too much emphasis on forensic evidence.



yes, forensic evidence is great. i love watching the shows. forensic files, autopsy, the new detectives, FBI files, etc.. it's done amazing things to solve crimes. the forensic evidence seems like it is irrefutable. and that's where the problem is. you got forensic evidence like your hair found on the towel at the crime scene, and it is pretty much set that you won't be able to argue out of your way with just about anything you throw at the jury. you try to imply that your hair was planted there, and the jury will all laugh their asses off. these forensic science shows sometimes make a point on how one piece of forensic evidence was enough to give someone the death penalty. that's pretty damn scary.



it is so much easier to argue how ludicrous it is for the defendant to even try to argue that someone must have planted the forensic evidence than the defendants trying to prove that this planting of forensic evidence can actually happen. with so much hype about forensic evidence these days, it makes it that much harder to prove that forensic evidence is not smoking gun that everyone treats like it is.



i'll give a fictitous example: the shower bandit

this guy, according to the investigators will break in while people are not home. loot their house of valueables. then take a shower and leave. say i know where a once convicted robber lived. all i need to do is break into this guy's house, pick up 20 or so hairs from his bathroom floor (easy), and plant these in every house i rob. and to also fool the detectives with thier "geographic profiling" technique, i'll only rob houses within a 5 mile radious of the guy i stole the hairs from. during the robbery i'll leave a hair behind and make it look like someone took a shower there.



and this forensic evidence could be a double edge sword that works to fool the investigators. say that somehow, a neighbor spotted me around some houses during the time of the crime scene. but my DNA doesn't match the foreign hairs (all identical) found in everyones house that got robbed. so it will be just as impossible to convict me as it is easy to convict the wrong guy. and since wrong man's house is the epicenter of all these crimes, do you need more evidence to put the wrong guy away for good?



it might not be for a while but i hope we one day will see someone get exonerated from being wrongly accused due to planted forensic evidence. because the possibility is much greater than anyone will want to admit. until that day, we are all vulnerable to get put away for life (or even death) for crimes we did not commit.



having said all this, do I think OJ is still guilty? i really don't know anymore.