Slide 3-CJ560-3-1 project

The O.J. Simpson trial involved the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1994. The crime took place outside Nicole's condominium in Los Angeles. O.J. Simpson, a former professional football player, became the prime suspect in the case. He initially promised to turn himself in but instead led police on a televised chase in his white Bronco. The mishandling of evidence by law enforcement officers resulted in much of it being deemed inadmissible in court. This mishandling, along with the inclusion of irrelevant evidence, damaged the credibility of the police. The public closely followed the trial, which gained national attention. Okay, so in this slide I will be covering more on the O.J. Simpson trial as far as the date of the crime which occurred. The crime occurred on June 12th of 1994. The person that was involved is O.J. Simpson, is the first actor that we are putting in the position of this case because Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, which Nicole was his ex-wife and Ronald was a friend of Nicole, they were murdered and the type of weapon that was used in the commission of this particular crime was identified as a knife attack. So they died by, they were stabbed several times and the law enforcement officers handled the case, they mishandled the case in many ways. One of the ways is evidence that were transferred from one location to another which would make it inadmissible in the court. Also there were some items that they would retrieve that weren't involved in the case which they thought were involved. And then there were other items where blood splatter was transferred and all types of mishandling of the case. So they did a pretty poor job in handling the case which resulted in the verdict of the case. So the case starts off with and started in June of 1994, June 12th, Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, her friend, were stabbed to death outside of her condominium in Los Angeles, California. So they were found murdered outside of their condominium in Los Angeles, right outside. They were stabbed to death. The weapon that was used in the murders was reported by ABC News WLS Chicago as, quote, the weapon was without question a large serrated knife. And they also quoted that the weapon is believed to have been a 15-inch knife, end quote, ABC News. O.J. Simpson was a professional football player. That's how he gained his notoriety. That's how he became famous and well-known amongst not only the media but also the public. He was a professional football player. Simpson played professional, I'm sorry, professionally for the Buffalo Bills where he played for the team from 1969 to 1977. And the San Francisco 49ers he played for from 1978 to 1979. So two years he played professionally, as we can see. So he didn't have a long career. But he also played in college where he gained attention and that's what helped him become a professional player. Due to O.J. being the ex-husband of Nicole Brown Simpson, this understandably caused him to become a prime suspect in her murder. Law enforcement officials first approached the case by identifying their first possible suspect, O.J. Simpson, which then in return led to a chase of his white Bronco in Los Angeles, California. The chase was a result of Simpson's failure to turn himself in as promised through his attorney. So they set up through his attorney that he was going to turn himself in because he was considered a prime suspect. But instead he fled in a vehicle, which made the public look at him as more of a prime suspect. It kind of made him look more suspicious because he didn't keep his promise of turning himself in. That was a bad look for him. The chase made multiple news headlines and it caught much of the nation's attention. So everyone was closely watching this case at the time. Even I remember being a child, watching this unfold, I didn't really know too much of what was happening or too much about the case at the time. But it made a lot of attention. Even I was aware, even as a child, aware of this situation. And after he was apprehended, officials proceeded to take the case to trial where evidence was discovered either tampered with or mishandled. This led to evidence being inadmissible in court. That's what led to the evidence being inadmissible in court due to the law enforcement officers mishandling of the case. So they didn't do a good job at handling evidence. And so a lot of evidence was just, they could not use in court due to that mishandling. We'll talk a little bit more in the next couple of slides about the mishandling of the evidence and how that evidence would have made a powerful case against him. But due to the law enforcement's mishandling, the evidence just was not allowed to be presented. Also there was evidence that they put as evidence, which was not considered involved with the case, which kind of made the credibility of law enforcement not look so good due to the evidence that was, some of the evidence that was presented or explained, they quickly learned that it just was not the weapon, the murder weapon, the knife, which he bought in L.A. and then carried with him to Chicago. But the weapon, that was not the knife that was used. So by them using that, considering it, they lost a lot of the public's trust in that. So the mishandling really cut deep into the case. But like I said, we'll talk more in the next slide.