Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder

In light of O.J. Simpson's latest legal troubles (to which I now firmly believe in the power of "what goes around comes around"), I must say that I was completely bored with the so-called "Trial of the Century" media circus in 1995 and did not believe, for one second, that Simpson was remotely innocent (it's nice to see, all these years later, how his most vociferous defenders then have changed their tune now).

The American legal system is a complete joke and the media circus of the O.J. Simpson trial proved it ... and then some! The whole thing reminded me of the so-called "Manson Family" trial in 1970 (that I read about in newspapers on microfilm) for the murders of Sharon Tate, et. al., the previous year. So it's very fitting that retired Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, who put that clown Manson and his pack of zombies away, would comment on another media circus that would occur a quarter of a century later where the victims were, once again, completely forgotten.

I firmly believe had Mr. Bugliosi prosecuted Simpson, he would have been in the can - without the possibility of parole - right where he belongs!

District Attorneys Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden, along with judge Lance Ito, were more concerned with becoming celebrities than in doing their jobs - and that was to be the voice of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman in the courtroom. It was a given that Simpson's so-called legal "Dream Team" would turn the proceedings into a circus, but the judge and the DAs played the game, too, and it left doubts as to the level of their professionalism (and rightfully so).

At 19 years old, I was so disgusted with reading and hearing about Marcia Clark's hairdo, whether or not Clark and Darden had something going, how Ito shaved his face this week that I would run away from the TV everytime the proceedings were on or if the case was being covered on the nightly news. I know now, as I knew then, that I didn't miss anything - and Mr. Bugliosi's book reinforced that point.

I read Mr. Bugliosi's book not too long after its release and I concur with another reviewer in that if there's anyone who still believes in Simpson's "innocence," this book will shatter that ... and then some!

Mr. Bugliosi does what a competent attorney would (and should) do and that is making Swiss cheese of the other side's case. He ripped everyone involved with this case brand new ones - he shot major holes through the defense, but also appropriately ripped Clark and Darden for being more concerned with fame than in doing their jobs.

I'm not crazy about DAs or the legal system in general, but folks such as Vincent Bugliosi are one of the very few bright spots of the entire legal system.

Sometimes one can't help but feel the system is aptly titled the "criminal justice" system and I certainly felt that way after the verdict was read (and then to hear those biased jurors say they believed he was guilty, but let him off because of the Rodney King brouhaha really soured me on the whole jury thing).

But if every lawyer - defense attorney, district attorney, even judges - had the same set of legal standards and integrity that Vincent Bugliosi displayed during his career (who lost exactly one murder case out of a hundred in his career, among other case wins), I honestly believe the public wouldn't be so down on lawyers. His professionalism certainly comes through in this book. - Donna Di Giacomo

Reading, and re-reading parts of this book, cause this layman to wonder why some points were either mis-handled by the Prosecution or simply ignored. Bugliosi brilliantly points out how they consistently let their witnesses appear as incompetents or liars; how they mishandled *the* key piece of evidence - why would the man on trial use this evidence against himself in view of the whole world? (the argument that the Prosecution wanted that demonstration before the Defense got hold of it is poor: Clarke and Darden could have easily shown that the gloves *did* fit by the way the Defendant behaved while trying them on); why wouldn't they discuss the Bronco chase?. I reflected upon them not using the witness (considered an undependable "star-gazer") to a person resembling O.J. Simpson driving erratically at about 10:50pm [though her violation of deposition security standards was enough to invalidate her taking the stand]; not making reference to a recently completed motion picture starring (or featuring?) the man on trial playing a character who murders people in the night, using a similiar weapon? (Just maybe these images were still in his head after the film was completed?).
How they could not see in advance that a star witness might easily be labeled a purgeror, considering his vague and silly excuse for using a racial epithet?
Why the Prosecution team couldn't simply state up front that "We are here to prove that the blood of *three* people was found at that scene; and one of those people sits at the Defense desk in this Courtroom" (?).
Bugliosi scrutinizes, with microscopic vision, the way a courtroom, the place where the law is administered in the eyes of God, into low slapstick. He doesn't look for reasons outside the trial - he simply analyses the scene, and then we can look at it with a combination of dismay and hope.

Too bad Bugliosi couldn't have prosecuted this case...Orenthal James Simpson would be behind bars today if he had.

I, like the author, watched with disgust as Simpson got away with the brutal murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. When I saw this book in my local bookstore several years ago, I snatched it up. I knew that Vincent Bugliosi had written "Helter Skelter" about his prosecution of the Manson family, and that was one of the scariest things I had ever read...I could also see, by the title of this book, that Mr. Bugliosi was as revolted by the spectacle of the Simpson trial as I was.

He points out the many, many mistakes made by the prosecution in this case, which ought to have been a clear win but instead turned into what could almost be called a comedy of errors...if it wasn't such a tragedy.

For the reviewer who stated that Nicole was a party girl, etc....who cares if she was?? She did not deserve to be slaughtered, nor did Ron Goldman.

O.J. Simpson did these crimes and is walking around free, playing golf, smiling, and laughing it up. One can only hope for an afterlife, so that Mr. Simpson can finally get what's coming to him...an eternity in hell.

Bugliosi details all of the mistakes made during the prosecution of OJ Simpson. He describes outlandish mistakes by both the prosecution and the defense and how, given the volume of damning evidence, the case should have been a slam-dunk. Lawyers are too much like politicians--getting caught up in the media coverage and focusing way too much on appearances, forgetting the substance of the situation. You'll see exactly why this was the most famous and most screwed-up trial in American history. Fie on the whole lot of them, including Simpson. Great reading!

Vincent Bugliosi, author and prosecutor who successfully convicted Charles Manson as conspirator in the Helter Skelter murders of Sharon Tate and the LaBiancos, catalogues the mistakes of the prosecution, the judge, the media, the jury and the case.

In short, Bugliosi states what the defense should have not been allowed to do, what the judge and prosecution should have done, and how the jury should have responded. In other words, had he been prosecutor, he tells us how he would have done it differently and won.

We learn the results of O.J.'s lie detector results here. He scored a minus 22. This is about the lowest score a person can receive. He lied. We also learn how Bugliosi would have attacked the defense's assertion that the three (white) detectives conspired to convict O.J. Simpson with planted evidence.

Bugliosi's argument is that conspiracy to frame a person charged with a crime punishable by death is itself a crime punishable by death in California. The defense would have had us believe that two detectives on the verge of retirement would have entered into a conspiracy with a detective they didn't know (Mark Fuhrman), and plant or taint evidence against Simpson because they were racist. For their supposed racism, they would have risked their careers, pension, jail and death to get Simpson. Bugliosi makes a strong argument here that this would have been a stretch especially for three savvy detectives. The prosecution failed to challenge this wild assertion.

He makes Judge Ito out to be what he was, a man who bent over backwards to appease the media and the defense when the latter should have been held in contempt many times.

This is about the trial more than the story of O.J. Simpson, a man whose story has divided a nation in a way that hasn't occurred until our current political divisions.

Like more than half the nation, I am so convinced that he did commit those murders, I would bet the mortgage, and my career.

Sadly, the belief in innocence or guilt falls right along racial lines.