Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case

The book that I am going to introduce is Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Got Away With Murder, written by Vincent Bugliosi, and was published on June 17, 1996. We all know that Nichole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death and their bodies were discovered on June 12, 1994 early morning. It was said that after a car chase, O.J. was found with $9,000 I cash, his passport, disguise, and a gun. O.J. Simpson who is her ex-husband was acquitted October 3, 1995, for their deaths in a trial that riveted the nation and divided people along racial differences. In 1997, he was ordered to pay a little over $33 million for their deaths. O.J. Simpson is still serving time in prison for things like kidnapping, robbery, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, and numerous other charges. Mr. Bugliosi sums up five reason why the case was lost. Those five can be labeled as the jury, the change in venue or settings, the judge allowing the defense to play the race card, the stupidity of the prosecution throughout the trial, and lastly the summation of what should really have been done. But in honesty when the media started reporting about this case it was already falling apart.

On June 12, 1994, the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found dead at her home in Brentwood, CA. Orenthal James Simpson, or O.J. Simpson was notified of their deaths and immediately taken into custody for questions. Upon the collection of various pieces of evidence from the crime scene, all avenues pointed to Simpson as the culprit for the double murder. The conclusion of Simpson criminal trial resulted in his acquittal. There were various reasons for this acquittal. The most prominent reasons include accusations of racism, evidence contamination, and the lack of faith in DNA profiling. This paper will discuss the issues that arose with the trial in depth and offer an explanation and solution to resolving issues

Soon later the police finally picked up enough evidence to get a warrant for his arrest. Simpson and his lawyer Robert Shapiro both agreed that he will turn himself in at 10:00 am on June 17. Simpson didn’t go at the time he was given so the policemen and Robert Shapiro went to Simpsons home and discovered that he disappeared and left a letter saying "Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life, great friends. Please think of the real O. J. and not this lost person.  Thanks for making my life special. I hope I helped yours. Peace and love, O. J." (Linder). Policemen and his lawyer thought it was a suicide letter. Until someone in Orange County saw Simpson riding a white bronco and immediately called the police. Only a couple of minutes later police cars and helicopters were chasing him, they followed Simpson all the way to his front gate of his house. Policemen saw that he was wearing a fake beard and had $8,750 in cash, loaded gun, and a passport, days later he was on his first day of the trial. On Tuesday, Jan 24, 1995 was the first day of the trial, Judge Lance Ito open to the people in the courtroom that he will be expecting to see some good lawyering skills for the case. Christopher Darden who open the trial said that Simpson was and abusive and a jealous husband to Nicole B. Simpson.

Media publishes both positive and negative aspects regarding a criminal case, and with Milats’ case, the media focused highly on negative publicity. As Ruva, Geunther and Yarbrough had found that both positive and negative media realises can influence the jury in different ways, it provided an understanding into the different types of media representation surrounding a case. The different types of media representation will influence ones memory, and pre-trial publicity can cause errors in judgement or confusion surrounding the case. Ruva and McEvoy (2008) explored how positive and negative publicity for the trail can affect the memory and decisions making of the jurors. Again, discussions surrounding how pre-trail publicity does effect the decision making of the juror were shown through the results of the study. Ruva and McEvoy had found that negative pre-trail publicity “had nearly twice the convictions rates as did non-exposed jurors” (2008, p. 7), whereas, positive pre-tail publicity gave jurors a biased decision and these jurors were more likely to have found the defendant not guilty, and also, more likely to sympathise with the defendant. Ruva and McEvoy argued that the negative pre-trial publicity should be used to influence the jury’s decision, as it gives the defendant more questions to respond to and can truly test the defendants’ credibility. In the end, the jurors decisions when exposed to pre-trail publicity, comes down to what information is stored in the

The O.J. Simpson trial was one of the most distinguishable cases in American history. Many Americans tuned into the bronco chase on June 17, 1994 when Simpson was the main suspect for the murder of Nicole Brown-Simpson, O.J.’s ex-wife, and her friend Ronald Goldman, which occurred a few days prior (Lamb, 1994). O.J. Simpson was the murder suspect for the double homicide of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. He was a retired professional football player who resided in California. He was one of the black entertainers of the 1990’s along with Oprah, Michael, Wesley, and Spike. Through these entertainers, it was shown that there is opportunity to succeed for black men and woman in society (White, 1995). The number one question on everyone’s mind was not if O.J. was innocent or guilty, but whether he would be found guilty or just walk away. Other questions on the mind of American’s was did he actually commit the crime?

During recent studies from several researchers it has been concluded that there is a fault within our criminal justice system. Researchers discovered there is a high wrongful conviction rate within the United States judicial system. After, extensive research, it was found that wrongful convictions are caused by eyewitness error, false confessions, flawed forensic science, an informant, bad lawyering, and government misconduct. Without a doubt, this issue has shocked society, due to the fact we rely on the system for pure justice. Within my findings, it is apparent that victims of wrongful convictions suffer numerous affects when

The unsolved murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman has become one of the most discussed cases in all of history. Orenthal James “O.J.” Simpson, the formal professional football player and the ex-husband of Nicole Brown has always been the main suspect in this case. Although found not guilty by the jury, many still believe he was the killer. In this paper, we will discuss in great detail the events that took place at the time of the murder, as well as why or why not O.J. is guilty. If O.J. isn’t guilty, who could have been the mastermind behind these murders?

The OJ Simpson murder case was an event that transfixed the nation over 20 years ago, with everyone who was around back then having some recollection of the whole ordeal. Today, that same case in entering back into the public consciousness, as a new television series dramatizing the events, entitled “The People vs. OJ Simpson”, just premiered. In an op-ed for the New York Times, John McWhorter pens an argument that the case was symbolic of race relations between the police and the African-American community. McWhorter, an African-American, goes into detail about how he did not understand why his community was cheering back in 1995 about Simpson being acquitted. McWhorter even believed that Simpson was guilty. However, he does now

Since the beginning of time, the United States’ Criminal Justice System (CJS) has been scrutinized and will continue to be. If significant changes were to occur within the CJS it could potentially take decades. Different persons, institutions, governments, and even departments within governments have different views; it is a natural occurrence. Thus, as with any subject matter, there are always controversies that cause disruption within society. Often, the controversies stem from the lack of understanding and the historical patterns of unsupported data.

The topic of this paper is going to be Orenthal James (O.J. Simpson) and the infamous trial. Simpson was born on July 9, 1947 in San Francisco, California to Jimmie Lee Simpson and Eunice Simpson (CNN Library, 2016). O.J. Simpson is a high profile person/celebrity in the sports market. He is a former American football running back, broadcaster, actor, and convicted armed robber and kidnapper. Simpson attended USC where he played college football and won the Heisman trophy in 1968. He played in the NFL as a running back for eleven seasons with the Buffalo Bills (1969-1977) and the San Francisco 49ers (1978-1979). He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. When he retired, Simpson

The O. J. Simpson double murder case, also titled “People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson was a trial in which James O.J Simpson, a former National Football League player was convicted at the Los Angeles County Superior Court of two murder offenses on June 12, 1994. He was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, a restaurant waiter at Mezzaluna. The trial spans for a period of eight months. The opening statements were read on January 23, 1995, whereas the verdict, which left Simpson a free man, was declared on October 3, 1995. “The Trial of The Century,” as it is commonly known, has been described as the most publicized trial in history. However, before Simpson could be arrested and prosecuted, they had to go through an investigation process with the implementation of some techniques used by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as this essay illustrates.

The next process in the Justice system, a Grand Jury indictment, was interrupted. OJ Simpson hired a top notch team of defense and appellate lawyers to defend him in this case and they were able to get the Grand Jury dismissed from this case due to the massive media coverage. They claimed that the jury was prejudiced toward the defendant because of the readily available information about the case. In lieu of the Grand Jury trial a probable cause hearing was conducted. With that, the judge in this hearing felt that enough evidence did exist for a criminal trial and OJ Simpson was arraigned on July 29th 1994. At his arraignment OJ pleaded not guilty, specifically stating that he was “one hundred percent not guilty”.

This essay is purposed for the evaluation of the provocative case, The State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, more commonly referred to as O.J. Simpson. On the 12th of June, 1994 the homicide of Nicole Simpson, O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife, occurred at her home. Reports of a body sprawled out the front of Nicole Simpson’s house were made through a 911 call. On arrival, police made the discovery of Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman’s dead bodies outside the house. The review of this investigation will be achieved through; Assessment of the key aspects of the process of investigation. Evaluation of the main investigative flaws made throughout the investigation. Identifying strategies to prevent these flaws from happening in

In the poem “Mystery of Inequity” Lauryn Hill explores corruption to talk about crooked lawyers. Public defenders are prime examples of crooked lawyers because they are appointed by the judge to represent alleged offenders if they cannot afford a real attorney. Most of the time if an alleged criminal is represented by a public defender nine times out of ten he or she is going to be found guilty according to either the jury or the judge. They are hired by the government but are supposed to work for the people; which in many cases does not work in the defendant’s favor and causes the person to serve prison time for the crime they did or did not commit at that time. Also, public defenders work with the prosecutors more than they work with the alleged criminal themselves. This is why public are known as crooked lawyers and are not supposed to be in used while an alleged criminal is preparing or on trial because they will most likely ask that person if they want to take a plea deal or also known as a plea bargain; which is the agreement in any criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor. This

In 1995, O.J. Simpson, a popular sports player and public figure, was accused of the double homicide of Ron Goldman and his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. Within the following months, the trial became increasingly popular as the celebrity’s case deepened. Due to its popularity, the case revealed many aspects that shocked and confounded the public. Consequently, the issue of race arose within what was viewed as the most shocking component of the trial: the verdict. As the infamous O.J. Simpson verdict reached America, the reaction caused a polarizing effect on the racial view of Simpson between white and black communities.