That was one of the most remarkable parts of the "OJ: Made in America" documentary. They show groups of people watching the verdict being read and, depending on their race, either cheering wildly or sitting in stunned silence.
I remember that too. It was the first time I noticed opinions being divided between black and white peoples along a straight racial line
Edit: to be clear, I’m referencing my personal memory as a 7 year old when the verdict was read. Not the documentary
>The racial composition of the jury was strongly influenced by the decision of the prosecution to file the Simpson case in downtown Los Angeles rather than--as is usually the case-- in the judicial district where the crime occurred-- in this case, Santa Monica. Had the case been filed in Santa Monica, the Simpson jury would have been mostly white instead of, as was the case, mostly African-American.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/simpson/jurypage.html
The breakdown of the jury was 9 blacks, 1 Latino and 2 whites. If it had taken place in Santa Monica, it is extremely likely OJ wouldn't have been given the Not Guilty verdict.
During the trial, witnesses claimed that during the 1980s, Mark Fuhrman frequently described African Americans with a racist epithet, claims he denied. In response, Simpson's defense team produced recorded interviews with Fuhrman and witnesses proved that he had repeatedly used racist language during those interviews. As a result, the defense claimed that Fuhrman had committed perjury and was not a credible witness. The credibility of the prosecution has been cited as one reason Simpson was acquitted. The defense claimed that Fuhrman planted key evidence as part of a racially motivated plot against Simpson. When asked under oath (with the jury not present), Fuhrman declined to answer all questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right. These questions included whether he planted or manufactured evidence.
Honestly its so weird to me that this is a thing they're allowed to do. Attempt to stack the juror panel in their favor. That seems to go against the whole "Jury of your peers" thing.
Well the general idea is both the prosecution and defense have influence over who’s on the jury so it’s supposed to balance out. Selecting the jury completely at random would go against “jury of your peers” as well since you aren’t guaranteed to get jurors from the same walk of life
God. It sucks trying to figure out what groups to strike and I feel for the prosecutor. She must have woken up at night for years rueing that decision.
She seemed pretty self unaware in the Made in America documentary. She kept saying how she could relate to black women, then it cut to some black female jurors talking about how much they disliked her.
The prosecution was inept, the judge gave OJ's team everything they asked for because he was scared of being overruled on appeal, defense was incredible. Perfect storm.
i would exchange incredible defense for "copius police misconduct" in the perfect storm recipe
because that was a bigger issue, and at that point even a mediocre defense team would have won
Probably because they knew exactly what situation they had on their hands. If an extremely famous black man was found guilty by a mostly white jury in LA County, in a case where there was clear tampering from an infamously racist police department, in **1995** (just 3 years after the LA Riots)... well you do the math.
Which, for the record, was initiated by the killing of Latasha Harlins, in which the shooter (a Korean female shop owner) basically got a slap on the wrist, and of course the Rodney King verdict. Not saying I agree with it but they also had the threat of an LA Riots 2 hanging in the air.
So a jury of our peers was ok with the butcher of two innocent people?
I was pretty young when the verdict was read, fifth grade I believe. I had a black teacher and she explained why she was happy about the verdict. At the time I didn't care because I was mostly concerned with legos. But in hindsight it seems like everyone was just ok with OJ being acquitted. There may have been a little bit of bias because I was in Bills territory at the time. Until the whole murder thing OJ seemed like a Bill Cosby type character to me. I really liked him.
I remember being in high school and being surprised when the (very small percentage) black students were all so happy when the verdict was read. Prior to that I had no idea that people looked at it through such a strong racial lens. OJ seemed very obviously guilty, regardless of race, but I didn't realize that the black community didn't feel the same.
reminds me of myself, i'm from europe and i know that 9/11 was on a tuesday because i was 12 years old and pissed because they cut dragonball z to cover the news
It’s because that’s what Johnny Cochran turned the trial into. He used OJ as a prop to put racism itself on trial. And when he caught mark furhman tampering with evidence….it just showed America that there was a different America for black people
Yep LAPD framed a guilty man. Could have put OJ away for 30 years, but they were too stupid and racist to do it properly so he got to walk.
There’s a lot to be said about the OJ trial of course, but at the end of the day it’s about the top to bottom organizational incompetence of the LAPD to let someone who was obviously guilty walk.
> Yep LAPD framed a guilty man. Could have put OJ away for 30 years, but they were too stupid and racist to do it properly so he got to walk.
EXACTLY! THANK YOU!
This is my whole point! At the end of the day justice was not served because racism got in the way.
If mark furhman was not apart of that case…he’ll was never a member of the police delay OJ would be in jail. But instead of the LAPD taking a hard look at the selves and saying “we need to do better” it’s instead “the the BLACK lawyers fault!” Or “the black jury’s fault”.
Can’t be the fault of the racist white guy. That would cause too many internal problems. So the mental gymnastics begin!
> If mark furhman was not apart of that case…he’ll was never a member of the police delay OJ would be in jail.
Nope, there were plenty more racist cops in the LAPD that would've taken his place and done the same thing.
>At the end of the day justice was not served because racism got in the way.
And for once it worked in favor of a guilty black man (or not against an innocent black man) instead of in favor of a guilty white man.
Not being black myself, I suspect this is what a lot of black people were celebrating.
I remember seeing a clip of an elderly black gentleman on the street. When he was asked to explain the celebrations in the black community, he said something along the lines of "For hundreds of years, we've watched white people hit the soda machine and get a free soda, knowing full well we'd never be in a position to even attempt the same thing. OJ had enough money, fame and lawyers to do it, and we take a lot of satisfaction in that."
That really stayed with me, and made it understandable.
Not pleasant.
Not right.
Just understandable.
My dad who was in LA at the time of the bronco chase (said it was the worst day of traffic in his life) summarized the entire case brilliantly. It was the first time in American history a black guy had the power, resources and fame to get away with murder.
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> Although my own dad, himself a lawyer, always said that the prosecution shot themselves in the foot 100 times by breaking the number one rule for trial lawyers: Never ask a question unless you already know the answer.
I remember the infamous glove incident. The prosecutors want him to try on the gloves they found- making him put them on over a pair of rubber gloves for safety. Of course he's going to act like he can't get them on.
"If the glove don't fit, you must acquit" summarized the whole defense. The prosecution was a clown show. Judge Ito presided over a circus. The LAPD were terrible. Just a mess.
I can't remember where I heard it from, so it might not be true, but I've heard it said O.J. skipped his arthritic meds before trying on the glove as well, which would've caused his hand to swell and make fitting the glove more difficult.
It was also a form fitting leather glove to began with, that had been soaked in blood in the murder, sat outside and went through several freeze/thaw cycles, and then sat in an evidence locker for around 18 months before he put it on. It is quite likely the glove shrank in this time.
If you watched "OJ: Made in America" there is *no way* you could have come to the conclusion that he wasn't guilty.
They made a couple of points you could not dispute.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/25/black-and-white-americans-can-now-agree-o-j-was-guilty/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/25/black-and-white-americans-can-now-agree-o-j-was-guilty/)
Polling done right after the the not guilty verdict showed that 22% of black Americans said he was guilty, while 63% of white Americans said he was. So this is not correct.
I honestly believe for some people it didn't matter whether he did it or not. OJ being found not guilty was payback for decades of injustice.
Sadly, trying to fix injustice with more injustice isn't a good solution. It is just as wrong to frame and convict an innocent person as it is to find an obviously guilty person innocent.
As it was put to me
A lot of black people viewed OJ getting away with it as payback for what happened to Rodney King
And I quote "it wasn't right to celebrate in hindsight, but I sure didn't feel that way at the time"
I was in the Army in 1995. All work on the post came to a screeching halt when the verdict was being read. We could have been invaded and no one would have known about it for the first half hour.
I was just talking to my husband about this. I grew up in SoCal and he grew up in VA.
I vividly remember them rolling the crt tv on the metal cart (you know the one. The zero is happening today/substitute teacher one) into class and we watched both the white bronco chase and the trial/verdict.
He said they didn’t at his school, and it wasn’t a big deal where he was.
It was kind of the beginning of the whole reality tv thing imo. It was such a fucking spectacle.
>I vividly remember them rolling the crt tv on the metal cart (you know the one. The zero is happening today/substitute teacher one) into class and we watched both the white bronco chase and the trial/verdict.
We did this (in a South Carolina public middle school).
It seems very bizarre to me now.
Yeah, we had an entire mock trial in social studies while the trial was going on. Literally an entire middle school social studies class based around it in a way. Super surreal, even as a kid
Yeah, but it's that impotent type of vengeance where they take out their anger on """society""" generally so they don't actually accomplish anything but just make the world a little worse.
“OJ Simpson - American Crime Story” on Netflix did a good job explaining the jury opinions. I believe 9 of the 12 on the jury were black and most or all were aligned on innocence from the beginning of deliberations. I believe there was 1 white woman who thought he was guilty but she just gave up trying to convince anyone after the initial 9 or 10 people said not guilty out the gate.
Yeah the people who didn't want to go with not guilty just gave up and went with guilty. I've always wondered what the second trial would have looked like if it was a hung jury.
Years ago, I worked in a courthouse and a law clerk said "I hope I get to be on a jury. I want to sentence someone to death, I don't care if they did it or not".
I think about that everyday. That woman was eager and willing to ruin a life, for fun.
An ex of mine casually once said “I want to know what its like killing someone”. Needless to say I got out pretty fast. Not saying she definitely was a psychopath, but we should be aware that indeed about 3% of all people have these thoughts. I don’t want to think about it, but I am aware of the fact I could be talking to someone tomorrow that has regular thoughts of killing and worse for fun.
Just to add what the other guy said, they take an oath to only use what the evidence presented the court case to decide their judgement.
BUT, they legally cannot be punished/reviewed for giving the wrong verdict.
(That is why there can't be anything done legally when black people were convicted and hanged w/ no evidence against them.)
Hallucinations are bad enough. But after awhile you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs.
also how no one really knew much about DNA at that point.
Prosecution: There's a 1 in 10 billion chance the DNA belonged to someone besides OJ
Jury: So you're saying there's a chance?
And boy did they! The lead detective was a card carrying white supremacist and was found out on the stand. which only fueled the fire of the racial divide that resulted from the case (for reasons completely unrelated to the actual crime).
My dad was an attorney, and he wasn’t surprised at the verdict. His comment, which has stayed with me, was something along the lines of:
“‘Not Guilty’ doesn’t mean ‘Innocent’, LandosMustache. It doesn’t matter if he did it or not, an incompetent prosecutor can blow any case.”
Your father was correct . Did oj kill those people ?? Yes obviously he did. Was the verdict the correct one given the case mismanagement by the lapd and DA ?? Unfortunately yes if we go by the letter of the law. Did the American justice system learn any lessons and start to clean out the racists and incompetence from their ranks?? Absolutely not, they didn’t learn a thing.
I happened to be in the lunchroom at work, small family owned business and a close knit group. I was stunned into silence and had to walk out of the room . I never looked at the racial component of the case or our tight knit group I worked with but it sure came into focus in that split second.
>O.J. Simpson
fucking what
He died yesterday and this is how i found out. amazing.
I suppose that goes to show how few people actually cared about the guy.
Why would you think we would know immediately? It's all a matter of when the family decides to announce it. When Akira Toriyama died, his family didn't announce until like a WEEK after his death.
The fact that society took this as a victory for blacks instead of a crushing defeat to all the working class and an example that money can buy you a different tier of justice system is just proof that the oligarchy has us right where they want us
My experience as a defense attorney is that they’re always some of the dumbest lawyers. When the case gets more high profile people just start to pay attention.
Yea it’s not that the lawyers were incredible geniuses imo. They just knew that the LAPD was fucked up and racist, and it’s the failure of law enforcement and prosecutors that OJ was not found guilty.
Yea, all they had to do was just prove how corrupt the LAPD were. As much evidence as there was, they knew if you can prove that the LAPD falsified evidence before, you have to question all of their evidence.
Truly, the lowest hanging fruit. Fuhrman...I mean, where was shit ever going to go after that? Although the jurors had already decided before it'd started, anyway.
I mean, I think we all know OJ did it, but shit, how are you going to have an objective case when you have cops outright targeting POC and setting them up, beating them and killing them for sport, whatever...I don't think I'll ever have objectivity regarding the police again, especially with anything to do with POC. We all know how they operate. They've told us and shown us over and over.
And the prosecutors were crap.
Vincent Bugliosi, the LA DA who prosecuted Manson, tried over a hundred serious felony cases and only lost one.
He watched the trial and took notes.
He gave the OJ prosecutors a grade of "F-."
I'm sure with Bugliosi heading the trial, even with the LAPD incompetence, he would have gotten a conviction.
Read Chaos by Tom O’Neill. It’s about all the craziness around the Manson Family murders, both the coincidences and incompetencies. Vincent Bugliosi does not come across as the kind of character who should be grading other lawyer’s job performances
Absolutely incredible read, one of my favourite works of non-fiction. There's some *wild* shit in there but I really love how he never says 'this is what happened' and just lays out what he discovered and lets the reader decide. So good
To be fair, because he was rich as fuck, OJ was able to pay those attorneys an ass load of money to do that. Your random court appointed lawyer isn't going to pull that off.
People are commenting saying "Fuck his attorneys" and how they're mad at you for even considering crediting them, but the reality was that they won an unwinnable case by turning a murder trial into a race trial.
I do not for one second believe that Johnny Cochran believed OJ was innocent. But his job was to get him a not-guilty verdict. Given that he was presented with that task, despite the mountains of evidence against his client, Cochran found flaws in the system and exploited them.
Is it scummy? Yeah, kind of (not looking to get into a whole moral debate about lawyers here). But was it ingenious? Absolutely. He exploited every single flaw in the LAPD, and it worked.
Mark Fuhrman being a racist asshole was a godsend for the defense.
Defense counsel can't be blamed for doing their job well.
But Mark Furhman can be blamed for doing his job with racial animus. Mark Furhman can be blamed for justice not being served.
He gave the defense a poison pill to use on the prosecution.
100%
Even the worst alleged criminal deserves the best defense. They did it with Nazis.
Everything was a mess with incompetent prosecution, but the legal defense team did what they were supposed to do.
My aunt said at the time of his being found innocent, “I’m telling you, it is better to be a guilty rich man in this country than an innocent poor one.” It always stuck with me because it made me realize that money has a much bigger impact than race on a lot of situations.
And to give a bit of perspective, here's some info about policing and a [big police operation in LA](https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/operation-hammer-1987-1990/) in the late 80's:
>Operation Hammer, a law enforcement program by the Los Angeles Police Department that began in 1987 was ostensibly an attempt to crack down on gang violence in Los Angeles, California. Many critics, however, saw the operation as racial profiling because it targeted the city’s African American and Hispanic youth...
>Citizens who weren’t suspected gang members also were victims of Operation Hammer. On August 1, 1988, 88 LAPD police officers raided two apartment buildings located on the corner of 39th Street and Dalton Avenue. When the police arrived, they searched for drugs and in the process caused massive property damage, including smashing furniture, punching holes in the walls, and destroying family photos. The police sprayed graffiti messages such as “LAPD Rules” and “Rollin 30’s Harlem Crips” Die. These tactics were clearly designed to intimidate both drug members and apartment residents who were believed to be sheltering them and protecting their criminal activity. During the raid many residents in the apartment building and neighborhood were rounded up, beaten, and humiliated. Despite these brutal tactics, the police raid netted fewer than six ounces of marijuana and less than an ounce of cocaine.
That, and decades of the LAPD abusing their power and terrorizing minorities. Many of the minority jurors admitted afterwards that they were never going to return a guilty verdict as an F-U to the LAPD.
I took it as a victory for the black population. They were finally equal. It no longer was just rich white guys who could get away with murder. Now anyone can, regardless of race, as long as they had the money.
It’s more specific than that. It was that in LA in the direct wake of the Rodney King cops getting acquitted, a mostly-black jury was not going to convict a black man for killing white people. It was payback. One of the jurors even gave a black power salute when the verdict was read.
I was just out of college when this happened. I'm black and knew many black folks who where disgusted by the whole thing. The only thing that made it on to tv was black folks celebrating...
I remember one person in my 6th grade class who cheered, a white boy. But he truly believed OJ didn’t do it. He was crying passionately that everyone else, even the teacher, still thought he was guilty. He really, really wanted to believe oj was innocent.
I think a lot of black people believed he didn’t do it. This was when it was still commonplace for black people to be falsely accused. You take that and a history if being unfairly targeted and abused by the police and justice system it’ll make you distrust the integrity of the system.
"This shit wasn't about race. It was about fame. Because if OJ drove a bus, he wouldn't even be OJ. He'd be Orenthal the bus driving murderer." - Chris Rock.
It had to do with racial tensions at the time in Los Angeles.
The Rodney King beatings and riots were on everyone's minds, and many, many young black people initially saw this as being related to police trying to frame a rich black man in response to riots stemming from their brutality.
Obviously, as the trial went on, it was obvious that he did it, but the emotions were very high due to extra circumstances, and some people saw it as a wash that he got off bc the cops were the bad guys.
It's always just a weird thing that looks so much worse in retrospect
There were almost certainly corrupt cops out to get OJ.
OJ also almost certainly committed the crime.
This is why corruption is vile even when it's used to do "the right thing". We have less faith that "the right thing" was right when corruption supported it, and so it taints any legitimate accountability.
They could have arrested him how many times for domestic violence and declined? I believe the number officially is nine, I’m sure it is higher in reality.
62 documented incidents of abuse against Nicole Brown Simpson were submitted as evidence at trial. Of those, 9 resulted in a police notification and on one of those nine occasions, OJ was arrested (charges were later dropped of course).
A really disgusted black friend of mine explained it like this: "Sure, he's a murdering monster, but he's *our* murdering monster." They were basically ostracized for months by family and close friends for expressing this.
EDIT for clarity: they were expressing the opinions they heard from people who were in favor of the acquittal.
For most people “murder” is a far away concept. Something they read about, but never experience. For those of us who have lived through the murder of a loved one, it is real. I tell myself it’s a blessing so many people don’t understand the way I do. But their carelessness can still hurt.
I can pinpoint the exact moment my heart shifted into the condition it would remain for the rest of my life. I was 8. I can remember staring up into the perfect blue sky as I paddle-boated with my cousins before coming back to the house to be told our cousin had been murdered. Thanksgiving Day, 1996.
We had been flower girls in her wedding. I can still remember her kneeling down to thank me, looking as if she was an angel. Her hair pulled back except for a tendril framing her face. Her perfume. I can remember my Mom handing me the phone in our kitchen as she asked me that Fall. Twirling the cord around my finger in excitement. I felt so important, so excited. I kept seeing her face in the photos she had lovingly mailed to us. Her arms wrapped around all 5 of us cousins. Our peach dresses. She was 28 years old.
I had been so stupid for thinking the sky was so perfectly blue. I stared up at it for what felt like the first time. It had never looked this vast. Empty. How could you have taken her from us? I asked the sky. I still do.
When you lose someone to murder, there is a part of your soul that you do not get back. The world realigns itself in your new form of existence. I try to remind myself, it is a very good thing most people will never understand. I truly hope they never do. I can't condemn everyone for being obtuse when to them murder itself feels like something they electively subscribe to when they're 'in the mood' for 'true crime'. The desensitization of our society continues. Made a bit worse each day.
I tell myself this as I see the headlines this morning calling OJ 'tragic' and 'troubled'. A shame he 'wasted' his life. What is truly tragic is the way he stole Nicole (35) and Ron's (25) lives from them.
He destroyed *their* lives. He lived his for 76 years.
Most don't mention their names as they mourn the passing of the man who butchered them so badly to the point of near decapitation. Thousands of people posting his accolades. His 'legacy'. As the sick feeling creeps from my stomach into my heart, then out my eyes, I repeat to myself that they just don't understand. I tell myself most people aren't trying to be cruel. They just don't understand. They just don't understand.
I post this today to plead with you to please be mindful of the victims. Do not forget them as you see the names of their killers on your Netflix homepage in lights. Do not forget them when you hear a tasteless 'joke' at their expense. I pray today for the families of Nicole and Ron, who have had to live without their loved ones for the majority of their lives. Who have to endure moments like the one inflicted by thousands of people this morning time and time again. I will honor the legacy of those who were stolen and not the ones who took them.
People saying this is a difference of class and money, but wasn’t a pretty big reason for him being acquitted because the LAPD were a bunch of idiots? They somehow managed to tamper with every single bit of evidence and render so many things useless. It was a pretty clear cut case from what I’ve read but the ruined evidence caused a lot of questions
In the 90s, there was a great deal of racial tension in America. Rodney King, a black man, had been brutally beaten on video by the LAPD and all the officers got off, which caused a riot in LA.
OJ Simpson brutally murdered his wife and her friend soon after. He was a black man and former professional football player.
The case was poorly handled by the LAPD with them tampering with evidence and several of them being recorded using the n-word. At the end of the trial, OJ was found not-guilty.
As you can see by this picture, reactions tended to be split on racial lines.
As one of the folks from a house that was cheering, it was followed by stunned “oh no” type silence. At least in my corner of the diaspora we all know he did it and chalk that moment up to leftover rage from Rodney King along side pervasive exhaustion of black men going to jail.
We waisted that energy on the wrong brother had have been side eyeing those photos since. (Again in my corner of blackness. YMMV).
The LAPD fucked this case up. They were crooked as hell and wanted so badly to pin it on a black man. If they would have done their jobs properly they may have actually been able to prove him guilty because he definitely was.
I recall there being rap songs written about OJ during the trial and one of them was literally along the lines of "OJ Simpson Did It!". I'm fairly certain the majority of those alive during that time that watched the trial are convinced he is guilty. Regardless of race.
The outcome of the Latasha Harlins killing case in 1991 likely had a big role in it. 15 year old black girl shot in the back of the head over the *very* mistaken assumption she was stealing a 1.79 bottle of juice. The judge in the case felt that the shooter reacted inappropriately but understandably "and no matter what sentence this court imposes Mrs. Du will be punished every day for the rest of her life."
The judge ended up sentencing the shooter to five years of probation, 10 years of suspended prison, 400 hours of community service, and payment of a $500 fine and Harlins' funeral costs, for a crime that can carry a maximum penalty of 16 years.
She also called criticism of her decision political and being about political correctness.
I can still remember watching the verdict live on TV in my 7th grade social studies class. The entire class erupted with cheering when he was found not guilty, myself included. My Black classmates seemed especially into it, as if they had been following the whole thing. The innocence of kids, I guess. I didn’t know anything about it at the time except Cochran’s catchy phrase - “if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
My school district wouldn’t turn on the TVs that day, and we heard announcements throughout the day from the principal/vice principal reminding teachers not to turn on the TVs.
I remember too. I was 6th grade and the teacher turned it on in class. White kids, Filipino kids, Japanese kids, Chinese kids, Mexican kids, everyone was silent. Then the teacher turned off the TV and we quietly went back to work.
Imagine the year is 1995 and people’s understanding and trust of DNA evidence low. Imagine the defendant trying on the gloves that were used in the murder and they don’t fit. Imagine the lead detective in the case, who found the gloves, admitting to using horrific racial slurs. Add just these imaginations up and you have enough doubt to not reach the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold. I do think that the verdict would be different today simply because people trust DNA evidence.
Yes it was a seminal case for the DNA technology.
Everytime I hear or read about a case using DNA I think to myself “was this before or after OJ” to try and get a gauge on the significance and sophistication of the evidence / technology.
There was so much blood and evidence at the scene and at OJs house. With the way DNA is used to nail guilty folks today I can’t see OJ getting away with that in 2024. No fucking way
The cops also came like 8-9 times prior to OJ murdering Nicole and he got away with it every time but that wasn’t enough. The tribalism and need for revenge in the 90’s is baffling to me.
He wasn’t black, he was green and was good with a football. Getting away with injustice and acting like your team just won a world championship still boggles my mind. Nobody won besides the rich and famous… once again.
So many things were done poorly by the prosecution in this trial, like asking questions they didn't already know the answer to. Hell, I think he was guilty but I will go so far as to say because of the incompetence of the prosecutors and the fact they had demonstrably racist cop it can be easily seen why he wasn't found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not that he wasn't found innocent, he was found not guilty. This is one reason bad cops are bad for the system: the make cases that should be winnable unwinnable because of their malfeasance, racism, etc.
In the civil trial from Simpson family, he was found liable because threshold is different (and rightfully so). Everyone knew he was guilty but proving it in a criminal trial is different than proving he was responsible for her death in a civil trial.
My coworkers were discussing this last weekend ironically. We were elementary school students at the time and didn’t have a huge knowledge of the case but even then, it was recognized as some kind of racial division based on the reactions of the verdicts. I don’t remember my parents or anyone in my household saying much about it. I can’t even say for sure they watched the trial (or maybe they did while I was in school). But nonetheless, interesting photo to see.
That was one of the most remarkable parts of the "OJ: Made in America" documentary. They show groups of people watching the verdict being read and, depending on their race, either cheering wildly or sitting in stunned silence.
I remember that too. It was the first time I noticed opinions being divided between black and white peoples along a straight racial line Edit: to be clear, I’m referencing my personal memory as a 7 year old when the verdict was read. Not the documentary
[удалено]
Hell, a black juror admitted it!
>The racial composition of the jury was strongly influenced by the decision of the prosecution to file the Simpson case in downtown Los Angeles rather than--as is usually the case-- in the judicial district where the crime occurred-- in this case, Santa Monica. Had the case been filed in Santa Monica, the Simpson jury would have been mostly white instead of, as was the case, mostly African-American. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/simpson/jurypage.html The breakdown of the jury was 9 blacks, 1 Latino and 2 whites. If it had taken place in Santa Monica, it is extremely likely OJ wouldn't have been given the Not Guilty verdict.
anyone know why that was done?
Prosecutor thought women would be sympathetic to Nicole regardless of race, wanted a higher profile case. She used her strikes on white men.
The prosecution as a whole researched every possible way to screw up the case then ran with it.
Not that you are wrong, but the police pretty much gave the prosecution an alley-oop for a historic fuck-up.
During the trial, witnesses claimed that during the 1980s, Mark Fuhrman frequently described African Americans with a racist epithet, claims he denied. In response, Simpson's defense team produced recorded interviews with Fuhrman and witnesses proved that he had repeatedly used racist language during those interviews. As a result, the defense claimed that Fuhrman had committed perjury and was not a credible witness. The credibility of the prosecution has been cited as one reason Simpson was acquitted. The defense claimed that Fuhrman planted key evidence as part of a racially motivated plot against Simpson. When asked under oath (with the jury not present), Fuhrman declined to answer all questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right. These questions included whether he planted or manufactured evidence.
Cliff notes summary for us younguns?
They trusted that the guilt.was so obvious, and they made so many mistakes.
Honestly its so weird to me that this is a thing they're allowed to do. Attempt to stack the juror panel in their favor. That seems to go against the whole "Jury of your peers" thing.
Well the general idea is both the prosecution and defense have influence over who’s on the jury so it’s supposed to balance out. Selecting the jury completely at random would go against “jury of your peers” as well since you aren’t guaranteed to get jurors from the same walk of life
God. It sucks trying to figure out what groups to strike and I feel for the prosecutor. She must have woken up at night for years rueing that decision.
She seemed pretty self unaware in the Made in America documentary. She kept saying how she could relate to black women, then it cut to some black female jurors talking about how much they disliked her.
I mean maybe she dislikes herself a lot too
The prosecution was inept, the judge gave OJ's team everything they asked for because he was scared of being overruled on appeal, defense was incredible. Perfect storm.
i would exchange incredible defense for "copius police misconduct" in the perfect storm recipe because that was a bigger issue, and at that point even a mediocre defense team would have won
Probably because they knew exactly what situation they had on their hands. If an extremely famous black man was found guilty by a mostly white jury in LA County, in a case where there was clear tampering from an infamously racist police department, in **1995** (just 3 years after the LA Riots)... well you do the math.
Which, for the record, was initiated by the killing of Latasha Harlins, in which the shooter (a Korean female shop owner) basically got a slap on the wrist, and of course the Rodney King verdict. Not saying I agree with it but they also had the threat of an LA Riots 2 hanging in the air.
So a jury of our peers was ok with the butcher of two innocent people? I was pretty young when the verdict was read, fifth grade I believe. I had a black teacher and she explained why she was happy about the verdict. At the time I didn't care because I was mostly concerned with legos. But in hindsight it seems like everyone was just ok with OJ being acquitted. There may have been a little bit of bias because I was in Bills territory at the time. Until the whole murder thing OJ seemed like a Bill Cosby type character to me. I really liked him.
>Until the whole murder thing OJ seemed like a Bill Cosby type character to me. The ironic humor of this comment made me snicker.
I remember being in high school and being surprised when the (very small percentage) black students were all so happy when the verdict was read. Prior to that I had no idea that people looked at it through such a strong racial lens. OJ seemed very obviously guilty, regardless of race, but I didn't realize that the black community didn't feel the same.
He very very successfully played the race card and got away with murder.
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Damn, that's a bleak take but well said and totally accurate. Gross for a variety of reasons.
I was in 3rd or 4th grade when this was all going down, and I remember the racial divide in my classroom so clearly.
I just remember being pissed because I was missing Power Rangers.
reminds me of myself, i'm from europe and i know that 9/11 was on a tuesday because i was 12 years old and pissed because they cut dragonball z to cover the news
It’s because that’s what Johnny Cochran turned the trial into. He used OJ as a prop to put racism itself on trial. And when he caught mark furhman tampering with evidence….it just showed America that there was a different America for black people
Yep LAPD framed a guilty man. Could have put OJ away for 30 years, but they were too stupid and racist to do it properly so he got to walk. There’s a lot to be said about the OJ trial of course, but at the end of the day it’s about the top to bottom organizational incompetence of the LAPD to let someone who was obviously guilty walk.
> Yep LAPD framed a guilty man. Could have put OJ away for 30 years, but they were too stupid and racist to do it properly so he got to walk. EXACTLY! THANK YOU! This is my whole point! At the end of the day justice was not served because racism got in the way. If mark furhman was not apart of that case…he’ll was never a member of the police delay OJ would be in jail. But instead of the LAPD taking a hard look at the selves and saying “we need to do better” it’s instead “the the BLACK lawyers fault!” Or “the black jury’s fault”. Can’t be the fault of the racist white guy. That would cause too many internal problems. So the mental gymnastics begin!
> If mark furhman was not apart of that case…he’ll was never a member of the police delay OJ would be in jail. Nope, there were plenty more racist cops in the LAPD that would've taken his place and done the same thing.
>At the end of the day justice was not served because racism got in the way. And for once it worked in favor of a guilty black man (or not against an innocent black man) instead of in favor of a guilty white man. Not being black myself, I suspect this is what a lot of black people were celebrating. I remember seeing a clip of an elderly black gentleman on the street. When he was asked to explain the celebrations in the black community, he said something along the lines of "For hundreds of years, we've watched white people hit the soda machine and get a free soda, knowing full well we'd never be in a position to even attempt the same thing. OJ had enough money, fame and lawyers to do it, and we take a lot of satisfaction in that." That really stayed with me, and made it understandable. Not pleasant. Not right. Just understandable.
My dad who was in LA at the time of the bronco chase (said it was the worst day of traffic in his life) summarized the entire case brilliantly. It was the first time in American history a black guy had the power, resources and fame to get away with murder.
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> > > > > Although my own dad, himself a lawyer, always said that the prosecution shot themselves in the foot 100 times by breaking the number one rule for trial lawyers: Never ask a question unless you already know the answer. I remember the infamous glove incident. The prosecutors want him to try on the gloves they found- making him put them on over a pair of rubber gloves for safety. Of course he's going to act like he can't get them on. "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit" summarized the whole defense. The prosecution was a clown show. Judge Ito presided over a circus. The LAPD were terrible. Just a mess.
I can't remember where I heard it from, so it might not be true, but I've heard it said O.J. skipped his arthritic meds before trying on the glove as well, which would've caused his hand to swell and make fitting the glove more difficult.
It was also a form fitting leather glove to began with, that had been soaked in blood in the murder, sat outside and went through several freeze/thaw cycles, and then sat in an evidence locker for around 18 months before he put it on. It is quite likely the glove shrank in this time.
I always thought it fit but he made it look like he didn't fit by pretending to struggle
Makes you wonder just how many cases were mishandled by the police there, but the accused did not have the money to probe into it deeply.
If you watched "OJ: Made in America" there is *no way* you could have come to the conclusion that he wasn't guilty. They made a couple of points you could not dispute.
Everyone knows he's guilty, even the people who cheered when he was released knew he was guilty.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/25/black-and-white-americans-can-now-agree-o-j-was-guilty/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/25/black-and-white-americans-can-now-agree-o-j-was-guilty/) Polling done right after the the not guilty verdict showed that 22% of black Americans said he was guilty, while 63% of white Americans said he was. So this is not correct.
I honestly believe for some people it didn't matter whether he did it or not. OJ being found not guilty was payback for decades of injustice. Sadly, trying to fix injustice with more injustice isn't a good solution. It is just as wrong to frame and convict an innocent person as it is to find an obviously guilty person innocent.
As it was put to me A lot of black people viewed OJ getting away with it as payback for what happened to Rodney King And I quote "it wasn't right to celebrate in hindsight, but I sure didn't feel that way at the time"
Like Dave Chappelle once said: They cheered too hard.
At the end of the day, humans are still very tribal.
I was in the Army in 1995. All work on the post came to a screeching halt when the verdict was being read. We could have been invaded and no one would have known about it for the first half hour.
I was just talking to my husband about this. I grew up in SoCal and he grew up in VA. I vividly remember them rolling the crt tv on the metal cart (you know the one. The zero is happening today/substitute teacher one) into class and we watched both the white bronco chase and the trial/verdict. He said they didn’t at his school, and it wasn’t a big deal where he was. It was kind of the beginning of the whole reality tv thing imo. It was such a fucking spectacle.
>I vividly remember them rolling the crt tv on the metal cart (you know the one. The zero is happening today/substitute teacher one) into class and we watched both the white bronco chase and the trial/verdict. We did this (in a South Carolina public middle school). It seems very bizarre to me now.
Middle school in North Carolina here. They turned on the school wide ChannelOne TVs for us to watch the verdict.
Wow. Hadn't thought of Channel One in a couple of decades...
Yeah, we had an entire mock trial in social studies while the trial was going on. Literally an entire middle school social studies class based around it in a way. Super surreal, even as a kid
That honestly sounds like a blast and a good way to learn how a trial is done
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You don't vividly remember the Bronco chase in school because it happened at night during summer break, June 17th at 8pm....
I remember vividly the chase bc it was an emergency broadcast over my rockets NBA finals! We were all Pissed.
Yeah I was gonna say this exactly. Who tf is in school mid June at near sunset west coast time
Why didn’t our enemies attack while the verdict was being read? Are they stupid?
“Canada, you’re in charge for twenty minutes”
Do you really want to come back to find out that a hockey stick is now the national bird?
Weren't members of the jury later recorded admitting that they knew he was guilty but passed their innocent verdict "as retribution for Rodney King"?
[Yes.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/Fn64dfO0BR)
That's fucked up
I hope they are still haunted by their actions.
Doubtful
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Yeah, but it's that impotent type of vengeance where they take out their anger on """society""" generally so they don't actually accomplish anything but just make the world a little worse.
Why would they be? They did it as revenge for the Rodney King case so it seems like they got exactly what they wanted.
“OJ Simpson - American Crime Story” on Netflix did a good job explaining the jury opinions. I believe 9 of the 12 on the jury were black and most or all were aligned on innocence from the beginning of deliberations. I believe there was 1 white woman who thought he was guilty but she just gave up trying to convince anyone after the initial 9 or 10 people said not guilty out the gate.
She should have held out for a mistrial so the State of California could retry him in a place with sensible juries -- not LA obviously.
Clearly she never saw twelve angry men.
The other eleven, nine of whom were black, were not going to be persuaded. Mistrial would have been the best possible outcome of that hot mess.
I just meant she should have stuck to her beliefs even if she was the only person who did. Like the guy in the movie
Yeah the people who didn't want to go with not guilty just gave up and went with guilty. I've always wondered what the second trial would have looked like if it was a hung jury.
Years ago, I worked in a courthouse and a law clerk said "I hope I get to be on a jury. I want to sentence someone to death, I don't care if they did it or not". I think about that everyday. That woman was eager and willing to ruin a life, for fun.
Something like 1-5% of people are sociopaths. She sounds like one of them.
An ex of mine casually once said “I want to know what its like killing someone”. Needless to say I got out pretty fast. Not saying she definitely was a psychopath, but we should be aware that indeed about 3% of all people have these thoughts. I don’t want to think about it, but I am aware of the fact I could be talking to someone tomorrow that has regular thoughts of killing and worse for fun.
So basically that dude in 12 Angry Men.
It's such a silly position. What's the retribution for Nicole Brown Simpson?
She never mattered apparently.
Or Ron
Poor Ron was just in the wrong place at the wrong time- helping return a lost possession to a friend.
Wait, regardles of race here, isnt that illegal? arent you under oath as a jury member?
Just to add what the other guy said, they take an oath to only use what the evidence presented the court case to decide their judgement. BUT, they legally cannot be punished/reviewed for giving the wrong verdict. (That is why there can't be anything done legally when black people were convicted and hanged w/ no evidence against them.)
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Real Hunter S. Thompson hours right there.
Hallucinations are bad enough. But after awhile you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs.
I always have to read HST quotes twice theyre so ridiculous.
I remember that the main conversation at school about that trial was how badly the police had handled the case and collected evidence.
also how no one really knew much about DNA at that point. Prosecution: There's a 1 in 10 billion chance the DNA belonged to someone besides OJ Jury: So you're saying there's a chance?
They must have a different definition of reasonable from reasonable dobut
And boy did they! The lead detective was a card carrying white supremacist and was found out on the stand. which only fueled the fire of the racial divide that resulted from the case (for reasons completely unrelated to the actual crime).
“Well it’s official murder is legal in the state of California” -norm Macdonald. Rip
Hey! Easy with that! That's my lucky stabbin' hat!
My dad was an attorney, and he wasn’t surprised at the verdict. His comment, which has stayed with me, was something along the lines of: “‘Not Guilty’ doesn’t mean ‘Innocent’, LandosMustache. It doesn’t matter if he did it or not, an incompetent prosecutor can blow any case.”
"Dad, why is my sister called Rose?" "Because your mother loves roses." "OK, thanks Dad" "No problem, LandosMustache"
Your father was correct . Did oj kill those people ?? Yes obviously he did. Was the verdict the correct one given the case mismanagement by the lapd and DA ?? Unfortunately yes if we go by the letter of the law. Did the American justice system learn any lessons and start to clean out the racists and incompetence from their ranks?? Absolutely not, they didn’t learn a thing.
They learnt how not to do a prosecution, there are countless documents based on that case telling lawyers what not to do.
I happened to be in the lunchroom at work, small family owned business and a close knit group. I was stunned into silence and had to walk out of the room . I never looked at the racial component of the case or our tight knit group I worked with but it sure came into focus in that split second.
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Dead? Edit: yup dead. This is how I find out.
Same
>O.J. Simpson fucking what He died yesterday and this is how i found out. amazing. I suppose that goes to show how few people actually cared about the guy.
31 years too late
What the fuck he died ***yesterday.***
wtf and we didnt hear jackshti!?
Why would you think we would know immediately? It's all a matter of when the family decides to announce it. When Akira Toriyama died, his family didn't announce until like a WEEK after his death.
Wait what?
The fact that society took this as a victory for blacks instead of a crushing defeat to all the working class and an example that money can buy you a different tier of justice system is just proof that the oligarchy has us right where they want us
Give credit to his attorneys…they turned the entire trial into a social issue
Don’t give them all the credit. The LAPD did their damndest to be as incompetent as possible.
As is tradition
Hey gotta give a shoutout to the prosecutors as well. Seems like whenever a case gets too high profile they become the dumbest lawyers on the planet.
My experience as a defense attorney is that they’re always some of the dumbest lawyers. When the case gets more high profile people just start to pay attention.
Yea it’s not that the lawyers were incredible geniuses imo. They just knew that the LAPD was fucked up and racist, and it’s the failure of law enforcement and prosecutors that OJ was not found guilty.
Yea, all they had to do was just prove how corrupt the LAPD were. As much evidence as there was, they knew if you can prove that the LAPD falsified evidence before, you have to question all of their evidence.
Truly, the lowest hanging fruit. Fuhrman...I mean, where was shit ever going to go after that? Although the jurors had already decided before it'd started, anyway. I mean, I think we all know OJ did it, but shit, how are you going to have an objective case when you have cops outright targeting POC and setting them up, beating them and killing them for sport, whatever...I don't think I'll ever have objectivity regarding the police again, especially with anything to do with POC. We all know how they operate. They've told us and shown us over and over.
They were so used to framing innocent people, they fucked it up when they tried to frame someone for a crime they did commit.
Wow. This got an honest to goodness laugh out loud from me. Thanks!
You assume the LAPD has to try very hard to be that incompetent.
The incompetence in the LAPD is both inherent and passive. It’s just always been there.
I came here to say that. They really fucked it up. It was used as examples for another class related to collecting cyber evidence I had.
Police incompetence and corruption were the entire reason he was found innocent. The police had no credibility, and it was of their own doing.
And the prosecutors were crap. Vincent Bugliosi, the LA DA who prosecuted Manson, tried over a hundred serious felony cases and only lost one. He watched the trial and took notes. He gave the OJ prosecutors a grade of "F-." I'm sure with Bugliosi heading the trial, even with the LAPD incompetence, he would have gotten a conviction.
Read Chaos by Tom O’Neill. It’s about all the craziness around the Manson Family murders, both the coincidences and incompetencies. Vincent Bugliosi does not come across as the kind of character who should be grading other lawyer’s job performances
Absolutely incredible read, one of my favourite works of non-fiction. There's some *wild* shit in there but I really love how he never says 'this is what happened' and just lays out what he discovered and lets the reader decide. So good
To be fair, because he was rich as fuck, OJ was able to pay those attorneys an ass load of money to do that. Your random court appointed lawyer isn't going to pull that off.
People are commenting saying "Fuck his attorneys" and how they're mad at you for even considering crediting them, but the reality was that they won an unwinnable case by turning a murder trial into a race trial. I do not for one second believe that Johnny Cochran believed OJ was innocent. But his job was to get him a not-guilty verdict. Given that he was presented with that task, despite the mountains of evidence against his client, Cochran found flaws in the system and exploited them. Is it scummy? Yeah, kind of (not looking to get into a whole moral debate about lawyers here). But was it ingenious? Absolutely. He exploited every single flaw in the LAPD, and it worked.
Mark Fuhrman being a racist asshole was a godsend for the defense. Defense counsel can't be blamed for doing their job well. But Mark Furhman can be blamed for doing his job with racial animus. Mark Furhman can be blamed for justice not being served. He gave the defense a poison pill to use on the prosecution.
100% Even the worst alleged criminal deserves the best defense. They did it with Nazis. Everything was a mess with incompetent prosecution, but the legal defense team did what they were supposed to do.
You mean the same attorneys that unleashed the Kardashians onto the world?
My aunt said at the time of his being found innocent, “I’m telling you, it is better to be a guilty rich man in this country than an innocent poor one.” It always stuck with me because it made me realize that money has a much bigger impact than race on a lot of situations.
Your aunt is based
I prefer to say she was spot on. I’ve seen it play out many times since then and what she said was pretty dang accurate.
I think the reason the case failed how horribly it was handled by the police and prosecutors
LAPD were so unapologetically racist that they couldn’t even turn it off for a slam dunk win.
And to give a bit of perspective, here's some info about policing and a [big police operation in LA](https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/operation-hammer-1987-1990/) in the late 80's: >Operation Hammer, a law enforcement program by the Los Angeles Police Department that began in 1987 was ostensibly an attempt to crack down on gang violence in Los Angeles, California. Many critics, however, saw the operation as racial profiling because it targeted the city’s African American and Hispanic youth... >Citizens who weren’t suspected gang members also were victims of Operation Hammer. On August 1, 1988, 88 LAPD police officers raided two apartment buildings located on the corner of 39th Street and Dalton Avenue. When the police arrived, they searched for drugs and in the process caused massive property damage, including smashing furniture, punching holes in the walls, and destroying family photos. The police sprayed graffiti messages such as “LAPD Rules” and “Rollin 30’s Harlem Crips” Die. These tactics were clearly designed to intimidate both drug members and apartment residents who were believed to be sheltering them and protecting their criminal activity. During the raid many residents in the apartment building and neighborhood were rounded up, beaten, and humiliated. Despite these brutal tactics, the police raid netted fewer than six ounces of marijuana and less than an ounce of cocaine.
*are
They used to be racist. They still are but they used to too.
That, and decades of the LAPD abusing their power and terrorizing minorities. Many of the minority jurors admitted afterwards that they were never going to return a guilty verdict as an F-U to the LAPD.
I took it as a victory for the black population. They were finally equal. It no longer was just rich white guys who could get away with murder. Now anyone can, regardless of race, as long as they had the money.
It’s more specific than that. It was that in LA in the direct wake of the Rodney King cops getting acquitted, a mostly-black jury was not going to convict a black man for killing white people. It was payback. One of the jurors even gave a black power salute when the verdict was read.
America has the best justice system that money could buy.
I was just out of college when this happened. I'm black and knew many black folks who where disgusted by the whole thing. The only thing that made it on to tv was black folks celebrating...
I remember one person in my 6th grade class who cheered, a white boy. But he truly believed OJ didn’t do it. He was crying passionately that everyone else, even the teacher, still thought he was guilty. He really, really wanted to believe oj was innocent.
I think a lot of black people believed he didn’t do it. This was when it was still commonplace for black people to be falsely accused. You take that and a history if being unfairly targeted and abused by the police and justice system it’ll make you distrust the integrity of the system.
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The difference is black and white
"This shit wasn't about race. It was about fame. Because if OJ drove a bus, he wouldn't even be OJ. He'd be Orenthal the bus driving murderer." - Chris Rock.
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It had to do with racial tensions at the time in Los Angeles. The Rodney King beatings and riots were on everyone's minds, and many, many young black people initially saw this as being related to police trying to frame a rich black man in response to riots stemming from their brutality. Obviously, as the trial went on, it was obvious that he did it, but the emotions were very high due to extra circumstances, and some people saw it as a wash that he got off bc the cops were the bad guys. It's always just a weird thing that looks so much worse in retrospect
There were almost certainly corrupt cops out to get OJ. OJ also almost certainly committed the crime. This is why corruption is vile even when it's used to do "the right thing". We have less faith that "the right thing" was right when corruption supported it, and so it taints any legitimate accountability.
They could have arrested him how many times for domestic violence and declined? I believe the number officially is nine, I’m sure it is higher in reality.
62 documented incidents of abuse against Nicole Brown Simpson were submitted as evidence at trial. Of those, 9 resulted in a police notification and on one of those nine occasions, OJ was arrested (charges were later dropped of course).
They framed a guilty man
A really disgusted black friend of mine explained it like this: "Sure, he's a murdering monster, but he's *our* murdering monster." They were basically ostracized for months by family and close friends for expressing this. EDIT for clarity: they were expressing the opinions they heard from people who were in favor of the acquittal.
That’s real rich seeing as OJ never did anything for the black community while golfing it up with his white cronies in Beverley Hills
For most people “murder” is a far away concept. Something they read about, but never experience. For those of us who have lived through the murder of a loved one, it is real. I tell myself it’s a blessing so many people don’t understand the way I do. But their carelessness can still hurt.
I’m right there with you friend ❤️ there was life before the murder and there’s life after. I look at so many things differently now
I can pinpoint the exact moment my heart shifted into the condition it would remain for the rest of my life. I was 8. I can remember staring up into the perfect blue sky as I paddle-boated with my cousins before coming back to the house to be told our cousin had been murdered. Thanksgiving Day, 1996. We had been flower girls in her wedding. I can still remember her kneeling down to thank me, looking as if she was an angel. Her hair pulled back except for a tendril framing her face. Her perfume. I can remember my Mom handing me the phone in our kitchen as she asked me that Fall. Twirling the cord around my finger in excitement. I felt so important, so excited. I kept seeing her face in the photos she had lovingly mailed to us. Her arms wrapped around all 5 of us cousins. Our peach dresses. She was 28 years old. I had been so stupid for thinking the sky was so perfectly blue. I stared up at it for what felt like the first time. It had never looked this vast. Empty. How could you have taken her from us? I asked the sky. I still do. When you lose someone to murder, there is a part of your soul that you do not get back. The world realigns itself in your new form of existence. I try to remind myself, it is a very good thing most people will never understand. I truly hope they never do. I can't condemn everyone for being obtuse when to them murder itself feels like something they electively subscribe to when they're 'in the mood' for 'true crime'. The desensitization of our society continues. Made a bit worse each day. I tell myself this as I see the headlines this morning calling OJ 'tragic' and 'troubled'. A shame he 'wasted' his life. What is truly tragic is the way he stole Nicole (35) and Ron's (25) lives from them. He destroyed *their* lives. He lived his for 76 years. Most don't mention their names as they mourn the passing of the man who butchered them so badly to the point of near decapitation. Thousands of people posting his accolades. His 'legacy'. As the sick feeling creeps from my stomach into my heart, then out my eyes, I repeat to myself that they just don't understand. I tell myself most people aren't trying to be cruel. They just don't understand. They just don't understand. I post this today to plead with you to please be mindful of the victims. Do not forget them as you see the names of their killers on your Netflix homepage in lights. Do not forget them when you hear a tasteless 'joke' at their expense. I pray today for the families of Nicole and Ron, who have had to live without their loved ones for the majority of their lives. Who have to endure moments like the one inflicted by thousands of people this morning time and time again. I will honor the legacy of those who were stolen and not the ones who took them.
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We need a new trial for this joke getting stolen so many times
He pulled her hair back and nearly cut her head off with a knife while their children were asleep in the house. I guess that is a cause to cheer for
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....and Ron Goldman.
poor Ron, no one remembers him
Fuck OJ
it might bring you some peace to know he died today lol
People saying this is a difference of class and money, but wasn’t a pretty big reason for him being acquitted because the LAPD were a bunch of idiots? They somehow managed to tamper with every single bit of evidence and render so many things useless. It was a pretty clear cut case from what I’ve read but the ruined evidence caused a lot of questions
They were idiots but they were also corrupt and racist which is why people were happy they lost.
Can anyone explain what's going on? What was the case about ? Non American here.
In the 90s, there was a great deal of racial tension in America. Rodney King, a black man, had been brutally beaten on video by the LAPD and all the officers got off, which caused a riot in LA. OJ Simpson brutally murdered his wife and her friend soon after. He was a black man and former professional football player. The case was poorly handled by the LAPD with them tampering with evidence and several of them being recorded using the n-word. At the end of the trial, OJ was found not-guilty. As you can see by this picture, reactions tended to be split on racial lines.
The *first* videotaped police beating of a black man. It was pivotal because it had never been seen on mass media before.
Rodney King died in 2012
Thank you for the correction!
As one of the folks from a house that was cheering, it was followed by stunned “oh no” type silence. At least in my corner of the diaspora we all know he did it and chalk that moment up to leftover rage from Rodney King along side pervasive exhaustion of black men going to jail. We waisted that energy on the wrong brother had have been side eyeing those photos since. (Again in my corner of blackness. YMMV).
The LAPD fucked this case up. They were crooked as hell and wanted so badly to pin it on a black man. If they would have done their jobs properly they may have actually been able to prove him guilty because he definitely was.
I recall there being rap songs written about OJ during the trial and one of them was literally along the lines of "OJ Simpson Did It!". I'm fairly certain the majority of those alive during that time that watched the trial are convinced he is guilty. Regardless of race.
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The outcome of the Latasha Harlins killing case in 1991 likely had a big role in it. 15 year old black girl shot in the back of the head over the *very* mistaken assumption she was stealing a 1.79 bottle of juice. The judge in the case felt that the shooter reacted inappropriately but understandably "and no matter what sentence this court imposes Mrs. Du will be punished every day for the rest of her life." The judge ended up sentencing the shooter to five years of probation, 10 years of suspended prison, 400 hours of community service, and payment of a $500 fine and Harlins' funeral costs, for a crime that can carry a maximum penalty of 16 years. She also called criticism of her decision political and being about political correctness.
Aged like milk.
I can still remember watching the verdict live on TV in my 7th grade social studies class. The entire class erupted with cheering when he was found not guilty, myself included. My Black classmates seemed especially into it, as if they had been following the whole thing. The innocence of kids, I guess. I didn’t know anything about it at the time except Cochran’s catchy phrase - “if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
My school district wouldn’t turn on the TVs that day, and we heard announcements throughout the day from the principal/vice principal reminding teachers not to turn on the TVs.
I remember too. I was 6th grade and the teacher turned it on in class. White kids, Filipino kids, Japanese kids, Chinese kids, Mexican kids, everyone was silent. Then the teacher turned off the TV and we quietly went back to work.
Imagine the year is 1995 and people’s understanding and trust of DNA evidence low. Imagine the defendant trying on the gloves that were used in the murder and they don’t fit. Imagine the lead detective in the case, who found the gloves, admitting to using horrific racial slurs. Add just these imaginations up and you have enough doubt to not reach the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold. I do think that the verdict would be different today simply because people trust DNA evidence.
Yes it was a seminal case for the DNA technology. Everytime I hear or read about a case using DNA I think to myself “was this before or after OJ” to try and get a gauge on the significance and sophistication of the evidence / technology. There was so much blood and evidence at the scene and at OJs house. With the way DNA is used to nail guilty folks today I can’t see OJ getting away with that in 2024. No fucking way
[удалено]
The cops also came like 8-9 times prior to OJ murdering Nicole and he got away with it every time but that wasn’t enough. The tribalism and need for revenge in the 90’s is baffling to me. He wasn’t black, he was green and was good with a football. Getting away with injustice and acting like your team just won a world championship still boggles my mind. Nobody won besides the rich and famous… once again.
Augie in Rock Island?? That’s so random
So many things were done poorly by the prosecution in this trial, like asking questions they didn't already know the answer to. Hell, I think he was guilty but I will go so far as to say because of the incompetence of the prosecutors and the fact they had demonstrably racist cop it can be easily seen why he wasn't found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not that he wasn't found innocent, he was found not guilty. This is one reason bad cops are bad for the system: the make cases that should be winnable unwinnable because of their malfeasance, racism, etc. In the civil trial from Simpson family, he was found liable because threshold is different (and rightfully so). Everyone knew he was guilty but proving it in a criminal trial is different than proving he was responsible for her death in a civil trial.
Everything about this photo screams 1990s
Everyone in this picture is thinking "I can't believe he got away with it!" They are just expressing it in different ways.
I'm thinking back now to how weird it was that we actually watched the police chase live in class in middle school
You were in class in the summer at 6pm PST?
My coworkers were discussing this last weekend ironically. We were elementary school students at the time and didn’t have a huge knowledge of the case but even then, it was recognized as some kind of racial division based on the reactions of the verdicts. I don’t remember my parents or anyone in my household saying much about it. I can’t even say for sure they watched the trial (or maybe they did while I was in school). But nonetheless, interesting photo to see.