Sunday, September 09, 2012

O.J. Simpson Prosecutor Chris Darden: Lead Defense Atty Johnnie Cochrane 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.

13 comments:

Chicago guy said...

heNotice that this black sociopath was able to get fawning whites to carry his water for him his entire life. As a football player whites gushed over him and treated him like a hero. He was in commercials that put his face into every living room. People wanted his autograph. He had white girlfriends even after it was apparent he murdered his ex-spouse. At the end he was able to manipulate some white guys into accompanying him on the robbery, which seemed to be of little benefit to them. Look at Obama; he's been carried along by starry-eyed whites his entire life. He's got whites volunteering to work for free to get him re-elected as though he were the second coming, instead of seeing what he really is, a glib,fast talker with no depth. Both OJ and Obama have spent their lives getting others to give them benefits for very little in return. They are both hollow, cynical people on the inside who've made careers using others for whatever they're worth.

Anonymous said...

I still think at the media hyped Mark Fuhrman's use of the word "nigger" 10 years prior to this case.

I think this was much more a factor in the outcome of the case than that ridiculous glove story laid out by Cochran. Anyone with a pair of snug fitting gloves can easily play that same game that Cochran had his double murder client play in that court-room.

The use of the word "nigger" by Fuhrman a full decade prior to this execution gave the brain-dead jury an excuse to free their black hero and dish some "justice" out to whitey.

In this crazy world calling someone a "bad" name you are far more guilty of sin and deserving of punishment than if you commit a ghastly murder or two in they eyes and pea-brains of the media and brainwashed masses.

The verdict was clear, the use of the "n" word at any point in your life, no matter how distant, is far worse than slashing the throats of two white people.

Anyway, "whitey" deserves payback.

Anonymous said...

I looked through my copy of Jeffrey Toobin's "The Run of His Life." Toobin did an adequate job in his book on the Simpson trial.

In the chapter on the glove debacle, Tobbin wrote that Shapiro, Cochran, and the other defense attorneys had played around with the gloves and realized they weren't that big, were several years old, been through extensive testing, and had likely shrunk. Thus, they might not fit Simpson's hands.

Marcia Clark and William Hodgman had decided not to have Simpson try them on. There was a new pair sent by the maker, but the wrong model. Because of this, Ito suggested trying the "actual gloves."

Darden eagerly went along with this and we saw what happened. Darden (and Clark) had several months to make sure the right examples were there but did not.

David In TN

Anonymous said...

I remember the racial controversy surrounding this case back in the day. If you were white and thought he was guilty, then you were branded a racist. Granted, back in those days, being called a racist wasn't a career ender that it is today, but it still demonstrates how people really think.

These days, we see blacks voting for Obama simply because he is black, and whites being called racist if they so much as criticize their god-president. Cases like the Trayvon Martin race-hoax shows just how far the black community will go to play the race card even though race had nothing to do with the shooting. Correction: I do not believe, based on the evidence, that Zimmerman was racially motivated, however, I do believe that there was clear racism on the part of Trayvon because he attacked who he perceived as 'whitey' simply because Zimmerman asked him a few questions (as was Zimmerman's right to do as a concerned citizen that had his neighborhood burglarized recently by blacks). Please forgive the previous run-on sentence. I sometimes get a little upset as I write these comments.

Anyway, back to OJ Simpson. Whites seem almost too willing to worship black celebrities such as Simpson as well as Obama. I do believe that played a major role in Simpsons trial. However, that jury must have been either stupid or on drugs to acquit him. If Simpson can get off on these murders which he very obviously did simply because the murder gloves didn't quite fit, then I don't understand how anyone can ever be convicted of anything. It's supposed to be 'beyond a REASONABLE doubt', not beyond all doubt. It's like having some guy on video killing a bunch of people, signing a confession while totally lucid, admitting his crime on the stand, and then being found not guilty because the shoes in evidence didn't have the laces tied quite like the defendant normally tied them. It's insane.

The prosecutor for that case should have been fired on the spot and be sent to prison for gross incompetence.

Anonymous said...

I believe oj did it but I mean ...come on r u really that prejudice?!!?! I guess it be different for u if it was a white guy that murdered a black girl... n let's face it white black or whatever color a president may be.. they all make promises n don't keep half of them ... but I guess all u can see is his skin color... its people like U.... who ruin everything !!! grow up.. the world has changed.its not about someone's race its about who they r!!!

Anonymous said...

Skank douche bag!!!! U r a racist.. n I'm a white saying that!!!! Grow the hell up

Unknown said...

In my honest opinion.If Mark Furhman had been black OJ would've been found as guilty as he was....But that's all the dirt they could dig up to keep a wife murdering piece of scum on the street.....I feel so bad for the Goldmans as well....maybe more so in a way because you learn in a split second that the person you loved meant nothing to anyone but you. The system treats you like you lost your car keys while the murderer has all the rights and then to imagine that Nicole was famous & got the most attention because of it, We probably would have never heard of Ron Goldman if not for Nicole............Kinda bitter/sweet I guess....jmo

Anonymous said...

What made me sick was when he was found NOT guilty ALL the blacks cheered and the whites were dumbfounded like myself, the friggin nigs could have cared less if he did it, and THAT should make every white person realize that MOST and I know not all BUT MOST Blacks HATE whites and now 15 years later its still the same and getting worse, I read on the news all the time about Blacks assaulting whites and NOTHING is done about it, I grew up in NY with a very Racist Father who told me how Troy was very nice until the nigs came from NYC and ruined the area, I hate the fact that deep down I believe I am racist to a point only because I have been jumped by packs of them for NO reason except being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I say I hate it because I don't look at color I look at character but as I get older its getting harder to look at character when I see the shit they do to whites and our society is so damn politically correct and afraid to offend them that they do nothing, time to stand up for an be proud to be white, NOT white power or supremacy BUT proud to be WHITE.. I sure as hell am........

Anonymous said...

I feel awful for OJ. Nobody ever talks about how his wife was a gold-digging slut who banged many young white guys before OJ understandably snapped finally honor-killing the whore. She deserved every slash of OJ's righteously swung blade.

Unknown said...

She is psychomaniac. The only way out is to......(fill in the blank) In advance, Not Guilty!

venividivice said...

A-freaking-men! I could not have said that any better myself!

Unknown said...

I believe oj son killed Nichole that's why he left the county he was never even investigated

Anonymous said...

O.J cheated on Nicole when they were taking a 'break'. Before he got divorced with his wife at the time, he was already making plans to date Nicole. HIS DNA WAS FOUND AT THE CRIME SENCE. THERE DNA WAS ALSO FOUND IN HIS TRUCK. he also wrote a book 'if i did it' what kind of 'innocent' man would make up hypothetical events about the brutal murder of his ex-wife.