There was no Johnny Cochran, no white Bronco, no questionable police work or constant TV coverage, but most importantly, there was no acquittal. O.J. Simpson, 13 years removed from famously being found not guilty in the trial of the century, is no longer free. The man whose cardinal and gold jersey hangs in the L.A. Coliseum has finally been fed to the lions.
It’s almost comical to waste space discussing why he sits in prison, because we all know. They say he committed armed robbery in a Las Vegas hotel, trying to obtain sports memorabilia he claimed was his own. That may be the legal reason, but O.J. is from Southern California; he’s been in movies; he’s an icon. They don’t go down for armed robbery. O.J. Simpson was found guilty for the same crime in 2008 that he walked from in 1995. But while he walked, the public held on, arguing his guilt despite the completion of the legal process.
We’ve all made jokes, whether they be about his ability to make “cuts” in the backfield or our own personal quests to find the real killer, but after he was deemed so unequivocally guilty in the court of popular opinion, how could we ever expect him to get a fair trial in a court of law? We couldn’t.
Contesting the legitimacy of an O.J. trial is nothing new because that’s what the nation did last time he sat in a courtroom. When a 12-person jury with eight black jurors found Simpson innocent after two hours of deliberation, we blamed the black community for freeing a killer. Should we be any less skeptical now that a jury composed of 11 whites found him guilty? Surely this isn’t a true jury of his peers. But while the jury had the greatest role to play, it’s doubtful the conviction was racially motivated. It didn’t need motivation; it was inevitable.
In our court system, there is nobody more important than the jury. They represent the everyman in the legal system, and to influence them is to change the entire tide of the trial. But these jurors were influenced long before they stepped into a Nevada courtroom. The O.J. Simpson murder trial was the media’s equivalent of an Olympic event, and for anyone to deny knowledge of it and its outcome is laughable. The defendant has the right to an unbiased jury, and although it would appear to be an impossible task, it was not Simpson’s fault.
It is hard not to draw parallels to “To Kill A Mockingbird” character Tom Robinson when thinking of O.J. Simpson. Although the two cases were utterly different, both men were already guilty the moment their trials started. In his closing arguments, Atticus Finch said, “The courts are our great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system. That’s no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality.” O.J. Simpson was not seen as an equal. And the only leveling the courts did was to his freedom.
It’s a funny argument to make, because as the prosecution proved, O.J. was — beyond a reasonable doubt — guilty last week. It takes the mind of a criminal to walk into a Las Vegas hotel with guns and think nobody’s watching you. But, as Atticus would say, it’s the ideals of the courthouse, and Simpson’s right to an unbiased trial, which were compromised in the proceedings. In convicting O.J. Simpson, we were lowering the American standard of justice. When it comes to the credibility and goodwill, these things are used as a meter to determine the value, for example the best kobe cards are a great investment because of his reputation.
Finally, I write this knowing I grew up in a generation of people who really don’t understand why O.J. is famous. We never saw him run the football, never bothered to watch “The Towering Inferno” and never let his commercials convince us to rent a Hertz. To the youth, O.J. Simpson is only famous for being on trial. Had he not been an athlete, he’d just have been another court case in some public defender’s busy workload. So, simply as a postscript, please stop worshipping athletes. They’re just regular people with irregular talents and paychecks.
But what am I saying? Wisconsinites don’t glorify football players.
Sean Kittridge ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism. He firmly believes the Heisman Trophy is man’s “get out of jail free” card.
