If It Doesn't Fit, You Must Acquit

Photograph

By: Sam Mircovich

Date: 1995

Source: AP Worldwide Images

About the Photographer: This photograph was taken on June 15, 1995, by photographer Sam Mircovich, in the courtroom where O.J. Simpson was being tried for murder. Mircovich is now the entertainment pictures editor for the international news agency Reuters.

INTRODUCTION

On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson, former wife of football star Orenthal James Simpson (O.J. Simpson, 1947–) was murdered at the Simpson home in Los Angeles. Also murdered was her acquaintance, Ronald Goldman. The subsequent trial of O.J. Simpson for murder made legal and cultural history and ended in his acquittal. During the trial, the prosecution asked Simpson to don a blood-soaked glove found outside his house shortly after the murder: Simpson struggled with the glove, as shown here, and said, "They don't fit. See? They don't fit." Defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran (1937–2005) later told the jury, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." Many legal experts hold that Simpson was guilty of the murder, but was acquitted because of incompetent prosecution, faulty police work, and racial factors. Some argue that the jury's decision was correct because the prosecution failed to prove Simpson's guilt beyond a "reasonable doubt," the standard that juries are ordered to consider.

The day after the murder, Simpson was questioned by police and gave confused replies, including a denial of knowing how he had received a fresh cut on his right hand (the murders had been committed with a knife). He was later to claim that he had smashed a glass in grief upon hearing of his wife's death, cutting his hand. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but he failed to present himself at police headquarters. Instead, on June 17, Simpson took to the road in a white Bronco owned by a friend. Simpson wandered the streets of Los Angeles at low speed for many minutes, chased on the ground by numerous police and filmed from above by television cameras. He eventually returned to his own house and was arrested.

O.J. Simpson had played professional football from 1969 to 1979 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. Nicole and O.J. were married in 1985 and divorced in 1992. At that time, O.J. pled "no contest" to charges of domestic abuse. During the trial, Nicole's sister testified to having seen Simpson throw Nicole against a wall and commit other abusive acts, and a tape was played of a harrowing 911 call made by Nicole during an assault by O.J.

The evidence against Simpson was strong. There was his proven history of abuse, his confused alibi, the fresh cut on his hand, his strange ride in the Bronco (with a fake beard and mustache, a loaded gun, thousands of dollars in cash, and a passport on board), hairs consistent with O.J.'s on the body of one victim, and other evidence both physical and circumstantial. Genetic evidence indicated that O.J.'s blood was on a glove matching one at the murder scene and that his wife's blood was on a pair of socks, both articles of clothing found in or near O.J.'s house. However, the police and prosecution made grave blunders. The behavior of Los Angeles police officer Mark Fuhrman, who said he had found the blood-soaked glove outside O.J.'s house, was particularly damaging for the prosecution. Fuhrman said on the stand, under oath, that he had never used "the 'n' word," that is, "nigger," but tapes were produced showing that this was a lie. Fuhrman admitted on the same tapes to planting evidence in past cases to help produce convictions. A key police witness was, therefore, a proven liar and confessed evidence-planter. The defense suggested that O.J. was framed by the police. During his summation, defense lawyer Cochran compared Fuhrman to Hitler.

One hundred and thirty-three days of courtroom proceedings were televised to an estimated ninety-five million viewers, making his trial one of the most avidly watched TV events in history. When the jury verdict of "not guilty" was read on October 3, 1995, over ninety percent of all TV viewers were watching the broadcast.

O.J. Simpson was also sued in civil court by the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The standards of evidence are lower in a civil suit than they are in criminal proceedings. The jury in the civil trial only had to find that a preponderance of the evidence indicated he had caused the deaths in order to find him liable. In 1997, the civil court found Simpson to be guilty of wrongfully causing the two deaths and ordered to pay both compensatory damages ($8.5 million) and punitive damages ($25 million). Probably the most important new evidence of O.J.'s guilt presented at this trial were photos of him wearing a pair of shoes whose prints matched those at the crime scene and which he had denied owning.

In 1998, Simpson said to an interviewer: "Let's say I committed this crime…. Even if I did do this, it would have been because I loved [Nicole] very much, right?"

PRIMARY SOURCE

IF IT DOESN'T FIT, YOU MUST ACQUIT

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

Race was an important factor in the Simpson trial and in the public reaction to it. Among the general public, opinion on O.J.'s guilt was (and, as of 2005, remained) deeply divided along racial lines, with approximately two thirds of black Americans believing that O.J. was innocent and two thirds of white Americans believing that he was guilty.

Race was an explicit issue during the trial itself. The brutality of white police toward blacks was (and remains) a major problem in many parts of the United States. Cases of evidence planted by police have been discovered in some cities, and cases of police using excessive violence against black suspects have emerged since the Simpson trial. The jury in the Simpson trial was mostly black. The defense lawyer, also black, explicitly asked the jury to consider the racist beliefs of detective Fuhrman in making their decision. Across the U.S., many black Americans believed that O.J.'s case was yet another case of a black man being framed by bigoted police—only this time, the black man had the power and fame to fight back and win in court. Many white Americans, on the other hand, tended to assume O.J.'s guilt and to downplay or not realize the country's longstanding history of injustice against black defendants.

Even black Americans who believe in O.J.'s guilt tend to be keenly aware of the historic unfairness of the legal system toward black defendants: "They framed a guilty man—that's all it was," said a Los Angeles barber interviewed for the PBS program Frontline ten years after the trial. On these terms, the Simpson not-guilty verdict was perceived by many people as not so much a victory for justice (the acquittal of an innocent man) as a defeat for injustice (a setback for a corrupt justice system).

The O.J. trial turned a public spotlight on these race-linked differences in perception. It also moti-vated many police departments and court systems, including those in Los Angeles, to enact more demanding policies in their handling of evidence and witnesses.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Web sites

Liebovich, Laurie. "The Mystery of O.J. Simpson." Salon.com. Feb. 3, 1998. 〈http://www.salon.com/media/1998/02/03media.html〉 (accessed March 20, 2006).

Linder, Doug (professor at University of Missouri—Kansas City School of Law). Famous American Trials: The O.J. Simpson Trial, 1995. Includes links to court documents. 〈http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Simpson/simpson.htm〉 (accessed March 20, 2006).

Public Broadcasting System (PBS). "The O.J. Verdict." Frontline. Oct. 10, 2005. 〈http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oj/view/〉 (accessed March 20, 2006).