Investigating CSI – Background material Table of Contents I ...

had been mishandled by the lab—all five of them.
What hurt the prosecution's case more than anything else were the endless explanations
of the complex procedures involved in DNA analysis. The defense kept it simple and
thereby befriended the jury. They then intimated that Detective Mark Fuhrman, who had
been at O. J.'s home the night of the murder, was a racist and had planted evidence.
They offered no proof of the latter statement, but allowed it to flow from the former,
which they did manage to prove.
The evidence was damning, but the defense team managed to refocus the jury's
attention on the corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department. Then Simpson made
a clear statement of his innocence, though he was not on the stand, and the defense
attorneys disputed the good reputation of the forensics labs, proving that the evidence
had been carelessly handled. Deliberating less than four hours, the jury bought all of
this and freed Simpson with a Not Guilty verdict. They defended themselves in
interviews after the fact by simply stating that the prosecution had not made its case. It
may be that those attorneys made some serious errors, but the doubt by the defense
about DNA was ludicrous and did some damage with the public to the credibility of this
type of evidence.
However, when it was first used in England as a way to determine the guilt of an
offender, it proved to be quite impressive.
Source: http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/dna/1.html?sect=21
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