So they finally got O.J.
Late yesterday afternoon, a Vegas jury returned a verdict of guilty against O.J. Simpson and his last remaining co-defendant, Clarence Stewart. Kidnapping and armed robbery replaced the conviction for murder. It may not be enough, but it’s better than nothing. O.J. was remanded awaiting his December 5th sentence.
The verdict, which comes 13 years to the day after Mr. Simpson was acquitted in the highly publicized murders of his ex-wife and her friend, concluded a four-week trial that many have seen as a proxy for those unsatisfied by that 1995 outcome.
This trial, over whether O.J. and his gang of 5 intended to rob two sports memorabilia dealers in a Vegas hotel room, sparked little interest. But then, this wasn’t the old O.J. of the “H’s”, Heisman Trophy and Hertz Rent-a-Car. This was the O.J. who got away with it.
I didn’t follow the trial any more than most, though I heard enough to know that the prosecution relied upon rat testimony of his own peeps, which offered that they not only had guns, but that one said it was at O.J.’s request. That means that O.J. knew about the guns, that were supposedly pulled upon entry into the hotel room.
One doesn’t usually need to pull guns to retrieve ones own personal items. But then, who said there was anything usual about this. After all, if “usual” was the touchstone, most of us don’t have personal memorabilia that would interest anyone besides our kids, and then only briefly.
On the other side, if O.J. was going to get 5 of his closest friends to pull off a hotel room heist, why go with them? His face is somewhat recognizable, and he’s more than a bit notorious. It’s possible that he’s just a self-absorbed moron, who forget that he’s the object of derision 13 years later, but I suspect he’s not. At least not a moron.
But the 800 pound gorilla in the room was always the same, the acquitted murder of his wife. There can be rational person who doubts that this influenced people. On the other hand, there was likely nothing the judge could do to alter the smell of death in the courtroom. And certainly, this taint was no reason to give O.J. a free pass on any future crimes. It was a tough situation.
His attorney, Yale Galanter, said:
“We knew this was going to be very difficult, we knew the jury was going to be very difficult, we knew the jurisdiction would be very difficult.”
For O.J., there was no choice. Adding to his problems, there were no blacks on the jury. They were all probably working a showgirls and croupiers and couldn’t get the time off. For Galanter, you take your cases where you find them, and try to do what you can. Representing high profile defendants, and losing, really stinks.
The co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, 54, was put in an interesting and untenable position by the curse of O.J.
Throughout the trial, Mr. Stewart’s attorney E. Brent Bryson asked repeatedly for Mr. Stewart to receive a separate trial because associating with Mr. Simpson was poisonous to the defense. Each of his severance motions was denied.
“If there was ever a trial in the history of American jurisprudence that should have been severed, it was obviously this trial,” a stunned and dazed Mr. Bryson said. “There’s a spillover effect here. There’s a gentleman by the name of O.J. Simpson who was sitting across the table. Mr. Simpson has a certain history that followed him into the courtroom and, unfortunately, it engulfed Mr. Stewart also.”
As my Alaskan buddy, Sarah Palin, would say, “you betcha.” The spillover prejudice to Stewart was palpable from the start, and there was little way he couldn’t be tainted by the smell. But judicial economy, trying to cases where the evidence is the same so that a judge’s time wouldn’t be wasted by doing it twice, always trumps fairness. In the scheme of important courtroom concerns, the judge’s time is paramount.
Appeals will be forthcoming, of course, and perhaps the appellate court gods will not feel the pressure to make O.J. pay for the murder of his wife. Whether there are good appellate issues remains to be seen. Without having followed the trial closely, I wouldn’t know.
What’s most troubling about this is that O.J. Simpson was acquitted of that murder, after the most highly public, most highly scrutinized trial ever. But O.J. was convicted of murder in the court of public opinion, and from that there is no appeal.
Update: I just happened to turn on MSNBC and saw two very pretty young women, one a defense lawyer and the other a “former prosecutor,” apparently no longer working, discussing this case. The hostess asked them to “read the tea leaves.” They were happy to do so, in a puppy like way with heads a-bobbin.
Who are these young women? Why are they announcing the O.J. is going to lose on appeal (“because a jury found them guilty, and no court is going to ignore that”)? How about, “how should I know, I wasn’t there.” But that would make for bad TV.
And we wonder why the public understands so little about the criminal justice system.
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Both verdicts on my birthday. What could have made that happen? More importantly, who would want his ruined life?
Happy New Year, SHG. It will be a good one.
I think you got it right: Simpson shouldn’t get a get-out-of-jail free card because he was acquitted of a horrible crime that many people (me among them) think he did.
Deserve a fair trial? I go back to my own Eichmann rule: if he deserved a fair trial, everybody does. I don’t know of any reason to think that Simpson didn’t get as fair a one as was possible, or that his main problem in this one was his history rather than what was apparently a whole lot of evidence, and a lack of some sort of alternative explanation for it that could raise something resembling reasonable doubt.
His co-defendant? Another story; I can’t see any good explanation for not trying him separately. Then again, unless it was done at exactly the same time, there would be an argument — in the event that the first defendant got convicted, which doesn’t seem horribly unlikely — that that influenced the jury.
In your view, were they entitled to, as a matter of law or fairness, simultaneous trials?
I may be in the minority (no pun intended) because when the first jury was deliberating (13 years ago?!) I *knew* they had a not-guilty verdict.
Why? Simple. I was in law school at the time, trying to figure out the ins and outs of manslaughter, depraved heart, murder, malice aforethought, etc. It was confusing. This jury was not a bunch of 1Ls, and they figured out whatever it was in what, 30 minutes? So I knew they could not have come up with a guilty verdict on any of the counts, because just trying to define the various elements would take hours!
Too bad I wasn’t graded on it!
I think the refusal to sever is a very real issue. The outcome of the first trial (they could never happen simultaneously) would possibly have an impact on the second, but more than likely the difference between the defendants would address that. When you can’t have perfection, you go for the best possible alternative. Or, as here, the easiest.
I saw this trial as the best reason for not televising trials to the public. They watch a few minutes, or worse yet, the highlights, and make up their mind. The fact that they miss most of the trial doesn’t bother them much.
On the other hand, it made more than a few TV lawyers’ careers. Gretta, Toobin and the lovely Star Jones. What trial lawyer wouldn’t trade his client’s freedom for a chance to be Star Jones (post surgery).
I also didn’t follow the trial but my viewing pleasure was interrupted by a bombshell of a court clerk reading the verdict forms like she was about to explode on O.J.
The sever issue will be a cornerstone of their appeal but who in Sam Hill would allow a jury with White females!!! And now you have every news channel calculating consecutive sentences and creating a hostile environment for a sentencing judge!!!
We will have a whole month after the election to sit and listen to how the judge needs to throw the book at O.J.
Thats not justice, thats revenge and it makes us no better than who we need O.J. to be…
I would love to know what the candidates feel about this…
remy
Actually, I believe that I can partially help out with the candidates. Sarah Palin, in an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity’s son, after answering the long awaited “if you were a tree” question, was asked what she thought about the O.J. verdict.
Her response: Well, John and I, as you know, we are mavericks, and you betcha that I like justice, and orange juice, also it’s about jobs, and John and I will win the war in Iraqm (wink), no white flag of surrender here, and that will bring jobs also, Joe Sixpack needs a job and John is a maverick and Obama voted 94 times to convict innocent citizens, and hockey moms don’t like that, also.
I hope this helps.
Can I do the Joe Biden one?
Sure. Fair is fair. Knock yourself out.
“Well, I was just shooting the breeze about this with my buddies over at Home Depot, and they know that him getting off in the first place was my friend John’s fault. Now, I love John — he’s a great guy — but if he hadn’t voted against putting another hundred thousand cops on the street, there would have been one on the corner in Beverly Hills where Simpson shot those three people in the first place. And when Barack Obama and I are in the White House, we’ll put a lid on this unrestricted trade in sports memorabilia, which is what got us into this problem, anyway.
“We had the chance to stop Simpson, anyway, back when the US and France kicked Hamas out of Lebanon, and did I mention that all the guys down at Fred’s Bar were against leaving that power vacuum, too?”
Say it’s not so, Joe. (Unexplained eye twitch)
HT: Randazza from Adennak via Andrew Sullivan
Well, on one ticket, we’ve got an unqualified, but very well-spoken piece of attractive eye-candy; and on the other one, we’ve got one who can field-dress a moose.