anniversary

June 12, 2004 3:16 AM

10 years ago today, and the killer is still at large.
posted by crunchland (44 comments total)

June 12, 1994 ... Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are stabbed to death. Their bodies found in the front courtyard of the Nicole's condominium in Brentwood, California.
posted by crunchland at 3:18 AM on June 12, 2004

Yeah I remember being in highschool when the verdict was announced, and a black girl next to me cheered and applauded. I wanted to say "what are you cheering for? This isn't a victory for black people, this is a victory for rich men who want to beat and murder their girlfriends." But I didn't, o well.
posted by kavasa at 4:39 AM on June 12, 2004

"There are things that she could be doing with the kids better than I, you know? When, it's emotional stuff, especially with my daughter, I am angry with her," Simpson, 56, said of his former wife. "I am angry that she found herself hanging out with the group of -- who are these people?"

And a TV show where we have the Juice doing bits a la Punk'd? Jesus H. Christ. The man is completely insane.
posted by birdherder at 4:51 AM on June 12, 2004

Hahaha...I remember how at my middle school, the minority students (mostly Mexican-Americans, but there were some black students as well) planned a walk-out if Simpson was found guilty. They passed the word along to me almost as an afterthought. I replied that I thought Simpson probably was guilty. That pretty much sealed the opinion at middle school that I wasn't really Mexican.
posted by jennak at 4:52 AM on June 12, 2004

It wasn't until October 3, 1995, that OJ was acquitted... wheels of justice, and all.
posted by crunchland at 5:11 AM on June 12, 2004

It's also five years since the conflict in Kosovo, and forty years since Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment. And it's Russia Day. Every day is the anniversary of something... much more here.
posted by reklaw at 6:02 AM on June 12, 2004

I think he was guilty. I also think the police framed him. (For me the thing that's always seemed wrong is the glove they found on his property, which was on the other side of the house from the trail of blood he left from his car to the house.)

His being acquitted doesn't mean that he didn't do it, it means the prosecution didn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:18 AM on June 12, 2004

If I ever meet him in person I'm going to ask him how it feels to murder your wife and get away with it. It must be great, pulling that off, you know?
posted by tommasz at 6:19 AM on June 12, 2004

I think it was the right verdict for the case the prosecution presented. Which is to say- they did a lousy job of presenting a case that had plenty of substantial evidence (they didn't bother to put on the shoeprint evidence- though they were entitled to- that helped seal the case in civil court,) they goofed around and asked questions they didn't know the answers to and got burned for it (Hey, OJ, do these gloves fit? No? Awwwwwww...) and I think the police case did no favors to the prosecution's. It was the right verdict for that particular case, and the right verdict for the Civil Case. Jury members afterwards said if they'd known about evidence that was presented in the Civil Case, they probably would have voted to convict.

Hopefully, that taught LA County prosecutors that playing to the cameras is a bad idea, because I really don't think the defense won this one, so much as the prosecutors lost it. (And I personally still think that Ito should have thrown out the glove, etc., that was found when the police went onto his property without a warrant to "check on him." Check on him, my butt. They knew he had a history of domestic violence with Nicole, they knew he was the most likely suspect, they just wanted to catch him bloody-handed. Shame, shame.)
posted by headspace at 6:26 AM on June 12, 2004

the killer is still at large

But OJ's still looking for him!

On a serious note, I agree with kirkaracha. It seems pretty clear that he was guilty, but the prosecution flubbed the case, and if I had been on the jury I might (reluctantly) have voted to acquit too. I was on a jury trying a suspected drug offender, and though we were pretty sure he was guilty the cops didn't even come close to proving it, so we let him go. That's the way our legal system works, and a good thing too.
posted by languagehat at 7:16 AM on June 12, 2004

Another take on the story.

And while I don't think OJ is worthy of jack squat outside of his football accomplishments and his tour de force in the Naked Gun movies, XQUZYPHYR, for most Americans old enough to remember it his verdict is one of those You Remember Where You Were moments.

(I do, anyway...)
posted by Cyrano at 7:19 AM on June 12, 2004

anybody insane enough to rely on klukker-in-disguise Fuhrman, dumb enough to attempt the glove stunt, sleazy enough to try the case downtown only to look good to minorities for cynical political gain (it's that Simi Valley jury's fault, I know, but still) deserved to lose. and lose big, in such an embarrassing way, in front of the whole world.
I'm not surprised Garcetti decided to leave the Law and switch to photography.

not to mention that, come on, pitting a team of kickass, bloodthirsty millionaire lawyers like Scheck and Cochran and that mean brilliant drunk Bailey and all the others, pitting them against poor, arrogant and incompetent Clark&Darden was just like watching a pack of piranhas fight 50 pounds of raw hamburger. not much of a fight there

the problem with the Law is that stupid DA's (and delinquent cops) can provoke a lot damage. like, letting an obviously guilty murderer walk, happily, free
posted by matteo at 7:30 AM on June 12, 2004

"the cops didn't even come close to proving it, so we let him go."

That's bull.

I watched the whole trial. His pricey legal team got him off even though it was an open and shut case. He's rich, so he got off. That's the way our legal system works, and it sucks.
posted by y6y6y6 at 7:52 AM on June 12, 2004

y6,
I suspect languagehat's talking about the drug trial, not OJ's
posted by matteo at 8:11 AM on June 12, 2004

Oops. My bad. You were right, I was wrong.
posted by y6y6y6 at 8:27 AM on June 12, 2004

I didn't see much of the trial - I think I was in college at the time, and actually had other things to do. But I clearly remember when the verdict was announced, and how fundamentally it split the world. I don't think I knew one white person happy with the verdict, nor one black person upset by it. It was really amazing how it divided people so closely along racial lines...

"what are you cheering for? This isn't a victory for black people, this is a victory for rich men who want to beat and murder their girlfriends."

although I made this argument myself many times, I think there are two aspects that made it seem like a victory for a lot of black americans. One, the more cynical reason to celebrate, is that, well, a white man could get away with it for sure, if he had enough money. So was a black man's money just as good? At this level, it's not about who is or isn't guilty; it's just about whether the outcome would be the same if the guy was white.

Then there's the police framing aspect. As kirkaracha said, this doesn't mean he didn't do it, but if people felt the police were specifically out to get him, unfairly focused on him in a way they wouldn't have been if he'd been white (or maybe if his wife had been black) then it becomes a victory if despite their most aggressive tactics, he goes free.

Meanwhile, from the perspective of white america, it is all about the particular case, not these larger symbolic issues. And this is largely because white america is much less convinced that racism is still a major problem, while black america tends to be more convinced that things would be completely different if the races of individuals were switched...
posted by mdn at 8:38 AM on June 12, 2004

As a sports fan, but one who lives in Australia, you might find it funny that I thought OJ was just an actor.

I only realised later he was a sportsman. And a champion sportsman at that. In Oz, we seemed to spend more time marvelling at the media circus than we did studying the facts of the case. I don't think I'll ever grasp how "huge" this story really was to Americans.

A bit like Fran Tarkington. To me he was just on of the dudes from That's Incredible. It wasn't until 15 years later that I found out he was a bloody decent gridiron football player.

I think he was guilty. I also think the police framed him.

Interesting theory, kirkaracha. I haven't heard that one before.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:17 AM on June 12, 2004

kirkaracha's theory is not an uncommon one I think. it's one I hold.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 10:44 AM on June 12, 2004

Aw man, Nordberg ain't kill nobody.
posted by xmutex at 10:50 AM on June 12, 2004

You realize, of course, that prosecuters don't get paid like pricey legal teams...
posted by Eekacat at 11:27 AM on June 12, 2004

He was guilty, even with the case being flubbed. (It terrifies me that people here admit they wouldn't have convicted him either).

I was always amused that the police and detectives were considered inept except when it came to the giant cover up. They did a great job there.

With jury comments like this after the trial:

"I didn't understand the DNA stuff at all. To me, it was just a waste of time. It was way out there and carried no weight with me."

Perry Mason could have tried OJ and he would have walked.

Reminds me of the recent Williams trial where a juror said:

"He didn't have the look of the cold-blooded killer," juror Angela Pravata, 37, told reporters outside the Somerset County Courthouse in Somerville, N.J. "I didn't see it in his eyes."

OJ wasn't framed. He's rich and got away with it. Where money and fame is involved the jury system becomes useless.
posted by justgary at 11:44 AM on June 12, 2004

In other news, this applies to hundreds of other people. Look I know OJ exploited the system, but come on. He's not worthy of marking milestones.


Oh lord, I actually agree completely, 100%, with something XQUZYPHYR wrote. Must be dreaming...
posted by Plunge at 11:52 AM on June 12, 2004

It is sad that we now recognize the passing of time via "Media Events". If this piece of crap wasn't on every channel 24 hours a day, we wouldn't be saying, "Remember the OJ trial? Good times, good times..."

You know what this leads to.
10 years ago today, the first American Idol was broadcast to millions of adoring fans.
15 years ago, Tony Soprano was killed in the final episode of the 6 season hit The Sopranos.
25 years ago, Baby Jessica was stuck in that stupid well.

A: "Hey, when did we land on the moon?"
B: "Shit, I dunno. Who cares? Hey, it's been 15 years since that Friends finale."
A: "Really? Damn. That episode sucked."
B: "Yeah, I know. Good show though. Good show."
posted by graventy at 1:05 PM on June 12, 2004

I originally thought that OJ was going down the river, and my housemate at the time thought he was going to get off. At the last minute, both of us changed our minds, and I won five dollars. I also had a little side wager with a lady friend of mine that wound up paying out fairly well. That's about the extent to which the OJ trial influenced my life, aside from the year and change of annoyance at the stupid media.

On preview: graventy, have you seen Baby Jessica lately? I think she's, like, 18 now. Just for the record.
posted by majcher at 2:43 PM on June 12, 2004

justgary: sure, there were some dimbulbs on the jury, but if they didn't understand the DNA evidence, the prosecution didn't explain it well enough. It helped that they caught Fuhrman lying on the stand.

That Baby Jessica photo's a fake (scroll down a bit).
posted by kirkaracha at 3:16 PM on June 12, 2004

Apparently the case inspired these classy bloody-glove bookholders.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:24 PM on June 12, 2004

His being acquitted doesn't mean that he didn't do it, it means the prosecution didn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it.

To me, it means that the jury was about as smart as a bag of hammers. Winning the case was all about confusing the jury, which was all too easy.
posted by beth at 3:40 PM on June 12, 2004

Serious question, because I don't know - whatever happened to that OJ's kid did it?

Was that ever prosecuted?
posted by swerdloff at 4:17 PM on June 12, 2004

sure, there were some dimbulbs on the jury, but if they didn't understand the DNA evidence, the prosecution didn't explain it well enough.

I agree the prosecution did a poor job in many areas of the trial, but this type comment:

To me, it was just a waste of time. It was way out there and carried no weight with me.

shows an unwillingness to learn, maybe an inability to learn.

Regardless, I would have convicted OJ on circumstancial evidence alone.
posted by justgary at 9:18 PM on June 12, 2004

Wow, I thought I was weird for holding what I call the nuanced view which we are now all calling the Kirkaracha Theory.
I've always believed that OJ's acquittal was a victory for our legal system and its reliance on the presumption of innocence. I've tried to explain to people that it doesn't matter how guilty a person actually is, all that matters is "beyond a reasonable doubt". The adversarial jury trial system is not meant to arrive at any transcendent notion of Truth. At the end of that trial I believed that OJ had committed the crime, I also believed that there were other possible explanations.
(My view of the nature of proof would probably get me excused if I were called for jury duty)
BTW, I'd support a constitutional amendment that replaced juries with panels of judges as are used in the appellate courts. I think such serious decisions should be made by people who actually know what's going on (not all judges do, but I think there are fewer morons among them).
posted by Octaviuz at 10:28 PM on June 12, 2004

I think it was the right verdict for the case the prosecution presented.

It was the right verdict for the case that the prosecution presented to the jury they had a hand in assembling. Darden's greatest strength, in previous trials, was in jury selection. The prosecution had one of the best jury consultants in the country working with them. And yet, working from a jury pool of several hundred, and knowing that they had no eyewitness testimony and a large portion of their case was the DNA evidence which has confounded juries in the past, they allowed themselves to get stuck with no fewer than four jurors whose responses to the written questionnaires indicated lower than average reading comprehension and should have red-flagged them as incapable of handling technical evidence fairly.

The trial was lost before opening statements were ever made. The prosecution didn't lose because they used Furman, they didn't lose because their DNA expert was boring and awful, they didn't lose because of Technician Fung or the glove stunt or the pathetic frame-up attempt of the LAPD. They lost because they let the defense stack the jury with idiots.

You realize, of course, that the state has resources far greater than any one individual...

The state, perhaps so. One District Attorney's office, in a vast and crime-ridden metropolitan area, which must allocate funds for all aspects of a trial from a finite (and routinely inadequate) budget, no, absolutely not.
posted by Dreama at 11:41 PM on June 12, 2004

As a juror, I just recently convicted a guy of murder. There were eyewitnesses and circumstantial evidence, and it was still quite difficult to convict him. You really have to separate your emotional and logical sides, and go by the book. (Suppressing the emotions and not being able to talk about the case for the duration of the trial were pretty stressful andI crashed hard when it was over.) We couldn't say, "duh, he did it," we had to consider all the evidence and decide whether or not the prosecution had proved their case. You're given very specific instructions and definitions, especially about reasonable doubt. I wouldn't have liked it, but I might have voted to acquit OJ, not because I thought he didn't do it, but because the prosecution blew it.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:39 AM on June 13, 2004

I've always believed that OJ's acquittal was a victory for our legal system and its reliance on the presumption of innocence. I've tried to explain to people that it doesn't matter how guilty a person actually is, all that matters is "beyond a reasonable doubt". The adversarial jury trial system is not meant to arrive at any transcendent notion of Truth.

Exactly. And kirkaracha, I'm not surprised you've served on a jury. I suspect people who've had that experience have a much better understanding of these things than the "Duh, he's guilty!" crowd. Personally, I'm far more worried about the erosion of our common-law protections than I am about the occasional murderer getting off the hook.
posted by languagehat at 6:41 AM on June 13, 2004

The trial was lost before opening statements were ever made.

Definitely, and this happens quite often, which is why jury selection is such an important part of our system.

I'm not surprised you've served on a jury. I suspect people who've had that experience have a much better understanding of these things than the "Duh, he's guilty!" crowd.

Except me, I guess.

Really, you're painting those who claim OJ should have been found guilty as having a "Duh, he's guilty!" attitude when in reality the opposite is true.

If you look at the case as a whole I'm not sure how anyone could find him not guilty. Then you look at the jury's makeup and realize it was hopeless from the beginning.

They trial wasn't just the dna, or the glove that didn't fit, but that's what you'll hear from people who didn't even watch the trial.

Read "Outrage" by Vincent Bugliosi and see if he came to his conclusion with a "duh, he's guilty" attitude.

This is just a case, as dreama stated, that was lost from the beginning. Sometimes, even well designed, systems break down. It broke down here.
posted by justgary at 9:13 AM on June 13, 2004

Metafilter: You were right, I was wrong.

(Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?)
posted by rushmc at 10:03 AM on June 13, 2004

you're painting those who claim OJ should have been found guilty as having a "Duh, he's guilty!"

Sorry, I didn't mean it that way; I just meant that the people on a jury have to decide the case based on the case the prosectution puts on and the way they present it. I think the prosecution was sloppy enough and the defense was effective enough that some people could have reasonable doubt.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:05 AM on June 13, 2004

Kirkaracha, my comment was regarding languagehat's comments.

But I do understand what you're saying. I just don't think it would have made a difference with some in the Jury. Sadly, we'll never if a competent prosecution team would have resulted in a different verdict.
posted by justgary at 3:03 PM on June 13, 2004

I was a senior in high school during much of the trial, and I took an advanced English course - Rhetoric I - during which we studied the trial. Basically, that meant watching coverage of the trial for 3/4 of class time and discussing it in the last 1/4. Our reading assignments were liberal and conservative newsmagazine articles discussing the trial and its "implications."

We were in class when the verdict was announced, we watched it on live TV. Our teacher, Mr. Reid - who is hands-down one of the finest educators to ever grace public schools - had watched as much coverage of the trial as he possibly could, and when they announced that he was not guilty, he cursed loudly from the back of the room: "Goddamnit!"

Then he walked to the middle of the room, among all our desks, pointed at the TV and shouted at the top of his lungs, "That man killed two people!"

I will remember that for the rest of my life.
posted by rocketman at 1:51 PM on June 14, 2004

I think he was guilty. I also think the police framed him.

Yep. Me too. And frankly, I'm glad he got off, even though I think he's probably guilty, since that should be the result any time there's shenanigans going on with the police or the prosecution, as far as I'm concerned (along with prosecution and serious consequences for those doing the framing). You don't get to invent evidence, no matter HOW guilty you think someone is. I watched most of the trial, and it seemed very clear to me that the glove evidence was clearly planted, and had I been on the jury, I'd have had real trouble trusting the rest of the evidence.
posted by biscotti at 2:28 PM on June 14, 2004

I watched the whole trial. His pricey legal team got him off even though it was an open and shut case.
You may want to then do your homework on OJ's oldest son. He has a history involving his chef's knives and assaulting his girlfriends. Don't forget where Nicole Simpson was originally reserved for dinner that night - OJ oldest son's restaurant that he was a su-chef at.

Probably OJ just cleaned up the mess and hid the true facts.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:03 PM on June 14, 2004

I watched most of the trial, and it seemed very clear to me that the glove evidence was clearly planted, and had I been on the jury, I'd have had real trouble trusting the rest of the evidence.
No glove will fit OJ but think he used them to clean up the mess. There is precedence here. When he played college ball they had to specifically make a helmet for him, which was a new thing in that era and time. Seen him in person, Mr Potato Man fits his build.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:08 PM on June 14, 2004

"It's me doing gags as Juice ... what they call 'juicing' people."

i'm pretty sure i don't want to be "juiced."
posted by mrgrimm at 5:36 PM on June 14, 2004

he's probably guilty

Understatement of the year. The man did it. Even if the glove was planted, which I don't think it was, cirumstancial evidence alone convicts him.

I really don't think people remember the entire trial, nor have they heard a competent, or even brilliant attorney like Bugliosi present the facts. Plant a glove? Maybe. Frame OJ? Impossible.

Luckiest man alive.
posted by justgary at 9:32 PM on June 14, 2004

That Baby Jessica photo's a fake

Yeah, pretty obvious joke, there. Back page and all. You should see how that clone baby turned out, this month...
posted by majcher at 3:14 AM on June 20, 2004