Presentation of Findings

The final stage in any criminal investigation is when the case goes to court, and is tried in front of a judge and jury. The purpose of a case being heard in court is in order to attempt to gain a conviction of a guilty individual or individuals. When a case goes to court all the information that has been gained throughout the course of the investigation from intelligence, witness statements and the prosecution in the presence of a judge and jury presents all of the information. If a Jury is present in the case they will hear all the facts and information regarding a case and will deliberate to come to a conclusion regarding whether a suspect is guilty or innocent.

Before any case goes to court a case file will be prepared by the investigators, this case file will be compiled of notes, sketches, details regarding evidence and all of the relevant facts regarding the case that would need to be known for a case to go to court. This case file would then go to the crown prosecution service in order for them to prepare their case, and select witnesses and specialists to be involved in the case. The case file will be primarily presented by the CPS and will be backed up by the testimony of witnesses present at the scene of a crime, or with knowledge regarding an aspect of the crime. The case will also be backed up by expert witness testimonies given by professionals who specialise in specific areas such as blood splatter or DNA analysis.

In the case of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, the prosecution prepared their case against OJ Simpson who was being charged with both murders. The prosecution received case files from the investigators and used these to plan their case for court. The case file included details of all the analysis of each of the pieces of evidence that had been collected from the scene as well as notes and photographs. Although the prosecution had a great deal of evidence pointing to the guilt of Simpson they failed to present it efficiently to the jury in order to prove his guilt, mainly this was because of the mistakes which had occurred throughout the investigation which led to crucial evidence being dismissed in court. Also although the main piece of evidence being presented was made up of biological evidence – mainly blood, the prosecution failed to provide an expert in DNA analysis to be an expert witness, if they had the expert would have been able to give the jury a better understanding of what the analysis of the blood indicated. The defence however did employ a specialist in DNA analysis who was able to give expert testimony into why the blood evidence should not be seen as reliable evidence in the prosecutions case. Another mistake which was made in court, was that the prosecution asked Simpson to try on the glove which had been collected as evidence from his property – in doing this they hoped that they would prove that the gloves were his as they were a perfect fit. Howver due to the fact they had been soaked in blood and left to dry the gloves had shrunk and did not fit, as this was carried out in front of the jury this would have greatly damaged the presentation of the prosecutions findings.