In other words, argue to the jury:
“The five drops of blood at the murder scene as well as the blood on the rear gate
just happen
[“Is it just a coincidence that…” phrasing could also be used in the following litany] to be Mr. Simpson’s; the killer’s size-12 shoes
just happen
to be the defendant’s shoe size; only 299 pairs of these size-12, rare, Italian-made Bruno Magli shoes were ever distributed in the United States in 1991 and 1992, and were sold in only forty stores in the entire country, one of which is Bloomingdale’s in New York, and we know that Mr. Simpson
just happens
to have been a regular customer at Bloomingdale’s during this same period, buying size-12 dress and casual shoes there; the glove left at the murder scene
just happens
to be the same, identical type Nicole bought for Mr. Simpson at Bloomingdale’s in December of 1990, one of only two hundred pairs like them sold throughout the whole country that year; in photos and videos of Simpson broadcasting
NFL
games from January of 1991 through 1994, he
just happens
to be wearing these same, highly distinctive gloves; the two gloves found at Bundy and Rockingham are size extra-large, which
just happens
to be Simpson’s glove size; shortly after hearing two men arguing at the crime scene, Robert Heidstra, a defense witness no less,
just happens
to have seen a white utility vehicle—which he said could very well have been a Ford Bronco—rapidly leaving the area where the murders were committed; these murders
just happen
to have occurred on the same day Nicole rejected Mr. Simpson’s company at the dance recital, and he was unable to reach his girlfriend, Paula Barbieri, all day, suggesting a rejection by her, also; Mr. Simpson
just happens
to have beaten Nicole severely in the past, to the point where she was in fear of her life and told people he was going to kill her; Mr. Simpson
just happens
to have cut himself very badly around the very same time of the murders; he
just happens
to have cut himself on his left hand, and we know the killer most likely got cut on his left hand, because his left glove was found at the murder scene and four out of the five blood drops were just to the left of his bloody shoe prints; dark-blue cotton fibers, the same color and material as the sweatsuit Simpson was wearing on the night of the murders,
just happen
to have been found on Ron Goldman’s shirt; nine hairs with the same microscopic characteristics as Mr. Simpson’s
just happen
to have been found inside the dark knit cap found at the feet of Ron Goldman; another of these same hairs just happens to have been found on Ron Goldman’s shirt; a fiber with the same microscopic characteristics and rose-beige color as those from the carpet of Mr. Simpson’s Bronco also just happens to have been found on the knit cap discovered at the murder scene; Nicole’s and Ron’s blood
just happens
to have been found inside Mr. Simpson’s Bronco; Nicole’s blood
just happens
to have been found on socks of Mr. Simpson’s found on the floor in his bedroom, and Mr. Simpson’s blood
just happens
to have been found on one of the socks; a bloody glove matching the glove found at the murder scene
just happens
to have been found on the defendant’s property within hours of the murders; Ron’s, Nicole’s, and Mr. Simpson’s blood, as well as hairs with the same microscopic characteristics as Ron’s and Nicole’s, and a fiber matching those from the carpet of Mr. Simpson’s Bronco,
just happen
to have been found on this glove; it
just so happens
that at the same time Kato Kaelin walked outside his guest house with a flashlight to investigate the source of the three thumps on his wall, the limo driver, who saw Kaelin searching the grounds, also saw Mr. Simpson coming from the same general direction of where the thumps were heard, and saw him enter the front door of his home; of the 392 exhibits the defense introduced at this trial, it
just so happens
that the gloves Nicole bought Mr. Simpson, which we know are identical to the evidence gloves in this case, the dark-blue cotton sweatsuit that Kato Kaelin saw him wearing less than an hour before the murders, and the little black bag which Mr. Simpson insisted Kato Kaelin not pick up to put in the limo about to depart for the airport, have never been seen again and were not among the exhibits; even though the temperature around 11:00 to 11:30 p.m. on the evening of June 12, 1994, in the area between Brentwood and
LAX
was in the high fifties or low sixties, a cool evening, and even though the air conditioner was on in the limo, Mr. Simpson
just happens
to have been sweating and very hot, complaining two or three times to the limo driver about the heat; two plastic bags
just happen
to have been missing from the hotel room in Chicago where Mr. Simpson stayed for a few hours on the morning after the murders; of the twenty-four hours of the day on June 12, the only one of those twenty-four hours that the defendant, Mr. Simpson, couldn’t provide an alibi for
just happens
to have been the hour in which these murders occurred. [And so on with at least ten or fifteen other items of circumstantial evidence pointing to Simpson’s guilt that obviously were not coincidences.]
“At what point do these things stop being a coincidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? When you folks, as intelligent human beings using your common sense, say to yourself: ‘Aw, c’mon, you’ve got to be kidding. It’s ridiculous to suggest all of these things are just an incredible coincidence. That’s not life as we know it.’
That’s
when all this circumstantial evidence stops being a coincidence. When you people, as intelligent, sensible human beings—and that’s why we selected you folks for this jury—say to the defense attorneys in this case, ‘Let’s stop living in a fantasy world and come back to earth.’
“When a person is innocent of a crime, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, chances are there isn’t going to be anything whatsoever pointing toward his guilt. Chances are there will be nothing. But now and then, because of the very nature of life and the unaccountability of certain things, maybe one thing, in rare situations maybe even two things, will peculiarly point toward his guilt even though he is innocent. And in highly unusual and virtually unheard-of situations, maybe even three things will point to his guilt, even though he is innocent. But ladies and gentleman of the jury, in this case, everything, everything, points to this man’s guilt. Not only does the physical, scientific evidence in this case conclusively prove this defendant’s guilt, but virtually everything he said and did points irresistibly to his guilt. We’ve set forth for you a staggering number of pieces of evidence that point to this man, and this man alone, as the murderer of these two precious human beings. Under these circumstances, it is not humanly possible for him to be innocent. If O. J. Simpson didn’t commit these murders, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, then the two victims in this case are still alive.”
If anyone reading this book is saying to himself or herself, “How could it be possible for the performance of the prosecutors in this case to have been as poor and defective as Mr. Bugliosi says it was?” don’t make the mistake of then concluding that it must not have been, because that would be an assumption on your part without any evidence to support it. The point is, very unfortunately for justice in this case, that it was this bad, and if there is any doubt that I am telling you the truth, order a copy of the transcript of their arguments from the court reporter, or get a copy of the video of their arguments, and you’ll see. I mean, when the prosecution spends more time in their summation to the jury talking about Ronald Shipp than the defense’s claim of a police conspiracy, does anything else have to be said?
Going on, the prosecutors did make the argument that the brutality of the murders showed they were personal, the killer having a rage and passion against Nicole, as the evidence showed Simpson did, and that the killings were not, therefore, committed by a professional hit man or some stranger. And Darden argued: “Who in the past has ever raised a hand to this woman? Who during the days and the hours leading to her death was upset with her? Who had a score to settle with Nicole?” But these few words were far, far too brief a statement on such a major point. And Marcia Clark’s very short argument to the jury—“Who else would know when the children were going to be in bed? Who else would know the perfect time to attack and get Nicole without the children being in the way?”—fails to address the issue of who else would have had any
reason
to commit these murders. It is also a poor question since in its language it excludes far too little of the rest of the world as possible killers.
On the critical issue of excluding all other possible killers, I believe the prosecutors should have argued that point in much more depth and much more powerfully. The following is an abbreviated version of an argument that could have been made on this issue.
“I’m sure you folks recall that in Mr. Cochran’s summation to you, when he said that Mark Fuhrman should have been booted off the police force a long time ago, he said that you, the jury, by your verdict, should stop the Mark Fuhrmans of the world and the cover-up for him by others. Then he said, ‘If you don’t stop it,
then who
?’ But there’s no evidence at all that Mark Fuhrman did anything wrong in this case for anyone to cover up for. And even if there were, the only job you folks have to do in this case—and you of course know this—is to determine whether we’ve proved Mr. Simpson’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Your job is not to try to change the police or society by your verdict. No jury, in any case, has such a duty. Not only don’t you have such a duty, and not only would it be a violation of your oath to try to take on such a duty, but any verdict by you in this case would be incapable of materially changing society as we know it.
“So rather than the wholly improper question by Mr. Cochran, ‘If you don’t stop it,
then who
?’ let’s ask a much more proper question, one that you, as jurors, should definitely be thinking about. To paraphrase Mr. Cochran, ‘If Mr. Simpson didn’t commit these murders,
then who
?’
Who else
would have had any reason to commit these murders? We know Mr. Simpson beat his wife severely, to the point of the photos you saw where poor Nicole’s face is swollen and black and blue. To the point where she had to call the police
nine
times during their marriage. To the point where she was in fear of her life at his hands. Recall her crying out to Officer Edwards, ‘He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me.’ People, even those who are getting a beating, don’t normally use words like that. You only use those words when you sense it’s going to really happen. I ask again,
who else
would have had the motive to kill these two young people? We know from the evidence that both Ron and Nicole were apparently well-liked and fun-loving young people in the prime of their lives—Nicole was only thirty-five, Ron just twenty-five. What is the likelihood that someone they knew would have had a reason to kill either one of them, much less both of them, and particularly in such a savage and brutal way?
“And we know it wasn’t a burglar or robber, because there was no burglary or robbery. These aren’t the type of murders that burglars or robbers commit anyway. And it’s clear the murders weren’t done by a professional hit man. Who in the lives of these young people would have had any reason to hire someone to kill either one of them? And contract killings almost always are with a gun—they are quick and not messy. These murders, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, bear the unmistakable signature of a killer who was intimately involved with at least one of the victims. The vicious knife thrusts were born out of angry and wild passion, not just an intent to get a job done for some third party. I ask you once again to ask yourself this question back in the jury room—
who else
had any reason at all to kill Ron and Nicole, particularly in this way? There is simply no one except O. J. Simpson, the defendant in this case.
“And you know, one thing we know about the defense team in this case. We know they had all the money they needed to defend this man. There was testimony that one of their witnesses, Dr. Baden, who was on the stand for only a few days, was paid in excess of one hundred thousand dollars by the defense in this case. I don’t know about any of you folks, but I don’t even make that much money in a whole year. So we know that money was no object in their defense of Mr. Simpson. A large staff of lawyers and assistants, private investigators, you name it, they had it. And they had to know that the very best defense to these murders was to prove that someone else committed them. And you know, you just know they’ve been scouring every nook and cranny of this city and elsewhere to see if they could put the hat on someone else for these murders. They even set up an 800 number begging for any scrap of evidence they could find pointing to someone else. We also know the defense has the power of subpoena, and we’ve seen they weren’t hesitant about calling witnesses to that stand when they wanted to prove a point. Yet consider this. After all these months and all the money expended on Mr. Simpson’s defense, they never offered one witness, one speck of evidence that anyone, anyone other than their client, committed these murders. And the reason they didn’t is that no such witness, no such evidence, existed.
Epilogue
T
he Simpson case raised a number of fascinating and important issues that do not fit neatly into the organization of this book. I could, of course, just stop now and leave well enough alone; but the various questions and considerations that make up this epilogue have come up in countless conversations I’ve had, and also on television or radio call-in shows focusing on the Simpson case. It is my hope that any reader who has stuck with me this far will find what follows both interesting and provocative.