Oj Simpson and Crime

Courtroom TV

The discussion below is an analysis of a criminal prosecution case that was celebrated

The OJ Simpson Case; Criminal Procedures

The presiding judge indicated that she was satisfied with the prosecutions argument. Judge Kathleen pointed out that she was convinced that Mr. Simpson had questions to answer in the superior court about the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Gold man on 12th June night. This ruling was a conclusion of a hearing that ran for six days to determine whether the prosecution had a strong case against Mr. Simpson to enable it to proceed to trial. Lawyer Shapiro, representing Mr. Simpson, argued for the dismissal of the case. The case was one of the most celebrated ones in nearly a decade. He further pointed out that the police should be allowed to complete their investigations at the very minimum for the case to continue. Detectives had pointed out that the police were still conducting investigations relating to the case. Mr. Shapiro argued that all the evidence that had been presented thus far by the prosecution so far was circumstantial (Linder, 2000). The fact-finding field trip that incorporated the jury and several other stakeholders, including members of the media, demonstrated how the race factor played into the advantage of the defense. The case had nine African-Americans sitting on the jury bench.

The trip to OJ Simpson's home at Rockingham and to the Bundy Avenue crime location was intended to help the members of the jury to understand the testimonies regarding the locations of the bodies of the victims, the socks and the gloves that were recovered. The defense team that stood for Simpson had a strategy to undermine the evidence presented by the defense. The media referred to the team as the dream team. The defense sought to suggest that Mr. Simpson was not physically capable of committing the crime at hand. It included raising doubts about the timelines that the prosecution had based their arguments on to suggest that the central evidence adduced to prosecute Mr. Simpson of the murder crime was either planted or contaminated, or both. The members of the jury only discussed the case for three hours. It is worth noting that the case had produced over 150 witnesses in a period of over three months and, nearly, two weeks. The trial had cost in excess of $15 million. The jury finally announced the verdict of the case as the American public looked on curiously and anxiously. The jury returned a "not guilty verdict" for the crime of murder.

The Crime That the Defendant Was Accused Of; the Evidence and the Elements of Evidence

Simpson was tried for the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman. There was massive evidence adduced to implicate the defendant, but it did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Simpson actually committed the crime. The detective team that went on shift after Furman, was seemingly unaware of the print, and thus let the evidence disappear. The sequence of events in the forensic investigation suggested sloppiness in the process. LAPD storage labs were put under scrutiny because it was realized that the evidence appeared to have either been altered or accessed by an unauthorized person. The glasses belonging to Nicole Simpson's mother had their lenses missing while under storage by the LAPD (Forensics at the OJ Simpson Trial - Crime Museum). Simpsons Bronco was accessed twice by an unauthorized person while it was still in the yard for impounds. In addition, there was another 1.5ml of Simpson's blood that went missing from a vial adduced as evidence earlier. Apart from claims of evidence having been tampered with, there were further allegations that some evidence was planted. Owing to the fact that the police did not have proper documents for the collection of Simpson's blood, it was countered that the police had actually planted the blood in critical points of the crime scene with an aim to implicate the defendant falsely. Thus, there was clear doubt in the evidence adduced.

Legal Defenses Fronted