8 Days of O.J. - "IF IT DOESN'T FIT: The Most Catastrophic Prosecutorial Decision in Legal History" - Day 6

Reid Carter examines June 1995 - the month Chris Darden made the decision that guaranteed O.J. Simpson's freedom. June 15th becomes the day that changed everything when Darden asks O.J. to try on the bloody gloves in front of the jury. The setup was perfect for disaster - latex gloves underneath, arthritis medication stopped, leather shrunk from blood. O.J.'s Academy Award performance struggling with gloves becomes Johnnie Cochran's poetic masterpiece: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." The prosecution's panicked attempts to explain shrinkage and the too-late new glove demonstration. Thirty days watching the prosecution snatch defeat from victory's jaws with the dumbest prosecutorial move in American justice.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Callaroga Shark Media. This is Reid Carter. Wednesday, October first,
twenty twenty five, Day six of eight days of OJ.
We're examining June nineteen ninety five, The month Christopher Darden
handed OJ Simpson his acquittal on a silver platter. The

(00:25):
month the prosecution committed the most catastrophic blunder in American
legal history. June fifteenth, nineteen ninety five, The day that
changed everything. The day the prosecution took an overwhelming murder
case and destroyed it with one arrogant, stupid, completely avoidable decision.
If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. Seven words that

(00:46):
became more famous than all the DNA evidence, all the
blood evidence, all the scientific proof that OJ Simpson was
guilty of double murder. Seven words that erased months of
testimony and years of investiga gation. Seven words that sent
a killer home to his mansion while two families watched

(01:06):
justice die on live television. We've covered this trial for
thirty years, and I still can't believe what happened in
June nineteen ninety five. The prosecution had everything DNA evidence,
blood evidence, timeline evidence, motive evidence. They had OJ Simpson
dead to rights. For murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

(01:28):
And they threw it all away because Christopher Darden couldn't
resist the dramatic gesture of making oj try on the
murder gloves in front of the jury. Thirty days of
watching the prosecution commit suicide on live television, thirty days
of watching arrogance become incompetence and confidence become catastrophe. I'm
Red Carter. This is day six of eight days of Ojay.

(01:50):
Welcome to the month we learned that being right doesn't
matter if you're stupid enough to give the defendant exactly
what he needs to look innocent. June nineteen ninety five
thirty days that should have been the prosecution's final push
toward conviction. Thirty days that should have tied together all

(02:12):
the evidence, all the testimony, all the proof that OJ
Simpson was a double murderer who deserved to spend the
rest of his life in prison. Instead, June became the
month Christopher Darden decided to play Russian Roulette with the
most important murder case in American history and blew his
own brains out on live television. The month began with

(02:34):
the prosecution still reeling from May's DNA disaster. They'd presented
the most conclusive scientific evidence in legal history and watched
the jury's eyes glaze over with boredom and suspicion. They'd
proved Ojay's guilt with mathematical certainty and somehow made it
seem questionable. But they still had the gloves, the bloody
aris Isotonin gloves that connected the crime scenes. One found

(02:57):
at Bundy with both victim's blood, found at Rockingham, with
both victim's blood, same manufacturer, same size, extra large, same
rare style that Nicole had bought for OJ as a
Christmas gift. The gloves were perfect evidence, physical proof that
couldn't be contaminated by LAPD procedures or challenged by defense theories.

(03:19):
The killer wore these gloves. The killer left one at
each location. The killer was Oj Simpson, and Chris Darden
was about to turn perfect evidence into perfect disaster. June
begins with more glove testimony. The prosecution brings in the
Bloomingdale's receipts showing Nicole purchase these exact gloves for OJ.
They bring in the aris Isotona representatives, who confirm the style, size,

(03:42):
and rarity. They build an air tight case that these
were Ojy's gloves worn during the murders, left as evidence
of his guilt. But watching this testimony thirty years later,
I can see the moment Darden gets the idea that
will destroy everything. He's watching Oj at the defense table
during the glove testimony. He sees Oja looking at the

(04:04):
gloves with what appears to be recognition, and Darden thinks
he can create a Perry Mason moment by making OJ
try them on in front of the jury. This is
prosecutorial arrogance at its most dangerous. Darden thinks he's so
smart that he can outsmart the dream Team. He thinks
he can create a dramatic moment that will erase all
the DNA confusion and contamination theories. He thinks he can

(04:28):
make OJ convict himself by putting on the murder weapons.
What Darden doesn't think about, apparently, is what happens if
the gloves don't fit. June tenth, the prosecution is still
building their glove evidence when Johnny Cochrane makes an offhand
comment about how the gloves would be too small for
OJ's hands. It's a throwaway line, a casual suggestion barely

(04:49):
worth noting. But I think this is when Cochrane plants
the seed that will grow into Darden's destruction. Cochrane knows
exactly what he's doing. He's baiting Darden into making the
mistake that will guarantee Ojay's acquittal, and Darden takes the
bait like a fish swimming toward a hook. June twelfth,
during a sidebar conversation, Darden tells Judge Eto that he

(05:09):
wants oj to try on the gloves in front of
the jury. This conversation should have ended Darden's career right there.
Itto should have said no, Marcia Clark should have said no,
someone with half a brain should have said absolutely not. Instead,
they all convinced themselves this was a brilliant idea. They
all thought they could create television drama that would guarantee conviction.

(05:32):
They forgot the first rule of trial practice, never ask
a question you don't know the answer to, And they
definitely forgot the corollary, never make a defendant demonstrate something
unless you're absolutely certain it will prove their guilt. But
the prosecution had reasons to be confident. They knew the
gloves were Ojay's size, They knew he'd warn them before

(05:54):
they knew these were the murder weapons, and making him
put them on would be like making him confess to
the killings. What they didn't account for was that OJ
Simpson had spent his entire life performing, that he was
an actor who understood exactly how to use body language
and facial expressions to sell a story, that he would

(06:14):
treat this moment like the performance of his life because
it literally was. They also didn't account for the physical
realities of evidence that had been soaked in blood, stored
for over a year, and shrunk from the moisture and
storage conditions. Most importantly, they didn't account for the fact
that OJ's defense team had been preparing for this moment

(06:35):
since they first saw the gloves. They knew Darden would
eventually ask OJ to try them on, and they were ready.
June fifteenth, nineteen ninety five, the day that guaranteed OJ
Simpson's freedom. The courtroom is packed, the cameras are rolling,

(06:56):
the nation is watching. Christopher Darden stands up and makes
the request that will haunt him for the rest of
his life. Your honor, we would ask that mister Simpson
stepped forward and try on the gloves. Judge Eto approves.
The defense doesn't object. Of course they don't object. This
is exactly what they've been hoping for. OJ stands up

(07:18):
and approaches the evidence table, and then the performance begins.
OJ puts on latex gloves first, as required by evidence protocol.
This adds bulk to his hands. The defense had been
giving oj arthritis medication for months, but they'd stopped it
before this moment, causing his hands to swell slightly. The

(07:38):
blood soaked leather gloves had shrunk during storage. But even
accounting for all of these factors, the gloves probably would
have fit if Oja had tried to put them on properly. Instead,
he gave the performance of his life. He struggled with
the gloves, He grimaced with apparent pain. He held his
hands up to show the jury how tight they were,
how uncomfortable, how ob obviously too small for his hands.

(08:02):
And watching this thirty years later, I can see exactly
what OJ is doing. He's not trying to put the
gloves on. He's trying to show they don't fit. He's
not demonstrating evidence, he's performing innocence. The jury is transfixed.
They're watching OJ Simpson struggle with gloves that appear too
small for his hands. They're seeing physical evidence that seems

(08:23):
to contradict the prosecution's entire case, and then Johnny Cochrane
delivers the knockout punch with seven words that will echo
through legal history. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit poetry,
pure poetry. Cochrane has taken the prosecution's evidence and turned
it into his closing argument. He's taken their smoking gun

(08:44):
and made it backfire in their faces. The prosecution panics.
They realize immediately that they've made a catastrophic mistake. They
try to explain why the gloves appeared too small, leather shrinkage,
latex glove interference, arthrit swelling, but it's too late. The
jury has seen what they've seen. Oj Simpson struggled to

(09:06):
put on gloves that were supposedly his size. The murder
weapons didn't fit the defendant. How can you convict someone
when the evidence doesn't fit June twentieth. Desperate to salvage
the disaster, the prosecution brings in new gloves of the
same size and style they have. Prosecutor Chris Darden try
them on to show they fit properly. When someone actually

(09:28):
tries to put them on correctly. This demonstration proves that
the gloves should fit. It shows that the original gloves
were Ojay's size, and that his struggle was performative, not genuine.
But it doesn't matter. The damage is done. The jury
has already seen what they needed to see O J.
Simpson appearing to be innocent because evidence didn't fit properly.

(09:52):
And here's what really gets me about June nineteen ninety five.
This entire disaster was completely avoidable. The prosecution could have
simply presented the glove evidence without the demonstration. They could
have relied on the receipts, the DNA evidence, the blood evidence,
the timeline evidence. They had overwhelming proof that these were
Ojay's gloves and that he used them to commit murder.

(10:14):
They didn't need a demonstration, They needed common sense. Instead,
they gave oj Simpson exactly what he needed, a moment
to perform innocence in front of the jury, a chance
to turn evidence against him into evidence for him, an
opportunity to show that the prosecution's case didn't fit. By
June thirtieth, the prosecution's case was in ruins, not because

(10:37):
their evidence was weak. Their evidence was overwhelming, but because
they'd allowed the defendant to manipulate their strongest evidence into
his strongest defense, the gloves went from proving Ojay's guilt
to proving the prosecutions incompetence. The murder weapons became props
in Ojay's performance of innocence, the physical evidence became reasonable doubt.

(11:00):
Nineteen ninety five was the month Chris Darden handed O. J.
Simpson and acquittal with those gloves. It was the dumbest
prosecutorial move in the history of American justice, and everyone
involved should have known better. We'll be right back with
how June's glove disaster set the stage for July's complete
collapse of the prosecution's case and the emergence of the

(11:22):
Furman tapes that would make everything even worse. Welcome back
to day six of eight days of oj I'm reed, Carter,
and we're examining how June nineteen ninety five transformed O. J.

(11:43):
Simpson from defendant to innocent victim with one catastrophic prosecutorial decision.
What really happened on June fifteenth. The prosecution forgot the
most basic rule of criminal law. The burden of proof
is on the state, which means you don't take on
nestscessary risks when you're already winning. And they were winning.

(12:04):
Despite the DNA confusion and the LAPD attacks and the
contamination theories, they still had enough evidence to convict OJ
Simpson ten times over. They had his blood at the
crime scene. They had the victim's blood in his car.
They had his hair and fibers at Bundy. They had
no alibi, they had motive and opportunity. They didn't need

(12:24):
a glove demonstration. They needed to present their evidence clearly
and let the jury reach the obvious conclusion that OJ
Simpson was guilty of murder. Instead, they decided to get clever.
They decided to create a television moment. They decided to
let the defendant handle the evidence and hope for the best.
In what universe did they think this was a good idea.

(12:46):
Here's what I think really happened. The prosecution had been
losing the narrative war to Johnny Cochran for months. They'd
watched Cochrane turn their evidence into conspiracy theories and their
witnesses into villains. They'd seen the defense control the story
while they struggled to present facts. So they decided to
fight theater with theater. They decided to create their own

(13:07):
dramatic moment that would be more compelling than Cochrane's performances.
But they forgot that oj Simpson was a professional performer,
that he'd spent decades in front of cameras knowing exactly
how to project whatever image served his purposes, that he
would treat this moment like the audition of his life.
And OJ delivered. He gave the performance that saved his

(13:27):
life and destroyed theirs. The glove demonstration wasn't just a
prosecutorial mistake. It was prosecutorial suicide. They took their strongest
evidence and turned it into their biggest liability. They took
the murder weapons and made them exonerate the murderer. But
June also revealed something else about this trial, how completely

(13:48):
the defense had succeeded in making this about performance rather
than proof. The glove demonstration wasn't about whether oj committed murder.
It was about whether the gloves fit properly. The jury
wasn't evaluating his guilt or innocence anymore. They were evaluating
whether evidence looked convincing on television, and Ojay made sure

(14:08):
the evidence looked unconvincing. He made sure the jury saw
struggle instead of fit, discomfort instead of recognition, innocence instead
of guilt. Johnny Cochrane understood exactly what had happened. If
it doesn't fit, you must Acquit wasn't just a catchy phrase.
It was a complete legal theory. If the evidence doesn't
support conviction, you must find reasonable doubt. The fact that

(14:31):
the evidence actually did support conviction, that the gloves actually
were Ojay's size, that the demonstration was manipulated performance art,
none of that mattered. Once the jury had seen what
they'd seen. June fifteenth became the day the prosecution lost
the oj Simpson trial. Everything after that was just legal formality.
The jury had seen enough to justify acquittal, regardless of

(14:54):
what other evidence might be presented. And here's what's most
frustrating about the glove demonstration. It was motivated by the
same arrogance that had plagued the prosecution from the beginning.
They thought they were smarter than the defense. They thought
they could outmaneuver the dream team. They thought they could
win through dramatic gestures instead of methodical proof. They were
wrong about all of it. The defense had been playing

(15:16):
chess while the prosecution was playing checkers. Cochrane had been
setting up this moment for months, baiting Darden into making
exactly this mistake, and Darden walked right into the trap.
By the end of June, O j Simpson had been
completely transformed from murderer to victim. The gloves that should
have convicted him had exonerated him. The evidence that should

(15:38):
have guaranteed his imprisonment had guaranteed his freedom. Chris Darden
had handed oj Simpson his acquittal with those gloves, and
everyone watching knew it. June nineteen ninety five, the month
the prosecution committed suicide on live television, The month evidence
became performance and proof became theater. The month that proved

(15:59):
being right. It doesn't matter if you're stupid enough to
let the defendant prove you wrong. Nicole Brown, Simpson and
Ronald Goldman deserved better than Christopher Darden's ego and Johnny
Cochrane's poetry. They deserved prosecutors who understood that winning means
presenting evidence, not creating drama. Instead, they got the glove demonstration,

(16:19):
the moment that guaranteed their killer would walk free because
he could act like the gloves didn't fit. If it
doesn't fit, you must acquit. The seven words that defined
the trial of the century, The seven words that sent
a double murderer home to freedom. The seven words that
proved performance matters more than proof. In Celebrity Justice. June fifteenth,

(16:42):
nineteen ninety five, the day Christopher Darden handed OJ Simpson
his freedom and handed Nicole and Ron's families a lifetime
of knowing their loved one's killer escaped because of prosecutorial incompetence.
That's day six of eight days of Ojay. June nineteen

(17:03):
ninety five, the month Chris Darden made the decision that
guaranteed OJ Simpson would never face justice for murdering Nicole
Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Tomorrow Day seven July and
August nineteen ninety five, the prosecution's complete collapse as the
Mark Furman tapes emerge, with forty one uses of the

(17:24):
N word, exposing his lies and destroying what little credibility
the lapd had left. Judge Edo loses complete control of
his courtroom while crying over insults about his wife. The
defense presents their parade of reasonable doubt, while the prosecution
rests in exhausted defeat. July and August were the months

(17:44):
we watched the prosecution realize they'd lost everything, not just
the case, but the narrative, the jury, and any hope
that evidence would matter more than performance. But before we
get to that final collapse, let me remind you what
June really proved. It proved that OJ Simpson was a
master performer who could manipulate evidence to serve his purposes.

(18:04):
It proved that the prosecution was so arrogant they handed
him the opportunity to do exactly that. Most importantly, it
proved that if it doesn't fit, you must Acquit was
more memorable than one in one hundred seventy million odds
of innocence, that five words of poetry mattered more than
months of scientific proof, that performance mattered more than evidence.

(18:27):
The gloves were OJ Simpson's size. The gloves were soaked
in Nicole and Ron's blood. The gloves were the murder
weapons that should have convicted him, but when Chris Darden
asked him to try them on, they became the reasonable
doubt that guaranteed his freedom. June fifteenth, nineteen ninety five
will go down as one of the worst prosecutorial decisions

(18:49):
in American legal history, not just because it was stupid
lots of prosecutors make stupid decisions, but because it was unnecessary, avoidable,
and catastrophic for justice. The prosecution had enough evidence to
convict OJ Simpson without any demonstration. They had DNA, blood,
hair fibers, timeline, motive, and opportunity. They had everything they

(19:15):
needed except the common sense to present it without giving
the defendant a chance to manipulate it. Nicole Brown Simpson
was thirty five years old when OJ murdered her. She
was finally free from his abuse, building a new life,
planning a future he couldn't control. She died because she
refused to be controlled anymore. Ronald Goldman was twenty five

(19:37):
years old. He was working, building a career, living his life.
He died because he was trying to return sunglasses to
a woman he barely knew. They deserved justice. They deserved
prosecutors who understood that evidence speaks for itself when you
let it. They deserved a system that focused on proof
instead of performance. Instead, they got Chris Darden's ego and

(20:00):
OJ Simpson's acting ability. They got if it doesn't fit,
you must acquit instead of the evidence. Proves guilt beyond
reasonable doubt. Join me tomorrow for July and August nineteen
ninety five, when the prosecution's case collapsed completely and the
defense prepared for their victory lap I'm Red Carter, the

(20:20):
Gloves Fit. OJ Simpson was guilty and Chris Darden handed
him his freedom because he couldn't resist the dramatic moment
that destroyed justice on live television