Despite a feeling I knew the case well, I recently dug deeper into the epic O.J. Simpson trial and learned a few things...
First of all, what do you know about the demographics of the jury? I was shocked when I learned that it consisted of:
1 Hispanic man
1 Black man
2 White women
and...
8! Black women
This final jury composition completely flew in the face of the prosecution's own jury consultant! Dingus prosecutor Marsha Clark, however, felt she had a long history of building a sympathetic rapport with black female jurors and decided to ignore the consultant's recommendations.
Prosecutors also completely ignored the jury consultant's recommendations by settling on the selection of five final jury members who reported negative past experiences with police and five jurors who said that physical force against family members was justified.
Bear in mind that the primary strategy of the prosecution was to paint Simpson as a violent domestic abuser while the defense's case was heavily rooted in accusations of a racist and corrupt police force.
This case was over before it even began.
Major pieces of evidence also were not presented to the jury. Despite its publicity, details of the white Bronco chase never made it to court, namely:
-Simpson's passport and a disguise kit complete with fake mustaches were found in the SUV--not tokens of an innocent man
-O.J. had a phone conversation on the L.A. freeway with police during which he threatened to commit suicide and was obviously not mentally composed
Prosecutors felt that this evidence could create empathy for Simpson, the poor picked-on runaway. The defense was all too obliging in barring the evidence from court. A fantastic miscalculation!
As for the bloody glove debacle, prosecutor Christopher Darden was advised from the beginning to not have Simpson try it on because blood/forensic testing/frozen cold storage had caused it to shrink. Darden initially was going to follow this counsel, but decided to go against this advice from his fellow prosecutors in a last-minute courtroom gamble and lost.
It's an embarrassing stain on the American psyche how clearly race shaped the public's perception of the trial. Most post-trial polls put the number of whites believing Simpson was guilty around 87% and the number of blacks believing the same around 27%. Underclass Blacks clearly wanted a hero to triumph against the "rigged and racist" American criminal justice system and found it in Orenthal James Simpson.
The prosecution made a colossal number of blunders while the defense played perfectly to their sympathies on the jury.
The final declaration of "not guilty" by the jury no longer shocks me since I've examined the trial's missteps. In fact, with all the facts before me, it's what I would have expected.
The O.J. Simpson trial jury
