THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 1997 TAG: 9702050663
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT AND BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: 91 lines
In the end, it came down to the shoes.
The most damning evidence against O.J. Simpson were the Bruno Magli shoes that appeared in at least 30 photographs, one of which was published months before the murders occurred.
That was the opinion of Connie Squiers, a law student at Regent University who has been taking an advanced course in evidence this semester. Tuesday night, like millions of Americans, she was watching the verdict on television.
``I think he (Simpson) clearly lost his credibility when he said he didn't own any,'' Squiers said. ``How could they doctor 30 pictures, especially one that turned up months before in a magazine?''
Of course, Squiers noted, the jury had a less stringent standard to meet in this case than did the criminal jury.
The civil jury's standard was a preponderance of evidence, which translates to being about 51 percent sure that Simpson committed the crimes, said law professor James Duane, who teaches Squiers' evidence class. Other counts against Simpson needed clear and convincing evidence, which the civil jury also found.
``Clear and convincing has been estimated as being somewhere around 70 percent sure,'' Duane said.
Duane's class also has discussed evidence that did not make it to the trial, including an alleged jail house confession to Rosie Grier, in which Simpson is reported to have shouted through a glass window: ``I didn't mean to do it. I'm sorry.''
Grier is reported by guards to have shouted back: ``O.J., you've got to come clean. You've got to tell somebody.''
Duane said that conversation was not allowed in the criminal trial by Judge Lance Ito, who ruled that it was a privileged conversation between a prisoner and someone who was acting as a spiritual adviser.
Squiers also wondered about information she read about in a book titled ``Outrage,'' written by noted lawyer Vincent Bugliosi. ``Why didn't they mention the chase, why didn't they mention the disguise he had and the money he had on the front seat?'' Squiers said. ``Why didn't they mention his passport? That doesn't sound like someone ready to commit suicide to me.''
The Simpson civil trial has also been a frequent topic of discussion in the classes of Tom Lopez, who teaches criminology and criminal justice in the sociology department at Virginia Wesleyan College.
Lopez, too, cited the different standards of evidence as a crucial distinction between the two trials. He also noted that a verdict in the civil trial required only nine of 12 jurors to agree. In the criminal trial, a unanimous verdict was required.
Nevertheless, in the final analysis, Lopez said, ``In both cases, from a sociological standpoint, it's which side tells the best story.''
What of the dichotomy between the two juries? The jury in the Simpson criminal trial was mostly black; the civil jury was virtually all white. Polls taken in the aftermath of the first verdict found that most blacks thought Simpson was innocent while most whites believed him guilty.
Richard Brydges, a prominent Hampton Roads defense attorney who has followed the case closely, believes the racial factor was critical in the two cases.
``I've said all along that DNA is an exacting science,'' Brydges said. ``It was clear in the criminal trial - the evidence was convincing. But the jury in that case really didn't care what the evidence was. They didn't want to find him guilty. . . . They had a chance to make a statement, and they made a statement.
``In this trial, the jury listened to the evidence, and they believed it.''
But Janice Sanchez-Hucles, a psychology professor at Old Dominion University who teaches a class in the psychology of African Americans, cautioned that there were other factors besides race at work.
In addition to the less stringent standard of proof in the civil trial, she said, key elements of the criminal trial - notably the presence of Mark Fuhrman, the detective accused by the defense of trying to frame Simpson - were absent from the civil trial.
In light of that, she said, ``The hard part is to try to factor out the racial dynamics.''
Nevertheless, she conceded that the disparity between the two verdicts suggests that ``we do have a racial divide in this country.''
Virginia Wesleyan's Lopez said the makeup of the juries was undeniably an important factor. Legal ideals aside, he said, in modern American jurisprudence, ``jurors are not really peers. They are a melting pot. They have predispositions, whether they admit it or not.''
Even so, Lopez said, it's too easy to characterize the two Simpson verdicts strictly in racial terms.
``A black student in my criminal justice class said it best,'' Lopez said: ``People say most blacks identify with O.J. But the truth is, he's from another class. Ordinary criminals don't get that kind of defense team. It's a class thing more than a race thing.'' ILLUSTRATION: Defense lawyer Richard Brydges feels racial factor was
critical in both cases.
Regent law student Connie Squiers felt too many issues hadn't been
raised at the first trial.