Posted on 11/21/2006 9:29:15 PM PST by RWR8189
Rupert Murdoch has just canceled the O.J. Simpson book and TV special in which Simpson (presumably) describes how he would have half-decapitated Nicole Simpson and stabbed Ron Goldman had "the real killers" not done it first. The cancellation is certainly justified on grounds of decency, sensitivity and, given the universal public revulsion, commercial good sense. But I would have done differently. I would have let O.J. speak.
I thought the outrage was misdirected and misplaced. The attention and money Simpson (and Fox) would have garnered from the deal are not half as outrageous as the fact that every day he walks free. The real outrage is the trial that declared him not guilty: the judge, a fool and incompetent whose love of publicity turned the trial into a circus; the defense lawyers, not one of whom could have doubted the man's guilt yet who cynically played on the jury's ignorance and latent racism to win a disgraceful verdict; the prosecutors, total incompetents who bungled a gimmie, then shamelessly cashed in afterwards; the media that turned the brutal deaths of two innocents into TV's first reality-show soap opera.
Worst of all was the jury, whose perverse verdict was the most brazen and lawless act of nullification since the heyday of Strom Thurmond. Sworn to uphold law, they decided instead to hold a private referendum on racism in the L.A. Police Department.
The result was a grotesque miscarriage of justice. And there it rested, frozen and irreversible. I wanted to hear O.J. speak because that was the one way to, in effect, reopen the case, unfreeze the travesty and get us some way back to justice. Not tangible throw-the-thug-in-jail justice. But the psychological justice of establishing Simpson's guilt with perfect finality.
This is especially important because so many people believed — or perhaps more accurately, made themselves believe — in O.J.'s innocence. Everyone remembers gathering around the television at work to watch the verdict, and then the endless national self-searching over the shocking climax: not the verdict, but the visceral response to the verdict — the white employees gasping while the black employees burst into spontaneous applause.
Pollsters found that nearly 90% of African-Americans agreed with the verdict. Almost a third of whites did too. What better way to eliminate this lingering and widespread doubt about Simpson's guilt than to have the man himself admit it. But for that you need his confession. The fact that he prefaced his "I did it" with the word "if" is irrelevant. Simpson will always avoid unqualified admission if only to avoid further legal jeopardy for, say, perjury.
But has there ever been someone who responds to the murder of an ex-wife — a death he publicly mourned and pretended to be so aggrieved by that he would spend the rest of his days looking for "the real killers" — to engage in the exercise of telling how he would have cut her throat?
No survivor of a murdered spouse who is innocent could do anything so grotesque. Can you imagine Daniel Pearl's widow writing a book about how she would have conducted the beheading of her husband? Or Jehan Sadat going on television to describe how she would have engineered her husband's assassination? Such things are impossible. The mere act of engaging in so unimaginably repulsive an exercise is the ultimate proof of Simpson's guilt.
Who cares if O.J. profits financially? There is nothing in that injustice — and a further injustice it undeniably is — that compares to the supreme injustice of the verdict. And exposing the verdict's falsity — from the killer's mouth no less — is worth whatever price we as a society would have paid in the sordidness of the TV spectacle and the book.
After such an event, anyone persisting in maintaining Simpson's innocence would have been exposed as a fool or a knave. The interview and book would have been valuable public assets to rub in the face of those who carried out the original travesty — Simpson's lawyers, his defenders and, above all, the jury — and those who continue to believe it.
Here's the television I really will miss now: the cameras taken into the homes of every one of those twelve willful jurists who sprung O.J. free 12 years ago and made a mockery of the law by trying to turn a brutal murderer of two into a racial victim/hero. I wanted to see their faces as the man they declared innocent described to the world how he would have taken—nonsense: how he did take—the knife to Nicole's throat.
Full disclosure: Charles Krauthammer is a Fox News contributor, among other affiliations.
"Here's the television I really will miss now: the cameras taken into the homes of every one of those twelve willful jurists who sprung O.J. free 12 years ago and made a mockery of the law...."
I think another look at the case is healthy after the 12 year interlude. The outrage was that it was going to be on Orange Juice's terms and with him receiving huge quantities of blood money. But there is no reason the cameras can't go to those 12 jurors, if we know their whereabouts, and based on the title alone, question their verdict and their thinking.
Having watched the trial, the coup de gras was when the hapless bumbling judge allowed all of the irrelevant testimony in about Furhman's past. I can see how it might be hard for a jury to get past felony perjury from one of the first investigators on scene.
The bloody imprint of the size 13 Bruno Mali was such an easily understandable piece of evidence. What a shame it was not discovered until after the criminal verdict.
One thing that bothers me is that the judgment is no longer the 33.5 million they keep talking about. Since that was '97, it's gone up in simple interest by 10 per cent a year. So it's well past $50 million now.
If anyone wants to find out if the judgment was renewed after six years, please let me know. Unless that was done, tens of thousands are lost in interest for the cost of a ten dollar renewal. The reason is, if you renew after six years, you start getting ten per cent simple interest on the renewed amount, not the original amount.
Maybe Goldman;s civil attornies know this; I am curious if they renewed the first day they could, or are waiting for the end of ten years to renew.
According to Johhny Cochrane and Tall_Texan. I'm waiting for you to start screaming "If the glove don't fit....you must acquit". Pathetic.
BS
The prosecution screwed up so many ways it was not funny. You should read Marcia Clark's book; she couldn't see past her conceit.
I like Krauthammer's reasoning here. Probably he will get his wish: someone, seeing a buck to be made, will print the book.
I'll admit I did not read Marcia's book. I could, at the time, see how badly she was screwing up that trial flirting with everyone in sight.
Thanks. Your knowledge and experience are invaluable in helping counter the kind of nonsense spouted by folks who think like Tall Texan. He or she is certainly not alone in mindlessly repeating serious factual errors as though they were gospel, but it sickens me more than usual as regards the Simpson trial and verdict.
Tell me about it! What a circus. So much attention paid to Marcia, her short skirts and the new hairdo... she was out to catch, for sure.
After the horrible blow of the verdict, I was eager to buy her book. (How about that timing?) But after I started reading, I got a sinking feeling and it only got worse. She was so ego-driven and blind. Quite frankly, amateurish. The trial proved she doesn't have what it takes to prosecute. She soon quit the profession and became a commentator.
What stays in my mind was her closing argument to the jury. We couldn't see the jury, of course, but the camera followed Marcia as she paced back and forth. The effect she had was like fingernails on chalkboard ... her attitude was so obviously condescending and, I'm a white person, but I thought if I was black and she talked like that I would NOT LIKE IT one bit.
And then you had Johnny who was so "down home." No contest.
She wasn't much of a commentator, either.... seems she has faded into oblivian (thank goodness).....
I just KNOW you forgot the /s , right?
There are numerous stories (unfortunately most are L.A. Times so they cannot be reprinted here) about widespread police corruption in the L.A.P.D that included evidence tampering to win convictions. Here is one such article:
http://www.streetgangs.com/topics/rampart/041800overt.html
These are not directly about O.J. Simpson but do you really believe that one division of the L.A.P.D. was dirty and everyone else was clean? I don't.
So it has been established that L.A. police DO tamper evidence to gain convictions. What seemed like a reach in 1995 by the O.J. defense team turned out to be true in other L.A.P.D.-handled cases just a short time later.
Again, "beyond a reasonable doubt" enters into the question. The prosecution had no answer to Dr. Lee's claims that O.J.'s blood at the Bundy gate had preservatives in it. If they had wanted to say that "all blood has preservatives", then why didn't they bring forth witnesses to present this argument into evidence?
The defense not only introduced the possibility that the blood evidence was tampered, they got Vanatter to admit he went back to the crime scene with O.J.'s blood sample before he took it to the lab. If Vanatter had a clear chain of evidence that went straight from Simpson's home to the lab, the defense has a big problem. This is what I mean by the cops were caught red-handed putting themselves in position to tamper evidence whether it is true or not, violating standard police procedures in the process.
It may be entirely true that the jury was a)racist b)bamboozled or c)starstruck and would not have convicted regardless of the evidence. In my opinion, the defense presented "reasonable doubt" and the prosecution did not counter it. The window was opened for acquittal wide enough that a rational person could say (and many have) that there was not evidence presented beyond a reasonable doubt.
We know for a fact that L.A. police have tampered evidence in the 1990s. How big a leap is it to guess whether it was also done in the O.J. case?
Krauthammer is wrong on this point. Those people will justify what they did forever. They will tell Saint Peter about how they were right and the system was wrong.
That's some twisted logic: since there remains a greater outrage that we cannot change, we should also tolerate (welcome?) lesser outrages that we CAN change.
I thought Krauthammer was smarter than this.
"...the defense lawyers, not one of whom could have doubted the man's guilt yet who cynically played on the jury's ignorance and latent racism to win a disgraceful verdict;..."
"Here's the television I really will miss now: the cameras taken into the homes of every one of those twelve willful jurists who sprung O.J. free 12 years ago and made a mockery of the law by trying to turn a brutal murderer of two into a racial victim/hero."
Little known fact: the most educated member of the jury had a GED. The rest did not even have that much education. That case was lost during jury selection. The defense got a jury unable to graduate high school and the prosecutors put on a case that very technical case beyound the comprehension of the jury who was only looking for an excuse to acquit anyway.
1. You make the mistake so many people do when reading or listening to media STORIES -- you accept the premise of the story without question or thought.
2. As regards corruption in the LAPD, there is no more nor less than in any other field of human endeavor. I live in the L.A. area, so am quite familiar with the case of a few corrupt cops in the Rampart division some years ago. However, to extrapolate that case into an assumption that the entire LAPD is corrupt indicates weak reasoning ability.
3. To extrapolate the Rampart case into an unqualified assertion that ipso facto, the blood evidence in the Simpson case was planted, indicates weak reasoning ability combined with ignorance of and perhaps a disinterest in truth.
4. So far, you have ignored the central fact of the Simpson case, which I have posted to you above and which you can independently verify in any authentic documentation about the case. The central fact is this: A mixture of Simpson's blood and Ron Goldman's blood was found in that Bronco. A mixture of the blood of Nicole, Ron and Simpson was also found in the Bronco. Simpson was not in Los Angeles at the time. He went from Nicole's home back to his place, cleaned up and took a pre-scheduled limo ride to the airport long before the bodies were even discovered. He returned the next morning, after having been notified of his wife's murder. He was not then a suspect in the crime, but became a suspect as evidence was collected and after he tried to flee.
5. It might be possible to explain away a mixture of Simpson's and Nicole's blood in the Bronco, but not a mixture of Simpson's and Ron's blood. Ron Goldman and OJ Simpson had never met prior to the murders. This blood was not planted. In fact, the entire evidentiary sequence of events regarding the blood in the Bronco is documented in police photographs and videos, backed up by independent news footage. This evidence was introduced at trial and was never refuted in any way by the defense. In all the BS surrounding the case, this the one fact that no OJ apologist can ever get past. This fact means not only wasn't there reasonable doubt, there was -- and remains -- no doubt. OJ Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Period. In willfully being sworn in as jurors knowing they would never convict, the jury did not do the right thing. They broke the law. Period.
6. I know reasoning and critical thinking are nearly lost capabilities these days, but you tell me how the cops could manufacture a mixture of Simpson's blood and the blood of both victims, and then get it inside a locked automobile sitting outside Simpson's home when OJ was around two thousand miles away at the time (in Chicago, if memory serves, although I'm not sure which city). Not only that, but to do it in full view of a then-building media feeding frenzy.
7. BTW, I emphasized the word "stories" above, because that is the media's stock in trade. A reporter's work product is a story -- a tale. They weave some fact, some some bits and pieces picked up in various places, some assumptions, and whatever personal flair they have for telling tales into a news report or feature story. Far too many people these days accept the premise of stories, columns, and other information sources uncritically. Then they blindly help spread false information, as you did, by connecting one piece of data with another unrelated piece of data.
" I know reasoning and critical thinking are nearly lost capabilities these days, but you tell me how the cops could manufacture a mixture of Simpson's blood and the blood of both victims, and then get it inside a locked automobile...."
It's called being suspicious of the lab results. You tell me how a lab can analyze a perfectly legal substance that I had on me when 19, then come back with an analysis that it is in fact LSD. Sure, our lab got the results right, but as my attorney said "Who is the jury gonna believe?" In my case, they would have believed the cops. In Simpson's case, they heard a cop commit perjury under oath and that stunk up the proceedings to high heaven.
The easily understandable, impossible to refute evidence was the bloody size 13 Bruno Mali shoe the civil jury heard about. Plus they heard from orange juice that he never owned a pair of those shoes and the jury saw him in a photo wearing them. A slam dunk.
The bloody fingerprint that Fuhrman noted, but never personally told the detectives about could have been that same smoking gun for the criminal trial, but the police dropped the ball ands never recovered it. I blame Fuhrman for that, and I blame his perjury in the trial for at least part of the outcome.
TO his credit, the convicted felon Fuhrman has rehabilitated himself by putting another murderer behind bars in the Moxley case.
Neither I, nor anyone else, can discuss what I know nothing about. Your post merely demonstrates once again that reasoning and critical thinking are nearly lost capabilities. You mention an anecdote that happened to you (at least, we have to take your word that it did, in fact, happen). Ipso facto something similar must have happened in the Simpson case.
BTW, Mark Furhman did not commit perjury. Baily's famous (some would say infamous) question had to do with whether or not Furhman used the PC-forbidden word ON THE JOB. The evidence they brought against Furhman (when the trial turned into the Furhman trial rather than the Simpson trial) to refute his "no" answer to Baily's question was a screen play he had co-written. It was a piece of FICTION, intended to be gritty and edgy. It had nothing to do with his job. And it had zero to do with the Simpson case.
Furhman pled guilty to perjury only to get out from under the mess and get on with his life.
The judge, Lance Ito, had no business allowing that screen play testimony to be brought into the trial. Not only wasn't it material, it had no bearing whatsoever on the facts of the case against Simpson. In fact, Ito should have recused himself from the trial. Mark Furhman once worked for Ito's wife, and they had a very rocky relationship. This was brought out at trial -- not that the jury gave a rat's butt about the truth.
So Ito had a blazing conflict of interest in that he knew and strongly disliked one of the prosecution's lead witnesses due to the difficulties his wife had when Furhman worked for her. The stupid prosecution did not demand that he recuse himself, and they did not file a request for a different judge. And when Ito had the chance to destroy Furhman's reputation, he leaped at it. It was one of the worst mockeries of justice in modern times.
But hey, don't let me disturb your notions.
He pled guilty. Bottom line. Therefore, there is no issue of whether or not it was perjury. Any other defendant pleading guilty to a crime would probably elicit the foregoing three sentence rejoinder from you.
The judge, Lance Ito, had no business allowing that screen play testimony to be brought into the trial.
Agreed, but the strongest piece of evidence available for the criminal trial was never collected, was it?
In fact, Ito should have recused himself.
Maybe, maybe not. The issue of recusal is based on at least two things: Actual impropriety and the appearance of impropriety. Neither side asked for a recusal. They both were apparently happy with him. He made several mistakes, as did everybody at the trial. But the gold standard, IMHO, of what shoud have happened was written by Vincent Bugliosi, and he saves his harshest criticism for Marci Clark. For instance, she wrote her closing the night before she gave it, Bugliosi in the Manson trial worked on his for weeks, all during testimony.
I did not state that mistaken expert analysis happened to me therefore it happpened in the Simpson case. You pulled that out of thin air. Still, I think had you ever spent a month in jail for something you didn't do it might change your perspective about the fallability of the system.
The trial was a sham and a shame, to be sure. But the bloody fingerprint (a fact which you conveniently don't adress) on the rear gatepost was as close to a smoking gun as there was, and it was lost due to jealousy and incompetence. Furhman covered himself by mentioning it in his report, yet he never personally told Lange or Van Atta about it!
DNA was newer back when this trial was held, the jury appeared bored to obsertvers when all that testimony was swamping them.
As to my reasoning abilities, I clock in on the Stanford-Binet at 160, how 'bout you? In addition, having travelled extensively and worked in a variety of work settings (merchant marines, alaskan pipeline, pro se litigant won an appeal in front of the federal court of appeals, business owner, network tv appearances) I bring my real world experience to the table. Most h.s graduates never venture further than a couple hundred miles from home. And the jurors weren't even that educated, apparently.
The civil trial was slamdunked on the basis of a single bloody shoeprint that could have reasonably come from no one save orange juice ($500 size 13 Bruno Mahlis). The bloody fingerprint that was never collected at the crime scene could have been an equally devastating piece of evidence. Granted, in a perfect world, the defense play of making the jury mistrust the blood evidence would be ignored by a sharper jury, but his fingerprint in blood? Everybody understands fingerprints, and I'd like to see any member of the jury explain that away.
When you fail to collect your strongest piece of evidence you start the whole trial with one hand tied behind your back.
It is a legal fact that when a witness is caught in a lie it is permissible for a jury to disbelieve everything he testifies to.
The Furhman perjury was so dramatic, doen so deftly by F. Lee Bailey it undoubtedly left a vivid impression with the jury. Marci Clark's condascending lecture/closing couldn't unring that bell.
What I think you're confused about are my conclusions. He's guilty as sin!
Had I been satisfied with the testimony of the dna lab and the chain of custody tesimony, I would have convicted him on that and the cuts on his hand. But I can see, as I hope you can, the problems the jury may have had with Fuhrman and some of the chain of custody testimony re:blood.
"he leaped at it"
he lept at it. Did I mention I went to college?
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