Dershowitz: OJ Simpson's 'dream team' was actually a nightmare team
It’s been called the “trial of the century.” The lawyers, it was said, were a “dream team.”
But one of the lawyers who helped O.J. Simpson win an acquittal in two slayings says neither characterization is correct.
Former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz tells Inside Edition that the lawyers representing Simpson weren’t a dream team. “It was a nightmare team,” he said. “The lawyer’s egos were clashing. Everybody was trying to take credit. We won, not because we were good but because the prosecution was so bad.”
The prosecution’s biggest error, Dershowitz said, was allowing Simpson to try on a bloody glove said to have been found at the crime scene. The glove didn’t fit, leading to Johnnie Cochran’s famous argument to jurors: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
Jurors acquitted Simpson in the killings of his ex-wife and her male friend in 1995. The trial is being portrayed in a miniseries on FX.
In an interview with Business Insider, Dershowitz said he doesn’t think the case ranks as one of the most important of the century. “It was a highly publicized trial that established no real important legal principles,” Dershowitz said.
He does credit the trial, however, with helping reform the Los Angeles Police Department. “I think it was the first time the LA Police Department was caught doing what it had been doing for years and that is framing ‘guilty’ people,” Dershowitz said. “In their minds O.J. was guilty, and therefore it was OK to frame him.”
