Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to open this statement with a quote. John F. Kennedy once said, “If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make this world safe for diversity.” It’s an ideal worth fighting for and one we can still strive for. We may not be at that point yet, but in this great country we are certainly trying. With a jury like you, this case can get us one step further to that equality. No matter your beliefs or differences, this jury as a whole has the power to set them aside to bring justice forth for the victims, their families, and the innocent man in front of you. I believe that the evidence presented here today will convince you, the jury, will find that OJ Simpson did not, could not and would not have committed this crime. As you reach your verdict today, I hope that you walk out of this trial head held high as you watch a caring father reunite with his four kids — two kids which haven't seen their father in over a year. They asked OJ every week, "Dad, how much longer?" I want this trial over. I know you do to.
As you are presented the evidence and details of this case, I want you to be aware and open minded, not speculative; to look at the evidence, the motive, and the events that unfolded not just during the murders, but also the events that unfolded after police arrived on the scene. Ignore those who conjecture or take on a truth from a basis of insufficient evidence. The prosecution's use of and defense of evidence has been downright speculatory and at points misleading. I ask you not to speculate, but question what is brought before you in this court. Question the legitimacy and thoroughness of the investigation, and all evidence found and shown to you as a result of it.
Let's start at the scene of the crime, where a officer who has clear prejudice against the black community, who also lied under oath about his use of the N-word in court, and also lies when it comes to his police work, where he and his colleagues have a record of covering up and doctoring reports and evidence, is in charge of investigating and handling the evidence of the murders.
A racist police department with a history of unfair treatment of blacks plus a cop who not only has a history of doctoring, mistreating, and covering up reports and evidence of cases for some reason gets appointed to a case with a famous black man as a white victims ex husband; the fact that he is not only still allowed to remain a cop in addition to the fact that they knowingly put him on the case even with the biases and prejudice he would bring into the investigation is just as shady and corrupt as it sounds. Why, after gathering a collection of 13 hours of racist slurs and remarks, along with confessions about how his racism shown on the job and affected his work in a variety of dishonest, corrupt, and brutal examples, was he still allowed to be a cop? How have his and his coworkers actions not been a concern to those in the LAPD. Fuhrman was just one corrupt cop among several, and the lack of action taken against his dishonest tactics ultimately led to many more tainted police officers and some could say the LAPD as a whole. The lack of action taken over years of this going on, now exposed through the Fuhrman Tapes, show the rampant sexism and racism inside of the LAPD.. They truly do not care about the safety and dignity of black citizens if this is put up with. A good, functioning, non corrupt police force will carefully handle the steps involved in a homicide investigation. They won't trample through evidence, rush to judgement, or be bound by an obsession to win at all costs. They will get to work bringing justice to the guilty while restoring a sense of peace and relief to both the victims and the community involved.
We wish this would always be the outcome, but the evidence presented in this case shows that honest and competent police work was put in the backseat from the start. Untrained officers took the scene instead. 2 weeks after the incident, Dr. Henry Lee, a crime scene expert, visited the crime scene only to find an envelope that could have been the source of the crime. The level of competency the LAPD showed in this case is downright disappointing and unprofessional. Because of their trampling, they ignored obvious clues. They didn’t pay any attention to or pick up paper at the scene with prints on it. Because of their ego, they quickly stopped trying to solve this crime and stopped looking for other suspects while focusing in on who we believe to be an innocent man. Let’s talk about this time line for the defense. If you have dogs beginning to bark at ~10:40, and the struggle was around 5 to 15 minutes, then the time now is already 10:55. Remember, the thumps were at 10:40 or 10:45. The timeline alone shows the defendant could not be guilty.
ime to examine some physical evidence from the scene and how it doesn’t prove the defendant's guilt. After the murders, OJ would have gone back to his property. Well, OJ still has the knife and is wearing his bloody clothes, and presumably wearing bloody shoes, so what does he do? He walks into his house. If he went into his house with bloody hands, clothes, and shoes, where is all the blood in the house? Where’s the blood on the doorknob? The light switch? The banister? Where is the blood on the white carpet going up the stairs? Where is this blood trail the prosecution loves to rant about? You see, the prosecution has no mountain of evidence; its little more than a creek or a stream. Now let's look at the many ways the LAPD mishandled evidence that night. Let’s not look at OJ’s property first, first let us look at Thano Peratis. This is the man that collected OJ’s blood. This is a man who has been a nurse for a number of years for the city of Los Angeles. He says that he collected between 7.9 and 8.1 cc’s of blood. Now something else is wrong, another sinister plot going on because there is only 6.5 cc’s accounted for. We can only guess where that blood went. Next, we must again go back to the glove.
When Detective Fuhrman went around the side of the house and first discovered that glove, he claims that he found it to be moist and sticky. Under the prosecutions timeline, this glove was to have been dropped at around 10:45. How, after 7 and a half hours later, after 6:00 am when there is no dew, could it have remained moist and sticker unless it was brought over to the defendant's property and planted in an attempt to make a case. This is further supported by the discovery of arm hair not from the defendant, but a Caucasian male instead. Not just the glove was mishandled though. The socks found in the defendants house were not stained during a bloody struggle, as police and prosecutors claim; rather, they had been soaked in blood after the killings. At the crime scene, some of the blood collected at the Bundy Drive site was tainted because it wasn't refrigerated in time; just another example of negligent and sloppy police work by Detective Fuhrman and other officers on the scene. Now, that was a good example of the lack of care police used on this case as to collecting evidence, but they certainly had some shady and questionable actions, like when an officer was allowed to carry a sample of Simpson's blood, drawn the day after the killings, to OJ’s home; an obvious way police could plant evidence while they were trying to cook up a case against Simpson.
This man and the evidence he and his colleagues present should not be trusted, and the evidence they mishandled should be deemed inadmissible in this trial. Detective Mark Fuhrman should have and could have been off of the LAPD if people had the courage to stand up against him instead of looking the other way. I would like to say that I have tremendous respect for you as a jury, and I know that you all have the courage inside of you to stand up for what is right.
One of the things that has made this country so great is people's willingness to stand up and say that something is wrong. I'm not going to be part of it. I'm not going to be part of the cover-up. That is what I'm asking you to do now. If the LAPD isn’t going to stop it, you as a jury can. Starting with this one case, this one man, this one jury, we can make a difference. It has to be stopped by you.
Thank you for your time, and for letting me prove to you the defendant's innocence in this case so that he can see his lovely children for the first time in over a year, and in the absence of Nicole raise their children the best he can.
