Killer Conversations: The Trial Of O. J. Simpson

The podcast episode discusses the case of O.J. Simpson and the accusations of him murdering Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. It explores why Simpson was marked as innocent despite evidence, the impact of the civil rights movement, and why civil rights activists supported his release. The episode also touches on jury bias, the prosecution's lack of finesse, Simpson's refusal to speak on civil rights issues, public opinion shaping the verdict, and the civil unrest surrounding the case. The hosts criticize the jury's quick decision, Mark Fuhrman's role, the prosecution's mishandling of evidence, and Simpson's silence. They also discuss the media circus surrounding the case and Simpson's refusal to address civil rights issues despite his background. The hosts argue that Simpson's situation was different from other cases involving racism and police brutality. Good day and welcome to the Killer Conversations podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Danica. And I'm Anastasia. And on this week's episode, we'll be discussing the case of the man, the myth, the juice. Orenthal James Simpson. And his blood-curdling accusations of murdering Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Things are about to get sticky. So without further ado, let's begin. So the topic of this episode is going to cover the following. Why, despite some overwhelming evidence, was O.J. Simpson marked as innocent? Did the civil rights movement affect this? And why did civil rights activists try and get him released, despite O.J. being vehemently against discussing any sort of civil rights issues? We're also going to touch on the jury bias and Mark Furman. The prosecution's lack of finesse. O.J.'s refusal to speak on these issues. How public opinion shaped the verdict. And the civil unrest surrounding the case. Here's where we should give a warning. This case is going to be discussing murder, court, police, possibly beatings, and graphic retelling of crime. If any of this is going to affect you, we suggest that you click away now. Listener distraction is advised. So let's get this started. So let's get this started. When we're talking about jury bias and the way that the jury affected this case, obviously they're the ones deciding the vote, literally. Yes. Why do we think that they were so quick to just jump on the fact that he's innocent? Well, I feel like it was just the easy way out for them. They were isolated for like, what, eight months? Yeah, by the end of it. That's insane. So I feel like we just needed out during those eight months. Yeah, if someone tried to lock me in a room for eight months, I would very likely claw my way out. Tooth and nail. Yeah. Tooth and nail. I feel like the final verdict was just really like, it was just like a little like blurt out. We need to go home. Yeah. You know. Like they somehow got, you're going to tell me that they got through 45,000 pages of trial notes and evidence in three hours. Yeah. I can't even finish a book in three hours. Like that's just a bit insane. And when Mark Furman walked on the case, oh my good God. They just, they locked that case before it even started. No, that's very true. But I do feel like Mark Furman did have a good, like he would have, it was good intention to bring him in. Yeah. And even like a few of the jurors were saying how he was, you know, a good looking young man. He was a police officer, you know, good hair, everything. Which doesn't really help the situation. Yes. That's what we look for in our police officers. Good hair. So, you know, before the tapes were, you know, released of him and his, you know, racist, you know, acts and words and phrases and just overall like thought process. I feel like everything would have been fine, but. Yeah. Then they brought him in and it just, everything fell down so fast. And then he pled the fifth. You don't plead the fifth. That's just dumb. You either say, I did it or I didn't. And when they said, did you plant evidence? And he says, I plead the fifth. Well, now everyone's going to sit there and think, well, obviously he planted evidence. Like, yeah, there's no other way to go around that. Well, I feel like in his defense, like it was a pretty tough time for him to say something and say it right. Considering the fact that he already made so many, you know, horrible mistakes of, you know, calling people the N word, which is like horrible. You know what I mean? And like, there was basically no stating him. So I feel like if he just stayed silent, it would have, you know, kind of made him less targetable. But still. Then he should have stayed silent from the beginning. Yeah. But still, like. I'm just siding halfway through. Pleading the fifth is just such a like a, like it's a downgrade from what you could have done. You could have been, you know, proving people wrong and saying that, hey, I am a changed man. I don't speak on black people the way I used to. And there's no way in hell I could have done this. You know, but he chose to stay silent and not bring anything up and kind of like push that aside. Instead of like addressing how, no, this is not what I do as an LAPD officer. This is not the kind of values I have. Yeah. Like he should have tried to at least defend the situation, but he didn't. And with all the civil rights issues surrounding this and all the, you know, beatings and murders and shootings and all that. By bringing in the LAPD, they just lost the case. And especially with a predominantly black jury. Yeah. And having a racist, you know, targeting young police officer. Not really young at the time, but still. It became a case of either you're racist or you're not. Take your pick. Are you with OJ? Are you with the racist, Mark Furman? Yep. That was the split, you know? Well, yeah. And that kind of shows into our next topic of the prosecution sucked. No, but like, ugh. Don't even get me started, I swear. Oh, no, but I will. The prosecution was awful. Like, they brought in so many, so much evidence that was entirely irrelevant. Well, I mean, they did have lots of evidence. It was just really, like, horribly portrayed and used. Like, it just was terrible. Since when do people collect things without gloves? Since when do people, like, I don't know, bring blood samples to a crime scene? Since when do people use, you know, cloth from an actual house with multiple fibers, you know, pieces of DNA on it to cover up a dead body? Who does that? Especially as professionals. Like, no one... No. Yeah, they were like, ah, yes, let us use this evidence that is definitely going to be disproven in court. You know? For sure. That makes so much sense. Now, that's just going to get you shut down hard and fast. And Marcia Clark, the main prosecutor, she walked on the case like, oh, I've got this, you know, like, juries love me. Super cocky. Yeah, blah, blah, blah, and then the entire jury is like, yeah, we don't like you, actually. You kind of suck. Like, she did say that they had lots of points to try to, you know, like, you know, bring them through to the jury and try to make them understand those points. But they just couldn't do it. And then they called the jury ignorant because they couldn't understand their points. Well, maybe they didn't, you know, carry that through enough. Yeah. It's not, these are just basic people who live in America and L.A. or whatever and, like... They tried to bring in so many points, you know, that they couldn't really expand on the base ones that they had. Right, yeah. And then there was the fact that this case turned into a media circus, which, I mean, should law enforcement and should prosecution, defense and all that, you know, should their job have to be media relations? No, it really shouldn't. But in this case, it was, and so they should have worked with it. Yeah, it was a show. Oh, yeah. The entire thing was a show. He was literally signing autographs while sitting in jail. Yeah. Which, I have to say, that's... That's pretty impressive, you know, considering the situation, but... Yeah, that was a whole other side note of stupid. And the prosecution, everything that they did, it's like they were contradicting each other. Like, I do not remember hearing about Chris and Marcia actually working together. Really, like, it was like they were just constantly trying to disprove each other. That's true. Very true. And that doesn't generally work very well. Nope. When the prosecution is trying to disprove the other prosecutor, you get a bit of a problem. Yeah, a few issues here and there. Yeah, and they were not exactly intelligent either. And then there was O.J.'s just general refusal to speak on any issues. Like, that honestly shocked me. Because around that time, everybody else who was black and had a celebrity status was speaking on these issues, was bringing them up to be noted. And yet, like, you had said something about his agent talking about how he absolutely refused to speak on these issues. Oh, yeah. Mike Gilbert, his former agent, you know, rest in peace O.J., he did note that O.J., like, he grew up on the South Central side. And he obviously knew what was going on there when he grew older. Since he moved away to Brentwood, he was living his little dream, you know, with a bunch of white guys playing golf on the daily. Like, it was all good until he saw everything that happened on the South Central side. But did he do anything about it? No, because he didn't want to associate with them or anybody in that, you know, area. Yeah. It was just very clear that he did not want to do, you know, or help or aid anybody in that area. Well, it's like Robin Breer kind of even says, you know, celebrities in Brentwood had no color. No. And he was no exception to that rule. Yeah. He was just as white as the person next to him. And I don't think anybody ever really realized when the prosecution was bringing that in, they brought in the racism. And then, again, when, you know, the jury was like, this is for Rodney King and stuff, they didn't realize that Rodney King has no similarity to O.J. Yeah, absolutely not. Like, the comparison between O.J. and the average African-American in L.A. or just all of America, you know what I mean? Like, Eula, for example, she was shot and killed in a dispute over a $22 utility bill on January 3, 1979, by TLABD officers. Like, over a utility bill for $22. Are you kidding me? Yeah. And Rodney King was just beaten to a pulp for, you know, we don't even know practically the reason. It was just for fun, you know. He got pulled over, and they went, ah, yes. And people say, well, there was a reason. Well, no, there wasn't. There was no reason to beat someone. It was just brutal. And then there's O.J., who is in a car, you know, getting escorted by the police. With a gun. To his own house. And is apologizing when he's being arrested. Like, you are not the same whatsoever. No. There is no similarity to the opposite of the two of them. Like, your wealth. Like, nothing, you know, your status. Nothing about you. And he was a self-absorbed SOB. Like, good Lord. They even said when they went into his house, you know, the officers that went into his house were saying that it was honestly astonishing. The fact that he had kids, a wife, and, you know, all these other people in his life. Almost all the pictures in his house were of him. Which, I have to say, that's a little remarkable. That is very egotistical. You know what it is? Like, even Bishop C. Larry Kirkland, which was, he went to that church and, you know, he knew the bishop, it was Bishop O.J. He even said that each person that is in the limelight has an obligation to make things better for their loss, the last, the least, and the left out, and the left over. And he even said that he thought that O.J. could have done more. He didn't do all those, you know, obligations or even, you know, try to come close to achieving, you know, success in those, you know. Yeah, he just never made any attempt to try and draw anybody else in. Exactly. He just wanted to keep everything to himself. Oh my gosh, yeah. And the public opinion, like, this might as well have been a phone. This ties in, yeah. This definitely ties in. Everybody from the public knew, once they found out about this whole situation and the tapes and everything with Mark Furman from, you know, it just turned into a whole, like, pile of mess. Yeah. It was just, ugh. Like, they might as well have put this thing to a public vote because that's basically what this case ended up being. There was no real, yeah, the jury was never really separated from the public in this case. They couldn't have been. I mean, they were. They were in their little hotel rooms, which, I mean, is honestly very, you know, challenging to be in. But when the public got, you know, hold of this information and, like, all the information that was being gathered and used in, you know, the case in the courtroom and kind of like, like, I always use the tapes as an example because when the tapes were released and heard in the courtroom, they wanted to make them public and there were so many protests and it was almost like a revolution of wanting to hear everything and, you know, to kind of like, it almost put all the focus on Mark Furman instead of, you know, the actual victims of the case. You know what I mean? Yeah. It became the Mark Furman trial, you know, despite Nicole and Ron being, you know, dead for how long? We forgot how long they were dead for by that time. So, you know, not great. No. Not really great. It just became a whole matter of race and, you know, racial dispute and, you know, just a bunch of issues. It was just a giant mess. And with all the civil unrest around this case, there was no way that this case was going to stay quiet ever. And nobody even tried. For OJ, you know, he was brilliant in terms of how things played out, though, because he was just so charming and great and people played into that. I feel like he really did use the black community's vulnerability during this time because, you know, they wanted to have justice in the community. And so he basically kind of used their sympathy towards him in order to seem innocent. And, well, I guess you can't really read his thought process, but that's what it looked like to me because he knew where the camera was pointing. You know, he knew when eyes were on him. He knew how to make people, you know, feel bad or, you know, love him, I guess, in any given situation. Yeah. And I think we can both agree that, like, there's no way he didn't kill them. No. There was too much evidence. There was too much proof. There's no way he didn't kill them. And yet it was a mix of the stupidity of the prosecution and, you know, just civil unrest around this case that just brought everything down hard. But, you know, I guess we'll never really know because, of course, he died without a deathbed confession, which I think is quite unfair. Yeah, well. Like, what are they going to do? Put him in jail? No. He's already six feet under. I know. They should have, like, left a will or something. That's going to be my biggest annoyance in life. So what do we think? I guess we'll leave that up to you guys. Did he kill them? Is he innocent? That's a conversation for our next episode. So join us next time on the Taylor Conversations podcast. And for right now, have a nice day.