My take on the case

Legal analysts said Fuhrman was compelled to take the 5th Amendment, even in response to the provocative question about planting evidence, because breaking his silence would leave him vulnerable to wide-ranging questions. The 5th Amendment offers blanket protection against self-incrimination; witnesses cannot invoke its shield on some questions and then answer others, UCLA professor Peter Arenella said.


If I were on the jury, I would have voted not guilty. It wouldn't have taken me 4 hours. It wouldn't have taken me even 4 minutes.

That's exactly what F. Lee Bailey was banking on, even knowing full well the law about taking the 5th, which I quoted. Bailey asked Fuhrman those inflammatory questions knowing full well Fuhrman would have to take the 5th to them.

Which is more memorable, being given a jury instruction about how the 5th works and taking it is not to be considered as evidence of guilt (or the 5th would have no point), or that Fuhrman -- someone who's already been caught perjuring himself -- refused to answer that the other evidence he gave was truthful, that he hadn't falsified a police report or planted evidence?

The fact that you, and many others, see this as admission that Fuhrman did all of those things answers that question very clearly. Just as Bailey knew it would. Even though there was no evidence he did any of those things -- at least not in the Simpson case.

I am not a fan of Fuhrman, BTW. To the contrary.

>>> The fact that you, and many others, see this as admission that Fuhrman did all of those things answers that question very clearly.

1. I don't see pleading the 5th as an admission that he did those things. I see it as raising a reasonable doubt that he did.

2. I can't see that saying "I didn't plant any evidence in this case" as leaving him vulnerable to wide-ranging questions.


Evacuation Com

The 5th Amendment offers blanket protection against self-incrimination; witnesses cannot invoke its shield on some questions and then answer others

If you were on the jury, and you considered his taking the 5th as creating reasonable doubt and therefore voted not guilty, you'd be going directly against the instructions given to you (the jury), and it'd be a case of jury nullification.

The reality is Fuhrman could not have planted evidence. 14 other officers were already at the scene on Bundy when he arrived, and they didn't know one another. All of them saw only one glove. At this point Fuhrman had no way of knowing if Simpson had a rock-solid alibi or not.

Even if by a wild reach of imagination you think the 14 other officers did not see a second glove and he somehow managed to secretly find it and put a bloody glove somewhere on him, with no one else on the scene seeing him do this, what if Simpson could prove he was at a big event with 1000s of witnesses? He did attend such events often enough. Or what if Simpson was in Europe, or out of the state, and had witnesses? Fuhrman would be in trouble up to his ears.

When he got to Rockingham, Kato told him OJ was in Chicago before he told him about the thumps on his wall, which Fuhrman then went out to investigate. Why would he then plant the glove, knowing OJ was in Chicago and as far as he knew right then, did have an airtight alibi?

1. By your logic, any cop on any case would plead the 5th. But they don't. To me, an honest cop has nothing to fear, and pleading the 5th raises a doubt in my mind on the cop's honesty.

2. The rest of your post is irrelevant even though I agree with it. As I said in my OP, I believe that OJ did it. But the moment the cop who found the evidence pleads the 5th to avoid questions on his honesty as a cop, game over.

Evacuation Com

1. By your logic, any cop on any case would plead the 5th. But they don't. To me, an honest cop has nothing to fear, and pleading the 5th raises a doubt in my mind on the cop's honesty.

My logic has nothing to do with it; it's the law. Yes, any cop on any case could plead the 5th. Yes of course it raises doubt in your mind. It does in mine too, and that's fine as long as we're not on of a jury.

These are the instructions juries are given about witnesses or parties who take the 5th on the stand, and how they have to view them:

216. Exercise of Right Not to Incriminate Oneself (Evid. Code, § 913)

[Name of party/witness] has an absolute constitutional right not to give testimony that might tend to incriminate [himself/herself]. Do not consider, for any reason at all, the fact that [name of party/witness] invoked the right not to testify. Do not discuss that fact during your deliberations or let it influence your decision in any way.

Fair enough; if it's the law, it's the law. But I think it's a stupid law.

I think that that law makes sense for the accused: the burden of proof is on the prosecutor to prove the accused's guilt, and the accused shouldn't have to open their mouth and say one word to defend themselves.

But for the person who is the source of the evidence against the accused to be able to take the same plea to me is ridiculous.

If I were on the jury, I would tell the judge that I could not in good faith vote guilty under such circumstances, and I would ask to have myself recused.


Evacuation Com

Frankly, I don't understand the reason for the law, but you have to admit there would be no point to having a law that legally protects you from self-incrimination when taking the 5th if the jury or judge is allowed to construe it as implying guilt. I don't care if that means the accused or a witness.

Do you not question someone who's accused of a crime who doesn't testify to their innocence? I do. If I were a member of the jury, I'd be obliged and specifically instructed to not. As someone who's not a member of the jury, I do.

The same normal human reasoning applies: if you're innocent of what's being asked or charged, why would you not vehemently deny it?

If I were on the jury, I would tell the judge that I could not in good faith vote guilty under such circumstances, and I would ask to have myself recused.

If you would be unable to, in good faith, vote guilty despite the jury instructions, you should recuse yourself.

I always believed that Simpson was guilty, and I certainly maintain that stance today; to me, his guilt is almost a matter of common sense.

That said, the original poster is correctly speaking to a larger point: one cannot remove the O.J. Simpson case from the broader context of acrimony and enmity regarding policing and race in Los Angeles. The O.J. Simpson case, to a certain extent, was about everything except for the facts involving the murders. It was about African-Americans—understandably and justifiably—being suspicious of the LAPD after decades of abuse and the denial of their human dignity. It was about the Watts riots in 1965 (which themselves represented the outgrowth of years of acrimony and abuse), the Leonard Deadwyler killing in 1966, the Eulia Love killing in 1979, the 39th and Dalton raid in 1988, the Latasha Harlins case in 1991, and of course the Rodney King case and the acquittal of the assaulting police officers (by a nearly all-white jury) in 1992. And Mark Fuhrman's history of racist rhetoric, even if not necessarily relevant to the O.J. Simpson case, only added to the doubt and suspicion—whereby jurors proved unable to find Simpson guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." Justice is supposed to be blind, but history matters in the real world, and all that history filtered into that jury and the courtroom.

To much of America, the O.J. Simpson case was primarily about celebrity, Hollywood, and glamour, but place yourself in the shoes of an African-American in Los Angeles circa 1995—how inclined would you have been to trust the police and the way that the judicial system had treated people who looked like you, both as victims and defendants?

In a sense, the O.J. Simpson verdict was the comeuppance for the LAPD's wretched racial history. No, not all—maybe not the majority—of LAPD officers were bigots, but clearly there was a lot of abuse, a lot of dehumanization of minorities and especially poorer African-Americans, and an institutional culture that condoned and even encouraged such behavior. And, in the end, there was a price to pay—namely, distrust that proved so intense and understandable that it resulted in a killer walking free.