A review of the book, “Reasonable Doubts”

The book was written by Alan M. Dershowitz. He is a legal expert, professor of law, appellate lawyer, trial strategist, and he was part of O.J. Simpson’s so-called “Dream Team” of lawyers.

His reason for writing the book was to show that the non-guilty verdict was not a travesty of justice, but rather the correct verdict. In this book, he presents his evidence and theories to try and back up his claim.

In the book, the author makes a lot of sense, most of the time. He is a very intelligent and persuasive writer.
In Chapter 1, for example, he puts on his case for his opinion that the O.J. trial was decided before it happened.

He convinced me of this.

One strategy decided on was to discredit the prosecution’s case. The forensic work done by the defense helped to discredit the prosecution’s evidence and witnesses.

The Simpson lawyers destroyed Officer Mark Fuhrman’s creditability, showing him to be a racist who admitted to lying if it would get an interracial couple in trouble.
They got Fuhrman to admit to framing other suspects.
They appealed to the jury’s sense of justice. They also made the jury think of other instances of racism, appealing to their fear of racist treatment by our society’s criminal justice system, and comparing Mark Fuhrman to Hitler.

They also shot down Officer Philip Vannatter’s creditability and possibly made the jury suspect some of the evidence that he collected was tainted.

I also liked the way the author included footnotes to allow the reader to verify his statements.
For instance, in chapter 1, when discussing the testimony placing Simpson in the limo, the author allows the reader to verify his quotation by including the footnote, “Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1994, p. A1; San Francisco Examiner, June 17, 1994, p. A1”. The reader can use these footnotes to find the original articles and draw their own conclusions. The newspaper articles are difficult to find at this late date, but he references books as well, and the U.S. Constitution. In addition, the court transcript reviews can be downloaded from Court TV.

Chapter 10 he mentioned reforms. One example is the idea he has of letting juries question witnesses/experts.

What I don’t like about the book is the author’s tendency to assume too much. He also contradicts himself repeatedly in Chapter 8. In it, he says money can’t buy an acquittal, and then goes on to state ways to spend money that could get you an acquittal. Lawyers, experts and forensic scientists are what he sites. You might as well be able to buy an acquittal if you can do that, although that won’t always work. (On a side note, in that chapter, he mentions his opinion that the government should make these resources more available to lawyers of poorer defendants.)

He also, on a constant basis, states things that can’t be true, or are obviously stretched beyond truth. For example, in Chapter III he mentions some rules that are well-known in legal circles. They’re called “The Rules of the Justice Game.” He has his own modified version of some of those rules. In rules 3 through 9, he states that almost all police officers lie to convict someone, all the lawyers and the judges know about this, many prosecuting attorneys encourage dishonesty in order to make a case, most trial judges believe the police officers even if the lie is obvious, and most appellate judges uphold guilty verdicts that they know would not have happened if the trial judges hadn’t accepted information they knew was false. This has to be an exaggeration. In that chapter, he lists several sources to back up his claim.

He didn’t fool me. I think that maybe some cops and prosecutors lie to win a case or arrest a suspect, and I imagine just as many judges know about the lying, but not on the grand and inflated scale the author portrays.

When I was finished with the book, I was very disappointed with the author. He is obviously a very intelligent man, and yet he makes so many stupid mistakes.

Just to make sure I’m not accused of bias, I’m stating my opinion on whether or not O.J. Simpson is guilty. I don’t know. It’s as plain as day that the police and the prosecution tried to frame him. If he did it, he got away with it. If he didn’t, he was spared a prison sentence for a crime he did not commit.

For further reading, check out Trial Kollections by Kellerman a collection of articals related to the case.

You might also want to look CNN's page on the trial.