OJ’s trial goes beyond his innocence or guilt. His trial was racially charged and cannot be understood outside this context. I don’t think those who celebrated his acquittal believed in his innocence as much as they saw it a victory that a black man used his privilege and resources to escape justice the way so many white criminals had in the past. Not justice, but equality, American style.
For white America, it came as quite a shock that a rich black celebrity could leverage race tensions to escape accountability. This was such a singular event it resonates 30years later. If you’re black, you don’t need a long memory to see justice betrayed behind some racist bullshit.
I think a major factor was also that the police apparently tried to frame him. It’s unfortunate that this resulted in the jury not believing the actual evidence, but the blame lies with the police for that.
Yeah the absolutely botched detective work and diareagrd for crime scene discipline caused a total overhaul of how crime scenes are handled today. The first cops on scene treked through the blood and took vloddy footprints across the house before the detectives showed up to start gathering evidence.
I find it weird how everyone acts like he absolutely 100% did it, when we know that the police investigation was racist, explicitly corrupt, and incompetent, and the evidence we do have points more heavily at his son Jason having done it.
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Oh wow, a convicted felon accepted $600k for a book deal. He also tried to setup a robbery of a trading and collectables dealer, all that’s evidence of is that OJ wanted money.
it’s true that it was close to impossible for the jury to remain unaffected by the political situation in LA at the time.
But the police and prosecutors did such a bad job it was almost impossible to convict him beyond reasonable doubt. He was convicted easily in the civil case later.
There was something that you touched on that goes unnoticed in your presentation. The context also includes the media cycle. OJ’s case was HIGHLY publicized. It was unlike any other trail in history. There was constant coverage of a former NFL superstar turned into a movie star under a murder charge that he ran away from in a high speed freeway chase. We literally watched the verdict being read in highschool where everyone could hear it. The scale was phenomenal and I don’t feel it has been followed the same since.
This is probably the most succinct I’ve ever heard it described.
This is a really good point.
While I totally agree that the rich (regardless of color) are not treated the same by our system of justice, he was so beyond all doubt guilty that it actually hurt the Black community. Whites and other peoples of color were disappointed that any person regardless of the tint of their skin was not held accountable for the obvious brutal murder of 2 people. And how sad that at this point we still make judgements based on how light or how dark a person’s skin is.
That sounds like white racist people being racist because they were racist.
I think the folks who were happy to see him get off were more interested in the (not legal)indictment of the LAPD and admission of their corruption:
That was a good read, thanks for posting it.
Thanks for taking the time. He’s a great follow if you’re on Mastodon.
It’s the perfect example of what happens when your police department is so corrupt and racist that they try to frame a guilty man.
Question one, who the fuck thought this?
Essentially nobody now, there has been decades of right wing spin trying to make everyone forget just how badly the LAPD compromised the case with insane overt racism and mishandling evidence. The reason OJ Simpson was found not guilty wasn’t because the jury was hypnotized or just wanted to let him go, it was because of police misconduct.
DNA evidence was also very new, and wasn’t trusted by the larger population yet.
Oddly enough, there’s reason to doubt DNA evidence from that era for not being robust enough
There was a huge disparity in opinion between black and white communities at the time of the trial: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/files/2015/09/Simpson-Public-Opinion.png
I find it weirder that so many people are so convinced he did it without knowing jack shit about the case. Feels like a lot of white rage carried down.
OP thinking that Lemmy is popular enough with the boomers that someone is going to answer this.
Was anyone on Lemmy, except me, alive at the time of the trial?
Hello I was alive. They made a joke out of that judge with the Dancing Itos, and made the whole thing into a circus. The victims got entirely swallowed up. Nicole Brown Simpson had called the cops for his actions nine times.
I’m in my 40s. Yeah, I was.
You’re 17 days old, how could you have been alive in 1995?
I was a young adult at the time (born in 66 so GenX for whatever it’s worth). My take is the LAPD as a whole were despised and not just along racial lines. Watch any documentary on the early SoCal punk scene and you’ll see what I mean
Yes. I knew that fucker was guilty the moment I heard of the murders.
I’m even old enough to see him play in the NFL. Although I have zero memories of that time as a child. Even though the Patriots and Buffalo would’ve played together.
No one who watched the trial in real actual time thought that he was innocent at all
No one I knew though he was innocent, but a lot of people thought he was going to be found innocent because Fuck The Police was a big deal.
No one objected to the outcome of the civil suit.
Parts of the official story make no sense.
He killed two people, got rid of ALL the clothes he was wearing, got rid of the murder weapon, but somehow left one glove behind and took the other one home?
Then there was the bloody fingerprint:
"An important bloody fingerprint located on the gateway at Nicole Brown’s house was not properly collected and entered into the chain of custody when it was first located. Although it was documented in his notes by Detective Mark Fuhrman, one of the first to arrive on the scene, no further action was taken to secure it.
The detectives who took over Fuhrman’s shift apparently were never aware of the print and eventually, it was lost or destroyed without ever being collected."
It’s pretty clear the cops fucked it up. It’s not possible to say if he was guilty or not because of the police fuckery.
Another good piece… cops found a bloody sock in his home and the blood was found to be from both himself and Nicole…
Problem was it also contained the preservative police labs use to keep blood liquid, and it had soaked through from one side of the sock to the other and down to the carpet,meaning it had been poured on the sock from above in the Simpson home:
I mean, he confessed to the murder after the trial ended. Even wrote a book about it. There shouldn’t be anyone left who thinks he didn’t do it.
I mean… someone else wrote that book, and then offered him $600,000 to endorse it… and $600,000 is a lot of money.
It was fun watching the whole legal lawsuit with that book thing… it’s actually technically called ‘if I did it’ but something something… People sued or whatever and now legally the ‘if’ is in very very very very small print and the ‘I did it’ is extremely large and I think that’s pretty cute
No he did not confess to it.
“at the time of the trial”
Yeah, and I’m saying everyone who thought he was innocent at the time of the trial has later changed their mind.
Think about this: he never killed anyone else. You think a murderer would be able to just one-and-done like that after getting away with it?
Clearly he was innocent all along.
You’re kidding right?
My logic is impeccable.
Wasn’t one of the reasons because the jury was worried about a reaction similar to the Rodney King riots?
I had heard this at the time, but someone correct me if I’m wrong
I’m never sure whether that’s a serious concern or just “I didn’t agree with the jury’s ruling. Am I out of touch with the evidence? No, it’s the jury that’s wrong!”
