The Prosecution failed to Make Its Case Against OJ.

O J Simpson passed away from prostate cancer on April 15.  The papers and TV were full of rehashing his guilt so I sent the following to the Letters to the Editor of our local paper.  It was printed by them on Wednesday Apr. 17.

In the OJ Simpson case, the prosecution was unable to establish exactly when the murders took place.  Even if either of their guesses were true, OJ still could not possibly have done everything the prosecution said in the time he was said to have done it.  Timelines matter.  The best book on the crime that I would recommend is KILLING TIME by Freed and Briggs.  They help the readers work with the timelines. 

The other thing they do is include the autopsies of the victims.  The autopsies show four different knives were used.  It took four guys, not one, to take down the two athletic victims.

What makes this case so hard is that the media played up everything about the case they got, which was mostly from the prosecution, and the general public saw and heard what they wanted to hear.  The European-American folks heard and saw all the terrible stuff about OJ and the African-American folks heard and saw all the racist gimmicks they had experienced.  

What the general population did not experience was sitting in the courtroom for months on end as the prosecution talked down to the jury of mixed races and the jury having hours to study the photos and other visuals left by the prosecution.  That experience was put into a book MADAM FOREMAN, A RUSH TO JUDGMENT by Amanda Cooley.  It was not Johnny Cochran's theatrics that pursuaded the jury.  It was the lousy DNA work done by the police and pictures of the bloody gloves rolled up in balls.  Read the book to see why.

The Run of His Life, the People V. OJ Simpson

OJ didn’t do it.

Ten years ago, I undertook a careful study of the OJ Simpson case.  It became the backdrop of a novel I wrote at the time in which I solved the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman.

Hardly anyone believed me.

Now “American Crime Stories,” a fairly popular television show is presenting a series about OJ's case.  Blurbs about the series say it does not attempt to give full evidence but seeks more to dramatize the dynamics surrounding the case such as police-on-Black violence, spousal abuse, and privilege of the wealthy.  Even so, it still must offer evidence or it could not accurately portray the story.  I will be looking to see if the evidence is adequately provided or if it is left out or inaccurately offered.

You know I believe he was innocent. You must also know that the book on which the TV series is based, THE RUN OF HIS LIFE, is written by someone who believes OJ is guilty.  Jeffery Toobin says as much in the book.  Update: He reaffirmed his belief again on March 5 in a NewYorker Magazine essay.

There are three other books that I found to be very helpful in terms of the real facts presented as objectively as possible and one that really unintentionally pointed out how the police went after OJ.

In addition to the Toobin book, Lawrence Schiller’s AMERICAN TRAGEDY, which is told from the perspective of Robert Kardashian, is a must read.  The next book that deserves serious regard is KILLING TIME by Donald Freed and Raymond Briggs.  The fourth book is MADAM FOREMAN by Amanda Cooley who chaired the jury for their trial deliberations.  While Toobin and Schiller started out objective, they both turned against OJ in their updated editions.  Freed and Briggs do not commit to a solution to the murders but add new information, give critical data like the autopsies, and raise major questions about the prosecution's timeline of the murders.  The Cooley book provides grounds for their “not guilty” verdict as well as an articulate statement about the jury members themselves.

Every other book I read was mostly self-serving.  On OJ’s side, the books by Cochran, Shapiro, and Derschowitz were more about their own great careers and less about OJ’s innocence.  Marcia Clark, Chris Darden, Fred Goldman, and all the others on the prosecution side did what they could to minimize anything that would have exonerated OJ and chose only to include what would convict him.  

The worst was MURDER IN BRENTWOOD by Mark Fuhrman.  Yet his book showed some of how the framing of OJ occurred.  And Fuhrman didn’t even realize he was doing it!

I need to tell you that my work since 1980 as an advocate for ministers in trouble gave me a perspective.  I helped with many cases of pastors accused of some nasty stuff and had to sort through everything to come up with a reasonable reconstruction of the actual events, if they even occurred.  In those cases, people lied, sometimes the accuser, sometimes the accused, sometimes both, and sometimes the church leaders handling the case.  

There are several techniques that I learned to help me identify what were facts and what were misrepresentations in nearly all those cases.  One is the development of timelines based on what was said by each person involved or witnessing or handling the matter for the church.  That gave me “what they knew and when they knew it.”  Comparing timelines opened up each case to where gaps and inconsistencies existed and usually led to lines of investigation that found the crucial facts resolving the case.  The book that took that approach was KILLING TIME.  As you watch the series, you may want to take notes and put them into chronological order for yourself.  

Finally, did the series leave out important information?  Did it include things that were not in evidence or proved?  As I have the chance over the ten weeks of the series, I will critique each episode and hopefully give you good reason to look again at your opinion about the crime, whether you agree with me or not.