O.J. Simpson Prosecutor Chris Darden: Lead Defense Attorney Johnnie Cochran Tampered with Glove, Prior to Dramatic Courtroom Demonstration

 

Left side view 


Above two and below: Murder victim Nicole Brown Simpson, after her ex-husband was done with her. “When you go black, you don’t go back.”
 

 

Murder victim Ron Goldman, after his introduction to the Butcher of Brentwood
 

Ex-prosecutor claims O.J. Simpson attorney tampered with glove

"O.J. Simpson greets reporters ahead of a court date. (Fred Prouser, REUTERS / April 6, 2005)"

By Terry Baynes
Reuters/Chicago Tribune
September 8, 2012, 9:38 a.m. CDT

(Reuters) - Nearly 17 years after O.J. Simpson walked away from his Los Angeles murder trial a free man, a prosecutor at the center of the case has alleged that the lead defense lawyer tampered with a crucial piece of evidence.

Former Los Angeles deputy district attorney Christopher Darden on Thursday accused Simpson's defense lawyer, the late Johnnie Cochran, of "manipulating" one of the infamous gloves that the prosecution said linked Simpson to the grisly double murder of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

After Simpson struggled to fit the gloves on his hands - in one of the defining moments of the racially charged trial that captivated the nation - Cochran famously admonished the jury, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

On Thursday, during a panel discussion about the trial at Pace Law School in New York City, Darden, a member of the prosecution team, declared: "I think Johnnie tore the lining. There were some additional tears in the lining so that O.J.'s fingers couldn't go all the way up into the glove."

 
Nicole Brown Simpson, after a non-murder session with her husband
 

Darden said in a follow-up interview on Friday that he noticed that when Simpson was trying on a glove for the jury its structure appeared to have changed. "A bailiff told me the defense had it during the lunch hour." He said he wasn't specifically accusing anyone, adding: "It's been my suspicion for a long time that the lining has been manipulated."

He said he had previously voiced similar concerns in TV interviews, but could not recall the details.

Darden's charge surprised key participants in the trial and related legal action. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who was a member of Simpson's defense team, and Paul Callan, who represented Nicole Brown Simpson's estate in a successful civil trial against Simpson, said it was the first time they had ever heard the allegation.

On Friday, Dershowitz called the claim that the defense had an opportunity to tamper with the gloves "a total fabrication" and said "the defense doesn't get access to evidence except under controlled circumstances."

 
Nicole Brown Simpson, when O.J. wasn't beating or butchering her
 

Dershowitz said in a follow-up email that he "was certain" in this case that the defense team did not have access to the glove before it was tried on by Simpson in open court.

"Having made the greatest legal blunder of the 20th century," Dershowitz said of Darden, "he's trying to blame it on the dead man."

Darden's remarks came after Dershowitz, a fellow panelist, called Darden's decision to have Simpson try on the glove for the first time before the jury "the most stupid thing" a prosecutor could have done.

 
Ron Goldman, prior to his introduction to the Butcher
 
Dershowitz said that if Darden had evidence that there had been tampering, he would have had an ethical obligation to report the alleged misconduct. He also questioned why Darden had not filed a grievance with the state bar association. Darden responded by saying that this would have been a "whiny-little-snitch approach to life" and that was not what he believed in because it did not change anything.

The event was part of a "Trials and Errors" series, co-sponsored by Pace Law School and the Forum on Law, Culture & Society at Fordham Law, that examines America's most controversial cases. Also on the panel were Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, and his sister, Kim Goldman.

 
The Butcher of Brentwood, smirking during his murder trial
 
Derek Sells, the managing partner of Cochran's old law firm, The Cochran Firm, did not respond to requests for comment. A call to Cochran's daughter, Tiffany Cochran Edwards, who is a communications director for the firm, was not immediately returned. Cochran died in 2005 from a brain tumor at age 67.

Simpson was acquitted in the double murder case despite what prosecutors described as a "mountain of evidence" against him. The evidence included a blood-soaked glove found on Simpson's estate and a matching one found at the scene of the murder.

 
Prosecutor Christopher Darden in court

Questions about the lining of the gloves emerged during the 1995 trial, but they did not involve allegations of tampering by defense lawyers.

Three other members of Simpson's defense team, Robert Shapiro, Barry Scheck and F. Lee Bailey, did not immediately return requests for comment. Robert Kardashian, who also represented Simpson, is deceased.

 
Lead prosecutor, and later hack mystery writer, Marcia Clark, in court with Chris Darden and a third prosecutor. She ignored the advice of jury experts that black women hated her, delusionally insisting that she had rapport with them, but would it have made any difference, if she'd handed off the case?
 

A civil jury in 1997 found Simpson liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages to the murder victims' families. Simpson, the former National Football League star and Hollywood actor, is currently serving up to 33 years in prison for a 2007 armed robbery in which he claimed he was trying to recover his own sports memorabilia.

(Reporting by Terry Baynes; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Eric Effron, Martin Howell, David Brunnstrom and Will Dunham)
 

The Butcher’s lead defense counsel, Johnnie Cochran, presently burning in Hell. Darden says Cochrane tampered with the murder glove in evidence, which gave Cochran and Simpson their big dramatic scene. But did it affect the outcome? Those despicable jurors could have seen a video of Simpson murdering his ex-wife and Ron Goldman, and still would have acquitted him. In any event, if Darden's charge is true, it means that an officer of the court committed a crime, in aiding and abetting Cochrane.