Letters to the Editor
Dawggone
Published Letters: 451 Editor's Choice: 69
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Just my two sense(sp)
[Read the article: O.J.'s profit motive]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's a great book by William Gibson. Well, all of them are great, but this one involved a typical working class schlepp who gets a brief chance at a stint on a legal show. He blows it, but the point was how our legal system is often like the lottery and Celebrity search combined, or maybe Vegas; where the real winner is the house.
O.J. would have been just another washed up athlete story but for the incredible wealth and fame he produced for the likes of people like Nancy Grace. Ted Koppel thinks he owes his career to the Iranian hostage situation, but he is a very good investigative reporter and he would have made his mark elsewhere if 444 days had not happened. The same cannot be said for the vultures that feasted on the OJ trial.
To answer those who posit the legal ramifications of this book, I would direct them to Slate (but only briefly. Obsessive viewing of Salon is a mark of true genius) to the explainer. To explain, double jeopardy is a great law in spite of OJ. It prevents the state from trying someone over and over again until they get the verdict they want. Yes, it means the guilty may get away with it, but, as in this case, that may be a good thing when police go bad.
OJ was acquitted because the LA police have a long history of abusing African Americans. They beat them when others aren't looking, and sometimes are. They torture them for the fun of it. They plant evidence, the lie on the stand and they hold a general opinion that poor black men are criminals first and people never. This is not some Louis Farrakhan rant. This is what many many African Americans living in LA know and learned, often the hard way, about LA police.
Finally, a jury of mostly African Americans watched the LA police and the DA, who for years had been complicit in supporting their abuse, try to send a hero to death row for killing a white woman. The verdict had to be unanimous and just sticking it to the man wasn't going to do it. Instead the police did it for them. They oddly brought vials of Nicole's blood to OJ's house. They put one of their more notorious racists in charge of the investigation. They relied on witnesses more interested in fame than truth. They argued both that OJ was a mastermind of killing and hiding the evidence and a doofus who would leave bloody socks lying on the floor of his bedroom while destroying all the other evidence like he was Jason Bourne.
The LA police acted like they always act, cocksure, biased and incompetent. The jury got to see an LA 'lynching' in all its ugly glory.
The verdict was never really about OJ. It was about the LA police and DA.
Maybe he did get away with it. But think for a moment two things: 1) If someone other than him offed his ex he might be pissed but upon longer reflection wouldn't really care if it didn't screw him, and 2) knowing he did not do it, knowing everyone thinks he did, and knowing he needs money, lots of it, why not write a book about how he killed his wife even if he didn't? It's not like anyone's mind is going to be changed. Of course he could have written a book about how he loved her and didn't kill her, but do you think anyone would have published it? Fox?
This isn't the latest lowest level of sleaze. This is the next wake up call to a society that claims it is a beacon of freedom on the world when it is just party of whores.
Back to the legal. He gave false information to a police officer and/or maybe hindered or obstructed justice (assuming he confessed). The statute of limitations for anything other than their murders has already passed. But then OJ checked that out with his attorney.
Oh and for those of you so angry that "Mandingo" got away with it. I recommend ordering Ragtime from Netflix.
Whatever Abromoff, Ney, or Cunningham get, it will be nothing compared to what "our great running back OJ" would have gotten had he been convicted of killing his ex wife in an emotionally charged psychotic jealous rage.