O.J. Simpson was convicted yesterday in a Las Vegas federal courtroom of armed robbery, kidnapping, and several other charges. He will be sentenced on December 5th. and is facing a minimum of fifteen years in prison, and could get life. He was taken into custody after the verdicts were read.
You can imagine the nation-wide reaction. "Good, he got away with murder, and now the scales have been balanced," "What comes around goes around," or "Karma." I would bet that if a poll was taken, more than 90% of those polled would say that they were pleased with the verdict, and that justice was done.
But, was it? Was O.J. Simpson convicted for the events that took place in a Las Vegas hotel room a year ago, or was he convicted for the events that took place in a tony Los Angeles suburb fourteen years ago. Yesterday's conviction was thirteen years to the day after he was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.
If you're under twenty years of age, you probably don't really remember the cause celebre that was the O.J. double murder trial. The rest of us will never forget it. It was the most sensational and notorious murder trial of my lifetime. It made household names of Simpson's lead defense attorney, Johnny Cochrane, the judge, Lance Ito, and the prosecutors, Marcia Clark and Chris Darden. It was televised from start to finish, and Americans were riveted to their tv sets.
I've been a criminal defense attorney for over twenty years, and if there's one thing I fear in a criminal case, it's physical evidence. Physical evidence (fingerprints, blood, etc.) acts like a spotlight pointing at the defendant, it becomes virtually impossible to successfully defend a case when there is physical evidence. As it should be, for after all, if someone leaves fingerprints, blood samples and what not at the scene of the crime, it's pretty much a certainty that they are guilty of the crime.
In the O.J. murder case, the police found his blood, his fingerprints, bloody shoeprints, and O.J.'s hat and a pair of gloves at the crime scene. The physical evidence was overwhelming. The State was able to prove motive, as O.J. was still obsessed with his ex-wife and had been stalking her and was violently jealous of any man she was with. And they could show a pattern of domestic abuse, with prior incidents and police contact. Sounded pretty open and shut to me.
What happened next depended on your opinion of the legal system. Many Americans felt it was an absolute travesty. Others, like me, seasoned criminal attorneys, watched a slam dunk case for the State become destroyed by prosecutor arrogance and incompetence. Cochran and his team put the L.A. police on trial, and were simply brilliant. The prosecutors allowed O.J. to try on the gloves during the trial, and O.J. gave a performance better than he ever gave in a movie, he tried to squeeze his hands into the gloves, and when he couldn't get his fingers in there, he smirked and said "they don't fit." It was the turning point of the trial. The jury came back with acquittals in less than an hour.
The nation was outraged. O.J. became a pariah and a symbol of everything that was wrong with American jurisprudence. The victims' families sued Simpson in civil court for wrongful death and received a large money judgment. Apparently, the sports collectibles that were at the center of the Las Vegas incident were items that Simpson had given to the occupants of the hotel room to avoid their being sold off with the proceeds going to the murder victims' families. Despite the verdict of the civil trial, the general consensus the last thirteen years was that Simpson got away with murder.
So, did O.J. get a fair trial last week in Las Vegas? Who can know? Could any of those jurors not have been tainted in some way by their feelings about Simpson? They were given a 16 page questionaire to fill out to prove to the attorneys and judge that they could be fair and impartial. Despite that, there are doubts, and Simpson's attorney clearly believes that O.J. was convicted not so much for what happened in Vegas, but what happened in Los Angeles. Maybe he was.
Most Americans probably don't care in the slightest whether Simpson got a fair trial in Vegas. He got away with murder once, and now what comes around goes around, or something like that. And that's wrong, very wrong. I have no great love for O.J. Simpson, but the criminal justice system must work, for O.J. and all of us. If the government proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt last week, then justice was done. If the verdict was payback for Nicole and Ron, then it was a travesty of justice.
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2 comments:
I'm sorry to be so late getting back to this post, but I've been thinking about it for awhile.
I think once O.J. was indicted for the robbery, he was bound to be convicted.
Because the only fact in dispute basically is -- did the victims themselves really think they were being robbed? Or was this just a private business matter that the police overreacted to because of O.J.?
In other words, and I ask you as an expert -- have you ever seen anyone indicted for a thing like this?
Interesting question. I think there's a lot of factors that make this situation unique, primarily the fact that this is O.J. Simpson and second, that it went down in Las Vegas. Certainly, when guns are trained on anyone, laws are probably being broken. But I always thought this case was over-charged and that the Las Vegas cops were way too over-the-top in their treatment of O.J. I think O.J. was treated differently than any other person would have been treated, and that is just plain wrong. Then again, that's been the case with O.J. since he was in college at U.S.C. and it comes with the territory.
Putting aside all questions about the guilt/innocence of O.J. in this case, as well as the murders, O.J. is a first class moron. Any thinking, rational person would have to know that the backlash of the Nicole/Ron case has never gone away, and that there was no margin for error for the rest of his life. I'm flabbergasted that he never once took into account his notoriety when he decided to break into that hotel room and hold those slimeballs at gunpoint. Did he honestly think he would walk away from this unscathed? In Las Vegas, of all places? Is he that arrogant? Or is he simply a stupid idiot? Or maybe a combination of all of the above?
There have always been different rules for O.J. and he has made the most out of them. When he was acquitted of the two murders, he should have just faded away, never to be heard from again. Notice we haven't heard anything from Michael Jackson in the last few years. That's exactly what O.J. should have done, but he's obviously too much of an arrogant moron to do that.
So, yes, I think O.J. was indicted for something that would have been much less serious if it had been anyone else. And I agree that, once indicted, he had no chance whatsoever to be acquitted.
So, was it justice or not?
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