No one cares how O.J. "would have done it"?

WOW

JUST... WOW

so "not proven by LAW" and "not proven by SCIENCE" but irrefutably "proven by otherwise faintly lame alt.TV meta-comedy"

-- John Justen says Toonces was one of the most talented cats on televison (johnjuste...), Yesterday 6:44 PM. (johnjusten) (later)

yeah but double jeopardy does

You can't try someone twice for the same crime = he can say whatever the fuck he wants about it and they can't touch him.

i imagine the sequel is going to be called "my search for the real killer." (wait, wouldn't that be just a blank book?)

http://www.the-antique-shop.com/inventory/magazines/oj.jpg

You know what's funny? A couple of years before OJ's hypothetical crime, there was an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine was dating a guy named "Joel Rifkin." That also happened to be the name of a notorious serial killer, and the confusion was bring them all kinds of unwanted attention. So they try to brainstorm new names. Elaine's favorite? "OJ."

In some appalling ways, he's kind of admirable.

Yes. One of the weirdest things I ever saw.

Yeah, didn't he successfully declare bankruptcy in order to waive any obligation to pay that?

Does that entirely void a monetary judgment? I didn't think so.

One thing we gloss over in calling him a "sociopath," though: when the murders first occurred, the general idea was that he must have been somewhat mentally ill to have committed them. (Same went for the Bronco chase.) It was mainly his demeanor during the trial, and the efficiency of his defense, and this perception of smugness / "getting away with it" that turned everyone around to decide he was just a sane, brutal, opportunistic murderer. But given some his behavior over the past decade ... it's still ever-so-slightly plausible that there's something deeply wrong with O.J., not just morally but in terms of mental health.

ELAINE: Yeah, yeah. You know what? There are a lot of players named Dion these days. What a cool name, Dion. If I were gonna change my name, I'd go with Dion.

JOEL: Dion Benes?

ELAINE: Well as a woman, it makes no sense. But, I mean, let's say I was you. And I decided I was gonna change my name for no real reasons whatsoever-- Dion Rifkin. Wow! That is so cool.

JOEL: D-Dion Rifkin?

ELAINE: Well maybe you're not the Dion type. O.K. then let's see, let's see, what do we got? (looking at the magazine, she starts to gasp and loses it) Oh! Oh oh oh! O.J.! O.J. Rifkin! You don't even use a name, it's just initials. Oh please please please change your name to O.J.! Please, it would be so great!

JOEL: Elaine! What is going on?

You've got to see the Ruby Wax interview that mark s is talking about.

The interview, conducted with book publisher Judith Regan, will air days before Simpson's new book, "If I Did It," goes on sale November 30.

Does this mean that the Publisher is sitting next to him occasionally fielding questions, or does this mean that the interview is actually conducted by the Publisher???

OJ's been batshit crazy for a long time.

http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/large/4/9780061238284.jpg

Note the white "IF" next to the red "I DID IT." Subliminal message much?

There was a chapter in Downsize This! about it. (Published 1997). It had a chapter called "OJ is Innocent" followed by a joke-chapter called "OJ is guilty" (one sentance along the lines of "lol jk!").

His main reasoning was something like "rich people don't commit murder, they pay people to do it" and "white america just cant stand it that a famous black person couldn't be a criminal."

Its always depressed me that people couldn't see that white america being racist and OJ being totally guilty were not mutually exclusive concepts.

re: double jeopardy - can you hit someone with perjury if they lie to get aquitted? I can't even remember if OJ took the stand, it's been so long.

lol Nuremberg = small potaters.

oj being batshit insane & oj being innocent of his wife's murder are not mutually exclusive concepts either

A bunch of teachers at my school actually cried. It was weird.

I haven't.

I dunno, I found the whole dynamic pretty fascinating. A lot of black people insisted OJ was innocent, which seemed to exasperate a lot of white people to absolutely no end. But seriously now, given the history of criminal accusations against black people over the last 100 years -- which white people can put aside and forget, but which kind of inform black thinking in a lot of ways -- how surprising was that? It became this weird pageant of reversed narratives, where for once the white side was shouting "c'mon, look at the facts in this particular case," and the black side was saying "we have a narrative we're inclined to believe was the case here, and that's the old narrative of the black man wrongly accused."

(Also fascinating to me is the number of white people -- especially white conservatives -- who seem terrifically scarred by the OJ case, like to the point of insanity. There's one SoCal right-wing talk-show host who admits to going off the deep end after the verdict and developing an entire plan to assassinate OJ! And there's a whole bunch of social stuff to unravel in the sheer anger and frustration of some folks over this verdict.)

nicole owed a bunch of coke dealers money

his post-trial behavior is fucked up, but like i said - him being crazy doesnt = him being guilty. maybe the insane blanket media coverage flipped him out like that dude who thinks he killed jon-benet

the ruby wax moment = uh oh scratch the above

yeah, this is what I meant. I remember a lot of media handwringing about the race gap wrt who thought he was innocent/guilty. and in accounting for it, all these reports would be like, "it's a shame black people don't read newspapers," and I was like, what the fuck, surely it can't be a huge mystery why some black Americans would be incredibly suspicious of criminal accusations against a black man.

"I'm sorry but my blackness won't permit to answer that."

x-post

Are you talking about the dude from David Foster Wallace's "Host"?

Nabisco- did you read the piece on that guy in Atlantic written by David Foster Wallace? Probably my most favorite thing Ive ever read in a magazine ever.

xpost!

the white bronco chase was june 17 1994

naked gun 33 1/3 was released march 18 1994

i rest my case

nicole owed a bunch of coke dealers money"

uh those are not very compelling dude. one is a subjective interpretation of the evidence ("hitmen stab like THIS"), the other is a pretty vague hypothesis ("maybe there were other people out there mad enough to kill her, MAYBE... of course who knows who they are, or whether they got their money, or how they did it, etc.")

OK, that's good because I was going to argue that the Bronco chase didn't begin until approx. 9:30 pm Eastern Time, so assuming you were in Lexington, that was a late movie.

Almost, but not quite, as surprising as how badly the prosecution fucked up their case. I mean, they had his DNA, and they lost the case. The Three Stooges could have won that case.

But anyway. Seriously, fuck OJ. He killed his wife.

I was in a bar, if it makes you feel any better.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/e/ed/200px-Norm2.jpg

xxpost, damn.

I was in France for the whole month of June and I didn't follow it closely at all. I remember running into Americans who would ask me what I thought of the whole thing and I invariably responded that I didn't. Nabisco's point about money trumping race in the law is the only really interesting thing about this, apart from seeing weird white people complaining that the justice system is broken.

I was at a Casino.

Where were you?

the wound stuff i would need to look up but i remember somebody outlining how it seemed a lot more like the work of 2 or more professional killers than one guy

also there was a bunch of blood, like on ron goldman's keys that he used to stab whoever was attacking him, that was just thrown away by the lapd & never tested, while the oj blood was like 5 drops that were basically in a pattern of having been dripped straight on the ground rather than in a fight

If (and that's a big if) OJ didn't do it, he could just be crazy and somewhat frustrated at being out of the limelight for many years. For a lot of people, negative attention is better than no attention at all. Especially for someone who used to be in the spotlight.

It happens on occasion.

My wife was living in Scotland when it happened. What made the news more shocking, apparently, was the fact that it wasn't covered all that thoroughly - at least not at first. What was an instant scandal in America made page 7 of the newspaper elsewhere.

Along with DNA from all three parties on a pair of gloves. And DNA from one victim on OJ's socks and in his vehicle.

Elsewhere they don't watch American football.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (soto.alfre...), Today. (Alfred Soto) (link)

convicted... of cockfarmery!

Short of a massive conspiracy (requiring that the LAPD or unknown coke-dealers, or both, worked to frame a local hero and wealthy man), it's all but impossible to simply dismiss the DNA evidence as "five drops," trife.

Also OJ Simpson is a major, major, major American celebrity and was so before the murders, in commercials and movies and was a Hall of Fame football player. But unknown in other countries due to what made him famous to begin with; any number of famous members of British football clubs could do the same thing and no-one in America would know the difference unless the trial went batshit insane a la OJ. So of course no one overseas bothered with reporting this case much until well into it.

the other dna evidence at the crime scene is hardly incriminating, his kids lived there for christs sake

Nabisco's point about money trumping race in the law is the only really interesting thing about this

LOL ALL BLACK PEOPLE POST ALIKE

I'm kind of dying of irony right now.

P.S. yes I was talking about the guy Wallace covered, who seems to have been, like, highly emotionally modified by the O.J. verdict. I dunno, it's hard to comment on, since it was kind of the first super-trial of the era -- I was about to say that if Scott Peterson had gotten off, white people wouldn't be so angry, but probably people get less upset about this stuff now that they've already been jaded by Simpson. I do definitely remember white people talking about how it was their turn to riot, a weird equivalency with the Rodney King thing that pissed me off no end: a lot of black people in LA saw the Rodney King thing as a final signal that the whole of the police and judicial system just didn't have any respect for them, and that they were basically fair game for anything and nothing would happen -- did these pissed-off white people actually see O.J. as some kind of flashpoint for whether black men as a group could systematically kill white people and get away with it? Cuz that'd be basically grade-A insane, to think that.

The back gate samples, BTW, were blood spots (like those one would leave opening the gate with blood on the hand)

Did he visit his kids the night of the murder and bleed on them?

darn kids, always bleedin all over the place.

not to mention his own hypothetical 'well if i DID tamper with evidence, i wouldve done it like this...' interview from a couple of years ago

shakey: the evidence that isnt blood spots could easily be hairs, salivia, whatever, from previous times he visited the house, which he did frequently - you need very little to get dna

milo: lapd had samples of ron, nicole & oj's blood for the investigation, in the weeks spent 'finding' stuff at the crime scene it wouldve been easy to plant stuff

With the jury absent on September 6, 1995, Fuhrman was asked questions as to whether or not he had ever falsified police reports or if he had planted or manufactured evidence in the Simpson case and he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Fuhrman later pled no contest to a perjury charge and was sentenced to probation and fined $200.

Fuhrman was the officer who found both gloves (one at the murder scene, the other at Simpson's home), much of the blood drops at Simpson's home, and who entered Simpson's estate without a search warrant due to exigent circumstances. Only very limited excerpts of the tapes were admitted as evidence in the 1995 murder trial against O.J. Simpson, yet the admitted portions were strong enough to cast doubts on Fuhrman's motives and credibility.

but I like how you use this: "not to mention his own hypothetical 'well if i DID tamper with evidence, i wouldve done it like this...' interview from a couple of years ago" as somehow evidence of Fuhrman's guilt, whereas you give OJ a pass when he does THE EXACT SAME THING. wtf yo.

ergg, OJ's wife hadn't reached the level of achievement that Posh Spice had. Wasn't she just a starfu...I mean, 'lucky'?

For one thing, you have no motive and no explanations. Why this conspiracy? How did the coke dealers get to Fuhrman? Who were they? What did anyone have to gain out of pinning it on OJ? Why has no evidence of this ever appeared, anywhere?

(the perjury rap was related to saying 'I'm not a racist' and then turning out to be a racist, no? A bit different from 'I can't admit that I stole blood from OJ's doctor and splashed it around to serve, uh... what again?)

Don't you think you could get a pretty good book deal by writing an anonymous memoir of your role in framing OJ?

also why do you require non-oj people killing ron & nicole to conspire with the lapd to get away with it?? the only conspiracy required is the lapd presuming guilt of oj & not going after anyone else, and the people who actually did it not confessing!!!!

im not even going to dignify 'why would coke dealers kill someone who owed them money' with a response

also why do you require non-oj people killing ron & nicole to conspire with the lapd to get away with it?? the only conspiracy required is the lapd presuming guilt of oj & not going after anyone else, and the people who actually did it not confessing!!!!

im not even going to dignify 'why would coke dealers kill someone who owed them money' with a response

Because it makes no sense just like this entire asinine theory (which you haven't provide one shread of evidence documenting.)

No way Occam's Razor makes more sense than all of that!

the only conspiracy required is the lapd presuming guilt of oj & not going after anyone else, and the people who actually did it not confessing!!!!
Ah, so it's a series of coincidences - only the LAPD was in on the conspiracy? To what level? To what end?

Where, exactly, did the conspiracy start? Did they find OJ's blood at Brown's house (presumably just a bad accident the last time he 'visited his kids'?) and then decide to take his blood for comparison, and then splash it elsewhere? (But wait... that doesn't fit the timeline of when things were found. At all.) So they couldn't have planted his blood using that drawn for comparisons... where did they get it from?

How did this chain of evidence never get impeached? In all of their DNA naysaying, his lawyers never once challenged the disappearance of quantities of blood that mysteriously appeared on separate crime scenes?

im not even going to dignify 'why would coke dealers kill someone who owed them money' with a response
And ignore the other part - about the requirement of a massive cover-up and conspiracy.

the psychosis of oj writing this book = the psychosis of a public constantly and obsessively retrying an ancient case for year after year!??

based on my MANY YEARS of watching bad cop shows, the alternative story would be this:

i. some coke ppl are owed money
ii. they hunt up a rough-stuff artist to throw a scare into their clients
iii. but they fuck up bcz he is in fact a psychotic cokehead flake
iv. the flake tries the scare but the clients are unimpressed and rudely bluster at him -- he loses his cool and murders them
v. the coke ppl realise they are now in a VERY BAD PLACE and "reach out" (© david caruso) to their pal in the lapd, who happens to be MF
vi. mf sez "oof this is tuff but i'll see what i can do, OJ *is* a bit of a bitchslapping case -- plus black -- so maybe i can kinda softly juice up the evidence to pin it on him"
vii. the lapd get over-excited cz it's OJ, and do a sloppy job [this step is STONE FACT, and applies to EVERYONE INVOLVED, judge on down)
viii. as a result of said sloppiness, mf finds it much easier than he expects to play games with the evidence, inc.some HARDLY UNKNOWN winked-at dodgy stuff w.a pal in the forensics lab (who knows NOTHING of coke ppl, but "knows" along with the entire climate across the lapd that "everyone knows it wz oj did it" -- yes yes the hard evidence is a bit weak but he did it so what's the harm in making sure he's caught etc etc)
ix. as trial progresses and mf comes under scrutiny, lapd does typical "we stand by our man" till it's too late -- ok he cuts corners so what becomes OH NOES HE IS THE WORST KIND OF RACIST; they cut their losses and throw HIM under the bus but the bad stuff they began smelling round the edges of his work is a CAN OF WORMS TOO FAR given recent history and who at the time heads the lapd and etc, and so sorta kinda falls back behind the dresser

(ps i don't think this is what happened -- I SAW THE RUBY WAX SHOW -- but i don't understand where milo's need for a MONOLITHIC AND VAST ORGANISED PLAN comes in -- all it requires is the interlock of various small localised pathologies, improvised at point of need)

(a) someone kills them (possibly cokefolx)
(b) some LAPD folx feel certain it was OJ
(c) amid sloppy investigation, one or more LAPD folx try to seal the deal with evidence planting/tampering, either cuz they just know it was him or because they're just being kinda lazy

(Super Cub's alternative does indeed strike me as the more likely one, but Ethan's version here doesn't even require the faint bit of conspiracy in Mark's cop-show routine!)

-- Alex in SF (clobberthesauru...), Today. (Alex in SF) (link)

i don't have an opinion on oj simpson because after watching you all make fools of yourself on this thread i think i am going to refrain from joining you but if you think that coke dealers don't kill people who owe them money you have obviously no inkling as to what the cocaine business is like and have probably been living under a rock since 1970.

Killing the high-profile wife of a celebrity is another matter entirely.

In between TV Nation and the Bowling For Columbine-era Michael Moore did a pilot for a variety show called "The Michael Moore Show." His guest for the pilot: O.J. Simpson. Quoting from the FAQ for alt.tv.tv-nation...

Recently, Moore shot over two days a pilot for a proposed weekly talk show to be aired on FOX featuring Jon Stewart, Sheryl Crow and many others.

The most notable appearance on the show was by O.J. Simpson, who appeared at the end of the show to a completely stunned audience.

(From a post by Peter Shafran on alt.tv.tv-nation:)

"I was in the audience of the pilot last night. I enjoyed the show for the most part. let me tell you about it briefly.

The set was very simple--it was a typical talk show set (desk, chairs, etc. and a small area for musical guests). It was done in early
industrial/garage. It also had a huge monitor/screen for the audience to watch the taped and live segments.

After a short (somewhat lame) monologue/intro, his "henchman", Lucky and ??? gave out guns to the audience in a "right to bear arms" segment. It was pretty funny.

Then they went to Angola Prison in Louisiana via satellite for an interview and tour of the facility with the warden. The subject was prison labor--sort of similar to the NAFTA/Mexico segment from TV Nation. They went back to the prison several times and then finally, supposedly lost the feed for the last segment.

The musical guest was Sheryl Crow, who talked about Wal-Mart's effective censorship of her second album because it contained a reference to Wal-Mart selling guns to children. Then she sang the song. I originally thought she sounded somewhat dopey, but by the end she won me (and most of the audience) over.

BTW, she looks really hot!

There was a lame segment involving pitting 3 Wall St. investment types
(obviously actors) vs. a chimp in picking an investment stock. needless to say, the chimp won. Usually, the chimp would be funny--here, the bit fizzled.

There was another segment pitting the NY (i.e., poor hip) audience vs. the LA (rich out-of-touch) person-on-the-street (obviously pre-taped) and, of course, the NY audience won.

There was another segment involving tainted meat left over from the summer's recall and MM's attempt to sell it to 3rd world countries at the UN (pretty funny) and trying different ways to use the meat, e.g. subway seat cushions, corking baseball bats, birthday cake icing, etc. Then they went back to the studio and passed out "free tainted meat burgers". The taped portion was really funny.

The final segment was a "surprise" guest---O.J. Simpson. They did a typical guest interview and it got a little uncomfortable and then downright ugly as the audience started yelling things out to OJ. He took it in stride and then the staff came around with mikes to ask OJ questions. I, personally, don't believe it was really OJ, but an very convincing lookalike or impersonator who was very knowledgeable about the trial, etc. It really brought the audience down and I felt like I was watching an Andy Kaufman-type bit with MM challenging the audience. Whether or not it really was OJ, I think it was a terrible move on MM's part to use this segment in his pilot. First of all, it was taped out of order, that is, they purposely taped the show ending first and asked the audience to wait around for another segment to be taped out of order. I think they did it this way, because they knew that many people would have walked out (as many did) before the show would be over and then when they would have taped the show ending, there would be many empty seats!

Because that's the only way trife's super-mysterious cocaine ninjas + LAPD conspiracy works. In fact, it's the only way a 'blood planting' conspiracy works at all.

In the real world, miscarriages of justice (the kind of horrifying thing that sets up the idea that, well, OJ is black, and black people are often railroaded, ergo we have to be ultra-suspicious that OJ is being railroaded) are simple - aggro prosecutors, poor defendants, underpaid/overworked PDs on capital cases, prosecutors who lie to jurors, shitty judges who help the state lie to jurors, a jury pool predisposed to distrusting black men, etc..

None of that applies to OJ. He had the best lawyers on Earth, and the most public trial in history, and the most closely-watched set of evidence in recent history. But even if he hadn't, the type of conspiracy trife is alleging just doesn't make sense in the real world. Dirty cops don't do that much work to frame someone - there's not enough in it for them. They coerce confessions, fake informants, and get people to lie.

So you have two real options after trife's coke-dealer hitmen leave: one, a rogue detective managed to plant blood in multiple crime scenes (acquired from where?) in a very short period of time, either under the nose of the entire crime lab (or with their tacit acceptance OR the LAPD sought to frame OJ by planting evidence for weeks afterward (which was trife's exact argument, hence the massive conspiracy).

it happens in miami, where i live.

OJ's explanation that the cuts on his hand came because he had a glass in his hand at his hotel room in Chicago, which he crushed when he heard that Nicole had been killed = kinda most of what you need to know

xpost aimurchie OTM, but most of the dudes proposing OJ's innocence don't seem to find prior bad acts admissable

Maybe he killed his wife. Maybe he didn't kill his wife. If he did, that's terrible. Many other women are also killed by their husbands. Many other people also go to jail and even the electric chair who have not actually killed anyone.

During the trial I made a decision not to form an opinion on his guilt or innocence. I decided that unless I was willing to scrutinize every piece of evidence and testimony as closely as a jury and judge were required to do, it was not for me to determine. I feel the same way to this day, and I think his current behavior, while rather gross, might or might not have anything to do with his potential guilt. I'm not qualified to determine that. Yeah, of course his fucking PUBLISHER thinks she is - she's trying to sell books. I don't know why he'd write the book, and I don't know why anyone would want to read it, and I don't purport to know what it means about his psyche either.

And I don't completely understand why anyone would feel personally angry at OJ, even assuming he did it, any more than they feel angry at any other murderer. I can't help but think the miscegenation fear plays into it, and a more general fear of black people - a fear that there's something inherently murderous about them that can rear its head even when they're ostensibly successful and clean. And of course much of the hatred transfers also to Johnny Cochrane (well, he's in double trouble with the public being both Black and a lawyer). While I think there's a lot more to the obsession than race, I doubt that a white celebrity murder trial would capture the public's attention quite so thoroughly.

Holocaust deniers to thread, pls.

http://www.davidgoldner.com/PhilMJacky1sml.JPG

dealers make an example out of one customer who they know will never pay up to let the rest of them know they're serious.

It's weird to see his face still plastered all over Memphis billboards for his law firm.

You did? Really? How old were you then? Come on, dude. "Pious" is an irrelevant position on the matter at this point.

I can't help but think the miscegenation fear plays into it, and a more general fear of black people

Yeah, I can see that. But this particular black man turned his wife into a pez dispenser. I don't care what color either of them are. He's a very violent criminal, and the evidence to support that is waist deep.

a fear that there's something inherently murderous about them that can rear its head even when they're ostensibly successful and clean

Yuck. It's hard to find an argument for "inherently murderous" or "racist cops" or anything else that might defend OJ when the evidence overwhelmingly points to "killed his wife and her lover." This is not a new crime, ya know.

A friend of mine ran into OJ at a "M.T. Bellies" a few weeks ago and he told her to "stay beautiful."

a fear that there's something inherently murderous about them that can rear its head even when they're ostensibly successful and clean

Yuck. It's hard to find an argument for "inherently murderous" or "racist cops" or anything else that might defend OJ when the evidence overwhelmingly points to "killed his wife and her lover." This is not a new crime, ya know.

Yeah, but you're missing my point. What I'm saying has nothing to do with whether he's guilty. Even if he's guilty, I think the things I mentioned made the case much more of an obsession for people than it would be otherwise.

I actually had the opposite reaction. At the time I found it almost reassuring that the American judicial system, while deeply dysfunctional, was at least consistent. Rich people of whatever colour can get away with anything.

I would disagree. I think it proved quite clearly that if you have enough money to pay for the right lawyers, that you can kill your wife and get away with it in spite of all the evidence indicating that you did it. Even if you're black.

He's not a "real" Kennedy anyway. His uncle drove a woman off a bridge, and that dude's sitting in the Senate now. THAT's the Kennedy magic.

It proved that it was ready for its own cable TV channel.

Maybe he killed his wife. Maybe he didn't kill his wife. If he did, that's terrible. Many other women are also killed by their husbands. Many other people also go to jail and even the electric chair who have not actually killed anyone.

Oh fuck I shouldn't laugh but what an image :)

*at the time most of my knowledge of the case came via dominick dunne in vanity fair, which may well be why i'd been wary of assuming guilt earlier -- yes OJ was a charmlessly weird man with a known history of violence, but on the other hand (for me as a reader back then) DD was an addictively poisonous journalist, and i became fascinated by how little i trusted him
**cardinal legal rule: "don't ask questions you don't know the answer to" -- this was an unforced prosecution error of dramatic magnitude, and one gift to the defence which was NOT bought by the wealth of the defendent

The classic lawyer anecdote to Mark's **:
Attorney: "And you saw several other bar patrons in close combat with Mr. Johnson in a short period of time, correct?"
Witness: "Yes."
Attorney: "So in the midst of this huge bar fight, what you called a 'free-for-all', you never actually saw my client bite off Mr. Johnson's earlobe, is that correct?"
Witness: "That is correct."
Attorney: "So why did you tell the arresting officer that my client bit off Mr. Johnson's earlobe?"
Witness: "I saw him spit it out."

The whole 5th amendment thing baffles me:
"I refuse to tell you if I killed my wife as it would incriminate me in her killing"
"Okay, cheers, that doesn't make you look guilty AT ALL and we'll tell the jury that."

(i have watched so much american procedural drama i no longer remember)

Isn't the right to silence at arrest being eroded under new "make the world a safer place from terrists" moves?

xpost

Some cases (e.g. rape) come down to one person's word against another's. One person is crying rape but the other is legally entitled to sit and say nothing and the jury is instracuted to infer nothing from it. Is that right? Is it the best way to pursue the truth?

I know what you mean, and feel similarly. This was mainly due to OJ being a US Sports star, so I didn't know anything of him, really. It's not due to me being 'pious' or presuming his innocence anymore than presuming his guilt. I didn't really follow the procedings, but was more amazed that a great many people who similarly didn't follow them, had an opinion about his guilt as in "yeah, I reckon he did!"

This happens as much in non-celeb cases, remember how one lad got ambushed on being taken in for questioning about the Jamie Bulger case, later released without charge and two other lads found to be guilty later.

gotta think that in our current csi-lovin era the dna evidence would've been given a lot more credence - in 94 the whole scenario was relatively new, some of the jury likely hadn't even heard of it before the trial.

-- J.D. (aubade8...), November 16th, 2006.

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm talking about - it was treated as though it were a matter of grave national importance.

you mean the worst thing that happens to a witness who comes off like a rape victim is that they come off like a drug-addled whore?

in the uk -- is this still true? i shd maybe read a grown-up newspaper now and then -- rape victims are entitled to full anonymity at the trial and ever after

If memory serves, television cameras weren't allowed in courtrooms until the mid-80s and it wasn't until OJ and the Menendez Brothers where you got gavel-to-gavel coverage. I kinda miss the days of courtroom artists.

As for the first trial-by-media-attention... Maybe the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case?

the queen caroline vs george iv divorce (1820s?) turned into a huge political battle which happened as much in the papers as in parliament

The Trial of the Century, as it was called, was not just a moment for me, it was a seminal moment in American history. The curtain was pulled back on the issues of domestic violence, police corruption, and racism—on both sides. And when the final curtain fell, it fell on the killer, as he is known, providing a protective shield from the consequences of his grievous act.

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1jr.htm

In an eight-page statement, Regan said Simpson approached her with the idea for the book, in which he hypothesizes how he would have committed the killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.

"I didn't know what to expect when I got the call that the killer wanted to confess," Regan said in the statement titled "Why I Did It." "But I knew one thing. I wanted the confession for my own selfish reasons and for the symbolism of that act. For me, it was personal."

Although Regan has acknowledged that Simpson does not directly say he killed the pair, she said she considers the book to be his confession.

"My son is now 25 years old, my daughter 15," the publisher said in her statement. "I wanted them, and everyone else, to have a chance to see that there are consequences to grievous acts. ... And I wanted, as so many victims do, to hear him say, 'I did it and I am sorry.'

"I didn't know if he would. But I wanted to try. I wanted his confession."

Regan, known for such tabloid best sellers as Jose Canseco's "Juiced," said she did not pay Simpson for the book. "I contracted through a third party who owns the rights, and I was told the money would go to his children. That much I could live with.

"What I wanted was closure, not money," she wrote.

Regan's statement did not identify the "third party" or say what she would do with any money made from the book. Phone and e-mail messages from The Associated Press were not immediately returned."

- AP/Yahoo

Oh really?! Judy's not takin any for herself then, is it?

"Here's a man many believe did kill those two Americans, Nicole Brown Simpson being mother of his two children. Yet Simpson is participating in a project that is exploiting the murders. Shamefully, the Fox Broadcasting Unit is set to carry the program, which is simply indefensible, and a low point in American culture. For the record, Fox Broadcasting has nothing to do with the Fox News Channel."

so much for that

Hilarious.

You weren't with him on the whole falafel thing?

I'm tempted to say Judith Regan needs punching, but I reckon that would be misunderstood.

another version.

um... yeah

i know they broke the john edwards thing but

according to a report in the National Enquirer

read that -- yikes. brought two things to mind:

• isn't 9 -- 33 years a very long setence for what simpson was convicted of? no broader point here; i just hadn't focused the length of the incarseration period.

• in a very loosely related story, my law partner just told me that alan stanford was recently beaten so badly -- in federal prison, which is kind of surprising -- that he has been declared incompetent to stand trial.