School Essay: O.J. Simpson, What the Evidence Says

O.J. Simpson, What the Evidence Says

Case Study #4: O.J. Simpson Trial

Leslie K. Penny

Chancellor University

Abstract

The O.J. Simpson trial seemed to be going in all the right directions.  That is until the Jury made their decision finding O. J. Simpson not guilty in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.  The DNA evidence was numerous and it matched with O.J. Simpson's DNA to the point where it's unrealistic to believe it could have been anyone else due to the statistics of the DNA testing.  It didn't seem to matter how much DNA evidence was collected against Simpson though, the jury just didn't believe it or were star struck, who knows.  Either way, he was released and the world was in shock. 

O.J. Simpson, What the Evidence Says

            The following case study covers the evidence provided by investigators and forensic scientists in the trial of O.J. Simpson for the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.  This essay will answer the following questions: describe the DNA evidence most damaging to the defense and explain the reasoning, what more DNA evidence did the jury need to change their opinion and if this reader believes the DNA evidence presented established that O.J. Simpson was guilty.

            Out of all the DNA evidence recovered from the crime scene, from Simpson's vehicle and from his home of residence, the most damaging evidence is a tough decision to make.  According to the case study, there was Simpson's blood found at the crime scene which included five bloody drops leading away from the murdered victims and blood on a rear gate that coincide with a cut that was on Simpson's left hand, the victims blood found in Simpson's vehicle as well as in his home, and a bloody size 12 shoe print which just so happens to be Simpson's shoe size.

            With the above options to pick from, the most damaging, from this writers perspective, is the blood evidence found in Simpson's vehicle, his white Bronco.  There really is no explanation as to how Ronald Goldman's blood could have wound up in Simpson's Bronco other then the explanation that Simpson transferred the blood from his person to the interior of the Bronco after the murders took place.  Nicole Simpson's blood could be explained due to her prior association with Simpson, but not Ronald Goldman's blood.

            The case study did not go into detail concerning the victims blood found in Simpson's Bronco but it can only be assumed  that if DNA testing confirmed Simpson's blood at the crime scene as diligently as it states in the case study then the blood DNA found in the Bronco was treated the same way.  If that is the case then the blood in the Bronco was subjected to two DNA tests, the PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) and RFLP (Restrictive Fragment Length Polymorphism) which would give near the same statistics as below.

            The test results concerning three of the blood drops found at the crime scene suggests that "only one out of 240,000 people had DNA with the markers found in the sample" and the "fourth blood drop had markers which one out of 5200 people could have" (Saferstein, 2007, p. 405).  However, the most incriminating of the blood drops are drop number five where only "one out of 170 million people had DNA with the same markers" and the blood found on the rear gate at the crime scene "showed that only one out of 57 billion people had those markers" (Saferstein, 2007, p. 405).  The DNA tests showed that O.J. Simpson was a match for the DNA markers listed above and with statistics such as 1 out of 57 billion, the odds were against O.J. Simpson in a major way.

            This writer believes the jury had sufficient DNA evidence to find O.J. Simpson guilty of the murders.  But, since the jury didn't find him guilty, further evidence that would, perhaps, have swayed the jury's decision would have been Simpson's DNA under the victims nails, the size 12 shoes that were never discovered, the clothes O.J. Simpson was wearing with the victims blood on them, and a murder weapon with the victims blood on it as well as Simpson's blood. 

            To answer the question, was the DNA evidence presented enough to find O.J. Simpson guilty?  This writer believes, 100%, that the DNA evidence was enough to find O.J. Simpson guilty of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.  It was with great shock and sadness when it was learned that Simpson had been acquitted considering all the evidence stacked up against him.  In cases like these it is hard to respect the jury system.

            In conclusion, O. J. Simpson had a lot of evidence against him, some more incriminating then others, especially the blood evidence.  With that being said, the jury obviously felt the DNA evidence wasn't enough nor was all the other evidence presented at the trial not mentioned in the case study.  Therefore, in this writers opinion, a killer was let free and the victims never received proper justice.  Perhaps, if these murders had happened a decade later, the outcome may have been different.  No one will ever know. 

           

           

           

Reference

Saferstein, R. (2007). Criminalistics: An introduction to forensic science (9th ed.). New Jersey:                Pearson Prentice Hall.