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

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.