On April 11, 76-year-old former American football star Simpson died of cancer, ending his controversial life.
Although Simpson was a football star by nature, he became famous not because of this status, but because he killed his ex-wife and her boyfriend with a knife 30 years ago.
Despite the ironclad evidence, Simpson was acquitted after a "brilliant" defense by a team of "dream team" lawyers of prominent barristers hired by Simpson for nearly $6 million.
On June 12, 1994, Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, was found dead in front of her home. When the police arrive at the scene after receiving a report, they find that there is also a man in the house who has died, Nicole Brown's boyfriend.
Both of the dead were stabbed to death with sharp knives, and the scene was extremely bloody, and Nicole Brown was stabbed in the throat so many times that her head almost fell off.
After collecting evidence at the scene and conducting a preliminary investigation, the police quickly identified Nicole Brown's ex-husband and famous football star Simpson as a suspect.
Simpson's lawyer agreed with the police that Simpson would turn himself in at the police station at 11 a.m. on June 17.
That morning, thousands of reporters waited for Simpson in front of the police station, but he released the police pigeons and fled in his friend's limousine. The police quickly dispatched police forces to follow and pursue him. However, because Simpson's friend who was driving said that he was pointed at gunpoint, the police car could only follow from a distance, and staged an American spectacle "low-speed pursuit" - a helicopter in the sky opened the way to guide the fugitive, and a large group of police cars on the ground "chased" slowly at a speed of 56 kilometers per hour.
Of course, the media will not let go of this once-in-a-century spectacle, and many television stations have followed the report and broadcast the whole process of the chase live, with more than 20 helicopters participating in the report alone, and the roadside of the road where Simpson must escape is full of people...... So much so that the live broadcast of the NBA Finals that year was split into the corner of the TV screen, and there was no sound-
The main screen is the "hunt" live, and the voice is the anchor introducing the case.
This case received the attention of almost all Americans. This is not surprising, as it has all the ingredients that Americans will gravitate to:
bloody murders;
the love triangle and jealousy of the super-rich;
a black star and his white ex-wife;
……
At 8 p.m. that night, the police chased him all the way to Simpson's mansion, and the latter announced that he had surrendered.
On January 25, 1995, the Simpson trial officially began. The 134-day trial was broadcast live on television, and nearly 100 million U.S. television viewers followed the trial.
This trial is therefore known as the "Trial of the Century" by American society.
The prosecutor in the case is full of confidence in the conviction of Simpson, because the case is indeed ironclad -
1. Simpson has a history of domestic violence against Nicole Brown, who once called the police because of this, and Simpson's yelling sound was heard in the background of the phone;
2. DNA identification of the bloodstains at the scene, using shoe print analysis to prove that Simpson had been to the scene of the murder;
3. A female neighbor saw Simpson drive away from Nicole Brown's house that night;
4. A knife dealer testified that Simpson had bought a 38-centimeter-long German-made knife from his shop, and that the knife was identical to the knife in the murder - although the murder weapon was not found, the autopsy and inquest confirmed this;
5. One of the leather gloves in the Simpsons home has Nicole Brown's hair on it, as well as blood stains on the two victims and Simpson himself, as well as blood on the driveway of his house;
6. Simpson has the time to commit the crime;
……
A normal person with a modicum of logical ability would be able to judge the fact that Simpson must be the murderer.
But if the facts are clear and the evidence is conclusive, there will be no "dream team" of lawyers worth millions of dollars ($1 in 1994 is equivalent to $30 today, and $6 million is close to $200 million today).
The lawyer group that pays sky-high defense fees is certainly not a dry meal!
They first overturned the DNA testing conclusions, mainly on the grounds that the agency in charge of the identification had made an error five years ago and that the samples had been handed over irregularly, so the results were unreliable.
The prosecutors asked them to take their own samples for testing, but the lawyers refused.
The "Dream Team" claimed that the evidence provided by Foreman, the white police detective in charge of the scene investigation, was unreliable on the grounds that he was a racist.
Foreman is called a racist because he choked a young black jaywalker on the street 11 years ago and said the word "nigger" 41 times in interviews with reporters.
Incidentally, Cochran, a member of the "Dream Team," compared Detective Foreman to Hitler in his final arguments, calling him "a genocider, a perjury, America's greatest nightmare, the embodiment of evil."
After this operation, DNA evidence was ruled out.
But without DNA, the available evidence is still enough to convict Simpson.
That's where the value of the "Dream Team" comes into play—they have excluded Simpson's leather gloves with hair and blood from the evidence.
During the trial, Cochrane asked Simpson to wear the leather glove, but the prosecutor wisely refused, because after a series of tests such as soaking and freezing, the leather glove had shrunk and deformed.
Defense lawyer Cochran used the agitation method. "On the bright side, the gloves might just fit," he said. Meaning: The prosecutor refused to let Simpson wear gloves because the gloves didn't fit.
The prosecutor was so enraged by this statement that he refused the dissuasion of his colleagues and allowed Simpson to wear gloves.
It turned out that the glove was so small that Simpson had a hard time putting it on.
Cochran wasted no time in saying, "If you can't get it, you should let him go." ”
The original text of this sentence is "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit". In English, it's a pun on the phrase "If the gloves don't fit Simpson's hands, you should give up wearing them" and the pun means "If the police can't get the Simpsons, you should be acquitted".
After this case, this sentence became a wonderful quote in American judicial circles, and the prosecutor's decision to agree with Simpson to wear gloves was called the "biggest legal mistake of the 20th century" in the United States.
At 10 a.m. on 3 October 1995, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty and Simpson was released.
In fact, several jury members believed that Simpson was indeed the murderer, and that they acquitted him essentially because the prosecutor's courtroom performance was not as good as that of the "dream team."
As the jury left the courtroom, the pale-faced prosecutor angrily accused them of conniving at the criminals, to which one of the jury members responded: Maybe Simpson is indeed guilty, but you have not proved it perfectly.
Three members of the jury later published a book in which they believed that Simpson was indeed the murderer, but a police mistake caused the prosecutor to mess up the case.
After the trial, a media survey showed that more than 83% of those surveyed believed that Simpson was the murderer.
However, under the American legal system, the murderer escaped legal punishment.
Think about it, if Simpson was an ordinary person who couldn't afford to pay millions of dollars to hire a team of lawyers like the "Dream Team", would he be able to get away with it safely?
Undoubtedly, the answer is no.
Although Simpson was later sentenced to 33 years, it was because of other crimes — kidnapping and armed robbery — and he was actually released on parole after only nine years in prison.
If he had been brought to justice in the first place, no one would have been victimized by his kidnapping and armed robbery!
It has never been impossible for money to distort the law in the United States, and the Simpson case is a vivid example.
If money doesn't beat the law, it's only because there's not enough money.
Since the Simpson case, there have been people in American society who have questioned the American judicial system because of this case. Now, although Simpson is on his way to the judgment of God in the minds of Americans, it is believed that the questioning of the justice system that led to his exoneration will not stop.