Reclaiming History
Vince Bugliosi:
"I believe that 95 percent of the physical evidence in this case
would be admissible. I can tell you from personal experience that
excluding evidence at a trial because the chain of custody is weak is
rare, certainly the exception rather than the rule. The typical
situation where the chain is not particularly strong is for the trial
judge to nevertheless admit the evidence, ruling that the weakness of
the chain goes only to "the weight of the evidence [i.e., how much
weight or credence the jury will give it*, not its admissibility"
via David Von Pein Blog Spot
*My emphasis
Aha... you've clearly not understood that the admissibility of evidence at trial does not say anything about the credibility of that evidence. When a chain of custody does not exist the defense has two options;
1. they can object to the admissibility of that evidence, which is not so easy as it sounds, because the bar for admissibility is really low. As long as the argument can be made to the judge that the evidence is related to the case (even for a little bit) the judge will likely allow it in. A judge normally does not want to decide which evidence is credible or not. Unless there is clearly no link between the evidence and the crime a judge will prefer to let the jury decide.
or
2. you can challenge the credibility of that evidence in front of the jury, by pointing out that there is no solid (enough) chain of custody and that there are credibility issues with that evidence.
The latter is what Cochran did in the OJ trial with the bloody glove. The only person in the chain of custody for that glove, if I remember correctly, was Mark Fuhrman and by destroying his credibility on the stand as well as the "demonstration" of OJ trying to put on the glove was not only enough for the jury to deem that evidence not credible but also to come back with a not guilty verdict.
So, it seems this thing backfired for you because I basically agree with Bugs.... and he's "an actual lawyer", don't you know.
Go figure.
