So just now this shows up in the news?
Knife found BURIED on OJ Simpson estate sparks top secret investigation
Oh, “according to TMZ.”
So this knife has been around for years, but …
“According to TMZ the knife was actually handed in years ago but the officer it was given to was not on duty at the time – he was on the street in Brentwood doing security for a movie shoot.
“Despite taking the weapon off the construction worker the officer kept it for years without telling anyone.”
The officer kept it for years without telling anyone? Until the case is back in the news thanks to the drama in progress on FX, when this police officer decided he might get big bucks from TMZ, which, yes, does pay and sometimes pays big for tips that generate sensational headlines.
Sensationalized stories still make for great ratings, just like they did 21 years ago during the real “People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson.
Anatomy of a Trial blog 
The photos of Simpson (“I would never wear those ugly-ass shoes”) in the Bruno Magli shoes which surfaced after the criminal trial and were key evidence in the wrongful death civil trial were far more powerful than a knife dug out of the ground.
By the way, it was the national media, not the public who were “fascinated” by O.J. Simpson killing his ex-wife and a bystander. The media can and does “create” news when they want to. And they can ignore something (murder trials) when they want to.
Simpson hadn’t played football since 1979 and didn’t have a good season after 1976. He wasn’t being talked about much anymore and was a C list celebrity, B- at most by June 1994.
I don’t see how that is “key evidence”. It is key evidence he once owned shoes that do look like those Bruno Maglis, yes, but that does not mean he had them months or years later, at the time of the murders.
From what I understand, the knife is inconsequential re: finding Simpson guilty since he can’t be retried. What are your thoughts if DNA that matches Nicole Brown and/or Ronald Goldman is found on it — and fingerprints that aren’t Simpson’s?
I would say that it would likely point in a very specific, and under-appreciated direction–someone who would have had access to the house and a whole lot more.
I agree, David, except that the media’s fascination became news stories primarily because of ratings and sales. If the public didn’t bite, corporate-owned news organizations would have moved on to something that did sell, although you are right that how stories were reported (sensationalized) was a huge factor in public interest. I will note, however, that veteran AP special correspondent Linda Deutsch, whose reporting was straight and without sensationalism, noted that the fact that Simpson was one of the few celebrities ever to stand trial for murder in the U.S. in itself gave the story long, long legs. Other factors such as sex, domestic assault, race, celebrity connections, and more insured the case’s noteworthiness without having to sensationalize it.
Dozens of photographs surfaced during the civil trial showing Simpson wearing the Bruno Maglis during the fall of 1993. This proved Simpson was lying when he said during depositions “I never owned those ugly-ass shoes.”
And speaking of Key Evidence, what was Ron Goldman’s blood doing in Simpson’s Ford bronco?
Lying…or made a simple error, of the sort anyone might make? I hardly know any of the makes of the clothes in my closet, and Simpson had an Imelda Marcosian expanse of clothes from various sources (as is common from celebs) not to mention gifts from Nicole and doubtless his various high flying buddies. It’s not particularly smart to “lie” about something so easily disproven. That man–no dummy if you look at his life and history–had to be among the top 100 humans ;photographed of the latter 20th Century. A Simpson who a) knows he is innocent and b) is trying to figure out the facts behind why all these people seem hell bent to hang him might easily turn to scoffing at bits of evidence that to him are implausible.
What were smears of Ron’s…and Nicole’s…blood doing in the Bronco? Why don’t you ask all the people who had access to the Bronco?
Why don’t you ask the man who admitted in his police interview to driving the Bronco the night of the murder? And what were blood drops belonging to Simpson doing leading away from the bodies of the victims? The defense never explained them.
By the way, Simpson also said in the police interview he had not bled there previously.
“No dummy?” Why did he do something stupid enough to be sitting in a prison cell at this moment?
Does a Simpson who “knows he is innocent” write a “suicide note” (read to the public by Kardashian) reeking with guilt? And then try to run away? No, at that time Simpson expected to spend the rest of his life in prison because he knew what he had done.
He admitted driving it several hours *before* the murders, I’m afraid. Guess who didn’t see any stinkin’ Bronco either *before* he arrived at the gate or *after* they left? The limo driver, that’s who.
What he said was that he had not bled at Bundy, so far as he knew, in last week or ten days or so. There is no way to determine the age of those drops.
But beyond that–how do you know it was Simpson’s blood? Those tests could not, by definition, establish that. They could only narrow Simpson as one of a subset of humans who shared those alleles (and as it happens, those numbers they through at the jury were wildly inappropriate).
I think he’s in prison because, as some cops were caught saying, they didn’t get him in LA so they’d get him in Vegas (which is why their main witnesses were people with the usual dodgy pasts, or got deals to testify–why does this practice not make people outraged, by the way? I hear they do it all the time in Tennessee). You only need look at that insane sentence to understand this plain fact–that affair was rough justice, Vegas style.
That “reeking” is your confirmation bias rotting your thinking. He says he is not guilty. A man who is heavily drugged, dazed and wrongfully under suspicion for the horrible killing of a loved one, with evidence he is being framed, might well act that way. You of course have no basis for saying otherwise other than your prejudiced insistence that he is guilty.
And finally, as even Jeffrey Toobin had to admit, he was not running away to Mexico or some other ridiculous thing. He was going to Nicole’s gravesite, and their plan (what, AC is going to join him on a Butch and Sundance odyssey through Tijuana and then to parts beyond?) was scotched by the media and cops already there. The duo was discovered heading NORTH on the freeway, by a civilian. Canada not being the most efficient way to Mexico, I’d say that is pretty good evidence they weren’t fleeing the cops, but AC was trying to calm and succor his confused friend, and finally succeeded in dragging Simpson back to the reality of his having to face charges that (to the innocent Simpson–just TRY thinking through thinks from that perspective for a moment) are mysterious, onerous, and disastrous to his future.
The limo driver didn’t see the Bronco when he drove up because Simpson was away committing a double murder.
The blood drops led away from the bodies of the victims. Simpson had cuts on his left finger from swinging a knife wildly with his right hand.
The blood at the murder scene matched Simpson’s DNA. The geniuses on the defense team never explained it away, neither can you. The jurors (including the one on Dateline last night) said they didn’t bother to consider the DNA evidence. I guess they thought Judge Ito told them to disregard it in his jury instructions.
Since the jurors admitted they ignored the DNA evidence. and per Mr. Cryer. they weren’t paying attention anyway, there is no reason to take the jury seriously.
I do think the sentence for Las Vegas would be about nine months in jail for someone else. But the sentence Simpson got couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, to use an old saying.
If Simpson had been innocent, why commit suicide? Simpson’s actions (and words on tape) during the couple of days he spent at Kardashian’s house are those of a man looking at spending the rest of his life in prison due to his own actions.
Shapiro couldn’t make Simpson go to Parker Center and turn himself in. So Simpson did what he did after the New Years Day 1989 beating of Nicole. He took off running.
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Here’s a link to Judge Ito’s jury instructions, David: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cas62.htm
I don’t know if it’s fair to Jerrianne to continue re-fighting the case like this on her page, so I’ll just briefly observe that a) Parks did not see the Bronco AT ANY TIME that night, nor did he hear one approach or a door close etc.; b) Not one of over a dozen people, including autograph hounds, Parks and Kato, the men at the luggage counter, the ticket agents, or the people on the plane including the captain (who say with him up close for 30 minutes) or even greeting him upon arrival in Chicago saw any cut, or any sign of a guy trying to hide an incriminating cut; c) a random “match” only proves that the “matchee” is one of a small handful of persons on the planet who share the measured alleles, and among that small handful are increasingly family members as you get closer in relationship.
In the criminal case, the jury knew only about evidence presented in trial.
And as I referenced months ago from the Dan Moldea book with Lange and Vannatter “Evidence Dismissed,” the jury in the criminal trial never heard a lot of evidence, Simpson’s police interview for example, in which he admitted bleeding in his home, driveway, and automobile. This was before his trip to Chicago.
They certainly didn’t, a fact that likely hurt Simpson a great deal in his post-trial attempts to recover his claim to non-pariah status. For example, the defense was set to have Dr. Lenora Walker (one of the bravest and most honorable–in fact no, the most by far, of the people involved in this absurd trial) explain how she had determined that OJ was not an implacable woman basher, engulfed in uncontrollable rages that would ultimately spell Nicole’s doom. He had one incident (which he plausibly contests as misunderstood) over 5 years prior, but the prosecution tried to pick and choose semi-pop-psych theories about how things supposedly happen in complex affairs like marriage, and it sure stuck in the public’s mind. Given that she was the person who coined the term “battered woman” and considered one of top experts of the time, she had every personal and professional reason to join in what was then a rising tide of recognition (good) and activism (not necessarily so good) exposing domestic violence. And yet, after interviewing Simpson for dozens of hours and carefully reviewing his case history, she reached conclusions that lead for calls for her head as a traitor (you can read about it in a paper about her experience, co-written with another feminist psychologist who valued scientific objectivity over cheap shots at personal gain–google her name and “What’s are nice feminists like you doing on the OJ defense team?”).
They didn’t put her on for the tactical reason that they felt at that point they were way ahead, and did not want to risk losing a juror and defaulting to a mistrial. This little nugget also reminds us that trials, much as we like to hope otherwise, and not perfect truth-measuring devices, but contests between warring parties played according to rules that don’t necessarily hold “truth” in the greatest of esteem, for whatever reason (google “finality”, “prosecutor,” and “innocent” for details…).
Tonight, Sunday March 6, NBC has a special two-hour Dateline titled “What The Jury Never Head.” This was originally shown in June 2014 but has been updated with some new interviews, Marcia Clark for one. And inevitably, Kris Jenner.
And 10 will get you 30 they didn’t offer one speck of info that the defense could have offered at trial, but didn’t, or the information that has come out since about the case, or even things the defense could not or did not produce supporting Simpson for whatever reason.
Just as with the anti-OJ books and their fantastic success relative to those giving his side, the image of an Othello, or a savage NFL beast just fits too many people’s imagination too easily to be contradicted, or to be ignored by ratings-hungry media.
Those who claim Simpson was “innocent” are either willfully stupid or wanted him acquitted not due to doubt of his guilt but the certainty (so-called “payback”) of it.
By the way, should (accused) serial killer Lonnie Franklin be acquitted and (convicted) serial killer Chester Turner have his conviction overturned? DNA is the key evidence against both.