At 1:20 pm EST on Decmber 5, 2008, O.J. Simpson’s 13-year long hunt for “the real killers” (killers he apparently believed were hiding on golf courses in Florida) came to an end in a Las Vegas courtroom.
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ninerdave
Who gives a flying fuck about OJ?
r€nato
Fred Goldman does.
mgordon
I’m happy for Fred Goldman. Hopefully that 15 years will turn out to be a life sentence.
r€nato
I wonder how he will be treated in prison. Will he be a celeb like Tommy Chong was? Will he have to be put in solitary to protect him from inmates who want to make a name for themselves by being the guy who shanks OJ?
r€nato
…I’m thinking they have to keep OJ isolated from the general population. The white supremacists will want to take him out.
Church Lady
I saw a few minutes of it and watched while OJ made his statement to the Judge. He sounded like a broken man – and it’s about time.
On the other hand, why is this getting wall-to-wall coverage on cable news? Is there nothing else more important going on in the world?
Justin
I think the white supremacists will be quite happy to have a black celebrity rotting in prison to support their belief that you can the boy out of the hood… If I were OJ I’d be more worried about the NOI inmates looking to set an example.
Dobby
OJ was framed twice in one lifetime. How unlucky can a guy be?
Paul in Boca
Dobby,
From what universe are you visiting?
Zifnab
We’re still waiting for an update on the Ramsey Murder. Also, no news on Natalie Holloway. Maybe the one of the Clintons will fart in public.
Oh, I’m sorry. You were looking for something important on cable news. I think that’s where your problem starts.
Edly
15 years?!? That’s an awfully stiff sentence for a first time off…(snerk)…a first tiiiii…(gumph)…a first….BLAHHAHAHAHAHA
(Sniff)Sorry, I just couldn’t…(heh)…couldn’t say it straight! I wonder how his lawyer managed to?
Lisa Dayley
Maybe O.J. will find Ron and Nicole’s real killer in prison.
Michael D.
I have no interest in O.J. Simpson other than the fact that he got away with murder – and he did. But you are so right about your comment. We have some shitty attention spans when it comes to important things.
Joshua Norton
They could go after Capone for tax evasion. But they finally got him. OJ is where he belongs at long last.
sgt_trdy
he’ll finally meet some real killers in prison…hopefully. his kind of people.
Dennis - SGMM
@Zifnab:
Hey, there’s a rumor that Tom Cruise has two life-threatening hangnails. Even as I write, cable television trucks are fanning out to interview anyone who ever had anything to do with Cruise and world famous hangnail specialists are providing taped interviews. Sources at all three cable news networks insist that the unfolding story has nothing to do with the December release of Cruise’s latest incipient flop.
Jay
White folks not named or related to Fred Goldman who are angry at OJ crack me up. I wonder if ya’ll even realize how racist you look. Where’s the Robert Blake hate? Doesn’t exist. 15 years for trying to get your shit back? Comedy.
Laura W
There’s a bear in a tree in a NJ back yard. And a house fire in Iowa. Contessa will get back to those shortly.
Talk about a broken man…Fred Goldman’s life was consumed by grief and anger. I still have a "Thank You for your donation" card from the Ron Goldman fund from 1996 or so. I was obsessed with that whole drama. I was making my bed in Monterey, CA, the morning I heard the tv announce Nicole’s murder. I knew OJ had done it, instantaneously.
The day the criminal trial verdict came down was the day I got a letter (yeah, my family is weird) from my dad telling me he had inoperable lung cancer. Those two days are forever linked.
ricky
This is incredibly unfair. After 13 years it dawned on OJ that to catch a killer he had to think like the hated cops.
So, as Norberg learned from Drebin in "33 1/3," this crime was a ruse to get him inside where the real killer is hiding.
r€nato
OJ should have been sentenced for the crime of which he was convicted, not the one he got away with.
Still, can anyone doubt that he killed Nicole and Ron Goldman? Clearly he seems to think he can do what the hell he wants when push comes to shove.
blogenfreude
White supremacists? Don’t you think he’ll get sent to one of those daintier prisons?
r€nato
Well Jay, the Robert Blake trial was not the national media circus the OJ trial was. Blake did not do a slow-speed chase in a Bronco during the NBA Finals which was covered by national television.
For what it’s worth – if it will make you happy and shut you up – Blake got away with murder too and he’s a dirtbag.
I suppose the racial aspect made it more titillating, but if you are insinuating that we are a bunch of racists, you are kindly invited to GFY.
joe from Lowell
Now we’ll never know who did it!
Dennis - SGMM
How about fifteen years for robbing someone at gunpoint while holding them captive?
r€nato
I would not be so sure about that. This was a Nevada court. I do not think they will be as impressed with his celebrity, as a California court might be.
Zifnab
@Michael D.:
I don’t even know anymore. You start reading into that case – about the drugs and the mafia and the family problems on all sides and the racist as all get out LAPD – and its really hard to sit down and announce with full confidence that you know anything about what the fuck happened.
But I was in freak’n middle school when that case got plastered across every television in America. So yeah, I really just don’t care. And our media sucks. News at eleven.
c from j
Jay is the only one that gets it.. It was Mark Furman’s fault remember. By by Orenthal
C
Xecky Gilchrist
@Church Lady: why is this getting wall-to-wall coverage on cable news?
I bet it’s an homage. IMO, the OJ trial was the catalyst for cable news becoming completely irrelevant harping on a single sensational story when they have 24 hours a day when they could be reporting on as many as two different things (some theorists claim as many as three). I consider the OJ trial not the birth, but certainly the coming-of-age of infotainment.
Stuck in the Funhouse
O.J. to the Judge:
I just hope George Bush was listening.
blogenfreude
I’m not so sure either. On the one hand it’s NV, on the other OJ might create too many problems with the rest of the inmates if the prison has to spend resources protecting him.
Paul in Miami
Sounds like the judge had an axe to grind….and Fred Goldman can just go to hell for all I care.
Bea
@Dobby:
You have got to be kidding??!!!?? There is no doubt he committed those murders. And I think this has been the best thing that could happen to him. Now he will see, that fame and money cannot keep him safe all the time. He needs to learn a lesson before someone else dies. I think he should have gotten MORE time. But, this might teach him a good hard lesson. At least he has the chance to do that, Nicole and Ron did not get that chance or any chance for that matter. Set up !!!! He is his own worst enemy. He thought he was untouchable, glad to see he’s not.
Bea
Dennis - SGMM
@blogenfreude:
Well, the Governor of Nevada can always petition Bush to declare Simpson an enemy combatant and whisk him off to Gitmo.
Jen R
Fuck, I’m old.
r€nato
Oh, I am not saying that they won’t put OJ in solitary or otherwise take steps to protect him.
But, that is a far different case than putting him in a minimum-security prison to do ‘easy time’.
Joshua Norton
Exactly. OJ created and 9/11 solidified the "All Circus, All the Time" format that is now cable news.
Stuck in the Funhouse
I eagerly await the OJ Debut on MSNBC’s Raw:Lockup.
pharniel
@Xecky Gilchrist:
the birth is commemorated by "dirty laundry", the coming of age by "Garden of Allah".
both by don heanley
Laura W
@Joshua Norton: Greta van Cistern owes her entire stellar tv career to OJ.
Probably Dan Abrams, too.
Justin
It’s not hate, it’s contempt for someone who is widely perceived to have gotten away with murder just because of a media circus and a gold-plated legal team, coupled with schadenfreude at someone who got away with murder ending up in prison for a much, much stupider crime. Add in some snorts of derision for O.J.’s claim that he’d find the real killers.
Me, if I’d dodged a bullet like that, well, I’d lay pretty low and keep my nose clean.
I guarantee that if Blake gets busted for robbing a liquor store, you’ll see the same crowing.
usstrippe
hey renato, go fuck yourself, you self righteous prick. and take your buddies with you. i just wish you white fuckers would have been so up in arms over black people being killed by the hundreds in the south and nobody ever being sentenced or even taken to trial. let one yellow haired miss ann go missing orturn up dead and its an all out media blitz. it wasnt that blake didnt have a car chase, it was that blake is white and white people get away with murder all the time.
Comrade The Other Steve
Am I the only white man in America who believes in our system of justice and thinks that until a jury finds a guy guilty, he is in fact innocent?
I have never understood the whole OJ obsession.
But then I never got the Scott Peterson obsession either.
Mrs. Peel
Oh, we’re back to "the man is holding you back"? Sorry, but that pity party is over. Obama got elected. Find a new excuse.
(And I’ve added you to my pie filter, so I’m going to miss your invective filled replies.)
Justice Served
15 years is not too much or because of race, etc. Judges are confined to sentencing guidelines. He faced up to 18 and got 15. Why are people crying about this?? The crime was caught on tape and the evidence cannot be denied. Justice was served here. The reason other people get off is due to evidence and the high burden of proof ("beyond a reasonable doubt"), which a jury of humans (subject to error and bias) must assess.
Case closed. Justice served.
God bless.
David Hunt
Lots of people of all colors get away with murder. O.J. Simpson was one of them. That and his celebrity makes sure that he’s going to get into the news when something like this happens. The fact that everybody knows he got away with murder means that there’s going to be lots of people expressing schadenfreude over his sentencing. I personally think the best thing about this story is that I am now unlikely to hear anything else about the murdering S.O.B. until the news announces (however many years hence) that he died in prison.
Joshua Norton
You’re the only one who believes that our system of justice requires a person to suspend their common sense. You’re trying to inflict courtroom rules on the general population. It doesn’t work like that. The law requires a presumption of innocence in the courtroom because of the ability to inflict punishment. Doesn’t apply to the public-at-large at all.
That’s pretty much akin to the wingnut dweebs who think "freedom of speech" means a private citizen can’t find fault with what they say.
David Hunt
Joshua Norton @45
Thanks. I was trying to compose a coherent reply to that. You came up with what I wanted to say and said it better than I would have.
Ken
Hmmm…he didn’t think he did anything illegal.
Probably thought that nearly decapitating his ex-wife and slicing-up a waiter wasn’t illegal, either.
I hope there’s a prisoner named "Big Ben" who takes a real liking to this sorry excuse for a human being.
Full disclosure: My wife, years and years ago, knew Nicole and OJ, even partied with them. Who knew there was a monster lurking inside him…?
Zuzu's Petals
@Xecky Gilchrist:
That is one reason I have nothing but disgust for the likes of Greta Van S., who got her start commentating on someone’s personal tragedy.
Comrade The Other Steve
Sadly it wasn’t very coherent.
Angie
You people don’t seem to get ONE THING. He was found NOT GUILTY of the murders. You are all taking this as retribution for a crime HE WAS FOUND NOT GUILTY OF. This trial shows exactly how prejudiced out society STILL is. A white jury convicted a black man of something that he was roped into. Oh horror.
I see reversible error on a few fronts here. First – the judge should NEVER have allowed the Goldmans’ (who have made a FORTUNE off the murder of their son) to sit in the front row of the courtroom. If you are going to say that they had NO influence over the jury – then you are a damnable liar. And secondly – the judge herself prefacing her sentencing by saying that it had nothing to do with the murder trial, was a joke.
You people are a joke. You’re not interested in the justice system, you’re interested in your perceived notion of justice. Get over your prejudices, or you are going to find the next four years unbearable.
r€nato
why do you assume all white people did not care about lynchings and Jim Crow?
You sound pretty racist there.
Marc
I dont care to much for OJ Simpson, but his right to receive a fair trial was gone from the beginning, and the fact he was tried for Robbery w/ a Deadly Weapon, Assault w/ a Deadly Weapon, Kidnapping, and Burglary shows that this was not about justice this was purely about getting OJ. If someone was to take that ugly robe the Judge Jackie Glass was wearing and she went to get it back. she should bew charged with Robbery. OJ was purely tried for the murders of Brown and Goldman and in American Jurisprudence that should not happen. If OJ and Stewart by the way who hadnt had a violent criminal record were tried, then Riccio and the others parties in that room should have been tried for Conspiracy to commit Burglary, Assault, Robbery, and Kidnapping. The fact that they were given plea deals and have not served anytime emboldens the fact that this was solely about convicting and getting OJ jail time. This was not justice, this was jacked-up.
Comrade The Other Steve
For the record, I do not subscribe to this racist viewpoint.
Radley
I think OJ has had this coming for a long, long time, and I am sorry to say this, but I don’t have much of a scrap of sympathy for the man. The judgment was harsh – but I think there was a little more to it than just this crime.
On our website, my worker, who is a young black man, tells us very, very bluntly how he feels about OJ. It was not really what I expected, please go read it, but watch out – the language is very crude at times. Search under *Deep Fried Worldwide* and you will find our site.
Thank you,
Radley
Joshua Norton
Oh, but it was. But if you have to resort to being passive aggressive, so be it.
Vincent
Yeah, once OJ tried to sell a book detailing how he would have murdered his wife if he had done it I figured he was either the murderer or a deranged attention whore.
r€nato
why can’t he be both?
Bradbob
Look what happened to the Dow Jones after OJ got sentenced!!!! Good News for all.
Comrade The Other Steve
Your entire argument depends on knowing in your heart OJ was guilty. But if he was so clearly guilty, why couldn’t they obtain a conviction?
Lhdz12
Gee…I wonder if O.J will let me borrow his golf clubs…he sure won’t be using them for a while…HA! HA! HA1
r€nato
for what it’s worth, while I am not as outraged over Robert Blake because I did not really follow that trial much, Scott Peterson pisses me off about as much as OJ does.
Yes I know Peterson was convicted while OJ was not. I followed the Peterson trial with a lot of interest, in part because for a while I lived in Solana Beach where he was originally from.
I remember seeing Peterson interviewed on national TV early on, while they were still searching for Laci. My god the guy was a shitty liar. What a smug piece of shit he was. He was talking about her wife in the past tense, a couple of times he caught himself other times he did not.
If he was an obvious liar to me – and I am pretty bleeding-heart when it comes to people accused of crimes – then I can only wonder how obvious he was to the cops, who are pretty good at scoping out lies because they get lied to all the time by suspects.
Even worse was how senseless his crime was. He was carrying on with that not-very-attractive blonde while his wife was pregnant, and then killed his pregnant wife to be with Amber or whatever her name was? What?
What an idiot, to throw it all away over that. I think his reasoning was that a divorce would have been too expensive.
He should have gone to prison just for the crime of being an incurable prick.
Comrade The Other Steve
If being a deranged attention whore weren’t so damned profitable, what would Britney Spears do for a living?
gopher2b
15 years is pretty steep for a first time offense. BTW, no jury ever found OJ "innocent." They found him "not guilty" which is not a distinction without a difference.
All that being said, I really don’t care. I think he killed those two people, I think he got away with, and I think this judge gave him an unjustified sentence. However, I can also rattle off about 500 cases of injustice right now that mean more to me than OJ’s plight including a guy who gets a traffic ticket for going through a yellow light.
r€nato
do you really believe OJ was innocent? As in, didn’t do the crime?
Come on. You’d have better luck convincing me that Hillary did in Vince Foster.
OJ got off due to a crappy case by the prosecutors, a jury looking for an excuse to acquit him, and some very savvy defense lawyers who played to that. Oh and Mark Fuhrman didn’t help much at all. Basically, Cochran and his defense team played the race cards rather well.
To this day it amazes me that black folk will stick up for OJ. The guy was an oreo if there ever was one. He wanted nothing to do with black culture or black causes.
Comrade The Other Steve
Yeah, and the parents of Jon Bonet Ramsey were obviously guilty too because they acted weird.
Joshua Norton
And their attempt to discredit the DNA evidence would be laughed out of the courtroom today. It proved he did it.
ChrisB
@Bradbob: Except for Zifnab, unless he covered.
Travis
For those here who are getting them in a bunch about people thinking OJ "got away with murder" when in fact a criminal jury acquitted him, please keep in mind that another jury found him responsible for 2 wrongful deaths.
The bar to his being found guilty in the criminal trial was likely the difference between "preponderance of the evidence" and "beyond a reasonable doubt," no?
Evinfuilt
You know, kidnapping, blackmail and such lead to jail time. Who cares about his past, what he did this time put many lives in danger, and he did it without any thought.
Unless you think you should be able to break into someones house, hold them captive at gunpoint and only get a few years in jail. OJ isn’t go to jail for something stupid, is going to jail for something insanely dangerous and illegal. He’s lucky he didn’t kill more people with that move.
He’s out in 9 years with good behaivor, less with prison crowding or shanking.
Comrade The Other Steve
No idea, and don’t really care. I just don’t let racism cloud my world view.
r€nato
Comrade, I know a bad liar when I see one.
In any case, Peterson was not convicted for being an obnoxious prick nor for being a really bad liar on national TV.
He was convicted on overwhelming evidence that he killed his wife and dumped her body in the ocean.
r€nato
So, I am a racist now? Because I think it’s patently obvious OJ killed his ex and her boyfriend and got away with it?
J.D. Rhoades
Not for armed robbery, kidnapping and assault.
c from j
The poor me racist argument is so old and tired. Did OJ committ robbery with a firearm or not.
And to USSTRIPE, please spare all of us your ranting about the south. I think it is history. How trite you are. If you hate this country, leave,
However, in fairness, when the guv of FL fires up old sparky and crisps a person of non-color, I will start a post celebrating.
Bob In Pacifica
I know nothing about the latest trial except for the poetic touch of convicting him on the anniversary of his acquittal in the murder case.
However, if you get hold of the coroner’s investigator’s report, written the day after the murders by LA Coroner investigator C. Ratcliffe, you’ll note something very peculiar. The Browns, who were asked the next morning when was the last time they’d talked to Nicole, and this was to determine the time of death since lead detectives blocked the coroner from the scene until after the bodies had cooled, told Ratcliffe that they’d talked with Nicole when they got home from dinner, after eleven p.m. By eleven Simpson was loading his luggage into the limo for the ride to the airport.
Two weeks later Mister Brown went down to the DA’s and amended his statement.
That means that both parents, and they both were there for Ratcliffe’s phone call, had to have forgotten and misjudged when they’d talked with their daughter by an hour and a half about twelve hours after they last talked with her, knowing that their answer was going to help figure out when their daughter was killed and who did it.
Or Brown changed his statement to go along.
Lots of other witnesses shifted the times of their observations, from the time stamps at the Mezzaluna that were off because of "daylight savings time" to ratzo Kato Kaelin who, when giving his timeline for himself and OJ managed to move the end of the Knicks-Rockets game up by an hour, thus providing OJ with a window of time to rush off to commit two murders.
And don’t get me started about autopsies. OJ’s own witness, coroner to the stars Michael Baden (most famous for his work with the House Select Committee on Assassinations supporting the "magic bullet" theory) admitted there was no aspiration with Nicole. Admitted, but did not explain what it meant as far as the theory of the case. That is, her throat was cut to the spinal cord and she wasn’t breathing. Not only that, but no blood went into her mouth or sinuses, even though the wound bissected her epiglottis, which itself should have bled. And Goldman only bled about a cup of blood internally from his back wound, meaning his upper torso was completely bled out prior to the wound to his femoral artery. That means after Goldman was dead Simpson would have had to have lifted up the dead man, stabbed him in the back, and then propped him up against the tree stump where Goldman was found in a sitting position. What did Simpson do? Wait around until both victims were dead and then provide ornamental wounds for some festive reason? After he’d already gone to the airport?
Simpson was framed for the two murders, and it was the biggest political show trial in the history of America. The racism and reaction were all over the media from Howard Stern in morning drive-time to Letterman and Leno at night with all those cable tv shows in between, and I bet none of them mentioned the Coroner’s Investigator’s Report. Oh, and if you watched the trial you didn’t see it either. Marcia Clark blocked that report from being introduced as evidence.
BombIranForChrist
O.J. has us just where he wants us.
He knows that her killers are in jail, and he loves her so much, that he is willing to go to jail to find them.
When he does, he will turn them into the police and / or Mystery Machine and the world will love him once again.
He will receive a pardon from none other than Jesus Christ, who initiated Armageddon just so he could come back and pardon OJ, and OJ will spend the rest of his days playing golf with Mammon.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
The prosecution’s job is to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The jury was willing to believe that the LAPD would go to some length to frame a black man because THEY LIVED IN FUCKING LOS ANGELES. Plenty of reason to have reasonable doubt.
The defense team showed that the chain of custody for the most damning evidence was not pristine by any stretch. Another reason to have reasonable doubt.
Mark fucking Fuhrman perjured himself six ways from Tuesday; making the "frame the n*gger" narrative still more compelling.
And white people are pissed at OJ because he killed a pretty blonde. That’s who white America gives a flying fuck about, pal, and all the pretty words about "innocent until proven guilty" are no more than that– pretty fucking words.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Well, ain’t that the fucking law?
The fact is that due to reasonable doubt caused by the deeply stupid cops and prosecutors in that case, he was found not guilty of murder.
I may "know in my heart" that he’s guilty, but that don’t mean shit. What did the jury "in the above entitled case" say?
r€nato
Bob In Pacifica, if OJ did not kill them, then who did?
And for what possible motive?
Justice Served
Bet all the people who believe OJ was framed are the same ones who believe 911 was a conspiracy by the U.S. to start a war. Tell that to the people in Mumbai….
c from j
Seems to me the people of color are upset. Why? Do you believe he was set-up yet again. Will the injustices never end?
Cassidy
Psst…Rnato…we’re not allowed to think black people commit crimes. Remember, all the ones in prison are for racist reasons.
demimondian
@r€nato: Bob in Ozonia is paranoid and delusional about a number of murders.
r€nato
Ivan, I don’t care what the race was of the person he killed. OJ was a jealous motherfucker with a violent streak – do you remember that he physically abused his wife more than once? do you even care? – who killed Nicole and her boyfriend with extreme prejudice because he could not stand seeing her with anyone else.
The evidence of his prior stalker-ish, threatening behavior is abundant.
I do not care if he killed a pretty blonde or an ugly redhead. He killed his ex and her boyfriend, and he got away with it.
The fact that the whole thing turned into a media circus only magnified people’s feelings about it, which is to be expected.
That OJ Simpson was turned into some proxy for racial grudges is ludicrous. As I stated above, the fucker was an oreo. He wanted nothing to do with helping fellow blacks. He was perfectly happy being in rich, white society and he wanted nothing to do with disadvantaged black folk… until he needed their sympathies to get off scot-free.
Comrade The Other Steve
He received a longer sentence than Hans Reiser did for butchering his wife.
But then Reiser was a white man, so I guess that’s ok.
r€nato
Cassidy, I do believe that black communities and blacks in general do not get a fair shake from law enforcement. The evidence is overwhelming that blacks get tougher sentences for equivalent crimes committed by whites. Blacks are targeted overwhelmingly for drug enforcement versus whites. A white guy arrested with cocaine is going to be treated a lot differently than a black guy arrested with cocaine. Driving while black. Etc, etc.
I’ll say it again: holding up OJ as a martyr for all the blacks murdered by lynch mobs and wrongly imprisoned by racist white cracker justice, is pathetic. Rodney King, sure. OJ? Yeah right. He is as black as Clarence Thomas.
tracy, GA
None of you on this blog is going to tell me that OJ killed anyone. I don’t know if he did it or not, i’m not convinced. Maybe he did but where is the proof. Let god be his judge not man. That jury was tainted, the whole case stinks. Our society is a freakin joke. We got pirates on the high seas crooks running around setting policy while raping our country and you can’t trust the damn justice system. For those of you who think the man got what he deserved I feel for you because your all ignorant and certainly biased, put your self in his situation and would you feel like you deserved 15 yrs for getting tricked into trying to reclaim your own stuff.
Comrade The Other Steve
I really don’t see what this has to do with anything.
Why would you even bring it up? Why raise it as an issue?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
And none of that is the least bit relevant.
He was FOUND NOT GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW.
Now is we a nation of laws or should we go with our "gut?" What we "believe?"
Jesus, Mary and Joseph– what’s so fucking difficult to understand about this? He’s a low-life violent asshole, and a pluperfect fool to boot. AND NONE OF THAT IS RELEVANT.
HE WAS FOUND NOT GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW.
Fucking period.
c from j
Nice try Comrade…hollow words
But then, Cassidy is right. Crimes committed by people of color is nothing more than racisim by the man.
Enjoy your pity party
Zuzu's Petals
One reason I never bought that narrative was that the guy was a friggin’ sports legend and movie star. Someone the star struck LA cops were perfectly happy to let off the hook time and again when called to his house by the wife he was beating.
Plus, really, how compelling would the racist conspiracy have to be to frame a friggin’ sports legend and movie star? Because there wouldn’t be any sort of spotlight on that case at all.
And how exactly did they know that OJ didn’t have an airtight alibi for those few minutes’ time frame … at the time they supposedly planted evidence? How did they get his blood to put at the scene?
r€nato
Three of the four cops who beat Rodney King were acquitted. What is your point, again?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Call me crazy, but I’ve always been one of those people who would rather see ten guilty men go free than to put a single innocent man in prison.
The price of that philosophy is that sometimes the guilty fuckers go free.
Would you prefer a Napoleonic code of justice– guilty until proven innocent?
Comrade The Other Steve
Ahh…
A voice of reason, in a sea full of ignorance
David Hunt
Looking at the long list of sometimes heated comments about Simpson, a quote occurred to me that will be my last comment on the subject.
"Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in."
Comrade The Other Steve
Well if you know in your gut they are guilty, why not?
r€nato
I am not a court of law, therefore I have no power to constrain OJ Simpson’s life and liberty.
I am free to believe that he got away with murder, which he in fact did.
For many years, OJ Simpson benefitted from the rule of law. He was found not guilty in a court of law, and he lived as a free man for a dozen or so years, free to walk the golf courses of America searching for the real killers, until he was stupid enough to commit an armed robbery in Nevada where they don’t mete out celebrity justice like is done all the time in California.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Felton Berrios
This man belongs in jail…primarily because he is a MORON…you have power,wealth,fame,etc….if ypur wife leaves you so be it…if someone takes your stuff ok…why put all of your life in jeopardy due to that? Whay an idiot!
r€nato
Jesus you guys, come on. I am not saying that they should have thrown OJ in prison because everyone knows he did it.
He did the crime, the prosecution did not prove their case, he walked.
Fair enough.
That does not change the fact that he killed his ex and Ron Goldman. It does not change the fact that I should be able to feel outrage over that, while simultaneously believing that OJ had every right to live as a free man (a shunned man, but a free man).
If you are going to put forth the idea that a court’s verdict should be the final word in the minds of all citizens, then I guess that means you have no sympathy for the many people languishing in prison and on death row, who have yet to be exonerated by DNA evidence?
demimondian
@Comrade The Other Steve: Actually, no, he didn’t. Reiser would have gotten 25-to-life originally, reduced to 15-to-life when he showed the cops where the body was, He becomes eligible for parole review in 13 years — he has two years credit — and will never have his civil rights restored. Simpson got 15-33 years, a bounded sentence. He will be eligible for parole in 9 1/2 years.
Comrade The Other Steve
Two, not three.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
And I am free to agree with this assessment wholeheartedly.
But I am also free to believe that so much of the opprobium directed at Simpson is because that big vicious n*gger murdered a pretty blonde lady.
c from j
Lost in all of this huffing and puffing is now two young adults have lost both parents
r€nato
sure it is, and it applies to the justice system and juries. I believe in it whole-heartedly. In case I have to remind you, I am a bleeding-heart liberal and civil liberties lover.
if I ever serve on a jury, I will – to the best of my ability – judge the evidence and the case fairly and impartially, in accordance with the standard of ‘reasonable doubt’ (if it’s a criminal case, different standards apply to civil cases).
But since I am not on a jury, since I am not a judge, I am free to believe what I like, based on the evidence at hand (or, not).
I believe the evidence is overwhelming that OJ did it.
Whether I or anyone else believes that he deserved to get away with it, that is another matter.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Deserved to get away with it? Come on, Renato, don’t be absurd. He got away with it because the great mumping villains on the prosecution team let him get away with it.
He got away with it because the wretched, villainous LAPD is notorious for heavy-handed, racist policing.
But deserved to "get away with it?" Please.
r€nato
really? as far as I know, three were acquitted at the first trial and only Stacy Powell was convicted at a later trial.
That was another fucking travesty, by the way, and I think we can all pretty much agree about that one.
Comrade The Other Steve
Ahh, missed the life part. I remembered it only being 16 years for a 2nd degree murder sentence. Even so, unless the guys Manson insane, when parole time comes up they’ll release him because of overcrowding.
Still just find that interesting… that a 2nd degree murder sentence would receive less jail time then armed robbery of sports memorabilia.
Quaker in a Basement
Where else would you look for a guy with a deadly slice?
r€nato
Ivan, I believe – from personal experience – that if you inquire closely enough of those who fervently believe OJ did not do the crime, you will find out that, in a fair number of instances, that they also kind of think that he should have gotten away with it. That the not guilty verdict was payback for years of injustices committed against blacks by predominantly white law enforcement.
That’s why I say, ‘deserved to get away with it’. Many will not come out and say it so blatantly, but like I said above, inquire more closely and you’ll find out that not infrequently that sentiment is there.
Comrade The Other Steve
Ok, yeah… first trial only Powell was guilty. It was the subsequent trial that Powell and Koon were found guilty and the other two acquitted.
r€nato
well, since the Rodney King officers pretty much got off scot-free, and OJ got off scot-free, ya think blacks and whites could call it ‘even’ and move forward?
Sadly, probably not.
John Cole
Just going to go on record that I don’t give a shit about OJ Simpson, Robert Blake, Natalee Holloway, or that scumbag who killed his wife in California and dumped her in the lake when she was pregnant.
None of them has any impact on my life whatsoever.
Glenn Fayard
Well, who the fuck would want to be OJ’s kid? Now they can change their names or something.
Note: while legions of honkys were cracking up watching Naked Gun and Hertz commercials, Jim Brown considered OJ a dangerous motherfucker from the beginning. You can look it up (unless it’s off the internets).
r€nato
Comrade, I am pretty sure that nobody was convicted at the first trial, which was part of why the subsequent riots were so awful. Not even one conviction.
…the wikipedia sez the state trial resulted in three not-guilty’s out of the four. Powell was later convicted at another state trial.
It was at the federal trial on civil rights charges, that Powell and Koon were convicted and the other two cleared.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Well, I hear you, Renato– my experience is with mostly white people who don’t give a good goddamn that a jury found him not-guilty; they just want his dead black ass. Had it been possible, a lynching party would have been convened for him damn near on the spot.
The black people I know who think about the case at all generally agree with me– that he almost certainly did it, but that the jury came back with the right verdict because of the police and prosecutors.
Now, we are generally quite ill-used by the justice system; so of course some are going to see this as one black man they didn’t get; he’s a suck-ass example but one takes what one can get. For me, I view him as Dr. Maturin viewed Mrs. Williams- "a deeply stupid, griping, illiberal, avid, tenacious, pinchfist, a sordid lickpenny and a shrew."
Substituting "bad tempered son of a bitch" for shrew, of course.
Zuzu's Petals
How much "opprobium" is directed at that little vicious white guy, Phil Spector, who murdered a pretty blonde lady?
Is it because he is white? Is it because she was pretty and blonde?
Or is it because a rich celebrity got away with murder? For the time being, anyway.
John Cole
Also for the record- I am sympathetic to the argument he was just trying to get his own stuff back and may even have been tricked, but for fuck’s sake, you don’t go barging into a public place and hold people captive at gunpoint. What if the gun had gone off? What if it had killed someone in the next room? What if they had guns and it escalated into a shoot-out, with innocents in the crossfire?
Christ on a crutch that was stupid, and it should be illegal. People should go to jail for that kind of asshattery, framed or not.
fred g
O j got fucked just like M, Vick got fucked over dog fighting, if you are white and got a 2.0 grade avg. and become president you can start a war, and put the country in a hole in the ground, and kill people over oil, then you are following the American dream of if you are white and famous you can get away with murder.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Well, we sure as fuck never burned up a comment thread about Phil Spector (except, perhaps, to note his strange hair and stranger wardrobe).
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Deeply stupid. Deserving of serious punishment.
15 years? I dunno.
r€nato
That whole Spector trial is just further testament to celebrity justice in California. That trial is still dragging on, if he had been Phil McCracken instead of Phil Spector he would have been convicted and serving time already.
I couldn’t believe Robert Blake got away with it, either. That was utter bullshit. I read about that case, it should have been open-and-shut. Besides, Blake was a has-been. I guess I misunderestimated the power of celebrity justice in Cali, even has-beens get the benefit of it.
Punchy
I hope to hell that this is snark. If not…..yowsers.
Calliope
Comrade the Other Steve @87:
Oh, for pete’s sake. Reiser plea-bargained down to a lesser charge, and a lighter sentence, in exchange for revealing where he had hidden his wife’s body.
The length of his sentence had nothing do with his race. If the cops had been able to find the body on their own, that sociopathic fuck would be looking at life without parole.
You’ve hurt your entire argument with this bullshit.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
I can only say this– if you talk to most of the Midwestern white people I deal with daily, most will know nothing of either Blake or Spector’s trial; and they certainly will be more willing to give either the "benefit of the doubt."
Of course, I work with engineers in the Midwest– a bigger parcel of really intelligent stupid people you will never encounter.
demimondian
@Comrade The Other Steve: Reiser will have served 15 before he comes up. Like I said, he’s been inside for 2 years already.
Now, look. I have a personal distaste for Dr. Reiser — unlike OJ, he actually has affected my life. If the murderous bastard dies a horrible, excruciating death in jail, it’ll be too kind. That said, the final interviews support the claim that he didn’t preplan the murder, and that it was sudden and immediate. As such, you’re comparing a conviction for a single count of 2nd degree with no aggravating circumstances with a collection of 12 counts, including armed robbery and kidnapping changes, with aggravating circumstances (planning, multiple conspirators, and guns). In this case, it’s genuinely hard to compare which crime is actually more severe. They’re both awful, in different ways.
gopher2b
Couldn’t he just called the police to get his stuff back? Or did he have to do it this way because if he used the system he would lose it all to the Goldmans? Just curious.
TheHatOnMyCat
I don’t give a fig about Simpson, but how do you rob somebody at gunpoint without "holding them captive?"
Does that mean that robbery without that feature has to include a disclaimer:
"Look, I’m robbing you, but I am required to inform you that you can run away if you want to and I won’t do anything."
AnneLaurie
Well, you’re the one who gave Michael D. posting privileges. (/snark)
Calliope
Demimondian @ 128
Oh, please, interviews with Reiser? That lying sociopath? That’s believable.
She had a standing restraining order against him. I’m not willing to cut Reiser any slack.
Salon had Reiser’s last interview, 5 days before he revealed the body. He was "remorseless, and angrily proclaiming his innocence" even though, he was, in fact, already negotiating with police to reveal the body.
The interview is here.
You can’t believe a word Reiser says.
As for both Blake and Spector, guilty, guilty, guilty. I think one of the reasons there aren’t comment threads "burning up about them" is that I don’t know anyone who thinks they are innocent. Once everyone agrees that they are guilty and that celebrities apparently have a free pass at murder, the thread dies.
I was freaking furious when Spector got the hung jury the first time. Interviews with the 2 hold outs on the jury convinced me that they had been bought off. Nobody could possibly be that stupid and still put their own pants on in the morning. Lamest juror interview ever.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Life ain’t fair[ – ]Then you die [=] sometimes what goes around comes around [X] Juries make mistakes [+] sometimes on purpose [-] sometimes not [=] Justice, (or a Date with Nancy Grace)
Zuzu's Petals
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Let’s face it, most midwesterners wouldn’t have a clue who Phil Spector is. Robert Blake wasn’t a famous sports figure or movie star with recent movies and TV ads in circulation.
I still remember the tone of utter shock and disbelief in the announcers’ voices when they announced the arrest of Simpson, and my own feeling of disconnect at seeing that famous face on screen in a mugshot.
demimondian
@Calliope: It’s always nice to find someone who’s less rational about Hans Reiser than I am. She was strangled; that suggests impulse, not premeditation. Reiser had made no purchases of tools with which to conceal the body. Finally, during the interviews, he — who clearly has a high functioning psychopathic personality disorder — didn’t brag about how clever he’d been. That’s a big deal; this was his last chance to show off, and he simply didn’t do that.
Of course, I have to be honest: I think the reason the police took the bargain is that they realized there was a chance that he’d get a new trial on appeal…and be smart enough to stay off the stand during the retrial.
Zifnab
@ChrisB: The stocks lie! Freak’n lie! I’m going to sit on my bet for now and wait till next week before I consider taking any losses.
Half a million people loss their jobs and the market goes UP?! Absolutely retarded.
Cassidy
@r€nato: To a point I agree, but that’s another conversation. I was just being a smart-ass to the "demz white peeplez is racist" crowd.
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: Um…the post is about his conviction of multiple felonies. So I think his being a low-life scum asshole, etc. is relevant. Now we can add convicted felon to that line.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
And I know that makes you feel better. Congratulations.
Shouldn’t you be off investigating BHO’s birth certificate?
Zifnab
@TheHatOnMyCat:
That’s how the legal system rolls. There are so many laws on the book that overlap, the prosecution can just kinda take its pick as to what you broke.
If you rob a store with an unlicensed hand gun that you use to break a glass case holding jewelry and you destroy the surveillance taps before fleeing the scene of the crime you can get nailed for everything from assault to vandalism to evading arrest to jaywalking to tax evasion (for failing to report income via the looted cash register).
When they talk about "Throwing the book" at a guy, they basically refer to digging up every crime the person could have conceivable committed and charging him on all of it.
I feel kinda sorry for OJ because although he does have a habit of breaking state and federal laws on a semi-regular basis, he also tends to run into the worst aspects of the police and legal systems in the process.
I mean, if not for the wanker Mark Fuerman, the original murder should have practically been open-and-shut. And I’m sorry, but I have a really hard time feeling sorry for the Vegas pawn shop broker who was by all accounts screwing over the Juice for a quick buck himself. There are so many, many, many bad people involved in any OJ legal story, it’s really hard to feel like justice ever gets served.
John Cole
I also think there is a legal distinction between a hold-up and kidnapping, which is kind of the difference between robbing someone on the street, taking their wallet, and hightailing it, or doing what Simpson did, which is barge into a room and hold people hostage at gunpoint.
I think. Could be wrong. Level of gross indifference is high.
JOBE
The only person i feel sorry for is poor old CJ, the poor dumb accomplice. He shouldn’t have let OJ talk him into going. But then after the sentencing Bruce Fromong was saying that CJ beat him up during the kidnapping. i didn’t remember that. These athlete/celebrity types think they can do anything and get away with it. It always amazes me. i just feel sorry for justin and sydney. some of the bloggers seem to be angry at fred goldman. one even said he made a fortune from his son’s death. what is wrong with you people? you’ve obviously never had a family member murdered.
Trollhattan
Jesus, a whole new brand of trollery that doesn’t involve the phrase, "You ignorant liburls."
Who’da thunk?
OJ bye-bye, good riddance and well overdue.
bago
Woo! I didn’t feel a thing!
J. Michael Neal
Sorry. I’ve worked in finance. I think the evidence is pretty clear that those are some the dumbest geniuses the world has ever seen.
Xenos
@Quaker in a Basement:
Considering my deadly slice, it is a good thing I never ran across OJ on one of those golf courses.
JL
@Xenos: So do you own the uroclub?
JL
Is John trying to break a guinness record on blog posts about OJ. Gee, maybe we can just use this as an open thread.
Calliope
demimondian @ 135:
This is the rational argument? Strangulation is always impulsive? Tell it to the Boston Strangler. Tell it to Ted Bundy. Some guys like to strangle. For all anyone knows, Rieser could have been fantasizing about strangling her for years.
Strangulation also has several advantages: it doesn’t require any addtional tools. It would be hard for Reiser to get a gun without it being traced back to him, and knife murders are very bloody. Lots of evidence lying around. Same with bashing someone with a blunt instrument.
As for not purchasing any tools with which to hide the body…are you serious? You are aware that, in spite of not buying any additional tools, he managed to bury the body quite successfully? She might never have been found if he hadn’t led the police there. Obviously, he didn’t need to buy any additional tools.
As for this "high functioning psychopathic personality disorder" you claim he so clearly has, exactly which disorder are you diagnosing him with? He’s a sociopath, certainly, but there’s no compulsion to brag in sociopathy.
And frankly, if he had some compulsion to brag, being able to hide the body for so long, and have so many otherwise smart people utterly convinced of his innocence would have been enough to brag about. Yet, no bragging. I’m thinking this disorder you speak of does not exist.
Oh, I think he’s likely crazy, but not in the way you suggest. And certainly not crazy enough to not understand what he was doing.
It’s funny how the Jurors, who actually sat through the six months of testimony, thought that he planned it. See here.
Btw, this is not totally off the O.J. topic: the software world was full of people completely convinced that Reiser was being framed because he was a genius geek with poor social skills. That actually was part of his defense: he’s not guilty, he’s just acting that way because he "possibly" has Asberger’s!
And I think the prosecution accepted the plea because it’s damn hard to convict for 1st degree murder without a body. I knew many people who were convinced she had left her children, her car with the groceries rotting in it, and her passport and money, and somehow gone home to Russia. Without her children, passport, or money.
I have to ask, exactly what grounds do you think Reiser would have had to appeal his possible conviction? You seem so sure an appeal would worked, and he would have been granted a new trial.
demimondian
Actually, there is, but in Reiser’s case, it’s clear from his past behavior that he had such a compulsion. Go read his earlier work, and the expansive (and theoretically unjustified) claims he made for ReiserFS
demimondian
Dude, I *live* in the software world — I work for a large company full of people whose livelihoods depend upon "open source software". You must interact with an odd subset of that world, because I know no-one who thinks Reiser was framed.
srv
While this was a troll, it is everything in a nutshell. The OJ verdict was really the point at which a lot of, well, white folks, stopped giving a f**k about black folks. It was clear from everybody’s reactions that neither side got the other.
It was then no surprise to me that shortly thereafter, public support for affirmative action waned and court actions soon followed. Roll backs that would have been protested virulently back in the day were now passe – we couldn’t get people to come out. The Rush meme that affirmative action was "racist" became the accepted norm. Those that still disagreed, well, that was might white of them, but you’d never see them out in the streets or arguing that point in public. It just doesn’t happen anymore like it did when I grew up.
There really is no reason for whites to be so hysterical about this crime, other than fame or race. Yes, I have no doubt that OJ did it. I also have no doubt that Mark Furman planted evidence. I don’t see how anyone can disagree with either of those assertions unless they’ve got some ‘skin’ in this issue.
I could give a rats ass for OJ, or his wife, her family or anyone involved in any of this – anymore than I’d care about any other crime in the US. What’s important is how people have responded. And now, as expected, this new age of "Obama proves racism is over" is dawning. Bounded by "I hope OJ gets raped in prison".
I think anyone who thinks we’ve made progress is kidding themselves.
jake 4 that 1
@Comrade The Other Steve: Hush now, that is not the RealAmerican(TM) Way. And fer Christsakes don’t point out that the streets are full of people who were obviously guilty of the crimes for which they were accused but due to a number of factors, were never convicted.
Nah. Lawyers. Gotta be lawyers.
Calliope
Not now, not after he led the police to the body. Up to that point, however, it was a different story.
Davebo
John,
OJ is so yesterday. Concentrate on today!
Seriously, given the fact that during the day Balloon Juice is almost always not available, yet at night and on weekends it generally is, I think you are getting some good hit counts.
But does PJ Media pay for it? And who hosts it? PJ as well?
Just saying… I think you might be missing out on some not unserious scratch here.
J. Michael Neal
Calliope
I said:
demimondian @ 145 replied:
First of all, no, sociopaths do not have a compulsion to brag. Try to back that up with a link, if you can.
Sociopaths have no feeling for anyone else but themselves. They are frequently charming, and lie without compunction or guilt. They are incapable of remorse. I wish they did have a compulsion to brag: they’d be a hell of a lot easier to spot. Their ability to hide in plain sight is what makes them so dangerous. Even though most sociopaths will never kill, they still leave a heck of a lot of damage in their wake.
Try "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout, or "Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us" by Robert Hare, for more information on Sociopathy.
As for reading Reiser’s previous work: did you not notice that his testimony, and every interview, positively dripped with the attitude that Reiser was far smarter than everybody else? That arrogance was one of the things that most damaged him on the stand. (That, and the lying, and complete lack of remorse. The juror I cited earlier mentioned how obvious it was that Reiser didn’t give a tinker’s damn about his wife, who at that point was still missing.)
Most sociopaths have the social skills to hide the arrogance and lack of remose. Reiser, with his geeky lack of social skills, was unable to hide them.
You still haven’t explained why Reiser, with this alleged compulsion to brag, has never bragged about hiding his wife’s body for what, over a year?
Xenos
@srv: I was working in a very integrated public office in the deep south (northernmost Florida, actually) during the trial, which was pretty interesting. The white folks were disgusted – not so much with OJ as with the jury that would let an obvious killer walk. The black folks were disgusted by the attitude of the whites, who seemed to be oblivious of the long history of blacks being convicted by racist juries, and the many unsolved, un-investigated lynchings in living memory.
Cassidy
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Nah. I believed him long before I voted for him. But, if you hadn’t allready shown your ass, you now qualify for BJ’s Biggest Tool of the week….like, gas operated dildo size tool.
@bago:
And that’s what got Comrade Ivan so worked up. Someone didn’t use lube…
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
No, they’re not. But that just might explain why you’re here.
kommrade reproductive vigor
In the words of the Late Great Johnny Cochran: That. Does not make sense.
If a person stops giving a fuck about any group because one member of the group isn’t convicted of a crime, that person never gave a fuck about the group.
Cassidy
@ Ivan
Yeah, you’re an idiot. Please tell me your gene pool stops with you.
Church Lady
I’m obviously confused with some of the arguements on this thread. Is someone seriously contending that if you are white, and you think OJ was guilty of killing his ex-wife, that makes you a racist? If that is the arguement, then if you are black and think he was guilty, what perjorative would you attach to that? Or, would that person just be correct in their assumption of guilt?
Rainy
@Comrade The Other Steve: I’m with you. I have never understood the obsession with OJ. Plenty of people get killed and the murderers get away, too. I remember a lady who left her daughter in a hot car for 8 hours. The girl died, but the prosecutor felt the mother shouldn’t be charged. People get away with murder all the time in the country.
Screamin' Demon
If Vince Bugliosi had prosecuted Simpson in ’95, he wouldn’t have been free to commit the crime in Vegas.
San Quentin doesn’t grant day passes.
Bugliosi’s book "Outrage: The Five Reasons O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder" is utterly convincing. No one can read that book and conclude the guy didn’t do it. No way.
Dennis - SGMM
This is as good a place as any to recall the Chewbacca Defense:
Grumpy Code Monkey
I remember ranting at the time that it was just another murder trial, and God knows we had plenty of them at home to obsess over. Every time someone asked me "do you think he did it," I’d reply that I didn’t have access to the evidence, so it was impossible for me to have a knowledgeable opinion.
I remember thinking Ito should have been de-benched (or whatever the proper term is) for allowing the trial to become such a circus, and that Clark and her lackeys were the most fucking incompetent prosecutors on the planet for bringing a case that was so clearly compromised. I didn’t have a problem with the verdict, as that’s the only verdict the jury could have returned given how the case was prosecuted; between the admitted fuckups by the crime lab and Fuhrman’s little quirks, there was more than enough reasonable doubt to go around.
And absolutely none of that should have had any bearing on the current case. Armed robbery and kidnapping ain’t chicken shit, and 15 years doesn’t sound excessive to me.
Cassidy
@Rainy: Big difference between homicide and murder.
demimondian
@Church Lady: No. What people are saying is that if you claim that the fact that OJ was acquitted made any difference in how you viewed unrelated issues like affirmative action, then you were a racist before the acquittal, and were using it as an excuse.
Did Phil Spector’s mistrial change anyone’s view of music royalties? Then how could OJ Simpson’s acquittal change anyone’s view of affirmative action — which affects a lot of groups other than African Americans?
kommrade reproductive vigor
One of the things that annoyed a number of people (including myself) about the coverage was the "OMG, therez violence against women?!? I had no idea!" b.s. Like this was the first time ever some guy was accused of whacking his ex-wife and anyone in the vicinity. Hopefully the poor dears were never allowed near a police scanner, it would’ve blown their tiny minds.
For added bizarre bullshittiness, just a few years before, 99% of the people I knew were convinced that Mike Tyson was innocent. Keep in mind I was in law school at the time. In Indiana.
Bob In Pacifica
Renato asked:
Who knows? There is a world of possibilities. The autopsy evidence strongly suggests that the two were killed and then ornamental wounds were added. One might think that the additional wounds were added to make it look like a crime of passion, so therefore you might consider that it was done to frame Simpson.
Both victims had punctures of their carotid arteries, where the blood loss could have occurred, but the crime scene (which has much evidence of tampering already) doesn’t support two people being stabbed in the neck and then bleeding to death. Yet there was enormous blood loss for both. Consider Goldman, found in a sitting position with only about a cup of blood leaking from the wound at his femoral artery in his back into the body cavity. If that wound killed him there would have been much more blood collected inside the cavity. The heart would have kept on pumping until the heart weakened and he died. A cup is about the amount of blood in the heart at any moment. That means what ended up in the body cavity was what drained from his heart after he was dead.
So how was the upper half of his torso so completely drained of blood?
Years ago someone who was acquainted with mortuary work suggested that the carotid punctures on both victims seemed like the kind of thing that a mortician does to drain blood from a body in preparing it for display. Maybe someone more familiar with the process could comment.
Back to the original question: If the cops investigate a crime presuming someone is guilty and change the evidence to fit their presumption, and don’t explore other possibilities, well, I guess that the trail is a little cold by now.
By the way, the first thing that Fuhrman did when he got on the stand was perjure himself about where he was on the night of the murders. Said he was at a barbeque after a Police Protective League union meeting at the La Quinta resort, a 110 miles outside of LA. The barbeque was the night night before. I have no idea what Fuhrman was doing or why he lied about where he was, but he knew where he was and Clark knew too. A prosecutor on the first direct only asks questions she/he has answers to. PPL reps weren’t liquoring up at a barbeque in the desert two hours from LA on a Sunday night, ten hours after they checked out of their rooms and the meeting ended.
Bob In Pacifica
By the way, regarding the OJ case and racism, I’d reframe the question.
Did the coverage of the OJ case reinforce racist thinking about black men, white women, the justice system, etc.? You bet. Did the coverage of the case inflame people generally? Yes. Were some of those people racists? Yes. How did it affect, say, people’s views of the justice system? How did it affect the "three strikes" proposition? How did it affect race relations in the U.S.? How did it affect Republican versus Democrat?
This was the "Trial of the Century". It had world-wide coverage, wall-to-wall coverage on cable networks and plenty more evening commentary from everyone from Geraldo to that guy who was in the Beethoven movies. And that caucasoid zombie geek. John Gibson. CNN was non-stop trial. The presumption in all coverage was that the man was guilty and most of the information in the trial that was exculpatory somehow didn’t make it to most people’s minds. There was a disconnect. I can’t think of another person more demonized than Simpson.
Bob In Pacifica
Screamin’ Demon wrote:
I haven’t read Bugliosi’s book on the Brentwood murders but read a lot of the others. Does he go into the autopsy evidence regarding no aspiration for Nicole and lack of internal bleeding for Goldman? Does he mention Fuhrman perjuring himself about where he was the evening of June 12th? Does he go into the coroner’s investigator’s report and the Browns originally saying that they’d talked with Nicole after 11 p.m.? Did he go over all the time-shifting, to include Kaelin’s pushing the end of Knicks-Rockets game to an hour earlier, thus making his timeline about what he did with OJ that night totally suspect?
Because if he didn’t, his book may be convincing but he avoided the evidence that excludes Simpson from having done the murders.
Bob In Pacifica
Zuzu’s petals wrote, regarding the possible framing of Simpson:
The problem is that you have to read the cops’ testimony critically. If you looked at Det. John Edwards’ description of that January 1st incident it doesn’t make sense from a police point of view. Or from a human point of view. I won’t bore you with details, but there are several glaring points where Edwards was undoubtedly lying about both OJ and Nicole separately and independently telling him the cops had been out eight times previously. The next witness, Det. Mike Farrell (different guy than the actor, I don’t make these names up), said he gave a standup and the only cop in the station who "remembered" a previous domestic violence incident with the Simpsons was Mark Fuhrman, who happened not to have reported it. And then he wrote a report years "after the fact" about the "incident". Remember, after the case was over it turned out that Fuhrman was the grand poobah of some secret organization of cops. Men Against Women or something. Just the kind of guy who’d remember spousal violence, eh?
Bob In Pacifica
demimondian wrote:
That’s why I make reference to the coroner’s investigator’s report, the autopsies, the testimony in the trial, etc. and seek some explication of contradictions in the prosecution’s theory of the case. Wacky wacky wacky. Oooga boooga!!!
John
I don’t see how anyone can doubt that he did it. His blood was found mixed with the blood of the victims just about everywhere. There’s absolutely no evidence that Furhman or anybody else tampered with evidence – and Fuhrman, at any rate, doesn’t seem to have had the opportunity to have tampered with evidence. Simpson had the motive, the opportunity, and the means. He had no effective alibi, and he behaved extraordinarily erratically in the period after the crime. More recently, he wrote a book where he more or less confessed to the crime. Nobody anywhere has ever presented a remotely cogent alternative theory of the murders.
Whatever Fuhrman may have been doing the night of the murders, or whatever confused memories Kato Kaelin may have had, there was just an extraordinary amount of evidence that points to Simpson as the killer.
Zuzu's Petals
To Bob in Pacifica:
You know, I started to respond to your comments about the Goldman autopsy, which are actually somewhat inaccurate, as well as the police testimony and the Simpson domestic abuse issue.
I actually got as far as pulling up the autopsy report and the crime scene photos showing the actual position of the bodies, etc. etc., and transcripts of court testimony by Edwards et al.
And then I realized I was getting into nutter territory. I’ve wasted enough of my life arguing over Florida election law (how many corners of the chad can be hanging?), Swift Boat designators, and birth certification procedures, among other obscure chatroom topics. It’s simply not worth it. There’s always some new twist on the topic the other guy can cut and paste (yes, I saw a few of your points at other sites), and it just never ends.
I think you are basing some of your opinions on faulty information. But you are welcome to them.
Bob In Pacifica
Petals: "Nutter territory", "somewhat inaccurate".
You’re right. Anyone who objects to what’s common knowledge, or who asks questions must be a nutter. Maybe one day you can host "Meet The Press". You’re showing all the qualifications.
How much blood leaked into Goldman’s internal cavity from that "fatal" femoral artery wound? Where and when did the rest of the blood disappear? Be careful how you answer. Either he bled out prior to that wound or you’ve got some big inconsistencies to explain.
Was there any aspiration from Nicole’s throat wound? Either she was alive (and breathing) when her throat was cut or she was dead and bled out. Was there blood found in her mouth or sinuses?
What did Dr. Golden testify at the criminal trial? Trick question. The doctor who performed the autopsy didn’t testify.
And I notice there’s no mention of the coroner’s investigator’s report in your response. In what other criminal trial has the prosecutor blocked the admission of a report from the coroner’s office?
I’d say your response is somewhat incomplete, Petals. But that should be good enough for you. Otherwise you risk going into "nutter territory". In all your intellectual journeys may you stay safe.