And after all this reserach you have concluded...?
Ok, in a nutshell, do I think he did it? Yes. I wouldn't have admitted that at the time, but I have always thought that.
Do I also think that the LAPD planted evidence and in essence tried to frame a guilty man? I think that's entirely possible, too.
The trial - the trial fascinated me, probably more from a criminal defense perspective than anything. There were so many fundamental errors made by the lawyers, especially the prosecution. I think the defense lawyers, especially Johnnie Cochran were pros at baiting the prosecutors and they continually fell for it to their detriment.
Mistake #1 - Marcia Clark thought that black female jurors liked her even though their experts and a mock jury said otherwise. Hello, she should have had an inkling that the police weren't held in the highest esteem in that community and that Johnnie Cochran had been a trailblazer in the area of misconduct by the LAPD involving the African American community.
Mistake #2 - The prosecution didn't need to call Mark Fuhrman. They could have made their case without him. The defense threatened to call him....fine, let them. The impeachment of your own witness never carries as much weight as the impeachment of the other side's witness. The "n" word was an issue that never needed to be introduced into the trial. They allowed it to happen by putting him on the stand.
Mistake #3 - The glove. For goodness sake, this was another Cochran telling Darden..."if you don't do it we will" so Darden did it without even knowing what would happen. Logic tells you if you get leather wet - with blood or water or something -it will shrink when it dries. Add to that a latex glove and there is no way it would fit, especially if it was fairly tight to begin with. If the defense had him try it on, the prosecution can laugh and explain all the reasons it won't fit. When the prosecution has him try it on...they are stuck with the results.
Mistake #4 - I don't think the prosecutors were ready for someone like Barry Scheck who is a DNA expert himself and who works tirelessly. He spent endless hours pouring through everything time and time again and that allowed him to find the photo with the blood spot missing from the gate. I don't think the scientific evidence ever recovered from "What about THAT, Mr. Fung?" (my favorite line from the trial). There was never a good explanation from the government for why there was blood in one photo and not another. It played right into the planting of evidence theory, something those who know LAPD, know they have done before.
I really do believe the prosecutors lost the case. Johnnie Cochran's finesse and Barry Sheck's hard work and incredible knowledge of DNA helped considerably. But I think the prosecutors thought there was no way they could lose this, got over confident, made stupid mistakes and couldn't recover from them. It really does irritate me that you can lose the "trial of the century" through your own stupidity and then make millions selling a book about it..... but that's my issue and I bought a copy so I should shut up about it.
It doesn't bother me that he won. If you think about the literally hundreds of people who have been wrongly convicted, the one that got away isn't such a big deal. "It's better to have one hundred guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one" (or something like that) And, if the police and prosecutors aren't held to a high standard by jurors and the community, there will be more wrongful convictions...so that's my 2 cents
Now, aren't you glad you asked
