Tag Archives: O.J. Simpson

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Lance Ito: circus ringmaster

Twenty years ago this week, a horrible crime occurred in front of a Los Angeles-area condo. Two people were stabbed to death. One of them was the former wife of a football legend; the other was her friend.

The football legend, O.J. Simpson, went on trial for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman and was acquitted after an eight-month circus presided over by LA County Superior Court Judge Lance Ito.

Ito made a fateful decision early on: He allowed TV cameras to record the event. I guess it’s OK to allow the public in on these kinds of proceedings, but only if the judge sets some rules for the conduct of the lawyers who’ll take the stage.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/13/justice/o-j-simpson-where-are-they-now/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Ito apparently didn’t do that. The trial went on for eight months. The 12 jurors were sequestered, kept away from their families and friends and left to talk only among themselves.

The trial dragged on and on and on.

I bring this up to relay a point made to me during the trial by the then-chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, who came by for a visit at the newspaper where I worked at the time. Chief Justice Tom Phillips — a former trial court judge in Houston — and I talked for a bit about the Simpson trial and he told me something fascinating.

He said Ito had the power to limit the time the lawyers needed to make their case. He said Texas trial law gives judges here that kind of power and he said he was quite certain California law had similar provisions that gave the presiding judge the power to keep the lawyers on a tight leash.

Ito gave the so-called Simpson “Dream Team” of lawyers and the prosecution’s Team of Nincompoops all the time they requested to prance, preen and pontificate in front of the jurors — and, of course, millions of the rest of America watching on television.

As one who generally favors televised court proceedings, I prefer instead to watch a more tightly controlled event than what we got two decades ago with the Trial of the Century.

Lance Ito is going to retire from the bench next January. I’d love to read a memoir, should he write one, that explains the “logic” behind letting those lawyers run wild in a public courtroom.

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New poll: O.J. did it

Time has a way of healing wounds, they say. It also has a way of changing hearts and minds, apparently.

A new CNN poll says that most African-Americans now believe O.J. Simpson killed his former wife and her friend in that gruesome knife attack 20 years ago.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/09/majority-of-african-americans-now-say-simpson-was-guilty/?hpt=hp_t2

The poll was done by CNN/ORC International, a reputable polling outfit.

So, why the change in heart?

A couple of things come to mind.

* A new generation of Americans has come along since the so-called “trial of the century” acquitted Simpson after an eight-month circus act in that Los Angeles Superior courtroom. You’ll recall the video recorded reaction to the acquittal, which a jury reached after just four hours of deliberation.

White Americans were crushed; African-Americans were jubilant. Many white Americans sobbed; African-Americans cheered, laughed, high-fived and embraced.

The state of race relations wasn’t good in southern California at the time, you’ll also remember. A black man, Rodney King, was beaten senseless by some white police officers, who then were acquitted of wrong-doing in that beat down. The verdict enraged African-Americans, who then rioted.

Three years later came the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

O.J. went on trial and the rest is history, correct?

That brings me to the second reason for the change in attitudes.

* Despite the jubilation felt in the African-American community over Simpson’s acquittal, it became immediately clear that Simpson was not going to give back any of the love and affection he felt from his fellow African-Americans. He sought to return immediately to the life he enjoyed prior to the murder. Did he avail himself to troubled black youth, or did he work as a violence counselor with minorities? No. Was he a high-profile presence at, say United Negro College Fund events or at NAACP gatherings? Nope.

He played golf at exclusive courses and sought to ingratiate himself with gambling interests.

How do you think that looked to those who cheered his acquittal? I’m betting it didn’t look good at all.

He ended up getting sued in civil court by the Goldman family, who won a multimillion-dollar settlement after a jury determined Simpson was responsible for the deaths of Nicole and Goldman. And after that? He was arrested for assault in a case involving the recovery of some keepsake items. Another jury convicted him of that crime and sent him to prison, where he remains to this day.

And remember when Simpson said he would move heaven and Earth to find the “real killers”? He had the chance before getting tossed into the slammer. I’d bet real money he didn’t lift a finger.