Personal Injury Law

O.J.: A different time, place, and verdict

By Edward Bills

It was no ‘trial of the century’ in Las Vegas, but the verdict in the most recent O.J. Simpson trial came and went in the dark of night in a Las Vegas courtroom. The proceedings may not even have been breathlessly awaited

This latest verdict was seen by many as a sad epilogue: either Simpson is getting what he deserves or he can’t figure out how to stay out of trouble. Or both.

The issues, this time, were armed robbery and kidnapping, not murder and race. The verdicts were read without fanfare. It was not a day the Earth stood still, as it did 13 years ago for the reading of the verdict.

But as news of the verdict spread, many observers just had to weighed in and the typical reaction was that I just they actually got him on this, as opposed to a double murder.

The first O.J. trial mesmerized the country, spinning out like a daily soap opera. Every detail was gobbled up and people around the world passionately discussed them: a blood-stained glove, a Bruno Magli shoe print, a howling dog wandering from the murder scene.

It was Los Angeles pre-9/11, pre-mortgage debacle, still nursing painful memories of the 1992 riots that racked the city in the wake of the Rodney King verdict. Race and justice were obsessions, and Simpson, seemed the perfect avatar.

The courtroom was packed daily, and outside the courthouse, a carnival sprang up of media, gadflies and vendors peddling souvenirs. On verdict day, from the hallway outside the courtroom filled with reporters — including a pregnant Katie Couric — to airplanes in flight and ships at sea, the world waited to hear how the soap opera would end.

But the Las Vegas trial was no soap opera, and race relations have changed. A black man is running for president. Yet there are people who saw either race or hatred for Simpson at play in the verdict this time.

Some thougth it was payback since Simpson was innocent then and now.

But many, like myself, had no doubt that jurors, those unsung heros or bumbs depending on our viewpoint, convicted him because he was guilty, not because they believed he got away with murder in the first trial.

We should all be proud of our juries.

Full post as published by Bodily Injury Blog on October 05, 2008 (boomark / email).