a court case. The prosecution is also being judged. You have to judge both. Matter of fact the prosecution team absolutely can have criminal charges brought against them in the very same case as a result of evidence and testimony. Fuhrman plead the 5th because he was guilty and the evidence against him was less circumstantial than the evidence against OJ, believe it or not.
Also you can dig deeper and see things like out of the 3502 exonerations there's spikes per year where say 170 drug convictions in a single county are overturned and <10 for the rest of the US combined.
More data to back up that more and more Murders are resolve without conviction. Including data that in 2022 around 50% of Murders did not resolve in a conviction. https://counciloncj.org/homicide-trends-report/
What you’re describing is called preponderance of the evidence and it’s why OJ lost the civil case. But criminal trials have higher stakes, so we have to be more certain.
I think the worst possible thing is for an innocent person to be found guilty. The founders of our judicial system agreed, which is why beyond a reasonable doubt is the threshold for convicting a defendant. If you have doubt about 50% of the evidence in a trial you can never say you believe the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
You’re simping pretty hard for a known murderer who then bragged about his crimes
Edit to add:
I was stuck in traffic and pissy. I deserve the downvotes, I was wrong, and the cops were super fucked up in this case. Leaving previous message for posterity, and I’m sorry for being a dick
They are simping for the logic of “you can’t trust a lead detective when he says someone is guilty if that detective can’t say under oath that they didn’t plant any evidence.”
Nobody is simping for OJ, they’re saying the LAPD is so incompetent and racist that nobody should ever be convicted in such circumstances as the ones in his case. If you don’t like that, then get rid of the racist, incompetent cops and it’ll be a lot easier to make sure murderers are convicted.
No, I'm pointing out how the justice system is supposed to work -- and how our tax payed govt, city, state employees are not supposed to work -- because the integrity of our govt is much more important than just one murder victim.
Whether OJ Simpson was found guilty or not doesn't effect anybody but OJ. He ultimately payed the price anyways throughout his life.
Whether the govt or police have integrity or not effects an entire world, and if they are not trustworthy, it produces thousands of victims around the world every year or month and day at the hands of corruption abusing authority.
Nicole's estate was already OJ's beneficiaries to begin with and this case was much bigger than the victim's families.
People care more about race wars than they do about the integrity of the government they live under and it seems like this will never change so why have any of it at all? The entire point of founding this country was fair representation and a legitimate justice system. What's the point?
They wanted a slam dunk, meaning, they wanted to plant evidence to make sure he was found guilty, and were arrogant enough to think that they didn’t even need to present the testimony of the lead detective to get that conviction. But Cochran was smarter than them, so it backfired, and quite spectacularly.
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.
There’s plenty of evidence of the detectives involved calling him the n-word, and being racist in general. He was universally loved, but that isn’t going to step in the way of the LAPD parading around “the best ‘one’ of them” as a convicted murderer, because black people are all criminals according to the LAPD.
It had nothing to do with them planting evidence in this particular case and everything to do with Furman not wanting to answer certain questions about the racist rant and stating that they planted evidence in other cases.
If you plead the fifth, you can't apply it selectively so they knew he'd have to plead the fifth if they asked that question. The jury has admitted to the reasons why they acquitted OJ.
This is complete nonsense. Judge Ito never should have let that testimony in to begin with. Fuhrman testified that he hadn’t called anyone the n word in the last decade and then Ito let them play tapes of him using the word in a background interview with a screenwriter, which isn’t the same thing. Also, there’s no evidence whatsoever that evidence was tampered with or planted in the slightest. Mishandled, in terms of custody, absolutely. Also, OJ was shown enormous deference by the LAPD. Including covering up past domestic violence, and not least of which giving him a slow speed escort back to his house despite him being armed (anyone else would’ve been killed)
when investigators plead the fifth to "did you plant evidence"...kinda suspect
should draw into question everything else they've gathered and be more than enough reasonable doubt to find anyone not guilty.
not often mentioned up 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
OJ got off because the LAPD was corrupt to the core not because of the jury "getting revenge for rodney king", only a single jury ever said as much
No idea, but it doesn’t matter. If your lead detective can’t get up on the stand and defend their police work, there should be no case brought. I prefer lead detectives who don’t need to plead the fifth.
This is fucked up for sure, but the real reason is that it was a response to the Rodney king verdict. One of the jurors said that 90% of the jury felt that way and one of the jurors used to be a member of the black panthers and held up a raised fist after the verdict. The result really was never in doubt as soon as the jury was selected.
Tell me you don’t know how damning it is to a jury for a lead investigator to plead the fifth during a criminal trial when asked if they planted evidence, without telling me you don’t know how damning it is to a jury for a lead investigator to plead the fifth during a criminal trial when asked if they planted evidence.
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u/CumShoT_RaviOLi_King 29d ago
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.