The People V. . . . Blood Evidence

For all the drama about the jury, the eighth episode had significant references to the evidence.  What was offered in the show by Criminalist Dennis Fung in three minutes of scientific jargon was actually spread out over weeks of expert testimony.  The prosecution tried its best to "educate" the jury about DNA; how it was determined; how the crime scene, Bronco, and Rockingham all had the blood of OJ, Nicole, and Ron.  The series writers emphasized that they thought the jury could never understand the DNA by having the District Attorney say it loud and clear.  In her book MADAM FOREMAN, Armanda Cooley reported that the jury did understand but that the prosecution and the experts mistook their boredom over the repetitious presentations as ignorance.

The prosecution had also used hair evidence and some other minor evidence they felt backed up their narrative that OJ did it alone and then trailed blood all the way back to Rockingham.

The hair and other minor evidence tended to be related to what was found on Nicole's body.  You may not have realized what Barry Scheck was talking about when he spoke of the blanket.  When the police first arrived on the scene, one officer found a blanket inside the condo at Bundy and brought it out to cover Nicole's body.  It was a nice gesture, of course, but with that blanket came months if not years of use by the whole Simpson family, meaning hair and other evidence could have come off the blanket and not from OJ at the time of the crime.

If you've followed this blog, you will remember that Vannatter took blood from OJ the day he got back from Chicago.  In this episode, Fung admitted that Vannatter turned it in many hours after taking it and that 1.9 ml. were not turned over.  What happened to that blood between 2:20 pm and about 8 pm that night?  Vannatter never provided an explanation and neither could Fung.

On the basis of the tainted evidence and the serious questions about how it had been handled by the police, the jury had ample grounds for reasonable doubt.  The "mountain of DNA evidence" against OJ may literally have disappeared during Criminalist Fung's responses to cross examination as shown in this episode.

One odd thing occurred at the conclusion of Fung's testimony: Criminalist Fung shaking all the lawyers' hands, both prosecution and defense.  That was unprecedented.  I would like to think he wanted to thank the defense for showing all the flaws in the blood evidence gathered by the police, flaws he saw and was honor-bound to present despite his own misgivings.  More likely, he was simply showing his cultural background of respect for the officers of the court.

The episode also brought up the "rehearsal" of what OJ might say if he were put on the stand.  It showed he would have been a terrible witness if Marcia Clark had a chance to challenge him on what she saw as motive, domestic violence.  While the impression is left that OJ was guilty of hitting his wife in the January 1, 1989 episode for which he pleaded "no contest" in court and even more guilty of lying about it, something that the series writers felt changed Robert Kardashian's view of OJ's guilt, there are a number of issues OJ faced in talking about Nicole.  For one, he did not want to say anything bad about her.  For another, he wanted to protect his kids from anything negative about her.  For a third, he did not want his and her privacy violated in front of anyone, especially his best friend, Kardashian.

OJ never was completely negative in talking about her.  That she was robust in her dealings with him when she was drunk or especially angry he admitted but always with the caveat that she loved the kids and was a great mother.  As a man, he was big and could take her physical outbursts.  He knew better than to hit a woman.  The only one who ever complained about his being violent with her body was Nicole and she had a vested interest if she had plans to divorce him at some point.  Did she actually fall and get bruised after drinking that New Year's of 1989?  If that is what really happened, OJ was willing to accept responsibility for her bruises in court.  

Nicole's friends and sister reported that she had complained to them, even saying that OJ was going to kill her.  Those women could have been used by Nicole to build a case for divorce.  The court could not really accept such testimony because it was third hand, and inadmissible as hearsay under law.   

The only other event of consequence was in 1985 when Detective Fuhrman responded to a domestic dispute and saw OJ with a baseball bat hitting Nicole's car, something Fuhrman calmed and ended up not taking any legal action against OJ.  There were other calls to 9-1-1 by Nicole but the judgment of either the 9-1-1 responder or officers dispatched to the scene led to no legal action against OJ.  There is no evidence the officers were star struck by OJ nor that they saw Nicole as a drama queen.  We do not know.

While OJ would have looked bad on the stand, his relationship with Nicole would not be easily understood by anyone.

In the series, the defense had already let Nicole's sister be the spokesperson for the prosecution's attempt to show motive of extending domestic violence to killing.  And the jury had not bought it.  They understood domestic violence, spousal abuse, and being a sexist jerk but did not buy that any of those led to the crime.  In the real trial, the defense was able to bring videos from earlier in the evening of the murders where the Browns hugged a smiling OJ as he left them after a dance recital of his daughter.  Testimony had been made that he "glared" and left "furious."  The videos showed otherwise.  Marcia Clark's motive for the crimes had not been demonstrated.

But the series writers show Robert Kardashian deepened his growing doubt OJ because of the "rehearsal."  And that was to be of great influence to both Jeffery Toobin and to Lawrence Schiller by the time they revised their respective books and put out their second editions.

Please understand that OJ may have been an abusive husband and caused the bruises and abrasions shown in the pictures.  I am trying to show that just maybe things were not what Nicole said they were, that there is reasonable doubt.  I have many dear friends who cannot accept that reasonable doubt exists when a woman accuses a man of such misconduct.  The series writers believe that the Browns, OJ's inlaws, would have known Nicole better than anyone and would have taken great care in considering the safety of the children as well as her.  They did not take Nicole seriously with regard to the alleged abuse and did not encourage Nicole's leaving OJ during their marriage.  I doubt that will persuade my friends.  I think I am a reasonable person and my friends happen to be unreasonable about this point.  That leaves my reader to have to decide between us.  

No matter what the evidence showed and failed to show, the die was caste for the public myth that OJ was guilty.