Unbelievably, in Clark’s and Darden’s opening and closing arguments, they never said one word, not one word between them, to knock down this core defense argument about Vannatter’s bringing the vial of Simpson’s blood back to Rockingham. They never once even touched on the issue. Once again, the lawyers for the people just took it on the chin without offering any defense or fighting back at all, seemingly telling the defense attorneys, “This courtroom is too small for the two of us, so we’re leaving.” Either they thought that by not mentioning the Vannatter vial problem it would somehow evaporate by itself into thin air, or their lack of preparation was so abysmally and shamefully poor (this is undoubtedly what happened) they never even bothered to jot down, at any time during the trial, that in their summations they obviously had to respond to this charge, and in a powerful way. You only have huge gaps in your argument like this when you’ve devoted virtually no time to its preparation. In any murder case, but particularly one where the prosecutors knew millions of people were going to be watching, this is astonishing.
I would find it hard to believe that any prosecutors, in any previous important and publicized case in America, ever gave arguments (particularly in rebuttal) any worse than those of the prosecutors in this case. I mean, when you get to the point where you don’t even open up your mouth and utter one word on an extremely critical issue, how can it get any worse? Neither Clark nor Darden seemed to have any sense or feel at all for what matters they were supposed to address themselves to in their final summations. It was painful to watch.
“…the case was circumstantial in name only.”:
Because the Simpson case was a “circumstantial evidence” case, the reader’s understanding of the important distinctions between direct and circumstantial evidence is advisable.
Direct evidence is evidence which, if true, proves a fact in issue without the necessity of drawing any inference. Almost by definition, direct evidence can only be given by the testimony of a witness who purports to have actual knowledge of that fact. The majority view is that the only type of direct evidence is eye-witness testimony.
Circumstantial evidence, on the other hand, is evidence which only
tends
to prove a fact in issue by proving a secondary fact. From this secondary fact, an inference can then be drawn that the fact in issue exists. For example, from the secondary fact of seeing a stolen television set in the defendant’s home,
one
reasonable inference is that it was he who stole the set, the identity of the thief being the fact in issue.
All scientific evidence, such as blood and fingerprint evidence, is considered to be circumstantial evidence.
The same evidence can be direct evidence as to one fact, but circumstantial evidence as to another. The witness who testifies to seeing the television set in the defendant’s home is furnishing direct evidence of that specific fact, but only circumstantial evidence that it may have been the defendant who stole the set.
Actually, all evidence, even eye-witness testimony, requires that
some
inference be drawn. When a witness to a robbery testifies he saw the defendant rob the victim, from the secondary fact of the witness’s observation (including the distance, lighting, obstructions, etc.) the jury must still draw the inference that the witness was correct, i.e., that it is not a case of mistaken identity, a not uncommon occurrence.
Arguably, then, it could be said there is no such thing as direct evidence. But if the only inference sought is that the fact testified to is true (as opposed to circumstantial evidence, where the inference sought is that some
other
fact is true), then the evidence is still deemed to be direct evidence.
Some of the occupations of the Simpson jurors:
The foreperson of the jury, a contracts administrator, was the 1990 Los Angeles County employee of the year. Two of the twelve were retired, the other ten being gainfully employed, with diverse jobs ranging from mail carrier and truck driver to computer repair, environmental health specialist, and handling insurance claims.
DNA
tests put Simpson’s blood at the crime scene:
It should be noted that for the preliminary hearing prior to the trial, one of the blood drops at the crime scene which was later identified by
DNA
tests as Simpson’s was also subjected to conventional serological (blood serum) tests, and it had Simpson’s blood type (A, the same as Nicole’s; Goldman’s was type O) and, more specifically, enzyme breakdown, characteristics shared by fewer than one-half of 1 percent of the population—0.43 percent, around one out of 233 people. That is, 99.57 percent of the population was excluded.
“That’s what 999 out of 1,000 guilty defendants say”:
When I say “guilty defendants” in reference to defendants who haven’t yet been convicted, theoretical purists might say I am prejudging the accused, and that a person cannot be considered guilty of a crime unless brought to trial and found so by a judge or jury. But under that argument, Adolf Hitler never committed any crimes, Jack the Ripper never committed any crimes, and the only crime Al Capone ever committed was income tax evasion. Obviously, if a person, for instance, robs a bank, he is guilty of having robbed a bank, irrespective of whether or not the prosecution can prove this fact to the satisfaction of the jury. A legal verdict of “not guilty” doesn’t change the reality of what he did.
Simpson is paid $3 million for video declaring his innocence:
In the video, he asserts that he has lost more than the families of the victims. He says to the Brown and Goldman families: “I lost more than you did. I lost a person that I loved…. And I’ve lost my ability…to provide for the people around me.”
“All that endures is character”:
Simpson has given every outward indication that (apart from his continuing legal problems) he is enjoying life just as much as he would have if he hadn’t committed the murders. During a celebrity golf tournament in the Bahamas in April 1996, he laughingly told reporters: “I’ve never had so much sugar in all my life. I’ve got lipstick all over me.” People have asked me if one possible reason for Simpson’s apparently not being troubled at all by what he did is that he’s in such massive denial he no longer thinks he committed these murders. I’m disinclined to be a park bench psychologist. Moreover, this book is about facts, not speculation. But if I were to speculate, I’d reject this scenario out of hand. To accept it would be to believe Simpson is at present clinically insane about the murders, that he has lost all contact with reality. That, to me, is just too farfetched to believe. My personal belief is that the reason he can say “in terms of these murders, I feel at peace with myself” (a remark he made to students in May 1996 at Oxford University in England) is that he doesn’t think he did anything wrong, the classic state of mind of a sociopath. Nicole said or did something to him which, in his perverse mind, justified his killing her. In other words, she’s a bitch and she had it coming. We know, in fact, that during the slow-speed chase, Simpson told his mother on the Bronco’s cellular phone “It was all her fault, Ma.” (See Chapter IV, for further discussion of this statement of Simpson’s to his mother.) If Simpson indeed, has no conscience over having murdered Ron and Nicole, then the only gift I’d like him to receive in the future
is
a conscience, so he’ll at least suffer for what he did.
If Simpson were innocent, he would have testified:
An instance where it would be difficult for an innocent defendant to testify would be if he has been previously convicted, several times, of the very same offense, such as robbery or rape, for which he is presently on trial. Even if his own lawyer never elicited this fact, under the law it could properly be brought out on cross-examination.
The “in the air” phenomenon was even present in the courtroom:
For example, Richard Rubin, an important prosecution witness who testified that the bloody gloves were identical to those manufactured by his company (another witness said Nicole had bought the gloves, obviously as a Christmas gift for Simpson), walked over to Simpson’s table after he left the stand and proceeded to shake his hand and wish him good luck—right in front of the jury.
“[Simpson] was being given special treatment at the Los Angeles County Jail”:
As reported by
Los Angeles Times
reporter Ralph Frammolino in a December 1994 article, Simpson, unlike any other inmate, was allowed unlimited noncontact visits with his girlfriend Paula Barbieri and others. “The deference shown to Simpson,” Frammolino writes, “even extends to the attitude of the guards, who, according to a defense attorney who asked not to be identified, are normally aggressive with other inmates but are ‘very solicitous of O.J., almost to the point of toadying.’”
There’s a myth in our society that criminal defense attorneys on big cases are brilliant, great, etc.:
The myth does not hold for prosecutors, however, who normally aren’t even referred to as attorneys. The lawyer representing the defendant is called the defense
attorney
. The lawyer representing the people normally is simply referred to as the prosecutor. In fact, for far too many years the stereotype of the prosecutor has been either that of a right-wing, law-and-order type intent on winning convictions at any cost, or a stumbling, fumbling Hamilton Burger, forever trying innocent people who are saved at the last minute by the foxy maneuvering of a Perry Mason fighting for justice. Not only is this pure bunk, but ninety-five times out of a hundred the defendant is not innocent, and the prosecutor is the one on the white horse fighting for justice.
A civil jury returned an award against Kim Basinger for $8.1 million:
Without Weitzman handling the appeal, the judgment was later overturned on a legal technicality, not a substantive matter, and the case was set to be retried when it was settled for $3.8 million.
Simpson’s lawyer, Howard Weitzman, claims police told him if he were present there would be no interview of Simpson:
Detective Tom Lange told me, “Here’s what happened. When we got down to Parker Center, Weitzman and Skip Taft [Simpson’s business lawyer] went into a room alone with Simpson for around half an hour. When they came out of the room, Weitzman said, ‘He’s ready, go ahead and talk to him. Just tape-record everything. We’re going to get a bite to eat. We’ll be back.’” Lange said he actually invited Weitzman to be present during the interrogation, but Weitzman declined. “Howie is now trying to cover his ass,” Lange said.
Media covering Simpson case did not know this was Shapiro’s first murder trial:
A reporter for the
Los Angeles Daily Journal
, a legal publication, told me she had made an effort to find any murder case Shapiro had tried, and was unsuccessful. This reporter did not cover the Simpson trial.
Johnnie Cochran joins defense team in July of 1994:
Prior to the Simpson case, neither Shapiro nor Cochran was known outside of Los Angeles, and even in Los Angeles, other than in legal circles (and Cochran in the black community), you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who had ever heard of either of them. Cochran got some brief media exposure on the Michael Jackson civil case, but not nearly enough to make a lasting impression on the general population. Bonnie Erbe, legal reporter for the Mutual Radio Network, said on the Jesse Jackson television show on March 25, 1995: “Three, six months ago, nobody knew who Cochran was, basically. I’m a lawyer. I cover legal issues, and I’d never heard of him. Now he’s a celebrity.”
Reporters don’t ask Cochran for proof he had ever won a murder case before a jury:
However, a researcher for a writer doing a piece on lawyers for
Playboy
magazine did ask Cochran. He told me he has made no less than five written requests to Cochran for the name of just one murder case prior to the Simpson case that Cochran had won before a jury. Although Cochran has provided all types of background information on himself for the article, he has not yet provided the requested information.
Media was dead serious about Simpson’s lawyers being the “Dream Team”:
Although I am very harsh on the media in this book, I am obviously speaking in generalities. Actually, most reporters are quite intelligent, but if there’s one thing you can count on with the media, it’s their doing a minimum of thinking. Their philosophy seems to be “I came, I saw, I concurred.” There are certainly some perceptive and reflective members of the media, but they are the small exception to the rule, and I wish there were more of them.
The opinion-makers “rarely know their posteriors from a hole in the ground”:
From the tone of my remarks in this book, I’m sure it’s very obvious to the reader by now how upset I am with incompetence and the lack of common sense in life. If I can sum up the reason in a few words it’s that these characteristics are not benign. They are responsible for much, if not most, of the great problems, misery, and injustice in the world. The example we’re dealing with in this book is the not-guilty verdict in the Simpson case.
“…Shapiro’s alleged disapproval”:
As those who followed the case know, there was a severe schism between Shapiro and the other defense attorneys after the verdict. Shapiro, alluding to Cochran, said: “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.” Stung, Cochran responded that “we did not realize the damage it would do to his [Shapiro’s] ego not to be lead attorney.”
Defense suggests
LAPD
conspirators “planted and tampered with the blood evidence”:
The principal suspicious thing which caused Lee to say, in broken English, “something wrong,” to wit, the transfer stains, wasn’t suspicious at all. Contemporaneous with these transfer stains from the blood drop swatches (Item 47), some of the swatches of Nicole’s blood (Item 42) taken from the pool of blood around her body also leaked, on the very same day at the
LAPD
lab, onto the paper of the separate bindle enclosing them. Since no one would be crazy enough to believe that the
LAPD
, for no reason whatsoever, would be planting Nicole’s blood in the crime lab, we know there was a perfectly innocent explanation for the transfer stains on the other bindle, too.