Reaction to the verdict in the O. J. Simpson criminal trial

On Tuesday, October 3, 1995, the verdict in the O. J. Simpson murder case was announced and Simpson was acquitted on both counts of murder. The public reaction to the verdict remains a popular subject because initial polling showed that most blacks (70%) agreed with the verdict while most whites (75%) did not. The media called this the "racial gap". In 2016, FiveThirtyEight reported that the gap has narrowed with most African Americans now believing Simpson was guilty. The narrowing racial gap is primarily attributed to several factors: Daniel Petrocelli disproving all of the blood planting claims at the civil trial, Defense witness Dr. Henry Lee published a study that effectively disproved the contamination claim presented at trial, and the fading of Simpson's celebrity status since the trial. Criticism of the Jury: Jurors Amanda Cooley, Carrie Bess and Marsha Rubin-Jackson published Madame Foreman: A Rush to Judgement? They describe why they felt there was reasonable doubt despite personally believing Simpson might be guilty. Because it was published only a few months after the verdict and before the other attorneys and detectives published their books, it is considered an accurate picture of what the jury believed when they acquitted Simpson. Critics panned the book and it became a source of embarrassment for the authors as critics claim it proves many of their claims about the jury. Misunderstanding of DNA evidence: The jurors stopped claiming there was reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence after learning that both of the forensic DNA experts for the defense, Dr. Henry Lee and Dr. Edward Blake, had rejected the contamination claim that Scheck and Neufeld argued. Dr. Blake also admitted that was the reason why he was dropped from the witness list. Cochran mentioned Blake in opening statements but never produced him as a witness and in closing arguments Clark had mentioned Blakes absence as proof the results were reliable. Dismissal of domestic violence being racially motivated: Clark wrote that she believed the jury dismissed Simpson's abuse of Nicole for racial reasons. She wrote that "race trumped gender" and they identified with the abuser rather than the victim due to race. The jurors called the domestic violence argument a "waste of time" and Juror Brenda Moran said "this is a murder trial, not a domestic violence trial". They claim they discarded it because there were no new incidents of abuse since 1989. A 911 call of an incident eight months before Brown's death was presented at trial and again during summation. The jurors also claimed that they did not believe Brown thought her life was seriously in danger but one of the documents they saw at trial was a Will stating her wishes in the event of her death. Shapiro, Dershowitz, Uelman also agreed with Clark. Dershowitz stated: "the jurors were black first, women second". Uelman stated their research suggested that black women typically are opposed to interracial marriage and would be hostile to Brown. In 2016, regarding Nicole, Carrie Bess said, "I lose respect for any woman who takes an ass-whoopin' when she don't have to. Don't stay under the water if it's over your head, you'll drown," in her own way expressing her hatred for Nicole for apparently "allowing" herself to be abused while condoning Simpson's abuse of her in the first place. Detective Mark Fuhrman was also accused of opposing interracial couples but was labeled a racist for doing so. Clark expressed her initial surprise during the trial about the number of African Americans who resented Nicole for her marriage to Simpson, even though Simpson had begun an affair with her while he was still married to his African American first wife, Marguerite. In O.J.: Made in America, African American journalist Sylvester Monroe admitted that at the start of the trial, his mother had told him that had Simpson beaten and murdered Marguerite, African Americans would not have sympathized with him, there would have been no "trial of the century" and he would have gone straight to prison. Shapiro wrote that the jury consultants stated that "black women often will be defensive and even protective of black men who are accused of such behavior by white women." Dismissed juror Jeanette Harris was cited as an example of this: She concealed her domestic abuse so she could be on the jury, then denied it so she could stay on the jury and then minimized it after being dismissed in order to protect Simpson. Darnel Hunt opines that the worst part of the Simpson Case was the indifference by contemporary African Americans to the domestic violence. The revelation of the abuse had turned public opinion against Simpson but his support among African Americans remained relatively unchanged. The tension over Interracial marriage in the United States stems from it once being criminalized. These laws were created by the white majority and were indisputably motivated by Racism. All of the jurors were raised at a time when those laws were still in place in some parts of the country before finally being ruled unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia in 1967. The jurors stopped claiming the abuse was irrelevant after Dr. Lenore E. Walker revealed that she was dropped from the witness list by the defense because her research concluded that over 80% of murdered spouses who are victims of abuse are killed by their abusers. Rubin-Jackson later apologized to Denise Brown, who became an advocate for survivors of domestic violence, for calling it a waste of time. The strong public reaction to Brown's letters and statements that were later ruled inadmissible as hearsay spurred passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, which Clark and Douglas referred to as the "O.J. rule". The act was a direct response to the Simpson case and included provisions that required mandatory arrests in domestic violence situations, allowed prosecution of abusers even if the victim doesn't testify, and provided hearsay exceptions in domestic violence situations so statements made by the victim are admissible even if they are unavailable for cross-examination. After the trial, researchers reported increased reporting, arrests, and harsher sentences for those convicted of domestic violence. Bias against the prosecution: Critics claim the jury was biased against the prosecution and the police and made absurd arguments for discarding evidence. Alan Dershowitz conceded that the jury was biased against the prosecution and cited the dismissal of Alan Parks testimony for "trivial" reasons as evidence of this. Bess said she dismissed the significant testimony of Alan Park because he didn't know how many cars were parked in Simpson's driveway. Bess also said she discarded the evidence of Simpson's blood at the crime scene because she believed Vannatter could have planted it there when he returned to Simpson's home that evening even though the crime scene wasn't even there. Shelia Woods discarded all of the DNA evidence at the crime because she incorrectly thought all of it was found on the back gate and she found that suspicious. Cooley admitted to discarding blood evidence without any justification at all. In Ezra Edelman's 2016 documentary O.J.: Made in America, Carrie Bess said she believed "90% of the jury" actually decided to acquit Simpson as payback for the Rodney King incident, not because they believed in his innocence, and when asked if she believed the decision was correct, she merely shrugged indifferently. Following the acquittal, Bill Hodgman claimed that in conversation with the deputy sheriff who had released the jurors, the sheriff had witnessed reunions and celebrations between the jurors and their families and heard numerous times that the acquittal was indeed revenge for Rodney King. Juror Yolanda Crawford, however, denied that claim. She said the verdict was due to the prosecution's mistakes, such as presenting Fuhrman as a witness and having Simpson don the gloves. In an interview with Meredith Vieira, she said the verdict may have been different had they seen the photos of Simpson wearing the Bruno Magli shoes that he denied owning but in the same interview, Kim Goldman disputed Crawford's claim, arguing that the only Physical evidence linking Simpson to the crime was DNA evidence and that didn't change from the criminal trial. All the bloody shoeprints at the crime scene were made by those shoes. All of the jurors expressed a belief that fraud had taken place but during the subsequent civil trial Daniel M. Petrocelli had deductively disproven all of the blood planting conspiracy claims made at the criminal trial by Scheck. Petrocelli noted that the evidence used to disprove those claims was available at the criminal trial which lead to further criticism that the jury discarded evidence and the verdict was a racially motivated Jury nullification. The only fraud claim that could not be deductively disproven was Fuhrman planting the glove at Simpson's home but there was no physical or eyewitness evidence to support this. Jeffrey Toobin wrote that the defense was planning on making that claim months before the trial began because that was the only explanation for why that glove was found at Simpson's home. The only two arguments made to support that claim were Simpson struggled to put on the gloves and the Fuhrman tapes which suggested he was capable of such conduct. The investigation into the Fuhrman tapes found no evidence of wrongdoing and instead found evidence that he was playacting for the Hollywood screenwriter like he later claimed and Shapiro admitted that Simpson was acting (as the prosecution claimed) when he appeared to struggle to put on the gloves. Vincent Bugliosi wrote that the conspiracy allegations were designed to explain incriminating evidence that the defense couldn't refute. Simpson's blood on the Bundy back gate, Brown's blood on the sock, the bloody footprint in Simpson's Bronco and the location of one of the bloody gloves (Simpson's home) couldn't be explained by either contamination or incompetence so the defense made conspiracy claims of fraud instead. When the prosecution began offering evidence refuting the contamination claim and demonstrating the irrelevance of the mistakes made, the conspiracy allegation expanded to claim that virtually all of the evidence was planted. Darnel Hunt wrote that African American distrust of the police is not unfounded but the claim of a wide-ranging police conspiracy was entirely implausible. Hunt said the jury accepted every fraud claim the defense made without question and that is what later led to their criticism after those claims were refuted. Years later, some of the jurors are still reiterating those claims: In 2016 juror Shelia Woods stated she still thinks that Simpson's blood on the back gate at Bundy was planted by the police despite the blood being photographed there prior to Simpson's blood being drawn from his arm. Prosecutor William Hodgman was supposed to be Clark's co-counsel but was replaced with Darden after he became hospitalized. During a press conference, Johnnie Cochran claimed that the prosecution were merely using Darden as a black man to boost their case, which caused the jury to consider Darden a token black assigned to the case. Mark Fuhrman wrote feeling the same way about Darden. Jeffrey Toobin claimed that everything Cochran was saying about Darden was basically "Uncle Tom", and expressed his disgust at Cochran's behavior. Deliberation time: Many have observed that the jury's deliberation time, three hours, was unduly short. In O.J.: Made in America, Jeffrey Toobin stated that in general, every week of trial requires one day of deliberation. The history of domestic violence, Simpson's legal history of stalking Nicole and making death threats towards her, Nicole filing a safety deposit box of photographs of past beatings and a will, her assertion that Simpson would kill her and go unpunished, the overwhelming amount of physical evidence linking Simpson to the crime and Simpson's lack of a sufficient alibi have led many to believe that the jury's "not guilty" verdict was actually a racially-motivated Jury nullification. In the documentary, Ezra Edelman asked both Carrie Bess and Yolanda Crawford how they managed to reach such a verdict in three hours. While Crawford stated that she had thought about all the evidence each night of the trial and reached her conclusion over time, Bess shrugged and smugly told Edelman, "We had to go home". Prosecutor Bill Hodgman said that he had a "feeling of numbness" after hearing the verdict, while Marcia Clark claimed that part of her had expected the "not guilty" verdict from the black jury after such a short time. Reversal of opinion by some jurors and defense attorneys: Several jurors have reversed their previous opinions of Simpson's innocence. In 2016, Carrie Bess admitted that while she still believes that acquitting Simpson was the correct decision in the atmosphere of the 1990s, she regrets the not guilty verdict following Simpson's arrest in Las Vegas, and labelled Simpson as "stupid" for getting himself into more trouble. Juror number nine, Lionel Cryer, a former member of the Black Panther Party who notably gave Simpson a black power raised fist after the verdict, said that in retrospect, however, he would render a guilty verdict. Juror Ansie Aschenbach, who initially voted guilty before changing her vote, stated she regrets that decision and believes Simpson is guilty because he is not looking for the "real killer" like he said he would. As of 2020, Carrie Bess remains the only author of Madame Foreman who has not apologized to either the Browns or Goldmans for the verdict or the book and who continues to assert that acquitting Simpson was not an incorrect decision. In O.J.: Made in America, film director Peter Hyams claimed that he had discussed the possibility of Simpson's guilt with Dershowitz, who had admitted that in order for Mark Fuhrman to successfully frame Simpson, he would have to know that Simpson had no alibi whatsoever and that he was not risking his own job or life as well, since Fuhrman would have been facing the death penalty himself if he had attempted to frame Simpson for a double homicide, and went on to admit that he believed Simpson was the killer. Bailey continued to assert that Fuhrman planted the glove to frame Simpson, while Scheck refused to give a definitive answer as to whether he believed Simpson was guilty or innocent. Criticism of the prosecution: Prosecutor Hank Goldberg published The Prosecution Responds: An O.J. Simpson Trial Prosecutor Reveals what Really Happened (1999) and wrote that the verdict was the result of a "perfect storm" of mistakes by investigators, prosecutors, and the court, all taking place in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi published Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder. Bugliosi primarily attributes the verdict to poor decisions by the prosecutors but added that poor stewardship by Judge Lance Ito, and the change of venue that he claims resulted in a jury that was hostile to the prosecution, contributed as well. Inaccurate estimate of Simpsons blood draw: According to Goldberg, Hodgman, Darden and Marcia Clark, the principal mistake made in the case was during the preliminary phase when Thano Peratis incorrectly estimated how much blood he drew from Simpson. He estimated initially that he withdrew 8mL's from Simpson but the records only show that 6.5 mL's was accounted for and the defense alleged that 1.5mL's of Simpson's blood was missing. That mistake threw the prosecution on the defensive as Scheck claimed it was missing due to fraud. Peratis was scheduled to testify again early in the trial to clarify but he became hospitalized and the jury never heard him correct his estimate until the rebuttal stage of the trial, after Scheck had already made all of his blood planting claims. The glove demonstration: It was prosecutor Christopher Darden who asked to have Simpson try on the gloves at trial. In O.J.: Made in America, Marcia Clark claimed that she had implored Darden not to have Simpson try the gloves on and they had fought many times about it. Though Darden accepted, Bailey fooled him into having Simpson try them on, stating that if he didn't, the defense would. The gloves not fitting was national news because of the perceived impact it had on the jurors and also universally recognized as a prosecutorial blunder. Bugliosi was very critical of Darden and wrote that asking Simpson to don the gloves was akin to asking Simpson if he was guilty and expecting him to reply affirmatively. Juror Brenda Moran said she acquitted Simpson because the gloves didn't fit but juror Lionel Cryer said the glove demonstration was pointless because it was obvious they had changed from their original condition because Darden produced a new pair of the same type gloves and they fit Simpson just fine. Failure to introduce incriminating evidence: Prosecutor William Hodgman, prior to being replaced as Clarks co-counsel, decided not to introduce the evidence of the Bronco chase, the suicide note, the items found inside the Bronco and the video of Simpson's police interview. Clark agreed and chose not to present it after Hodgman was replaced. Bugliosi was very critical of Clarks decision because that evidence was very incriminating - Simpson admitted to cutting his finger on the police interview the same day as the murders, he apologized to the family of Ron Goldman for what could only be his murder because they had never even met, he took his passport with him when he fled implying he intended to leave the country and brought a disguise kit so he wouldn't be recognized. Clark agreed with Bugliosi that the evidence was incriminating yet defended her decision and noted the public was aware that his actions implied guilt yet thousands of people were supporting his attempt to flee prosecution and were sympathetic to his feelings of guilt. Jeffrey Toobin added that the jury was already aware of the Bronco chase, the suicide note and the items found in the Bronco because they had watched it on TV and decided to discard it nonetheless. Dropping the domestic violence portion of the case: Prosecutor Marcia Clark was the one who decided to drop the domestic violence portion of the case halfway through presenting it. Darden wrote that the domestic violence was the motive for the murders. Vincent Bugliosi wrote he would have gone into more detail about it and noted that the abuse had turned public opinion against Simpson and opined that it would have also turned the jury against him as well if Clark and Darden had presented it better. Daniel M. Petrocelli credited the difference in the outcome in civil trial to the jury being receptive to the argument that domestic abuse is a prelude to murder. Darden wrote that the presentation of that part of the case was hampered by Judge Ito ruiling the letters and statements by Nicole inadmissible as Hearsay. Witness accounts were admissible but Ito again delayed the prosecution from calling them until after all the forensic evidence had been presented. By then, Darden wrote, the jury was exhausted and appeared disinterested in hearing anymore about the abuse. Clark claimed she dropped it because she felt the DNA evidence in the case was insurmountable but the media speculated it was due to the comments by dismissed juror Jeanette Harris and Darden confirmed that to be true. Harris was a victim of domestic violence but failed to disclose it and was dismissed as a result. But afterwards, she gave an interview and called Simpson's abuse of Brown "a whole lot of nothing" and said other jurors on the panel felt the same way. In Evidence Dismissed and Murder in Brentwood, Detectives Lange, Vannatter and Fuhrman all wrote that they considered the history of domestic violence to be a weak motive for murder as well. Changing the venue: In Outrage, Buligosi criticized the prosecution for holding the trial in downtown Los Angeles rather than Santa Monica where the murders took place. Alan Dershowitz stated the prosecution did this intentionally but Toobin wrote that changing the venue is the domain of the courts, not the district attorney, and the trial "could never have been held anywhere except the criminal courts building in downtown Los Angeles" because that was the only area at the time that could accommodate it. Darden wrote in In Contempt that it was hypocritical to criticize the defense for allegedly trying to seat black jurors while also criticizing the prosecution for not wanting to hold the trial in Santa Monica so there would be fewer black jurors. During the jury selection process, both the defense and the prosecution were accused of intentionally trying to seat or exclude black jurors respectively which was illegal because California courts barred peremptory challenges to jurors based on race in People v. Wheeler. Criticism of the defense- Race: "It will upset the black jurors; it will issue a test and the test will be: Whose side are you on? The side of the white policeman or the side of the black defendant and his very prominent and black lawyer."— Christopher Darden, arguing against allowing the defense to ask questions about using the word “Nigger”., In Contempt In July, polling suggested that 90% of African Americans did not believe that race was a factor in the murders of Brown and Goldman. The controversy of the June 27 Time Magazine cover, which had a darkened mugshot of Simpson, seemed to have generated sympathy for Simpson due to allegations of racism. Shapiro admitted the defense played the "race card from the bottom of the deck". Dershowitz, who later criticized Cochran for introducing race into the trial, later wrote in Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case that "we played the only card we could". In O.J.: Made in America, Jeffrey Toobin agreed with Darden's initial request of banning racial issues from the trial because they were irrelevant and "would blind the jury...and cause extreme prejudice to the prosecutions case" and Darden stated. Toobin opines that while Cochran's closing statement is best known for his phrase, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit", the question that Cochran was truly putting to the jury was "Whose side are you on?" Dismissed juror Jeanette Harris confirmed that the jury was dividing themselves along racial lines as a result of race being introduced into the trial. Cochran's statements during his summation also suggest this as well: "If you grew up in this country, then you know there are Fuhrman's out there" was a naked appeal to racial solidarity to the black jurors according to Toobin and his statement "acquit Simpson and send the police a message" was an appeal for a Jury nullification for the murders according to Alan Dershowitz. After the verdict was read, juror Lionel Cryer gave Simpson a Raised fist black power salute. Robert Shapiro wrote in The Search for Justice: A Defense Attorney's Brief on the O.J. Simpson Case that Cochran introducing race into the trial is the primary factor that drove the dream team apart: "Race is not the issue...A defense built on race will never help us." Shapiro wrote that Cochran used race to argue for a Jury nullification in his summations, Bailey used it to argue that Fuhrman planted the glove, Scheck used it to argue his blood planting claims, and Dershowitz used it to support his police conspiracy allegation. After Cochran's summation, Shapiro stated he would never again work with Cochran. Regarding Bailey, Scheck and Dershowitz's conspiracy claims, Shapiro wrote he doesn't believe that Simpson was framed by the police. Toobin criticized African-American civil rights activists such as Danny Bakewell and John Mack for using racial issues in defense of Simpson despite previously criticizing Simpson for his indifference towards the African American community. Sociology professor Harry Edwards stated that "Simpson's sentiments were, 'I'm not black, I'm O.J.'" regarding his apathy towards racial issues. Vincent Bugliosi criticized the prosecution in Outrage for not using aspects of Simpsons personal life to refute the defenses claim that he was a hero of the black community - he left his black wife for a white women, had affairs only with white women, had two biracial children, moved into a white neighborhood and after divorcing had a white girlfriend. The defense was aware of all of this and made attempts to conceal it. Robert Kardashian admitted during an interview with Barbara Walters that, prior to the jurors visiting Simpson's home, the defense had staged his home and switched out his photos of white women for black women and children, including switching a picture of a nude Paula Barbieri (Simpson's girlfriend at the time, who was white) for a Norman Rockwell painting from Cochran's office. Unethical behavior: "Mr. Simpson's "dream team" has fostered public mistrust of defense lawyers in general because of their 'shotgun approach' of attempting to shoot down every scrap of evidence against Mr. Simpson with a barrage of alternative (i.e., conspiracy) explanations"— Spectacle of Simpson Trial Makes Justice System Wince, The New York Times; May 29, 1995 Jurors Cooley, Bess and Rubin-Jackson wrote in A Rush to Judgement? that Barry Scheck was the most persuasive attorney at the trial. Vincent Bugliosi, Darnel M. Hunt, Daniel M. Petrocelli, and defense witness Dr. Henry Lee all wrote that Scheck engaged in palpable fraud in trying to convince the jury there was reasonable doubt about the physical evidence. Hunt wrote in O. J. Simpson Facts and Fictions: News Rituals in the Construction of Reality that Scheck "floated ridiculous conspiracy theories to the jury". Jeffrey Toobin wrote in The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson that "the most remarkable thing was that Scheck actually accomplished this goal...Schecks arguments presupposed a conspiracy so immense within the LAPD that, analyzed objectively, it seemed a practical impossibility but Scheck made his theories real for the jury and for that reason he was primarily responsible for that verdict." In Triumph of Justice: Closing the Book on the O.J. Simpson Saga, Petrocelli explains how he disproved all of Scheck's blood planting claims. Scheck implied that Vannatter could have planted Simpson's blood at the crime scene when he returned later that evening to Simpson's home to deliver his blood reference vial to Dennis Fung but the crime scene is actually at Nicole Brown's home. Scheck then suggested that another police officer could have "sprinkled Simpson's blood at the crime scene" but the prosecution demonstrated that the blood was photographed being there prior to Simpsons blood being drawn by the nurse. Scheck then implied that Vannatter could have planted the victims blood in the Bronco when he returned to Simpson's home but the Bronco had been impounded prior to his arrival and wasn't even there. Scheck then suggested that the victims blood in the Bronco could be the result of contamination in the LAPD crime lab but defense witness Dr. Lee wrote in Blood Evidence: How Dna Is Revolutionizing the Way We Solve Crimes the prosecution disproved that claim when the second collection from the Bronco returned the same matches as the first collection, proving they weren't contaminates. Scheck then produced two witnesses who claimed there was no blood in the impounded Bronco implying the blood was planted by the police afterwards but the prosecution produced photographs of the blood in the impounded Bronco which disproved that fraud claim as well. In 2014, Scheck acknowledged that public perception of defense attorneys changed as a result of his blood planting claims at the trial. Darden wrote in In Contempt that nearly all of Scheck's blood planting claims were originally made by Stephen Singular in his book proposal for Legacy of Deception: An Investigation of Mark Fuhrman and Racism in the L.A.P.D. The key difference is that he claimed that Fuhrman, not Vannatter, planted all of the blood evidence. Singular cited an unnamed source in the LAPD but both Johnnie Cochran and Carl Douglas dismissed Singulars claims because Fuhrman never had access to Simpson's reference vial. Reporters Philip Bosco and Tracie Savage both reported that another unnamed source in the LAPD had told them the match of Nicole Brown's blood on the socks in September and allegedly before the test was even done. The defense argued this meant the blood was planted because the source already new what the result would be and wanted Savage testify to that. Like Singular, neither reporter revealed who the source was and Ito ruled it was irrelevant for them to do so because the claim was "bogus": the test was actually done on August 4, a month before not after, the source revealed the match. Savage has since then disowned that claim entirely. Other members of the dream team produced witnesses that gave misleading testimony. Cochran produced LAPD videographer Willie Ford who showed a video of Simpson's bedroom without the socks present which Cochran implied proves they were planted but Ford admitted the video was made after the Socks had already been collected. Blood spatter expert Herbert MacDonell stated that the only way the stains observed on the socks could be made was if the blood was planted on the sock after it had been taken off but admitted that the same patten can be produced if Simpson simply touched the socks after removing them. Witness perjury: Sylvia Guerra, a housekeeper for Simpsons neighbor claimed that her and another housekeeping, Rosa Lopez, were both offered $5,000 to lie and say they saw Simpson's Bronco parked in front of his house the night of the murders. The tow truck driver John Meraz and William Blasini Jr both testified that there was no blood in the impounded Bronco despite photographs of the blood that clearly demonstrate they were lying. Unreliable Expert Testimony: Simpson's Dream Team retained many high-profile experts. Many of them were initially approached by the prosecution but decided to represent Simpson instead because of the larger retainers. The conventional wisdom at the time is that experts can only truthfully represent one side of a case because it is presumed that their interpretation of the facts would be the same regardless of who retains them. The Simpson case challenged that belief because experts in this case gave testimony that favored Simpson but contradicted many of their claims they had made in previous cases. In the aftermath of the verdict, many of the experts began walking back their claims. Dr. Lenore Walker: “After the O.J. Simpson trial, I was dismissed from a position on the national crisis helpline advisory board of directors, my theories were openly denigrated…and I was disinvited to participate in many conferences with funding from the same government sources that previously invited me along with others who continued to participate.”— Dr. Lenore Walker, her describing how defending Simpson ruined her career., Book The Battered Woman Syndrome, 4th Edition, Page 34 The defense retained renowned advocate for victims of domestic abuse, Dr. Lenore E. Walker. Cochran said she would testify that Simpson doesn't fit the profile of an abuser that would murder his spouse but she was dropped from the witness list for "tactical reasons" after her report on the case concluded that "80.3% of murdered spouses who were also victims of abuse were in fact killed by their current or ex-husband." Dr. Walker's colleagues were appalled by her decision to defend Simpson and accused her of betraying her advocacy for a $250,000 retainer by knowingly giving testimony that contradicted her own research as her report demonstrated. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence wrote of Dr. Walker's assessment of Simpson "it is absolutely the opposite of the assessment of most battered women’s advocates in this country.” During the civil trial, Dr. Walker dropped Simpson as a client and testified against him instead for the Goldmans. Michael Baden: "Testifying for Simpson was a mistake."— Dr. Michael Baden, Describing the negative impact of testifying for Simpson, Fox News Radio interview, April 5, 2016 Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist, testified that the murders happened closer to 11:00pm, which is when Simpson has an alibi and stated that Brown was still conscious, standing, and took a step after her throat was cut and that Goldman was standing and fighting his assailant for ten minutes with a lacerated jugular vein. Daniel M. Petrocelli wrote in Triumph of Justice: Closing the Book on the Simpson Saga that Baden's claims were nonsensical and he tried to avoid making them again at the civil trial. The claim that Brown was standing and conscious after her throat was slashed was untenable because the injury severed her cervical spinal cord which would have paralyzed her from the neck down. His claim of Goldman's ten minute struggle was also untenable as well because it only takes five minutes for someone to completely exsanguinate from such an injury. Baden admitted his claim of Goldman's long struggle was inaccurate at the civil trial and would later say that testifying for Simpson was a mistake because he was consistently being discredited for the claims that he made at the trial that he later admitted were not true. Vincent Bugliosi wrote in Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder that Baden's claims were "silly" and claimed that he knowingly gave false testimony in order to collect a $100,000 retainer because the week before he testified, Dr. Gerdes admitted that Goldman's blood was in Simpson's Bronco despite Goldman never having an opportunity within his lifetime to be in the Bronco. Christopher Darden opined in In Contempt that prosecutor Brian Kelberg irritated Baden when he implied that he was being "rented out" by Simpson and he responded by making those absurd claims to get back at him. Fredrich Rieders: "Look, this might not be blood from a purple top test tube."— Dr. Fredrich Rieders, Simpson Civil Trial Transcripts, December 20, 1996 In Blood Evidence: How DNA is revolutionizing the way we solve crimes, Dr. Lee writes that Dr. Fredric Rieders was initially approached by the prosecution to interpret the results from the EDTA testing but he chose to represent Simpson instead. His decision ended up being a mistake because the defense ultimately withheld key details that would have resulted in him not testifying. His testimony that the presence of EDTA suggested the blood was planted from the reference vials gave the appearance of scientific credence to the defenses fraud claims. However, the defense neglected to mention to Rieders that one of those blood drops had been photographed being there prior to the reference vial existing, proving it couldn't have come from there. Furthermore, Detective Vannatter, who was accused of planting the other blood drop on the sock never went inside the evidence van where the socks were stored which proves he didn't plant that blood either. FBI special agent Roger Martz later demonstrated that the results were actually false positives from having tested the reference vials first before the evidence samples. Thomas Lambert accused Rieders of knowingly giving false testimony at the criminal trial in exchange for a $46,000 retainer because there was clear evidence then the results were not reliable: the blood on the back tested positive for the presence of EDTA despite it being impossible to have come from the reference vial, the substrate control for that blood drop tested positive for EDTA despite having no blood on it at all, the results for the two evidence samples and Agent Martz's unpreserved blood were exactly the same and no where near the levels seen in the reference vials and Dr. Rieders himself said that it was impossible for Agent Martz to have that much EDTA in his unpreserved blood. In Triumph of Justice, Petrocelli wrote that Dr. Robbin Cotton had conclusively proven at the civil trial that it was impossible for the blood on the socks to have come from Brown's reference vial by showing that the blood in the reference vial is more degraded than the blood on the sock, which is impossible if that was its source. Afterwards, Rieders conceded "this might not be blood from a purple top test tube". In Outrage, Bugliosi opined if the tests had been done correctly, they would have conclusively disproven the blood planting claims. In Run of his Life, Toobin wrote that the prosecution did prove that no EDTA was present but the testimony was "highly technical". Dr. Lee in Blood Evidence wrote that the testimony of Dr. Rieders and Agent Martz was almost incomprehensible and opines that the jury believed Rieders over Martz because he was a renowned scholar even though Martz had evidence and literature to backup his conclusions. Henry Lee: "I never meant to imply there was scientific fact to show that any LA police officer planted or did anything, cheating, with any evidence when I said 'somethings wrong'. I did not testify to that." — Dr. Henry Lee, Simpson Civil Trial Transcripts, January 10, 1996 Bugliosi in Outrage wrote that Dr. Lee knowingly gave misleading testimony and allowed Scheck to imply he supported the fraud claims. Lee's "somethings wrong" claim implying the police tampered with one of the blood swatches at the crime scene was absurd because that blood belonged to Nicole Brown and its ridiculous for anyone to plant her blood at the crime scene when her body was already there. Furthermore, Bugliosi wrote that Dr. Lee was aware that Scheck was arguing that Dennis Fung had tampered with the swatches and seriously doubts that the Chinese born scientist really believed that the Chinese-American criminalist would participate in a racially motivated conspiracy to frame Simpson. In Triumph of Justice, Petrocelli wrote that Dr. Henry Lee clarified his statements and said "he never meant to imply that the police tampered with evidence." Regarding the wet transfer stain, the prosecution said the wet stain was simply due to one of the swatches still being wet and Lee admitted "I offered that same explanation since day one". John Gerdes: There's no direct evidence of contamination in any of the test results that I looked at in this case. — Dr. John Gerdes, Concession during Thomas Lamberts cross-examination, Simpson Civil Trial Transcripts, December 12, 1996 According to Dr. Henry Lee in Blood Evidence: How DNA is revolutionizing the way we solve crimes, Dr. Gerdes "had no experience whatsoever in forensic DNA matching" and made more factually inaccurate claims than any other witness at the criminal trial. Darden wrote in In Contempt that all of Gerdes claims were misleading conjecture. None of the defense attorneys in their books about the trial - Shapiro, Dershowitz, Cochran, or Uelman - mention Gerdes even though the jurors in A Rush to Judgement? specifically cite him as the one who raised what they believed to be reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence. In Outrage, Bugliosi opines the reason why is because "contamination cannot change someone's DNA into someone else's" which is what the jurors believed to be true. Howard Coleman, president of GeneLex, a Seattle-based forensic DNA laboratory called the contamination claim "smoke and mirrors" and said "everything we get in the lab is contaminated to some degree. What contamination and degradation will lead you to is an inconclusive result. It doesn't lead you to a false positive." Dr. Lee explains in Blood Evidence why he rejected Gerdes claims. Gerdes claimed that contamination could happen from repeated use of the reagents used for Amplification but neglected to mention that all the reagents tested negative for contamination. Petrocelli wrote in Triumph of Justice that Gerdes lied when he said that Collin Yamauchi spilled Simpson's blood in the lab. Gerdes claimed that the results from the second Bronco collection were unreliable because the car had been burglarized but admitted the DNA matches are the same before and afterwards, disproving that claim. Rantala wrote that Gerdes most flagrant deception came when he implied that the evidence locker was in the PCR amplification room when he said that Yamauchi took the PCR extraction product back to "the same location". Rantala wrote that Gerdes said that so his contamination claim would be plausible but was being openly dishonest because he toured the lab and knew that wasn't true. Lee wrote in Blood Evidence that "Gerdes conceded the PCR extraction product was not returned to the specific area near the extraction room or evidence-handling area but was taken to a completely separate area located a comfortable distance away making a contamination scenario highly improbable". Pundits were skeptical of Gerdes claims too because he was not the defense's first choice: renowned forensic DNA expert, Dr. Edward Blake, was supposed to be making the case for contamination but was dropped from the witness list after rejecting it. They also noted that Gerdes claimed it was impossible to distinguish blood from the reference vials from blood from the body despite Dr. Rieders demonstrating just that the week prior using EDTA. That false claim notwithstanding, his testimony wasn't reliable they said because he was clearly pandering to the defense: all of his contamination occurred through random carelessness in the lab yet the only three matches he said were valid were the same three the defense claimed were planted while the remaining 58 matches were all false positives despite admitting that has never happened before. The substrate controls that are used to determine if contamination like he was suggesting occurred were also coincidentally all false negatives. So Gerdes was claiming that the contamination only got on the evidence items despite they and the substrate controls all being handled interchangeably at the same time. Clinical molecular geneticist Dr. Brad Popovich called Gerdes claims "ridiculous". Thomas Lambert was given high marks for his cross-examination of Gerdes forcing him to admit "there's no direct evidence of contamination in any of the test results that I looked at in this case." Prosecutor and DNA expert George "Woody" Clarke wrote in Justice and Science: Trials and Triumphs of DNA Evidence that Gerdes contamination claim was rejected by every DNA expert at the criminal trial. The only reason it appeared convincing to the jury is because Judge Lance Ito allowed Gerdes to testify for six hours about contamination that occurred years ago in other cases instead of narrowing his testimony to only incidents in this case of which there were none. Criticism of the court: Judge Lance Ito was criticized by Marcia Clark, Christopher Darden, Vincent Buligosi, Daniel Petrocelli, Darnel Hunt, and Jeffrey Toobin for his alleged poor stewardship of the trial. The criticism focused on allegations that he failed to control the court room and was unduly influenced by the media. Critics often compare his stewardship to judge Hiroshi Fujisaki who presided over the civil trial against Simpson. Failure to control the courtroom: Defense attorney Robert Shapiro wrote in The Search for Justice that Judge Ito did give Scheck and Cochran more latitude than what was normally permitted. For instance, he allowed Johnnie Cochran and Barry Scheck to interrupt Marcia Clark's summation sixty-one times. Typically, no objections are permitted during opposing counsels closing statements. Buligosi criticized Ito for allowing the defense to argue that evidence was tampered with despite him ruling "there is no concrete evidence of tampering". Fuhrman criticized Ito for allowing Cochran to say during summations that "he lied when he said he didn't plant the glove" despite Ito ruling "It is a theory without factual support." Prosecutor and DNA expert George "Woody" Clarke in Justice and Science: Trials and Triumphs of DNA Evidence criticized Ito because the only reason Gerdes contamination claim appeared convincing to the jury is because he allowed him to testify for six hours about contamination that occurred years ago in other cases instead of narrowing his testimony to only incidents in this case, of which there were none. Petrocelli opined in Triumph of Justice that "Ito had given the defense lawyers an astonishing amount of leeway...Ito did so because he believed, beyond any doubt...that Simpson would be found guilty so he gave the defense every break and benefit so that when the inevitable appeal was filed, the verdict would be bulletproof." In the wrongful death civil trial, Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki's rulings were beyond reproach by Petrocelli or Baker and gave neither side any leeway. He prohibited all the conspiracy claims except for those that had evidence (there were none) and only allowed Gerdes to testify to confirmed contamination in the Simpson case only (there were none). Fuhrman was not called to testify at the civil trial as he continued to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights but the he ruled the evidence admissible because it was witnessed by the other officers present. Fujisaki prohibited Fuhrman's racism or perjury from being mentioned during the civil trial because Baker could not "show it had anything directly to do with this case" and the perjury "was not material to any facts in this case". Toobin wrote in Run of his Life that Baker never criticized Fujisaki for his decisions in the civil trial because his reasonings for prohibiting him from arguing many of the claims the defense had made at the criminal trial were legally justified. Influenced by the media presence: Ito's decision to allow the trial to be televised was widely criticized. In 1998, Christopher Darden published his book, In Contempt, in which he criticized Ito as a "starstruck" judge who allowed the trial to turn into a media circus and the defense to control the court room while he collected hourglasses from fans and invited celebrities into his chambers. In interviews with Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters, Darden asserted his view that Simpson, Cochran, Shapiro and Bailey were running the courtroom, not Ito.