Posted on 09/09/2012 5:37:20 AM PDT by Uncle Chip
Nearly seventeen years ago, former NFL star and actor O.J. Simpson was shockingly acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her friend.
But now a district attorney at the centre of the case has alleged that Simpson’s lead defence lawyer tampered with a crucial piece of evidence – one of the infamous gloves that prosecutors said linked Simpson to the grisly double-murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
After The Juice struggled to fit the gloves on his hands – in one of the defining moments of the racially charged trial that captivated the nation – Cochran famously admonished the jury: 'If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.'
Former Los Angeles deputy district attorney Christopher Darden on Thursday accused Simpson defence lawyer, the late Johnnie Cochran, of 'manipulating' the glove, Reuters reported.
New allegations: Prosecutor Christopher Darden, pictured at the 1995 trial, now alleges that Simpson's lead defence attorney tampered with the leather gloves
On Thursday, during a panel discussion about the trial at Pace Law School in New York City, Darden, a member of the prosecution team, declared: 'I think Johnnie tore the lining.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I tend to agree with Dershowitz that Cochran would not have had unsupervised access to the glove.
I don’t think the prosecution allowing OJ to try the evidence gloves on while wearing Latex gloves helped. Stupid.
Idiots.
LEATHER gloves shrink when they get wet, and OJ’s were covered with blood.
And, any smart attorney knows to never ask a question if you don’t know the answer. They hadn’t tried the gloves on OJ, so they didn’t know the answer.
1) I think OJ was guilty
2) I think the prosecution was embarrassingly incompetent
you have to hand it to OJ.
I agree with you, but this trial was decided at the jury selection stage.
Exactly.
If that jury hadn’t been full of fools, they would have figured that out too!
Oh that’s rich...
The Prosecution’s case was that the same Detective found one glove at the crime scene, then the same detective lept the wall to the Simpson house and immediately found the other glove in the backyard, before anybody else could come in the front gate... At night... In the dark...
And they accuse the defense of tampering with this glove...
Bacon
,,, let’s first remember what the crime scene collector ( Mr. Fung ) said . Items that were collected which were blood soaked or contained moist blood were first put in a convection dryer to dry and stabilize the sample collected .
What happens to wet or moist leather when put in a convection dryer ??? It shrinks ,,,,,, I REST MY CASE .
Chris Dardin was an idiot to ask 0J to preform this test because one could visibily see the gloves were too small to fit 0J Simpleton’s hand especially when combined with the rubber glove 0J Simpleton put on first .
I agree with both of you but there are ways to do this without tampering with the gloves. There are drugs that retain water that cause soft tissues to swell and there are topical applications that cause things to stick and appear to not fit.
Yet as Former Proud Canadian says, this was at least half decided in the jury selection. The jury was looking for any excuse to free the 'black hero' and this served its purpose. Of course, Judge Ito-bitsy did not help things at all. What a circus from the car chase to OJ's never-ending search for the real criminals on every golf course in America. I wonder if he will resume the search when he gets out of jail for that Las Vegas robbery?
Take heart! Johnnie Cochran is rotting in hell. Guaranteed.
Pouring a thin stream of glue into the seams of the glove would have caused the fingers to stick together as they clearly did when O J tried it on.
Since I had young children at the time of the trial, I couldn’t help but note that OJ was holding his hand like a 3 year old, trying to get the glove on while holding his fingers mostly apart. That’s what kids do, when they either don’t know how to get their winter things on yet, or just plain don’t want to wear them...
With that, and the natural leather shrinkage from the blood, of course he “couldn’t” get his hand in it. Cochran didn’t even need to tamper with it.
Nyuk, nyuk!
Absolutely.
I’m in a line of work where I have to wear waterproof gloves (for chemical and pathogen protection) under some type of work glove (for protection against physical injury, sharps, etc.)
The “rubber” gloves not only take up some physical room, they “stick” to the leather or canvas. The work gloves generally need to be a size larger.
That said, had the prosecution not been idiots they could have obtained an identical pair of new gloves of the same size and had him try them on. Case closed.
Not that it would have made any difference. As others have said, the case was settled in jury selection.
One of the most disappointing events of my life was his acquittal. Right up to the announcement I assumed the black jury would do the right thing, just as I would have in a case where a white man murdered two black people. My heart just sunk. Disappointment greatly incrfeased by the celebratory atmosphere among the melanin-enhanced population.
Recently finished a novel set in the UK legal system. Their jury selection is random via computer. Seating a jury takes minutes versus weeks or months. And neither side can play games with trying to stack the jury.
I sincerely wish we have such a system here.
Actually the prosecution brought in a rep form Arris the company that made the glove. He testified that the glove would have shrunk because of the blood. Also evidence was presented (Bloomingdale receipt) showing that the victim bought her husband those gloves, There were only 1200 made. The gloves in evidence were the same size as on the receipt. Of the 1200 fur=lined gloves very few would have been floating around warm southern California.
The jury chose to ignore facts. Or were too stupid to follow the case.
Yup, that was my take at the time. He was obviously trying to make it look like it wouldn’t fit. If the glove was tight fitting to begin with and had shrunk even a little, this would have been easily. Its also possible that OJ had taken something to swell the size of his hand.
The whole glove incident was stupid, but I don’t think it made a big difference either way. The evidence was clearly against OJ, especially the DNA evidence. Everyone knew he was guilty. The jury just didn’t want to convict a celebrity Black man of kiling two white people. Its that simple.
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