The People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson came to a conclusion in 1995 with a shocking not guilty verdict. The former football superstar was found not guilty of brutally murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, and many couldn’t believe how that verdict could be possible with so much evidence stacked against him! Long story short, the prosecution had some serious holes in their case; here are five missteps that allowed O.J. Simpson go free.
1. Nobody understood DNA evidence in 1995. There was insurmountable DNA evidence against O.J. in this case, but this was back before the days of CSI and forensic case shows. Nobody could quite wrap their heads around the significance of DNA, even if O.J.’s was splattered all over the murder scene, as well as Nicole and Ron’s DNA on O.J.’s property. Prosecutor Marcia Clark talked about there being a “1-in-4 billion” chance that the murderer could be anyone but O.J. based on this evidence, but that still didn’t mean much.
2. If the glove don’t fit… The prosecution made a huge mistake in allowing the defense to let O.J. try on the gloves recovered at the murder scene. While the prosecutors had receipts showing that he bought those gloves at one point, when he tried them on, they didn’t fit his hands. There’s speculation that after being in evidence and frozen to maintain blood/DNA, the leather could have shrunk. But if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.
3. A murder weapon was never found Simple as that. Nobody could ever find the knife that fatally sliced Nicole and Ron’s throats. Additionally, the bloody clothes that O.J. would have been wearing during the murders were never recovered either.
4. OJ didn’t have any wounds. Though Ron had bruises on his hands, presumably from punching someone in defense, O.J. only had a tiny bruise on his body and a small cut on his finger. They weren’t the type of wounds that would leave pools of blood at the crime scenes.
5. Racist detectives? A major source of contention with the jury was Mark Fuhrman, the lead detective on the case who initially discovered the crime scenes. It was discovered that Mark was racist, repeatedly using the n-word in the past. Many believed this made him biased against O.J.