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Subscribe to RSSCORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the status of F. Lee Bailey, a member of O.J. Simpson’s 1995 murder defense team. Bailey is alive.
Nearly 17 years after O.J. Simpson walked away from his murder trial a free man, a prosecutor at the center of the case has alleged that the lead defense lawyer tampered with a crucial piece of evidence.
Former Los Angeles deputy district attorney Christopher Darden on Thursday accused Simpson defense lawyer, the late Johnnie Cochran, of "manipulating" one of the infamous gloves that the prosecution said linked Simpson to the grisly double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
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After Simpson struggled to fit the gloves on his hands -- in one of the defining moments of the racially charged trial that captivated the nation -- Cochran famously admonished the jury, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."
On Thursday, during a panel discussion about the trial at Pace Law School in New York City, Darden, a member of the prosecution team, declared: "I think Johnnie tore the lining. There were some additional tears in the lining so that O.J.'s fingers couldn't go all the way up into the glove."
'Total fabrication'
Darden said in a follow-up interview on Friday that he noticed that when Simpson was trying on a glove for the jury its structure appeared to have changed. "A bailiff told me the defense had it during the lunch hour."
He said he wasn't specifically accusing anyone, adding: "It's been my suspicion for a long time that the lining has been manipulated."
He said he had previously voiced similar concerns in TV interviews, but could not recall the details.
Darden's incendiary charge surprised key participants in the trial and related legal action.
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who was a member of Simpson's defense team, and Paul Callan, who represented Nicole Brown Simpson's estate in a successful civil trial against Simpson, said it was the first time they had ever heard the allegation.
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On Friday, Dershowitz called the claim that the defense had an opportunity to tamper with the gloves "a total fabrication" and said "the defense doesn't get access to evidence except under controlled circumstances."
"Having made the greatest legal blunder of the 20th Century," Dershowitz said of Darden, "he's trying to blame it on the dead man."
Darden's remarks came after Dershowitz, a fellow panelist, called Darden's decision to have Simpson try on the glove for the first time before the jury "the most stupid thing" a prosecutor could have done.
Why didn't he report misconduct?
Dershowitz said that if Darden had evidence that there had been tampering, he would have had an ethical obligation to report the alleged misconduct. He also questioned why Darden hadn't filed a grievance with the state bar association. Darden responded by saying that this would have been a "whiny-little-snitch approach to life" and that was not what he believed in because it didn't change anything.
The event was part of a "Trials and Errors" series, co-sponsored by Pace Law School and the Forum on Law, Culture & Society at Fordham Law, that examines America's most controversial cases. Also on the panel were Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, and his sister, Kim Goldman.
Derek Sells, the managing partner of Cochran's old law firm, The Cochran Firm, did not respond to requests for comment. A call to Cochran's daughter, Tiffany Cochran Edwards, who is a communications director for the firm, was not immediately returned. Cochran died in 2005 from a brain tumor at age 67.
Simpson was acquitted in the double murder case despite what prosecutors described as a "mountain of evidence" against him. The evidence included a blood-soaked glove found on Simpson's estate and a matching one found at the scene of the murder.
Questions about the lining of the gloves emerged during the 1995 trial, but they did not involve allegations of tampering by defense lawyers.
Three other members of Simpson's defense team, Robert Shapiro, Barry Scheck and F. Lee Bailey, did not immediately return requests for comment. Robert Kardashian, who also represented Simpson, is deceased.
A civil jury in 1997 found Simpson liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages to the murder victims' families. Simpson is currently serving up to 33 years in prison for a 2007 armed robbery in which he claimed he was trying to recover his own sports memorabilia.
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Racially charged trial? you bet it was. I remember I was teaching at an inner city high school, about 90% black.. when the verdict was read you could hear the roar of joy a mile away.. the school shook. Hooray, they freed a murderer. Ill never forget that to this day, it depicts the wide disconnect between white America and Black America... at least on some level I cant explain.
This is a really bizarre accusation. This has to be the longest running circus in legal history. Of all the claims of malfeasance in this case, this is the most ludicrous. That Cochran and OJ's legal time would be so bold to tamper with the gloves is ridiculous as it would be fairly easy to make it 'impossible' to fit on OJ's hand regardless. Equally ridiculous is Darden revealing he was aware of this evidence tampering, but didn't want to report it for fear of appearing like a 'whiny-little-snitch'. What?! If this was true, then he had an OBLIGATION to report this. Darden, how are you still retroactively bungling this case nearly 20 years after the verdict? IF, what Darden says is true, he should be disbarred by his own admission. 2 decades later and this guy still doesn't understand law, or the fact that he is making his own motion for disbarrment. Darden isn't fit to practice law and further proof that this case was always loaded on both sides for the desired result.
We are so over O J, is Darden broke and need the money. Is that why he keep bringing O J stuff up.
O J is in Jail and will never get out and can not be tried again so move Darden.
If this is truely what Mr. Darden beieves then why is he just now bringing it up? I think he should have brought it up at the time of the trial. 17 years later is too late, and serves no purpose.
Johnnie Cochran may not have tampered with the gloves but was complicit in the concealment of crucial evidence that could have exonerated Simpson initially by agreeing to suppress evidence of OJ's in-laws, Exhibit 35 Juditha Brown phone records mutually with prosecutors. Read "PURSUIT OF EXHIBIT 35 in the OJ Simpson Murder Trial " at amazon.You can watch Cochran admit to the concealment at
I just wanted to say something about the glove. When Simpson tried on that glove, it appeared as though he made sure to spread out his hand & fingers as much as possible so that the glove would not fit. It wasn't the way you would normally put on a glove, with your hand in a relaxed state. To me, he did what he needed to do to make it look like the glove didn't fit him when it was more than likely, his glove. Also, if that leather glove got wet in any way (blood, rain, watering of the yard), it would have shrunk and appeared to be too small. That glove evidence meant nothing in my mind.
Who CARES about OJ and his stupid glove. Tax payers don't have money to pay for another trial. He did it and got away with it. California can't keep feeding his EGO!!!!!!!!!!!1
O.J. was clearly guilty, but the state didn't prove it. Either the glove shrunk due to the blood contamination or some of the lab treatments (or possibly heat, etc.), or it really was a random glove that the LAPD planted. On O.J.'s hand, the glove looked like a woman's glove.
Christopher Darden is a snake! If he suspected something was wrong, he shouldn't have done the experiment.
Moreover, he should be subject to charges for either failing to report the misconduct when it happened or for now making allegations of misconduct against a lawyer without proper evidence. Remember also that Simpson's other lawyers are still alive and practicing, and by suggesting misconduct on the part of Cochran, he is implicating Dersch, Bailey, Kardashian, and Shapiro by extension. He is smearing their reputations, because the public would have to assume that they were co-conspirators. If Darden has enough evidence to make his allegations, he should surely be able to support them if required to, right?
I met Darden in 2001, and I didn't like the guy one bit. He's a smug, arrogant, bitter uncle-Tom (not for prosecuting O.J.) still brooding over his embarrassment at losing a huge trial. He was not friendly or charismatic. He kept a dead look on his face the entire time he was interviewed...never once cracked a smile! I don't know how anyone can stand him.
Here's the piece that a good many folks seem to be missing (I know that the prosecutor missed it). OJ Simpson was a professional football player for years. The man has had his body torn up playing the game - including his hands. For years, OJ (like many other players) took anti-inflammatory medication for his hands as a result of his years playing football to curtail the pain from the damage, as well as the inflammation from the injuries. When the murder trial began, his attorneys advised him to STOP taking the pain medication as well as the anti-inflammatory medications. This would ensure that - latex gloves, powder, etc. aside - there would be no way that his banged up hands would fit in the gloves.
Guilty / Innocent - I don't know, but I do know that the tactic worked to the defense team's advantage.