The Sheila Variations

A question, arising from a previous discussion: Should one be able to watch Simpson in Capricorn One or the Naked Gun movies without considering his behavior off-screen? Should the viewer be able to separate Simpson's acting from his life?

Political differences are one thing, a double-homicide is another. I simply can't see him as the humorous sidekick in The Naked Gun any longer.

the prosecution was incompetent. the judge had no business allowing cameras into the courtroom. had he been competent, he would have refused. the media, and you may as well include them in the blame here too, turned this into a circus, oj's lawyers played to the cameras. the jury knew that and the jury knew their faces were on television as well. while our system is meant to be public, it is not meant to be a circus.... and jurors are supposed to have some level of anonymity. they didn't get it.

oj's attorneys were extremely skilled. unfortunately, neither of the prosecution team were a match. it's too bad. when you go up against the best, it would be nice if they could also import the best prosecution team available, no matter where they were from in the country.

as for katie couric and her questions.... haven't you noticed that there's no journalistic quality to most of them, but instead when she opens her mouth, she panders to gossips and asks questions in a way and tone of voice which is just as malicious....

sad. too bad we couldn't fire every single journalist out there right now and replace them with people who think and aren't driving their own political agendas..... ie, report the facts, not explain what the facts mean.....as though we're too dumb to figure it out.

"Journalistic quality" and "Katie Couric" have never really gone together anyway.

Shameless indeed. When the trial was happening I had some doubts about his guilt, now understood in the blazing incompetence of the investigation and prosecution. I saw him on Friday night and could see it in his eyes. Rat Bastard.

Cris says:

"the prosecution was incompetent."

Yes; however, call it personal bias if you'd like since I've worked in the LA County DA's Office, but I can't fully lay blame at the feet of Marcia Clark and Chris Darden for losing that case. I assign far more blame to Gil Garcetti for not giving it the attention, resources and best people it required, and though I like the guy personally (despite him being a caricature of an L.A. lawyer), he was rightly tossed out of office.

"the judge had no business allowing cameras into the courtroom. had he been competent, he would have refused."

Ito was, and is, a terrible judge who completely lost even any semblance of control or decorum. That much said, keeping cameras out isn't just a matter of saying so: the First Amendment guarantees the media access unless it conflicts with the defedant's right to to a fair trial and I'm fairly sure the California Code of Criminal Procedure and/or the LA Superior Court local rules on cameras in the courtrooom both go well beyond what the Constitution requires.

"the media, and you may as well include them in the blame here too, turned this into a circus, oj's lawyers played to the cameras."

A better judge, jury and/or prosecutors and the media's behavior, while asinine, wouldn't have mattered.

"the jury knew that and the jury knew their faces were on television as well. while our system is meant to be public, it is not meant to be a circus.... and jurors are supposed to have some level of anonymity. they didn't get it."

And yet, people bitch and moan and find all sorts of ways to get out of jury duty. And this sort of ignorant, self-important jury nullification is exactly what we get as a result.

"oj's attorneys were extremely skilled."

True, but it's also true they weren't the magicians they've been made out to be. Better prosecutors, a better judge and/or a different jurisdiction, and the same defense team could definitely have been beaten.

"unfortunately, neither of the prosecution team were a match. it's too bad. when you go up against the best, it would be nice if they could also import the best prosecution team available, no matter where they were from in the country."

LA's the biggest state prosecutor's office in the country. If there are better prosecutors in any other DA's office it would surprise me: even the NY County (Manhattan) DA's Office doesn't get the same level of training. The problem was at the top: Garcetti didn't shift his absolute best people onto this.

Two further points: first, many of the best prosecutors leave the public sector and become defense attorneys. When you have a wealthy defendant, you WILL run up against such people, and it behooves the office prosecuting to take that challenge with the seriousness it deserves and assign people who could get the same kind of work if they left, but for whatever public-service ethos reason whatever choose not to. Personally, I suspect Garcetti regarded all of his top deputies as potential political rivals and for that reason wouldn't provide them with the spotlight, which is absolutely outrageous and inexcusable. Of course, it didn't stop one of them (Cooley) from knocking him off, either.

Second, the California Bar would NEVER let an out-of-state lawyer prosecute a criminal case (as a Special Deputy DA or whatever). Their pro hac vice rules even for civil litigation are probably the toughest in the country, and the idea of someone who hasn't passed the toughest bar exam ever conceived of actually walking into one of the state's courts to represent the People would be beyond unthinkable, so it's a hypothetical not worth considering.

"as for katie couric and her questions....haven't you noticed that..."

...she's a moron? Yes, I've noticed.

This is an American tragedy that says much more about US than it ever will about O.J. Simpson.

I used to find Bryant Gumbel's smug self-satisfaction very irritating. Little did I suspect that in comparison to the monumentally obnoxious Couric, Gumbel is a vastly more likeable intellectual giant.

O.J. got away with murder, we all know it. We can't put him in jail, but the man should be a pariah in our society. What I find truly disgusting is the fact that NBC decided that they could get away with making a buck off the guy. It's blood money, pure and simple.

Michael:

First, we would have to establish that OJ was an "actor". And that, I will never concede.

DaveJ:

Have you read Outrage?

Buglioisi also trashes the entire concept of the "dream team". He said that that was a media invention - the media always being swayed onto the side of the defense.

This discussion thread has reminded me of WHY I didn't watch the OJ trail. It had nothing to do with the supposed incompetence of the prosecution team. It has, instead, to do with modern America media.

First, I need to correct a grammatical point in two earlier posts. I don't think there are many individuals in the media today who are "journalists." Colleges and other educational institutions have a definition (or at least a list of qualifications that define) of "journalist". Most of the a**holes you see on television or hear on the radio or read in the paper these days don't qualify. The two most crucial items missing in most:
1. Journalists take the time to fully investigate a story, then condense the facts into a presentable form.
- I don't think hardly any modern newspeople bother to investigate a story, let alone investigate it fully. And I don't believe "facts" are what we hear coming from them.
2. Journalists maintain the highest level of integrity...
- I don't even have to say more about this one!

I don't mind people criticizing the media; I do it myself. But PLEASE keep the word "journalist" out of any such discussions!

Thank you.

A great part of the problem, Aceman, is exactly this: at some point, "journalism" became an academic discipline, and most of these people have cut their teeth on "communications theory" and other such jargon-filled nonsense rather than ever learning anything substantive. All they've learned (only implcitly, of course) is that being part of the media is an entrance into a modern secular priestly class who are above criticism, their own or (especially) anyone else's.

Sheila, no I haven't read "Outrage" but it sounds like I probably should.

DaveJ: Yeah, definitely. I dated a defense lawyer for a while, so I was somewhat familiar with criminal law from the defense side - but I learned so much about the entire process from Bugliosi's book.

The best part of it is that he wrote it before his rage cooled. It's an insanely angry book, and rollicking fun to read. If you like being insanely angry, that is.

Oh, and one of the best things about the Naked Gun movies is that they all involve OJ getting his ass kicked severely. :-)

The art in Simpson's case is his football. I don't need to ever see his movies again because they're all lousy. By the same token, I don't think I look away when a highlight of him playing football comes on. Thankfully, the powers that be in the sports highlight business see to it that it doesn't happen very often any more. Very doubtful that's an accident.

Simpson is now trying to rehabilitate himself much like President Nixon tried to do. I don't think it will work. He will be forever linked with the double murder, not the Heisman or the Hall of Fame. Let's not blame the media for any of this. Droves of people tune in. We are to blame.

Rob:

I make no bones about my ghoulish interest in celebrity crime and true-crime of all kind. I love that shit. If it shows up on Dateline, I am all over it. If there's forensic analysis, I eat that shit up. Love it.

Also: I don't see how you can avoid media interest in such a case. An enormous story like "American's hero on trial for murder of wife" isn't going to generate interest?

I'm not saying he was ever "my hero", but that was, of course, the kind of press he got, and the kind of spin put on the whole thing at the time.

I fully take responsibility for my ghoulish interest in high-level murders. I don't feel quite PROUD of it, but I am certainly not ashamed of it.

My point exactly, Rob. Exactly. WE created him, WE are to blame for his sucsess and freeedom. He's a murderer, a wife beater, and a ba-a-a-a-a-d actor.

His sucsess is on our shoulders, and unfortunately, so is his freedom. Makes me sick. As a woman who survived 2 physically abusive relationships with barely her life in tact, I can sy honestly, I was only one step away from where they found Nicole.

Alex:

Bugliosi, in his book about OJ, said that he wrote the book after seeing one of the post-trial photos of OJ, strolling on a golf course, with a huge smile on his face.

He said that that image enraged him so much, made him so FURIOUS at what had happened, that he picked up his pen and wrote his outraged book over one weekend.

Insane.

I still wonder: does OJ, deep in his craven soul, now believe his lies?? Has he told them so much that they have become true to him?

I don't think he believes his own lies. I think he believes he was justified. Truly a disgusting person.

What struck me is that he would say that he was "angry at her". If he believed his own lie, and that he was innocent, he would say, "I'm so angry at whoever it was who killed her, who took her from me."

But no: he's mad at HER.

Wow. Chilling.

I need to get that book Sheila. Will you bring it when you visit? We'll add that to the To Do list.

Rob-Absolutely. You couldn't be more correct. I don't think he's deluded into some pshycotic fantasy about living in a dream state or anything, I really think it's as simple as:

"She cheated. She messed with my kids, and she's dead. I feel much better now."

It's just that simple.

Alex:

We can do dramatic readings from Bugliosi's book. And then pop in All About Eve ... sounds like a great night to me!

People have been murdering other people since long before the beginning of civilization. The real outrage about the O.J. case is that we, as a society, knew he was guilty and let him get away with it. There's a lot of well-deserved blame to go around here - the guy probably would have confessed if not for the intervention of his defense attorneys, who knew for a fact that he was guilty. But the defense attorneys couldn't have gotten him off if it wasn't for the insane media circus. The members of the media knew they were participating in a travesty, and they also knew he was guilty. But the media cannot create a circus unless willing victims - the rest of us - show up in sensation-seeking hordes.

Every step along the way, pretty much everyone involved in the case failed to simply do the right thing when they had the chance. To risk grotesque understatement, the whole sorry episode was not our finest hour...

MikeR....

You got it, Mister! :-)

Sheila....

Um....YEAH!