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OJ Simpson's initial trial - how much of it do you remember?

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Ducarmel said:
The OJ trail pretty much changed the way how police departments collects evidence in a crime scene after that botched job they did to the oj trail crime scene evidence.
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Not just how evidence is collected, but how evidence is presented.
OJ was found guilty in a court of law, but it was the civil case after the criminal case. Same evidence just presented properly without the screw ups and media circus.

We don't see that level of televised coverage anymore either. After the OJ fiasco that type of public coverage for a celebrity trial will probably never happen again.
 
biggersmaller said:
Gotta see the 30 for 30 piece.

I was 12 for the verdict in a predominately black school when we watched in class. The class roared with obnoxious joy, however I'll never forget the teacher's eye rolling and slight chuckling. I was pissed about the whole thing.
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Saw it already. That was another good one.
 
biggersmaller said:
Gotta see the 30 for 30 piece.

I was 12 for the verdict in a predominately black school when we watched in class. The class roared with obnoxious joy, however I'll never forget the teacher's eye rolling and slight chuckling. I was pissed about the whole thing.
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It's a very well done documentary but it doesn't really go into depth about the trial, just how the spectacle of that one day overshadowed everything else that happened that day.
 
I remember Cochran giving endless shit to Marcia Clark over a pin in the shape of an angel (showing sympathy for the victims) on her lapel, comparing it to if Cochran walked into court wearing a Bills #32 jersey. Ito was convinced for some reason to order her to remove it. I was young but the O.J. trial taught me a lot about the nature of professional bullshitting.
 
Gentleman Jack said:
I remember Cochran giving endless shit to Marcia Clark over a pin in the shape of an angel (showing sympathy for the victims) on her lapel, comparing it to if Cochran walked into court wearing a Bills #32 jersey. Ito was convinced for some reason to order her to remove it. I was young but the O.J. trial taught me a lot about the nature of professional bullshitting.
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Totally a dick move but totally justified by the rules of the courtroom.
 
I H8 Memes said:
Even I have to admit that when they were broadcasting the chase during the NBA finals using a picture-in-picture, I really wanted them to switch it around so the basketball game was in the small frame.
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That was during the Houston Rockets championship run, so I was PIIIIIIIISSED. lol
 
I think you're right about the OJ Simpson trial being one of the big factors in reality TV and 24 hour news becoming popular.

I grew up in the country without cable and as a freshman in college (when the OJ trial happened) I wasn't all that interested in the news. While I did have cable in college I can't remember any news station other than CNN. Was Fox News around back then? I also feel like this was around the time that CNN switched from just reporting the news to being a more personality driven network.

RE: Casey Anthony, much like OJ I think she's going to end up in court again in 10-15 years for doing something stupid.

Another famous trial about this time: The Menendez (sp) Brothers...
 
Puckmarin said:
I think you're right about the OJ Simpson trial being one of the big factors in reality TV and 24 hour news becoming popular.

I grew up in the country without cable and as a freshman in college (when the OJ trial happened) I wasn't all that interested in the news. While I did have cable in college I can't remember any news station other than CNN. Was Fox News around back then? I also feel like this was around the time that CNN switched from just reporting the news to being a more personality driven network.

RE: Casey Anthony, much like OJ I think she's going to end up in court again in 10-15 years for doing something stupid.

Another famous trial about this time: The Menendez (sp) Brothers...
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Good point, the Menendez brothers was also a circus, but they weren't celebrities beforehand. OJ's trial really showed people that yes - humans want to see this kind of thing, and it did usher in a new era of television.
 
Parch said:
Not just how evidence is collected, but how evidence is presented.
OJ was found guilty in a court of law, but it was the civil case after the criminal case. Same evidence just presented properly without the screw ups and media circus.

We don't see that level of televised coverage anymore either. After the OJ fiasco that type of public coverage for a celebrity trial will probably never happen again.
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I think the Casey Anthony trial might over all might have had more coverage due to so many more cable stations and internet covering. It just didn't seem as intense because it was spread out more.

I also remember the judgment being announced over the P.A. system at school. I also thought it was really weird. I think I was in 2nd grade. None of us really knew what any of it was about anyway. I wonder how much of the black community actually felt he was guilty, but were happy he got off, or how much of the black community felt he was guilty and were upset with the verdict.

The suicide note and chase were awfully strange. I guess I could understand if he didn't do it that he'd be pretty distraught over it, but why the low speed chase? That is the weirdest part of the whole thing, I think. Such a strange case. OJ never did anything pre or post trial to make him seem innocent. Post-trial he's seemed like he was cocky over the whole thing. After I watched the 30 for 30 about that day, I watched another OJ doc that was basically just him driving around visiting important places and being exceedingly weird and creepy at each stop. It was such a bizarre piece.

I can't say if he did it or not. I'm not a lawyer and I was a kid when it happened. I'm just going from what the media has told me, and getting older means I know the media is full of shit. If they get a story they like, they run with it regardless of facts. So who knows. It is certainly telling that he was found guilty in civil court. I've also heard the son did it and OJ was trying to protect him story, but I think that was a very recent thing that came out around the same time as the IF I DID IT book. And who the fuck thought that'd be a good idea? Publisher, OJ's lawyers, OJ himself, anyone that knows OJ, OJ's family...everyone should have let him know how terrible his judgement was on that. That made him look so guilty. I mean, who gets acquitted of a double homicide and then writes a book about how he WOULD have killed those people, if he actually did it? That's some crazy shit.

The OJ trial might have blown reality TV up, but I think Columbine cemented it. That's what I remember as the starting point of non-stop commentary 24 hours a day. The coverage of that went on for months and months.
 
I was a kid but I remember thinking why would the glove fit OJ? If it had moisture on it from say water or blood wouldn't it shrink?
 
I gathered two things from the trial as a 12 year old. That one, Johnny Cochran can get anyone out of anything, and two, that Mark Ferman is the most racist man to have ever lived.
 
Parch said:
Not just how evidence is collected, but how evidence is presented.
OJ was found guilty in a court of law, but it was the civil case after the criminal case. Same evidence just presented properly without the screw ups and media circus.

We don't see that level of televised coverage anymore either. After the OJ fiasco that type of public coverage for a celebrity trial will probably never happen again.
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I don't think so, in civil court the burden of proof needed to say without a shadow of a doubt to convict is less then criminal court and is far less scrutinized, they might of used the same evidence but in criminal court it probably still be laughed out of court.

The number one thing that the prosecutors cant change is the fact the crime scene evidence was contaminated, and the gathering of evidence was abysmal. There was a moment in the case were the defense forensic expert showed the incompetence of the police from the crime scene photographs when they found Nicole Simpsons body she had drops of blood on her back to suggest whoever killed her bleed on her as they were trying to move her body, but guess what nobody thought to collect a blood sample (it probably could of convicted O.J. or found him innocent). Other photos showed that nobody secured the crime scene before they collected evidence, detectives walked all over the blood and touched everything contaminating the evidence before it even went to a lab. I also might be remembering wrong, the defense also argued whoever committed the murders had a partner because one man could not have done, i forgot the arguments for it, but that too created more reasonable doubt. It was not the race card that got O.J. off it was his all star defense team turning the evidence to nothing. The media wanted to sell headlines O.J. played race card is more sexy then O.J. defense team discredited crime scene evidence creating reasonable doubt.
 
I was living in Indonesia at the time and even though the news got to us pretty quickly, it didn't have much of an impact. I suppose since we weren't bombarded by media coverage. I just thought of OJ as that guy in Naked Gun, didn't really care all that much.
 
tarius1210 said:
Well, I know of two very good documentaries for those interested. The 20th Century w/Mike Wallace: The Trial of OJ Simpson (I think this was from the late 90's) and O.J.: A Study in Black & White (an HBO documentary from 2002).
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I got to watch The 20th Century doc last night and it was really, really good. Highly recommended.
 
Sunflower said:
I got to watch The 20th Century doc last night and it was really, really good. Highly recommended.
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I actually recorded that doc many years ago when it was on television. Question, did you find it streaming on the Net?

Another really good one was Frontline - The OJ Verdict.

I watched so many documentaries on this case. It's so interesting.
 
tarius1210 said:
I actually recorded that doc many years ago when it was on television. Question, did you find it streaming on the Net?
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I have a buddy who has a ton of VHS footage about the trial - he had that documentary, so I got with him and watched it. He needs to digitize his stuff. No clue if it's floating around out there on dailymotion or whatnot.
 
Sunflower said:
I have a buddy who has a ton of VHS footage about the trial - he had that documentary, so I got with him and watched it. He needs to digitize his stuff. No clue if it's floating around out there on dailymotion or whatnot.
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I tried looking for it on the Internet to avail. Watch that Frontline one too. That one has Dr. Michael Eric Dyson talking about the case. I love that guy.
 
tarius1210 said:
I tried looking for it on the Internet to avail. Watch that Frontline one too. That one has Dr. Michael Eric Dyson talking about the case. I love that guy.
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I'll see if my buddy has any way to rip it. If it's not out there, it needs to be. Really good stuff.
 
I only remember how salty as fuck a lot of white people were seeing a person of color in a position of power get off for murdering other white people because of who they were and the resources they had at their disposal. Un-fucking-Precedented.

I still look back on that shit and can't help but smile slightly at all the salty people crying their eyes out over this injustice. Sucks don't it? Now, quantify this incident by a million and you will understand a sliver of the injustices people of color have had to deal with in this country for hundreds of fucking years.

Don't get the wrong impression though, I'm not an advocate of OJ's, not by a long shot. What he did was wrong, and it's horrible that he got away with it. Period. I don't believe in hell, but if one exists I hope that man roasts in it for what he did.

It was highly amusing watching all these white people crying over this incident after all the shit people of color have had to deal with in the court system for years though. Maybe that makes me a "bad person" but it's just the way I feel.
 
I only remember the glove.

And Furman exerting his 5th Amendment privelidge.

Oh, and the regular faces: the judge, Shapiro, the lawyers, Marcia Clark's ugly mug.
 
Lessee: I was 15, freshman year of high school, I was in DC in a hotel when the chase happened. I thought he was guilty but most of my friends thought he was innocent. I remember it being very theatrical. I also remember it being very very racially charged. Now that I'm actually a lawyer I'd like to re-watch the case and see how I'd have voted as a jury member knowing criminal law.
 
When the chase was actually happening, I was in a mall buying a slammer for my pogs. A Green Ranger slammer. Then we watched the chase on a TV in a JCPenny or something.

I remember the time around the trial, but not specifics. Rosa Lopez saying "I'm sorry sir, I don't remember" about 800s. I also remember ditching school one day, and when I got home, my mom was home and playing hooky as well.

"Why aren't you at school?"
Why aren't you at work?
:she motions to the TV: "OJ trial's on."
Then I sat down and watched hours of this trash with her.
 
I was too young at the time to be into it/watch it.

All I remember is the trial (as well as news stories about the trial) preempting a lot of cartoons/shows that I liked to watch.
 
It's hard to believe how fixated the entire country was on the verdict. I was in high school at the time, and when they read it the school completely shut down. Most of the teachers had gathered their classes around televisions, and it was utter pandemonium in the end.

That's what I remember most...but I also remember the glove, the crime scene, the disastrous investigation (I remember one guy in particular who was always on tv defending the job they did, but I don't remember his name), the SUV chase, Ito and the major attorneys for both sides, Kato on the stand, and the extraordinary racial divide on whether or not they should lock him up.
 
What I remember the most is the post verdict celebration of people clapping and yelling and dancing because a murderer was not convicted.
 
I was just a kid at the time, so I didn't think too much of it other than it being on TV a lot at the time (which was annoying since I'd be at the babysitter's house, it'd be on, we couldn't watch shows, so we'd go outside and wreck hell).

I do remember the Bronco chase and seeing some of the court stuff, but that's about it.
 
Pretty much the whole damn thing including all the names of the major players.

I was 18 or 19 years old, living with my grandparents. DirecTV just launched and they lived in a rural area that never had access to cable. They were some of the first people to ever have it installed. They watched this trial every minute of every day on Court TV.
 
TheSeks said:
Yeah, a hell of an attorney to apparently fuck with evidence to get a non-conviction for his rich client.
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I wonder if this something he should have brought up 17 years ago? Nah, probably not important.

Only serves to further illustrate how inept the investigators and prosecution were, and how acquittal may not have been satisfying to everyone who knew he was guilty, was proper in regards to how courts should operate.
 
Monroeski said:
Lawyer that embarrassingly blew a super high profile gimme case waits 17 years to make an allegation against his dead opponent? I'm not buying it.
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Pretty much

I was in the teacher's lounge at my school when the verdict was read. I was one of the only minorities in the school and all of the teachers started crying when the words "Not Guilty" were read. One teacher looked at me with tears streaming down her face and accusingly spat at me "Well, I hope you're happy".

I didn't give two fucks at the time but her reaction pisses me off when I look back at it.
 
TheSeks said:
Yeah, a hell of an attorney to apparently fuck with evidence to get a non-conviction for his rich client.
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Cochran didn't need to tamper with the glove.

- Pair of genuine leather gloves, probably once owned by OJ, soaked with the blood of both victims and OJ Simpson, allegedly because he somehow cut one of his fingers through his own glove during the bloody assault without damaging the glove and then bled on both gloves.

- Sealed in an air/water tight plastic bag for a year.

- Frozen, thawed, and refrozen again repeatedly.

Cochran asked the prosecution to prove that it was really OJ's glove, and not a lookalike.

The prosecution asked OJ nicely if he could put the glove on for them and tell them a delightful tale of how much he really loved that pair of gloves and how he could discern their unique qualities. While already wearing a different pair of gloves. Hey, maybe he could also tell them how warm they keep your hands on cold nights when you go out stabbing. If only they were water/blood proof, then they'd be perfect gloves.

If the bloody glove was damaged, the most obvious culprit would be OJ mashing his already-gloved hand into it after a year of serious neglect.

When the prosecution's attempt backfired, Cochran poured gasoline on the fire. It wasn't a logical argument and didn't have much bearing on fact, but it was effective.
 
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