The OJ Simpson Trial

"Heigh ho, heigh ho. It's off to jail I go."


With OJ Simpson now sitting in the Clark County Jail awaiting sentencing, I thought I would comment on some of the aspects of the trial, particularly the post-trial comments of defense attorney Yale Galanter and his co-counsel.

It seems that the appeal strategy will be centered on a couple of main points. First is that Simpson, due to his notoriety in the murder case 13 years ago, could not get a fair trial. That argument should not go very far. Any appellate judge who would reverse a conviction on those grounds would be saying that certain notorious defendants like Simpson could never be prosecuted fairly, therefore making them immune from any prosecution for any crime. That is just plain insane.

In the jury selection (which took days instead of the normal one hour due to the celebrity of the defendant) potential jurors were asked several questions on this point. They assured the court that they could put the murder case aside and render a fair verdict on the charges at hand. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, their word must be accepted.

The defense will apparently base their appeal also on the fact that there were no black jurors. Sorry. The State of Nevada has a sparse black population, and a rather small black population resides in Las Vegas. You get the jury where you commit the crime.

Today, I heard on the radio that one of Simpson's lawyers was speculating on the fact that the jurors worked late on Friday night and returned their verdict after 13 days of trial, 13 hours of deliberation, and on the 13th anniversary of Simpson's acquittal in Los Angeles. That, to the attorney, seemed highly suspicious. And your legal point, Counsel, is? To try and use that as a basis for appeal would be laughable.

In fact, several of the jurors including the foreman, have stated publicly that this coincidence had nothing to do with their decision to work late Friday evening. There were other reasons why they chose to stick it out. Again, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the jurors word must be accepted-as if it makes any difference.

Finally, there is the age-old issue of the character of the witnesses against Simpson-the victims and his co-defendants who testified. Questionable characters every one, according to the defense. Their testimony should not be believed. This is true, however, the words should read, "Their testimony alone should not be believed." The jurors have also spoken publicly that they did not accept the word of the witnesses.

Here is the key: As a DEA agent, I had countless cases where we used the testimony of informants, co-conspirators, unindicted or otherwise, and cooperating defendants to cooperate with the government and testify against their (former) associates in drug cases. This is an old and yes, distasteful practice that is unfortunately necessary in many cases. You can't get local pastors to testify as to the inner workings of a criminal conspiracy. Do these people get consideration in their own sentencing? Yes. Should their testimony be believed? It depends.

In any such trial (and this includes the Simpson trial), the presiding judge will invariably instruct the jury that the uncorroborated testimony of such persons is not to be accepted. It should only be accepted if the prosecution provides independent evidence that corroborates the testimony of the unsavory witness.
For this reason, no sane prosecutor will even consider using informants or cooperating defendant/co-conspirators as witnesses unless their testimony can be fully corroborated.

How is such corroboration done? It can be accomplished by a variety of normal investigative techniques; tape recordings, documents, eyewitness testimony by other, more credible persons, photographs, fingerprints, DNA, police testimony, undercover police testimony, surveillance. The list goes on and on.

In this case, apparently the crucial pieces of evidence were Simpson's own words on tape. That sealed the deal. Simpson's own words corroborated the testimony of the witnesses against him. Again, the jurors have publicly stated that it was evidence other than witness testimony of the victims and co-defendants that convinced them that Simpson was guilty.

Ironically, it appears that the main motivation for Simpson to organize this insane incident was to protect his memorabilia from Fred Goldman to partially satisfy the civil judgement against him for causing the deaths of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman (Fred's son). That should give the Goldman family a degree of satisfaction.

As for an appeal, as I have laid out, I don't think he has much chance. (I am not a lawyer, but I speak from my own court experience as a DEA agent.) I think (and hope) that we have seen the last of OJ Simpson. On the other hand, never underestimate the idiocy of some of our judges.