Ex-DA reveals new detail on glove in O.J. Simpson case

The former Los Angeles District Attorney who served during the O.J. Simpson murder trial said he learned a new detail about the infamous glove incident in the case while watching the upcoming ESPN documentary “O.J.: Made In America.”

“It was never supposed to happen,” Gil Garcetti said today on “Good Morning America,” referring to the moment in the 1994 murder trial when the prosecution asked Simpson to try on a bloody, black leather glove found at the scene of the slaying of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

The glove did not fit on Simpson’s hand, leading his defense attorney to utter one of the defining lines of the trial, “”If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

“Chris Darden and Marcia Clarke were never supposed to ask O.J. to try on the glove,” Garcetti said, referring to the trial’s prosecutors. “He had probably been working out his hand, developing muscle in his hand and we knew that the glove would shrink. It’d been in the elements. It’s leather.

“What we didn’t know until I saw it on this film was that O.J. Simpson was taking arthritic medication for his hands and he was told if you stop taking this arthritic medication, your hands will swell. Your joints will stiffen. My god,” Garcetti said.

Simpson’s legal team was led by Cochran, as well as Robert Kardashian and Robert Shapiro. Garcetti said the defense team may have “baited” Clarke and Darden into asking Simpson to try on the glove.

“Did it tick me off, and I would use a different word. Yes, it did,” Garcetti said. “But, I can’t say it’s really crossing the line. They did everything in their power. They got away with a lot, but we were baited into perhaps even having him try on the glove in the first place.”

Garcetti served as the Los Angeles District Attorney from 1992 to 2000. His appearance in the ESPN documentary is his first broadcast interview about the Simpson case since 2001.

The ESPN documentary traces Simpson’s stardom in the NFL and crossover success as an actor and TV pitchman to his recent imprisonment for a robbery and kidnapping conviction years after he was acquitted of his ex-wife’s slaying in a trial that captivated the nation.

The once-beloved football player became infamous for beating murder charges in the 1994 deaths. He was acquitted in the sensational 1995 criminal trial, but was later found liable for the deaths in a subsequent civil suit brought by the families of Brown Simpson and Goldman.

The documentary also examines the racial tensions that prevailed in Los Angeles at the time of the trial.

Simpson, 68, is now serving 33 years for armed robbery. He was jailed in 2007 for breaking into a Las Vegas hotel room at gunpoint with a group of men to steal sports memorabilia.

“O.J.: Made in America” is directed by Peabody and Emmy Award-winner, Ezra Edelman. Part I of the five-part series premieres Saturday, June 11, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC. The full episodic documentary will then air across several dates from June 14 to 18 on ESPN.