O.J. The Saga Continues
Regardless of what you think of O.J. Simpson's guilt or innocence in the murder trial, he is a sports legend who has always remained in the news even pre-murder trial. I say it that way rather than just pre-murder because he was found innocent by a jury of his peers. Personally I don't think he did it. I know I'll catch a lot of heat about that statement, but either way, the courts agreed at least in the criminal trial. Had the same burdon of proof and jury rules been allowed in the civil trial, I don't think he would have been convicted there either.
The LAPD to my way of looking at it, (I followed the trial EVERY DAY) either manufactured evidence against him or "assisted" evidence that didn't quite hold up to conviction standards, and they got caught on more than one piece of it. Things like the vial of blood being in Van Atter's cruiser for so long instead of being booked into evidence. Blood on the gate that was found days later that matched O.J.'s but IT wasn't degraded like blood in the driveway which had degraded so badly that it didn't even appear as the victim's blood type anymore. And of course the infamous bloody glove which added to our english lexicon, "If the glove doesn't fit, you must aquit".
Now, O.J. faces new challenges in court. Challenges that may land him in prison for life whether or not you feel he should have been in prison for life to begin with.
O.J. can be an arrogant so and so, who gives the "air" that he's above the law and can get away with murder, no pun intended. But the trial that begins tomorrow and which will be carried live on KTLA TV, channel 5 Los Angeles, has some elements that I'm not sure will allow him to escape his shady past.
The prosecution has some pretty strong evidence against him, including but not limited to audio tapes and his co-horts "rolling" on him in exchange for lighter sentences.
In addition to the testimony from the former co-defendants, prosecutors plan to introduce audiotaped conversations between Simpson and some of his cohorts that were recorded surreptitiously before, during, and after the alleged heist.
Prosecutors say the tapes will show that the armed confrontation was planned in detail -- including the use of guns.
For Simpson, the tapes are not only a crucial obstacle for his lawyers to overcome, but a symbol of what it means to be the most visible criminal defendant in modern history.
"I think O.J. walks around with a big target on his back, and he may have drawn it there himself," said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor who has closely watched Simpson's legal travails since he was arrested in the 1994 slayings of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her waiter friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman. "The state of being O.J. is constantly to be in the limelight, and people are always going to be waiting for him to make a mistake," Levenson said.
While O.J. may think this is a slam dunk for him, OH WAIT wrong sport, the prosecution has an up hill battle too to fight.
At least three of the four co-defendants who cut deals to testify have criminal records.
And then there's Fromong, who claims to have received the property from one of Simpson's former managers, and Beardsley, who should not have been in Las Vegas in the first place.
At the time, Beardsley was on parole after serving time for a probation violation in California. Since 1990, Beardsley has been arrested repeatedly for a variety of charges, including battery and stalking and DUI.
When he appears on the stand, Beardsley will come directly from a California prison. He has been incarcerated since he allegedly attempted to contact Riccio through his publisher in violation of a restraining order earlier this year.
"The victims are not sympathetic and the act that others involved taped O.J. in the room suggests they were looking to make money off O.J.'s presence," said CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
"The true owner of the merchandise is going to be very hard to determine, so it's very far from a straightforward armed robbery and kidnapping case," he added.
And then there's that constant smug arrogance of O.J.'s to deal with. Whether or not you feel he murdered two people, he seems this time around to be honestly astounded that he's in any kind of legal trouble and that he may face prison time. Of course if he does go to prison, (he couldn't possibly be so lucky as to escape it this time could he?) he knows that the public will see it as fitting that he is gone for this crime but that they'll apply it in their minds to the previous crime.
As this trial begins, the specter lingers of Simpson's earlier trials.
Judge Jackie Glass has sought to keep references to those cases out of this trial, and members of the jury were questioned closely about their ability to set aside their opinions.
While some may be watching to see if this case ends differently from the murder trial, Levenson doubts that the level of fascination will be the same.
"I watched every minute of the criminal case and every moment of the civil case. Those were trials of the century," she said. "This is a bad sequel."
More so than the outcome of this trial will be the reaction of Fred Goldman to whatever verdict is reached. Expect anything from total outrage, even to the point of having a stroke if O.J. is once again aquitted of a criminal charge, to a feeling of total vindication if O.J. gets life in prison or something close to it.
Bad sequel, yes indeed, but life the way it is.....also a yes indeed.
Tags: Culture
posted by fast_rush | Sunday, September 14, 2008
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