The glove thing. The rule in prosecuting cases is never introduce a question or a piece of evidence that you cannot completely answer. "If it doesn't fit you must aquit," won that round and the prosecution could not answer for it. That was an enormous mistake on their part. The other evidence was the blood-spattered garden gate. In the earlier photograph the gate was clean, in the later photograph the gate had blood spattered on it. How did the prosecution not catch this? It was the most blatantly obvious tampering (along with the Bronco) that there could have been. Introducing Mark Furman, who had a history of using the epithet, "nigger," was the worst possible move.
Reading comments from the former jurors you just can't help but understand their situation. From their perspective if the LAPD obviously tampered with some evidence, then what else might they have tampered with that wasn't obvious? The sad story is the prosecution went in over-confident and without enough preparation. OJ had the dream team behind him and when you're facing that kind of power, you must be certain of absolutely everything you do. I believe OJ Simpson committed murder yet I believe, as much as it pains me to say it, that the jury verdict was correct given the case as presented. |