S01.E10: The Verdict

[WescottF1]

Quick question here:

The last scene at the party when OJ interacted with the waiter he didn't know -- was that supposed to signify some larger point?  Was it showing how OJ would no longer be surrounded by close friends and societal elites, but rather, unknowns and suck-ups?  Or was it a subtle reference to Marcia Clark's earlier story about the waiter who raped her?  That Simpson is just like the waiter and every other guilty defendant who has gotten away with a crime?

 

IMHO, I think it was just show him trying to get back into his old "honorary white guy" lifestyle only to find that just about every caucasian man in the room aside from RK was the hired help.  

[LennieBriscoe]

Cuba Gooding, Jr., owes his agent BIG-time for getting him a role he was in every way imaginable unsuited for. Too small of stature, too wrinkled, too dramatic with facial expressions, too gruff-voiced, too NOT-OJ! And this last stands out especially as the rest of the cast is so spot-on (yes, even Travolta. I think the real Fuhrman is more handsome than the actor, though, but it's a minor quibble.).

Ito allowed OJ to speak because Ito was ridiculously impressed by famous people.

That male juror's "Black Power" salute said it all, really, re: the verdict. The jurors regarded the defendant as a Black American, whereas he himself did not.

Cochran's shameless use of the Nation of Islam "guards" was brother under the skin to the "Fuhrman tapes." Can one just imagine the hue and cry had Fuhrman shown up at court with Aryan Nation "guards"?

Too bad, so sad, Robert K. You sided with a killer instead of Lady Justice. You are NOT a sympathetic character. But at least your name is now, via your spawn, forever tarnished.

Edited April 6, 2016 by LennieBriscoe

[psychoticstate]

Last night episode made me see Cuba playing Simpson more so than others.  I thought CG did very well when he played Simpson as smarmy, assured, self-obsessed and angry.  But when he played him as unsure, humble and/or guilty, it didn't ring as true.  

 

I think that CG is a good actor but they didn't do enough to make him look more imposing and larger, like the real Simpson, and his voice deeper and more commanding.

 

I already knew that Sarah Paulson, Courtney B. Vance and Sterling K. Brown were phenomenal actors and they absolutely did not disappoint.  I forgot I was watching actors play Clark, Cochran and Darden - - that's how stellar they were.  John Travolta surprised me, especially given how it appeared his performance could migrate into the hammy territory with the first episode.  I think he nailed Shapiro's mannerisms and vocal inflection.  With the side-by-side comparisons at the end, I realized how much Kenneth Choi resembled the real Ito; he did an excellent job not only showing Ito's flirtation with celebrity but also his soft spoken demeanor.

 

I think the real amazement for me was David Schwimmer.  His portrayal made Robert Kardashian sympathetic, even if you didn't think the real RK was.  His realization, his pain and his feeling of betrayal were gut wrenching.  

 

I wasn't super excited about the prospect of Katrina for the next season but I'm on board now if the writing and acting come remotely close to this series.  This series was one of the best on tv and most certainly on FX.

[deerstalker]

The only way I can explain it is this - - is it reasonable to assume that at least three detectives, who had not worked together previously, would decide in the early morning hours, without knowing the identity of one victim and therefore possibly not the motive for the murders, to frame the ex-husband of the identified victim?  A man of whom they had previously coddled and let domestic violence issues slide on?   Is it reasonable to assume that they managed to get this ex-husband's blood before he gave a sample to place at the crime scene?  Is it reasonable to assume these same detectives managed to gain access to his vehicle in order to plant blood and fiber evidence?  Is it reasonable to assume they would do this, all without knowing the exact whereabouts of the ex-husband and potential alibi he may have had?  Is it reasonable to assume they also managed to get people in the crime lab to go into this scheme by either planting DNA and hairs or fudging the results?  Is it reasonable to assume that all of these people were willing to jeopardize their careers, pensions and reputations in order to frame Simpson?

 

If there was no conspiracy on the lab's side, is it reasonable to assume that lax habits or genuine mistakes would make it more likely to match the defendant?  Is it reasonable to assume that these mistakes that may have destroyed evidence pointing to the "real killer" would then leave behind only evidence that implicated Simpson?   

 

 

Ah, but you assume all these things happened on the night of the murder.  The defense casts doubt on the idea that this "conspiracy" happened all at once.  First, you do have detectives who were at one crime scene awash with blood going to a second scene, and probably contaminating the second scene, whether intentionally or unintentionally.  Then you have the detectives continually "discovering" evidence even weeks later (like the blood on the back fence), after it was quite clear that Simpson was the suspect.  Then you have Fuhrman discovering things like the blood in the Bronco, which would have been difficult indeed to do, given the amount of blood, and the angle at which the blood was found. 

 

After that, you have a lab who was probably under some pressure to make sure the samples matched the prosecution narrative.  Whether they intentionally botched the evidence, or just grossly mishandled it, the results were the same, there was a lot of cross-contamination between all the samples, and some rather suspicious circumstances for some of the samples.  Even rather recently crime labs everywhere, including the FBI's (!), have come under fire, and there have been some prosecutions, relating to the fact that they have falsified evidence to make prosecutions' cases stronger. They see themselves aligned with the police/prosecutors.  Simpson's case was one of he first cases where the lab work in such instances was given a close look, and it turns out the results are not pretty. 

 

As I've said before, they defense did not have to prove the police planted evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.  They merely had to show that it was plausible that it could have happened.  They did so, quite masterfully in my estimation.  As to the question of the "real killer", if it wasn't OJ (which I am about 60%-70% sure it was), then who is to say that the "real killer" left anything at all behind?  And if s/he did, why wouldn't the police repress any "stray" evidence that takes away from who they believe really did it?  Look at some of Scheck's Innocence Project cases.  In most of them, you will find, time and again, evidence of police and prosecutorial misconduct where once they have honed in on a suspect anything that doesn't fit the narrative is repressed, withheld, and/or discarded.

[DangerousMinds]

I am of the generation that watched O.J. Simpson play college football, win the Heisman and go on to be spectacular in the NFL, watched his foray into acting and all that.   Like most dudes, loved to watch him run.

 

Also watched all of the trial drama when it went down.  I remember when the news first broke the story of the murders, my thought was I hope O.J. wasn't involved and I had some sense of relief momentarily when they said he was out of town.  However, as we know that "out of town" was after the murders.

 

Real, real conflict about the entire matter.  In my heart and mind I think O.J. Simpson is a despicable, demonic human being who savagely murdered 2 people.  Also he essentially tortured his wife for years with his crazy,

 

However.., I am clearly aware of the very odd dynamic of the time and I guess you had to live it to understand and of course seeing things through each of our eyes will be different.

 

As an Af-Am male, I simply don't think that the prosecution proved "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that O.J. did what intellectually most, including me believe he did.  Primarily, there was never any recovery of the murder weapon.  I understand that there was the pyramid of evidence otherwise, however, the times being what they were in the Black Community (after Rodney King )certainly played into this whole travesty. 

 

While many label it horrific, the defense by the Simpson team did what eventually worked. They used a defense of conspiracy that the Black Community felt and feels today is real.   Hell at times they had me convinced that this collection of "keystone cops" could have done something underhanded. Which again in my mind goes to the "shadow of a doubt".

 

This was yet another very ugly period that surfaced in America from a racial standpoint.  Some commentators went so far as to say that African-Americans didn't have the mentality to ever serve on a jury suggesting only white folk should be jurors. 

 

 I thought the montage at the end where they showed the different reactions from the Black Community to the White Community was brilliant.   I myself worked in an office setting that when we heard the announcement, White folks were devastated.  I was 1 of 2 Black folk and we just remained intentionally ambiguous.  Not that we wanted to scream and shout for joy, because that was just stupid.., but because we read the room and knew this was a racial divide and that could have social work environment dynamic issues for years to come.  Even though we maintained neutrality, the white part of the office kept a distance in what appeared to be anger at US, for quite some time.

I'm almost at the point where I believe we should get rid of juries "of one's peers" and let a panel of judges decide, as they do in other countries. It was criminal that the jury did not spend the time to deliberate and discuss and review 9 months worth of testimony. Deliberation is the key to our system, otherwise the 12 jurors could simply sit through the trial and then just take a vote, without speaking to one another at all. 

[txhorns79]

As to the question of the "real killer", if it wasn't OJ (which I am about 60%-70% sure it was), then who is to say that the "real killer" left anything at all behind?

 

If it is 20 years later, and you are still only approximately 60%-70% convinced that OJ did it, who are the alternate suspects that you believe could have killed Nicole and Ron? 

Edited April 6, 2016 by txhorns79

[DangerousMinds]

I think the defense played on the worst in people to help a murderer get off.  I fully agree that some of the police work was sloppy, there were poor prosecution witnesses and that Clark's trial strategy was badly planned as she misunderstood what she was dealing with.  Having said that, the idea that corrupt cops got together to plot what would have been a fairly elaborate conspiracy to frame OJ is so wildly implausible that the only way it truly gets you to reasonable doubt is if you are ignoring the facts of this case, and bringing in a whole lot of other baggage saved up from other experiences to justify the verdict.     

Exactly! Hence the need for reasoned deliberation. There is just no way the LAPD plotted or took part in a conspiracy. Just not possible given the facts of the case.

Yes, I remember thinking at the time that the LAPD was to blame for the Not Guilty verdict-- how could they be so sloppy? Especially the chain-of-custody issues. I also remember wondering how, in LA, everyone would be so star-struck.  Shouldn't they have been used to celebrities? Shouldn't they have expected that OJ would have tons of money to mount an excellent defense? That made me somewhat blame the LA Co. DA and Clark.  Couldn't they see that their forensic evidence was not going to be enough, even though it was pretty damn overwhelming? 

 

After watching the show, I can see much more how the climate in LA in regard to race effected everyone.  As a young woman on the East coast, I didn't get that then.

No, The evidence WAS overwhelming and I still can't believe it was overlooked completely.

[deerstalker]

Exactly! Hence the need for reasoned deliberation. There is just no way the LAPD plotted or took part in a conspiracy. Just not possible given the facts of the case.

No, The evidence WAS overwhelming and I still can't believe it was overlooked completely.

 

I think it is not only possible, but highly likely that at least some of the evidence was planted by the LAPD.  The defense did a good job of showing that much.  We have seen time and time again that crime labs across the country falsify evidence to bolster the prosecution's case.  I don't see why that is hard to believe that this is what happened here.  http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/csi-is-a-lie/390897/

 

 

..."Nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000," the newspaper reported, adding that "the cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death."

The article notes that the admissions from the FBI and Department of Justice "confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques—like hair and bite-mark comparisons—that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989."

That link points back to 2012 coverage of problems with FBI forensic analysis, but the existence of shoddy forensics has been so clear for so long in so many different state and local jurisdictions that the following conclusion is difficult to avoid: Neither police agencies nor prosecutors are willing to call for the sorts of reforms that would prevent many innocents from being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, and neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party will force their hands.

Ignorance of the problem is no longer an acceptable excuse.

Among recent examples:

•At a Massachusetts drug lab, a chemist was sent to prison after admitting that she faked the results in perhaps tens of thousands of drug cases, calling into question thousands of drug convictions that ended with people in prison.

•In St. Paul, Minnesota, an independent review of the crime lab found "major errors in almost every area of the lab's work, including the fingerprint and crime scene evidence processing that has continued after the lab's drug testing was stopped in July. The failures include sloppy documentation, dirty equipment, faulty techniques and ignorance of basic scientific procedures ... Lab employees even used Wikipedia as a 'technical reference' in at least one drug case ... The lab lacked any clean area designated for the review and collection of DNA evidence. The lab stored crime-scene photos on a computer that anyone could access without a password."

•In Colorado, the Office of the Attorney General documented inadequate training and alarming lapses at a lab that measured the amount of alcohol in blood.

•In Detroit, police shut down their crime laboratory "after an audit uncovered serious errors in numerous cases. The audit said sloppy work had probably resulted in wrongful convictions, and officials expect a wave of appeals ... auditors re-examined 200 randomly selected shooting cases and found serious errors in 19."

•In Philadelphia, "three trace-evidence technicians have flunked a routine test administered to uphold the police crime lab’s accreditation, police brass announced Tuesday. Each technician tests hundreds of pieces of evidence a year for traces of blood and semen, so if investigators determine that the methods are problematic, it could throw countless court cases into question ... "

•In North Carolina, "agents withheld exculpatory evidence or distorted evidence in more than 230 cases over a 16-year period. Three of those cases resulted in execution. There was widespread lying, corruption, and pressure from prosecutors and other law-enforcement officials on crime lab analysts to produce results that would help secure convictions. And the pressure worked."

That is a highly incomplete sample from just the last decade.

If it is 20 years later, and you are still only approximately 60%-70% convinced that OJ did it, who are the alternate suspects that you believe could have killed Nicole and Ron? 

 

 

There is absolutely no way to know who else might have done it.  It was clear that Nicole was into the party scene, and that she knew some crappy people.  Simpson's son has also often been offered up as a possible suspect, though I don't believe that as much either.  It could have been a random crime, someone else Nicole might have been dating at the time, or even someone that Goldman may have pissed off.  There is a whole world of psychos out there that do crappy things to people.

[psychoticstate]

Ah, but you assume all these things happened on the night of the murder.  The defense casts doubt on the idea that this "conspiracy" happened all at once.  First, you do have detectives who were at one crime scene awash with blood going to a second scene, and probably contaminating the second scene, whether intentionally or unintentionally.  Then you have the detectives continually "discovering" evidence even weeks later (like the blood on the back fence), after it was quite clear that Simpson was the suspect.  Then you have Fuhrman discovering things like the blood in the Bronco, which would have been difficult indeed to do, given the amount of blood, and the angle at which the blood was found. 

 

After that, you have a lab who was probably under some pressure to make sure the samples matched the prosecution narrative.  Whether they intentionally botched the evidence, or just grossly mishandled it, the results were the same, there was a lot of cross-contamination between all the samples, and some rather suspicious circumstances for some of the samples.  Even rather recently crime labs everywhere, including the FBI's (!), have come under fire, and there have been some prosecutions, relating to the fact that they have falsified evidence to make prosecutions' cases stronger. They see themselves aligned with the police/prosecutors.  Simpson's case was one of he first cases where the lab work in such instances was given a close look, and it turns out the results are not pretty. 

 

As I've said before, they defense did not have to prove the police planted evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.  They merely had to show that it was plausible that it could have happened.  They did so, quite masterfully in my estimation.  As to the question of the "real killer", if it wasn't OJ (which I am about 60%-70% sure it was), then who is to say that the "real killer" left anything at all behind?  And if s/he did, why wouldn't the police repress any "stray" evidence that takes away from who they believe really did it?  Look at some of Scheck's Innocence Project cases.  In most of them, you will find, time and again, evidence of police and prosecutorial misconduct where once they have honed in on a suspect anything that doesn't fit the narrative is repressed, withheld, and/or discarded.

 

The glove was noted and photographed on the night of the murder.  The blood noted on and in the Bronco was photographed on the night of the murder.  The knit cap was discovered on the night of the murder.  The blood drops at Rockingham were noted and photographed on the night of the murder.  The blood at Bundy was noted and photographed on the night of the murder.  The blood on the back gate was noted on the night of the murder but the samples were not taken until later.  The majority of the evidence in question was noted and photographed on the night of the murder.

 

All crime scenes are contaminated in some form.  Before the police even showed up, the scene at Bundy had been contaminated and compromised by Kato the dog, nature and possibly even the neighbor that discovered the dog and noted the bodies.  No scene is pristine and perfect.  But again, contamination should make it less likely that the results would match Simpson, not more so.  The defense was floating the theory that the murders were drug related.  If true, how did all traces of any other potential killer be eradicated by such contamination and yet evidence pointing to Simpson remain?  It's just not plausible. 

 

I don't know how things were operating in the lab but I think most people believed in Simpson's innocence at the start.  Would these same people really jeopardize their careers, their livelihoods, their reputations in order to corrupt evidence or lie?  And if they did, wouldn't someone have started talking by now?  It's been more than 20 years.  Surely someone else would have known or someone who participated and no longer works for the lab and been more than happy to start talking.

 

I know there have been cases where there has been prosecutorial misconduct but in this case it just wasn't necessary.  They had a defendant who bled at the crime scene, had the victims' blood in and on his property, who didn't have an alibi, who had a serious cut he couldn't explain, who didn't ask how his ex-wife had died, who had domestic violence issues in the past with her, who was seen speeding away from the murder scene, whose interview and so-called suicide note reeked of guilt.  

 

There was a reason and motive for these murders.  If you take only the people who were in Los Angeles on the night of June 12, 1994, who were on or around Bundy  Drive some time between 10 and 11 that night, who had reason to kill one or both victims and who did not have an alibi, you have a very small group.  Out of that group, if you single out people that Nicole was in fear of, who owned a knife that could have been the murder weapon, who had a serious cut or cuts on their body and who were seen leaving the scene at or about the time of death, you are left only with O.J. Simpson. And that excludes all blood, fiber and DNA evidence.   No one else had a motive to kill Nicole (as she was clearly the target.)   No one else was enraged with her.  No one else was obsessed with her.  She was not afraid of anyone else.  She had claimed one person and one person alone was going to kill her and that was O.J. Simpson. 

[psychoticstate]

There is absolutely no way to know who else might have done it.  It was clear that Nicole was into the party scene, and that she knew some crappy people.  Simpson's son has also often been offered up as a possible suspect, though I don't believe that as much either.  It could have been a random crime, someone else Nicole might have been dating at the time, or even someone that Goldman may have pissed off.  There is a whole world of psychos out there that do crappy things to people.

 

 

 

Simpson was also into the party scene.  It was fairly well known that he used coke.  I would say that would lead to some crappy people.  If some random crappy person was going to kill Nicole, why wait until she had her children in the house and she was outside, where she could have called or screamed for help or the killer been seen?  She had a daily routine; she went jogging every morning.  Why not take her out then?  And why do it in such a personal manner as stabbing? 

 

It's absolutely not plausible or reasonable in any way to suggest that Ron pissed someone off (besides O.J. Simpson) and that he was the target.  If so, why wait until he got to someone's front walkway before killing him and therefore being forced to make a second person collateral damage?  

 

This was clearly a crime of rage and passion.  I don't think some random person was wandering the streets of Brentwood and just happened upon Nicole.  If so, why wouldn't they take her jewelry from her body?  Why not go into her condo and take things of value?  Because the perp was there for one reasona only - - to obliterate Nicole.    

[VCRTracking]

Some actually people think OJ was covering for his son who committed the murders. If that's true then he is the shittiest son ever!

 

I remember before Friends, David Schwimmer was on the first season of NYPD Blue as David Caruso's neighbor who was mugged who a buys a gun and goes Bernie Goetz and gets killed. It was an incredibly heavy, serious role and I hope after this show Schwimmer gets more roles like that again.

Edited April 6, 2016 by VCRTracking

[tiredofwork]

For me the puzzle is why people think there was not reasonable doubt in this case.  After Fuhrman pleads the 5th, that's pretty much it.  It's hard not to clearly see that if a major part of the defense strategy is that the police planted evidence to frame your suspect, and you have an officer heavily involved in the case basically admitting such, your defendant is going to walk, pretty much 100% of the time, no matter who your defendant is.  Why would any reasonable jury ignore that?

 

 

Yes., Thank you.

[deerstalker]

I think the problem is that you pretty much have to throw out most of the forensic evidence as either being unreliable, contaminated, or planted.  You can't have your control sample of your suspect also containing the blood of the victims and ask the jury to rely on you as being trustworthy on absolutely anything else.  Something is clearly wrong with your lab, either intentionally, or unintentionally fudging the results.  So we don't know, if in fact, any of the blood samples truly matched Simpson or not, if all we have are the lab's say-so on this. 

 

And after that, what's left?  Simpson's domestic violence history, which in and of itself is not enough for a conviction, and some timeline witnesses who contradict themselves and/or seem unreliable, and a tiny cut on Simpson's finger, which anyone of us might have on any day.  Altogether, it was not even being close enough to convict.

[txhorns79]

This was clearly a crime of rage and passion.  I don't think some random person was wandering the streets of Brentwood and just happened upon Nicole.  If so, why wouldn't they take her jewelry from her body?  Why not go into her condo and take things of value?  Because the perp was there for one reasona only - - to obliterate Nicole.

 

I would agree that the murder was very personal as to Nicole.  While I suppose anything is possible, as far as I know from the case, there was nothing to suggest any person had the motive and means to commit this particular crime other than OJ.  Now maybe you could claim that the police and prosecution withheld all their evidence that pointed to another person (for over twenty years), but you also had a civil trial, where again, nothing was produced to show that someone other than OJ also had the means and motive to commit the crime.      

[tiredofwork]

My favorite line of last night was when Darden and Cochran had their final scene...

Cochran: I'll bring you back into the community."

Darden: "I never left."

 

 

Mine.., Ito sitting at his desk, phone rings., can't hear voice of whoever is calling him and then,.., "You have got to be shittin me."

[plotpointer]

IMHO, I think it was just show him trying to get back into his old "honorary white guy" lifestyle only to find that just about every caucasian man in the room aside from RK was the hired help.  

Ah, that's good!  I never thought of that one.

[smiley13]

I think it is not only possible, but highly likely that at least some of the evidence was planted by the LAPD.  The defense did a good job of showing that much.  We have seen time and time again that crime labs across the country falsify evidence to bolster the prosecution's case.  I don't see why that is hard to believe that this is what happened here.  http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/csi-is-a-lie/390897/

 

 

 

 

There is absolutely no way to know who else might have done it.  It was clear that Nicole was into the party scene, and that she knew some crappy people.  Simpson's son has also often been offered up as a possible suspect, though I don't believe that as much either.  It could have been a random crime, someone else Nicole might have been dating at the time, or even someone that Goldman may have pissed off.  There is a whole world of psychos out there that do crappy things to people.

There is some interesting information out there about employees at Mezzaluna how many of them were murdered.  We never got much info during the trial about Ron's background and the people he was associating with.  We know Nicole had some bad people like Faye in her life.  Drugs were a common connection.

 

And go do some reading about Ron's step-mother, Patti Glass Goldman and her first husband Marvin.  

 

It seemed that the DA's office zeroed in on OJ and the police never bothered to look any further.

[MamaMax]

So we have an LAPD that has been shown routinely framing minority suspects. We have a police detective who has to take the 5th when asked if he planted evidence in this case.  We have a defense team lawyer who is an expert on DNA, and who shows that Simpson's, Nicole's, and Goldman's blood have already been mixed together in the comparison vial. That a percentage of Simpson's blood taken for comparison was "missing". That some of the evidence miraculously turns up weeks after the murders, but not in the original photographs, that some of the evidence spent the night over at detective's houses, and that blood taken from Simpson, instead of being logged immediately and taken to the lab, was driven over to the crime scene instead.  Remember, the defense does not have to prove the "planted evidence" theory beyond a reasonable doubt.  They just have to show that it was plausible.  Even without all of the fine job Scheck did of doing just that, Fuhrman pleading the 5th would have been more than enough to provide plausibility.

 

Ok, but, just playing Devil's advocate here... did LAPD consider OJ the same as they would a non-celebrity black man? Would they try to frame a celebrity?  Would they try to "goose" the evidence on a rich, influential person? Because if they did it on purpose, they knew they were doing it to OJ, not just some Joe Schmo. 

 

 

No, The evidence WAS overwhelming and I still can't believe it was overlooked completely.

 

I would agree with deerstalker that, once Furhman pleaded the 5th, and even ONE aspect of the evidence was shown to be unreliable and/or mis-handled, it's not hard to understand the jury finding  reasonable doubt. 

[VCRTracking]

How nice of Johnny to offer to help Darden "back into the community". *eyeroll*

Edited April 6, 2016 by VCRTracking

[Ilovemylabs]

Given the racial tensions of the day, even if Johnnie Cochran had brought in an all black security detail (non NOI) people would've had a problem with it. There was just no way to know which white person was sending death threats...for all we know Shapiro could've been sending threats.

Some of the articles posted up thread mention the shunning various members of the dream team & Simpson himself faced. I totally forgot how OJ was persona non grata after the verdict. The white folks he craved and yearned for were not here for him. Those folks ran him out of LA. He should've just ran to Florida and laid low for the rest of his life (or leave the U.S.). Instead he partied it up with that girl that looked like Nicole and claimed to be Anna Nicole's baby daddy.

OJ yearned for white love so badly he figured if he couldn't have their adoration and love then he could at least have their attention. He got his Man'Tan on and the rest is history,

A few thoughts.  This is definitely EMMY material.  Kudos to all the writers, actors, director,.  producer, etc.

[txhorns79]

There is some interesting information out there about employees at Mezzaluna how many of them were murdered.  We never got much info during the trial about Ron's background and the people he was associating with.  We know Nicole had some bad people like Faye in her life.  Drugs were a common connection.

 

And go do some reading about Ron's step-mother, Patti Glass Goldman and her first husband Marvin. 

 

Was there ever any evidence to suggest any of those people had the motive, means and opportunity to murder Nicole and Ron that night? 

[VCRTracking]

It was probably have been better for OJ go to prison. There some of the prison guards could have been his new white friends.

[psychoticstate]

And after that, what's left?  Simpson's domestic violence history, which in and of itself is not enough for a conviction, and some timeline witnesses who contradict themselves and/or seem unreliable, and a tiny cut on Simpson's finger, which anyone of us might have on any day.  Altogether, it was not even being close enough to convict.

 

 

 

We'll have to agree to disagree.  See my posts above for strong circumstantial evidence that have nothing to do with DNA, blood, fibers, etc. 

 

And a tiny cut?  That was a fairly serious cut.  I don't play golf, as Simpson claimed as a golfer he apparently sustained deep cuts and other injuries from the sport, but I do cook, home repairs, etc. and I can remember the few times in my life I've had a cut like that.  Not only do I remember (no "I don't know, man" from me) but I wouldn't go running around my house, "doing my thing" and bleeding everywhere. 

Was there ever any evidence to suggest any of those people had the motive, means and opportunity to murder Nicole and Ron that night? 

 

Nope.

[RedheadZombie]

The scene in which the defense is watching TV coverage, and Sean tells Cochran, "you got the president", revealed so much to me. First off, Sean, no Johnnie didn't get the president. Clinton was discussing the racial tension following the verdict. But I see you share Johnnie's view that it's all about Johnnie.

Overall impressions:

Cuba wasn't physically right, but I think he did a good job. That staring in the mirror scene post-shower said a lot. I think he obviously chose to portray OJ as guilty.

Johnnie Cochran seemed to genuinely fight against racism, and truly believe he was helping the Black community. His ego was raging and he seemed to have a bit of a God complex. His Black associates fed his self-importance and I think he would have done better if not surrounded by sycophants. I wonder how he felt, in retrospect, that his legacy isn't his fight for civil rights, but getting a double murderer off, and inciting racial tension. I started off the first few episodes wondering if I had judged the real Johnnie too harshly. In the end, I despised him. It can't be an accident. I think that's what the writers wanted.

I'm surprised that it was continually drilled into the viewer that Shapiro was incredibly arrogant. I think a lot of his points were valid. He knew Cochran was attempting to incite a riot, and he objected. Who wouldn't? He had a good relationship with law enforcement and didn't want to demonize them. I imagine many defense attorneys feel the same. And I don't see the problem with a Jewish man not wanting to be associated with raging anti-Semites. Sure they made Johnnie feel safe, but I wouldn't want to be escorted by folks who hated me and my religion.

I need to read the book. During the trial, I remember having the impression that Bailey was an alcoholic has been, chosen to grill Fuhrman because he was the only one willing to spit out the N word a hundred times. In this show, he was a power player on level with Cochran. He was part of every decision, and "right" about everything. I kept wondering if the role was expanded because they were so pleased to have Lane on the show. I really need to know if Bailey was as integral to the defense as the show portrayed.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

The People v. OJ Simpson Rests Its Case
How American Crime Story's ultra-watchable first outing put us back in the mid-nineties, and why we let it.

[Pepperminty]

I watched the Secret Tapes of OJ Simpson on A&E this week. They show OJ under deposition as he can't say no with a civil trial. He also had to testify. And some of his friends were deposed too. It was pretty interesting. He's just an asshole and a liar.

With the criminal trial, the prosecutors couldn't get to his state of mind since he didn't testify. 

 

I think I'm all OJ'd out. Unfortunately, as a society we'll have to rehash this again since he's up for parole next year.

[SFoster21]

Last night episode made me see Cuba playing Simpson more so than others. I thought CG did very well when he played Simpson as smarmy, assured, self-obsessed and angry. But when he played him as unsure, humble and/or guilty, it didn't ring as true.

I think that CG is a good actor but they didn't do enough to make him look more imposing and larger, like the real Simpson, and his voice deeper and more commanding.

I already knew that Sarah Paulson, Courtney B. Vance and Sterling K. Brown were phenomenal actors and they absolutely did not disappoint. I forgot I was watching actors play Clark, Cochran and Darden - - that's how stellar they were. John Travolta surprised me, especially given how it appeared his performance could migrate into the hammy territory with the first episode. I think he nailed Shapiro's mannerisms and vocal inflection. With the side-by-side comparisons at the end, I realized how much Kenneth Choi resembled the real Ito; he did an excellent job not only showing Ito's flirtation with celebrity but also his soft spoken demeanor.

I think the real amazement for me was David Schwimmer. His portrayal made Robert Kardashian sympathetic, even if you didn't think the real RK was. His realization, his pain and his feeling of betrayal were gut wrenching.

I wasn't super excited about the prospect of Katrina for the next season but I'm on board now if the writing and acting come remotely close to this series. This series was one of the best on tv and most certainly on FX.

When they showed the "real pix," they picked older, out of shape OJ, not trial OJ. Cuba resembles that OJ, fersure.

[Ruby25]

Not to mention the upcoming 10 hour OJ documentary that's going to be aired on ABC and ESPN in June. Apparently it premiered at Sundance and is supposed to phenomenal. After watching this miniseries, I feel like I have to watch that one too, for more of the facts and everything.

 

Marcia's speech about being raped and vengeance for victims being what drives her was great, but I couldn't help but think that that point of view was also what drove not just the jury, but the majority of black citizens in their emotional response to this trial as well. But from their perspective, vengeance for the victims applied to the hundreds of years of innocent black victims being targeted and killed by the police and white people getting away with it over and over again.

 

It's just too bad that, as Darden said, this verdict changed nothing in the end, as far as that went. It was one moment of payback, of sticking it to the LAPD, but that was all.

[EdnasEdibles]

Last night episode made me see Cuba playing Simpson more so than others.  I thought CG did very well when he played Simpson as smarmy, assured, self-obsessed and angry.  But when he played him as unsure, humble and/or guilty, it didn't ring as true.  

 

I think that CG is a good actor but they didn't do enough to make him look more imposing and larger, like the real Simpson, and his voice deeper and more commanding.

 

 

When I see the clips of OJ the real person, it strikes me that he's not terribly intelligent but has been very likely surrounded by ass kissers and yes men to the point where he believes he's really smart. It's kind of the common "famous person problem" - In real life when he would talk about "finding the real killers" it always seemed to me that it was largely ego - he really thought he was fooling everyone. Probably the same crap he'd always done - little lies here and there and since he was famous, people let him get away with it to the point where he believed he was a really good liar. He wasn't. He was just famous. 

 

Cuba never quite captured that. He got the stupidity sometimes but never quite captured the ego. 

[psychoticstate]

When I see the clips of OJ the real person, it strikes me that he's not terribly intelligent but has been very likely surrounded by ass kissers and yes men to the point where he believes he's really smart. It's kind of the common "famous person problem" - In real life when he would talk about "finding the real killers" it always seemed to me that it was largely ego - he really thought he was fooling everyone. Probably the same crap he'd always done - little lies here and there and since he was famous, people let him get away with it to the point where he believed he was a really good liar. He wasn't. He was just famous. 

 

Cuba never quite captured that. He got the stupidity sometimes but never quite captured the ego. 

 

If you see a true copy of the actual "suicide" note that Simpson wrote, you will see that he wasn't terribly intelligent and close to illiterate.  Certainly doesn't make USC look great.  

 

I agree 100% with your post.  Simpson was surrounded by enablers his entire adult life.  People deferred to him - - including the LAPD.  In fact, I think that's one reason he killed Nicole; she was no longer willing to defer to him and he lost control of her.  Like many narcissists, I think Simpson spit out what he thought people wanted to hear.  Of course he had no intention of finding the real killer(s) but he thought that's what people would want to hear and of course they would believe him.  Toobin's book mentions that one of Simpson's NFL teammates offered to pay in full for a PI to turn apart the case and find the killer(s).  Simpson declined.  Doesn't that say everything?  

 

BTW, as a Facts of Life fan from the 80s, I love your screen name! 

[Neurochick]

Trials aren't about revenge. Her job is not to seek vengence, and the fact that that was her motivation is why she lost. She assumed that everyone looks at cases the way she does, as a way to get vengence for the victims. But juries aren't necessarily like that, and not everyone is looking for vengence. Some people look for justice, and they aren't the same thing. But because she assumed the jury would see things the way she did, she framed her arguments that way. Clark presented her case as though someone must pay for this crime; Cochran presented it as a quest for justice. Clark's closing arguments made the case that it was clear Simpson committed the crime, but Cochran pointed out that a conviction based on corrupt evidence is not justice. The jury sided with Cochran not because they were biased or racially blind, but because their definition of justice was different from Clark's.  If we're going by this portrayal of events, then Clark worked under the assumption that close was good enough, because the jury ought to want vengence as much as she did -- that's why she could say that evidence found be a racist police office didn't matter. it's why she could argue that a single drop of blood from a bloody crime scene was enough. It's why she hung her case on DNA presented by someone who didn't know how to present it, and why she didn't have arguments against the idea that the evidence was mishandled. She thought close was enough. Most times it would have been. In this trial it wasn't.

 

 

This is very true.  Trials are not about vengeance, they're not even about the victims.  They're more about making sure the wrong person isn't convicted.  I always believed OJ did it, but I also remember the travesty that happened to the Central Park Five, which is what happens when you allow the state to do whatever the fuck it wants, because...well justice. 

 

If Karma was real then dirtbags like George Zimmerman and that POS cop who shot a black man in the back and tried to cover it up (and it would have worked if not for someone recording it on their smart phone) would be in jail today. 

 

What I remember about this trial though is that Marcia Clark's closing argument wasn't televised, I don't remember why, but for some reason it wasn't.  I do remember seeing Johnnie Cochran's closing and rolling my eyes and thinking, "this sound so stupid." 

 

Johnnie Cochran seemed to genuinely fight against racism, and truly believe he was helping the Black community. His ego was raging and he seemed to have a bit of a God complex. His Black associates fed his self-importance and I think he would have done better if not surrounded by sycophants. I wonder how he felt, in retrospect, that his legacy isn't his fight for civil rights, but getting a double murderer off, and inciting racial tension. I started off the first few episodes wondering if I had judged the real Johnnie too harshly. In the end, I despised him. It can't be an accident. I think that's what the writers wanted.

 

 

I don't think Cochran incited racial tension at all.  You can't incite what isn't there to begin with. 

Edited April 6, 2016 by Neurochick

[txhorns79]

BTW, as a Facts of Life fan from the 80s, I love your screen name!

 

It really should be OverOurHeads! 

 

 

Marcia's speech about being raped and vengeance for victims being what drives her was great, but I couldn't help but think that that point of view was also what drove not just the jury, but the majority of black citizens in their emotional response to this trial as well.

 

What's interesting is that New York Magazine did a weekly follow up with Clark during the series, and she said this about her rape and vengeance:

 

"But I certainly did join the prosecutor's office because I wanted to stand up for the victims. I don't know that I thought of it in terms of the way they put it: vengeance. I didn't think of it as vengeance. To me, that was wrong. It's not about vengeance. It's about justice. My feeling was, victims need someone to stand up and fight for them." 

[deerstalker]

Outside of the lab work, and the stuff "found" by the detectives, there really isn't any case at all. The cut on OJ's finger knuckle was very tiny indeed, here is a pic so anyone can judge for themselves. http://interactives-origin.wiat.com/photomojo/gallery/12714/238028/the-o.j.-simpson-case/cut-finger/

We'll have to agree to disagree.  See my posts above for strong circumstantial evidence that have nothing to do with DNA, blood, fibers, etc. 

 

And a tiny cut?  That was a fairly serious cut.  I don't play golf, as Simpson claimed as a golfer he apparently sustained deep cuts and other injuries from the sport, but I do cook, home repairs, etc. and I can remember the few times in my life I've had a cut like that.  Not only do I remember (no "I don't know, man" from me) but I wouldn't go running around my house, "doing my thing" and bleeding everywhere. 

 

Nope.

[MargotWendice]

I am fascinated/baffled that people think that someone else might have killed Nicole and Ron. Nicole was clearly the target as she was killed first and most violently. Her throat was slashed so deeply it almost severed her head. That is a crime with real emotion behind it. This is not the style of a drug-related hit and as others pointed out, there would have been much easier ways to kill her. I don't think it was uncommon to recreationally use drugs in Brentwood at that time so there is no reason to believe she was hanging out with shady dealers in back alleys. I know the rumor has spread that Faye Resnick owed money, but then why wasn't Resnick killed? And if this was over debts, why not walk off with Nicole's expensive jewelry? Someone with incredibly strong feelings for Nicole went over there that night to kill her. There is one obvious person who fits that description. OJ had beaten her and was clearly stalking her. She was so worried OJ would kill her she left evidence in a safety deposit box. Then someone killed her.

When you hear hoof beats, think of horses, not zebras.

[desertflower]

I thought the scene where the Goldmans quietly walk to their car after the verdict was very moving. Such a contrast to the celebration and noise going on out in the streets. They had to attempt to return to their normal lives, but without their son and without any justice. And all the while knowing there were people celebrating that. Very sad indeed.

[Simon Boccanegra]

 There was a big question back then whether OJ would be able to have a career again. He had just done those "Naked Gun" movies that were a big hit. All it would take is a buddy in the business maybe giving him a small role in something, and if it was well received, maybe he could ease his way back in. It wasn't unthinkable at that point.

 

Never would have happened. He was done in movies and television. There was even overwhelming negatively public reaction to the idea of him having a pay-per-view special that dealt only with the case. People would not have accepted him as a character in entertainment even had he been a good actor.

 

There is absolutely no way to know who else might have done it.  It was clear that Nicole was into the party scene, and that she knew some crappy people.  Simpson's son has also often been offered up as a possible suspect, though I don't believe that as much either.  It could have been a random crime, someone else Nicole might have been dating at the time, or even someone that Goldman may have pissed off.  There is a whole world of psychos out there that do crappy things to people.

 

Exactly: There is absolutely no way to know who else might have done it, because all of the evidence points to one man. So those advancing another theory are left with these very feeble alternatives: Jason Simpson, Paula Barbieri, the Colombian drug lords preying on well-off people in Brentwood, some kind of Mezzaluna-based crime syndicate that actually was targeting Ron (even though it was Nicole, not Ron, who showed all the hallmarks of a rage-based killing),   

 

I think the problem is that you pretty much have to throw out most of the forensic evidence as either being unreliable, contaminated, or planted.  You can't have your control sample of your suspect also containing the blood of the victims and ask the jury to rely on you as being trustworthy on absolutely anything else.  Something is clearly wrong with your lab, either intentionally, or unintentionally fudging the results.  So we don't know, if in fact, any of the blood samples truly matched Simpson or not, if all we have are the lab's say-so on this. 

 

And after that, what's left?  Simpson's domestic violence history, which in and of itself is not enough for a conviction, and some timeline witnesses who contradict themselves and/or seem unreliable, and a tiny cut on Simpson's finger, which anyone of us might have on any day.  Altogether, it was not even being close enough to convict.

 

That cut on Simpson's left middle finger was so deep that it left a scar...and by the way, he had more than one cut. However, the scar on the knuckle of his left middle finger was quite visible when he was testifying in the civil trial, and his attempts to explain it away there were contradictory and implausible. He had told Vannatter and Lange on June 13 that he had sustained it "running around" in preparation for his Chicago trip and "reopened" it somehow in Chicago, cleaning up glass, but he never was able to say how he sustained it in the first place. Not the day after the murders, not in the civil trial years later. Seriously...have you ever cut yourself so badly that you bleed all over your place (he never disputed that the blood in his home was his), so badly that the cut leaves a scar, and the next day you're unable to say how you injured yourself? Photos and video from the dance recital show that his hand was uninjured at that time.  

 

Contamination cannot turn one person's blood into someone else's. It was the defense's theories here that were a house of cards, not the prosecution's case. For example, Dennis Fung was assailed for putting blood in a truck that had a broken refrigerator, so that the blood was "cooked." In fact, the "cooked" blood would simply have degraded faster, so there would be less available for testing. It would be less rich in DNA. That was a break for Simpson and his attorneys. Unfortunately for them, the "cooked" blood still tested as his. And you're aware, I hope, when you make these sweeping statements about how we only had the LAPD's word that any of the blood evidence tested as Simpson's, that all of the same evidence was made available to the defense to do their own independent confirmation. They had unlimited resources, so we know money wasn't the impediment. Not one of their hired guns ever said, "We got a different result."  

Edited April 6, 2016 by Simon Boccanegra

[Neurochick]

I thought the scene where the Goldmans quietly walk to their car after the verdict was very moving. Such a contrast to the celebration and noise going on out in the streets. They had to attempt to return to their normal lives, but without their son and without any justice. And all the while knowing there were people celebrating that. Very sad indeed.

 

I have always felt worse for the Goldman family.  Their son had nothing to do with OJ, Nicole or their fucked up relationship.  Ron Goldman was just working, doing his job, just returning a pair of glasses; I believe he was supposed to go out later with friends, when he walked in on the scene and paid with his life.  

 

But like I said before, trials in this country are not about justice and sometimes I think that sucks, but other times I don't.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Neurochick

[drivethroo]

 

His Black associates fed his self-importance and I think he would have done better if not surrounded by sycophants. I wonder how he felt, in retrospect, that his legacy isn't his fight for civil rights, but getting a double murderer off, and inciting racial tension.

 

Done better by what standards? After Johnnie got OJ off, he was "that dude" that all black celebrities called up when they got in trouble (Snoop---may have been before OJ, Michael Jackson, Puff Daddy etc.).  Johnnie Cochran wasn't thinking about the tender feelings of Susie from Peoria when Michael Jackson had him on retainer.

 

Johnnie Cochran is still "that dude" today in the black community, 11 years after his death.  Johnnie wasn't here for the adulation and attention from white people so how could have "done better?"

 

Again, Johnnie Cochran didn't incite racial tension.  It's not like black people were singing a song of joy while sweeping their stoops and then Johnnie Cochran came along and whipped them up into a frenzy.  Black people were already mad at a system that failed them time and time again.  The anger white people feel/felt over the OJ verdict does not nearly come near the anger black people have felt at a system that has failed them over and over and over for decades.

 

The Marcia Clark character spoke at the press conference and told DV victims not to let this verdict deter them, to trust in the system.  Ironic because the jury was mostly made up of people who had been let down by the system repeatedly, and thus did not trust it, and the prosecution witnesses testifying to mishandling evidence, harboring racial bias and refusing to admit whether evidence had been planted or not only proved to them they were right in not trusting it.

 

The only way the prosecution would've gotten a conviction is if there was an all white jury in Brentwood.  Once it got moved to downtown and blacks were put on the jury, it was lost.

Edited April 6, 2016 by drivethroo

[tiredofwork]

have always felt worse for the Goldman family.  Their son had nothing to do with OJ, Nicole or their fucked up relationship.  Ron Goldman was just working, doing his job, just returning a pair of glasses

 

 

If I recall correctly, there were reports that Ron Goldman was seen by Simpson driving a car Simpson gave to Nicole.  THAT there is one of the things that made me say...., yea, he killed Ron for that.

[txhorns79]

Again, Johnnie Cochran didn't incite racial tension.  It's not like black people were singing a song of joy while sweeping their stoops and then Johnnie Cochran came along and whipped them up into a frenzy.  Black people were already mad at a system that failed them time and time again.  The anger white people feel/felt over the OJ verdict does not nearly come near the anger black people have felt at a system that has failed them over and over and over for decades.

 

I think Johnnie very much played into the racial tension of the day, and used it for his own purposes. 

[Umbelina]

Glad this series provided a little vindication for Chris Darden.  

I never thought he needed to be vindicated.  I do wish he'd watched it though, because I think he would have liked Sterling K Brown's portrayal.  http://www.cocoafly.com/ His daughter has been blogging the series, here is her's on the finale.

 

<snipped the rest of your excellent post>

- My heart broke all over again for the Goldmans. First of all, their son and brother was barely even mentioned in the trial, and then they didn't even get any justice. During the closing credits, when updates were given on all the key figures, I was outraged to see that in the civil trial, the Goldmans were supposed to be awarded $33 million, but only received about 500K. Talk about yet another slap in the face. 

 

Fred Goldman offered to give up the judgement, and take no money at all, if OJ (who was completely safe from prosecution by the double jeopardy laws,) would just admit he killed Ron and Nicole.  It was never about the money for him.  But, it's sweet justice that the reason OJ is in jail now is because he was hiding assets and brazenly decided to steal them back, at gun point.  So in a way, he is only in jail now because of Fred Goldman wanted some kind of justice

 

Johnnie Cochran seemed to genuinely fight against racism, and truly believe he was helping the Black community. His ego was raging and he seemed to have a bit of a God complex. His Black associates fed his self-importance and I think he would have done better if not surrounded by sycophants. I wonder how he felt, in retrospect, that his legacy isn't his fight for civil rights, but getting a double murderer off, and inciting racial tension. I started off the first few episodes wondering if I had judged the real Johnnie too harshly. In the end, I despised him. It can't be an accident. I think that's what the writers wanted.

 

I never hated Johnny Cochran.  I think the show did a good job of showing that he was fighting for racial fairness long before the murderer OJ showed up as a celebrity gift to put his passion on a national stage.  Even back then, I always got that.  I thought he acted like a revival preacher, in hindsight I see that is exactly what this particular jury wanted to see.  He did what a good defense lawyer does, he got his client off, and he made his point. 

 

As Darden said though, it was the wrong case, and it didn't solve anything to set a murderer free.  It was the case he was handed though, a public stage, contant coverage for over a year.  In general, I don't think of lawyers as being particularly honorable just because they passed the bar.  Some are, some aren't, so his antics didn't offend me.  That kind of showboating and smoke and mirrors is hardly unique.

I watched the Secret Tapes of OJ Simpson on A&E this week. They show OJ under deposition as he can't say no with a civil trial. He also had to testify. And some of his friends were deposed too. It was pretty interesting. He's just an asshole and a liar.

With the criminal trial, the prosecutors couldn't get to his state of mind since he didn't testify. 

 

I think I'm all OJ'd out. Unfortunately, as a society we'll have to rehash this again since he's up for parole next year.

Another thing to thank Fred Goldman for, because of him, OJ HAD to testify, and yes, he buried himself when he did, his ego exposed, and his ridiculous crap exposed.  Google "Juror Number 6" on You Tube, or look in the true crime thread for the film made by one of the jurors in the civil trial.  She does an excellent job talking about him smirking about the beatings, and caught in lie after lie.  Or, if you want to read his testimony yourself?  It's here.  http://simpson.walraven.org/ Page down to the bottom for civil testimony.

 

Not to mention the upcoming 10 hour OJ documentary that's going to be aired on ABC and ESPN in June. Apparently it premiered at Sundance and is supposed to phenomenal. After watching this miniseries, I feel like I have to watch that one too, for more of the facts and everything.

 

Marcia's speech about being raped and vengeance for victims being what drives her was great, but I couldn't help but think that that point of view was also what drove not just the jury, but the majority of black citizens in their emotional response to this trial as well. But from their perspective, vengeance for the victims applied to the hundreds of years of innocent black victims being targeted and killed by the police and white people getting away with it over and over again.

 

It's just too bad that, as Darden said, this verdict changed nothing in the end, as far as that went. It was one moment of payback, of sticking it to the LAPD, but that was all.

Yeah, as another poster said, I think I'm OJ'd out.  I'm not sure I want another 10 hours.  Marcia said that she never said or felt "vengeance."  In a way though, I don't really think there is anything wrong with that word.  We have courts to avoid "vigilante vengeance" and put it all in the hands of cooler heads.  Justice is, of course a better word, but I don't think I blame victims or families of victims for also wanting vengeance.

 

When I see the clips of OJ the real person, it strikes me that he's not terribly intelligent but has been very likely surrounded by ass kissers and yes men to the point where he believes he's really smart. It's kind of the common "famous person problem" - In real life when he would talk about "finding the real killers" it always seemed to me that it was largely ego - he really thought he was fooling everyone. Probably the same crap he'd always done - little lies here and there and since he was famous, people let him get away with it to the point where he believed he was a really good liar. He wasn't. He was just famous. 

 

Cuba never quite captured that. He got the stupidity sometimes but never quite captured the ego. 

I agree, he was just so wrong for this role.  Maybe earlier in life when he had that cocky demeanor he could have handled it, especially if the director had arranged scenes better to hide how short he was.  He was just all wrong for OJ.  No amount of acting could compensate for that, or for his voice.  OJ also had a kind of debonair air about him, another thing Cuba just couldn't pull off.  His notes were near illiterate, but I don't think OJ was dumb, and he did take elocution classes to improve his speaking, even though he couldn't write at even a 5th grade level.

 

It really should be OverOurHeads! 

 

What's interesting is that New York Magazine did a weekly follow up with Clark during the series, and she said this about her rape and vengeance:

 

"But I certainly did join the prosecutor's office because I wanted to stand up for the victims. I don't know that I thought of it in terms of the way they put it: vengeance. I didn't think of it as vengeance. To me, that was wrong. It's not about vengeance. It's about justice. My feeling was, victims need someone to stand up and fight for them." 

Yeah, one addition of the writers that maybe shouldn't have been included.  It really didn't bother me though, as I said above.

 

I am fascinated/baffled that people think that someone else might have killed Nicole and Ron. Nicole was clearly the target as she was killed first and most violently. Her throat was slashed so deeply it almost severed her head. That is a crime with real emotion behind it. This is not the style of a drug-related hit and as others pointed out, there would have been much easier ways to kill her. I don't think it was uncommon to recreationally use drugs in Brentwood at that time so there is no reason to believe she was hanging out with shady dealers in back alleys. I know the rumor has spread that Faye Resnick owed money, but then why wasn't Resnick killed? And if this was over debts, why not walk off with Nicole's expensive jewelry? Someone with incredibly strong feelings for Nicole went over there that night to kill her. There is one obvious person who fits that description. OJ had beaten her and was clearly stalking her. She was so worried OJ would kill her she left evidence in a safety deposit box. Then someone killed her.

When you hear hoof beats, think of horses, not zebras.

Seriously. 

 

Oh, and I wanted to mention, it's not "shadow of a doubt" it's reasonable doubt.  No one would ever be convicted of anything if the standard was "NO doubt" or "shadow of a doubt."

Edited April 6, 2016 by Umbelina

[Simon Boccanegra]

Done better by what standards? After Johnnie got OJ off, he was "that dude" that all black celebrities called up when they got in trouble (Snoop---may have been before OJ, Michael Jackson, Puff Daddy etc.).  Johnnie Cochran wasn't thinking about the tender feelings of Susie from Peoria when Michael Jackson had him on retainer.

 

Cochran had been part of Jackson's legal team the first time he was implicated in a molestation scandal, in December 1993, when Nicole and Ron were still alive. Jackson ultimately paid the Chandler family a settlement in the neighborhood of $15 million to make the civil case go away. Cochran was among the members of the team who supported settling. It's a minor point, but I just wanted it on the record that the Simpson trial wasn't what brought Cochran to Jackson's attention.   

 

I just found this gem, in light of Carl Douglas's badgering of Ron Shipp about inserting himself into OJ trial in order to be famous "around the world":  

 

of the people representing Jackson at the time was Carl Douglas, who worked for Mr. Cochran and was member of the defense team. Mr. Douglas, when he was called to talk about the case at the Frozen In Time Seminar, appeared to care more about the fame that came from the case than defending Jackson, and bragged about being able to visit Neverland, working with Johnnie Cochran, and buying a new car with his payment as member of Jackson’s team.

 

https://michaeljacksonvindication2.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/history-vs-evanstory-the-1993-allegations-part-2/

Edited April 6, 2016 by Simon Boccanegra

[psychoticstate]

Ok, but, just playing Devil's advocate here... did LAPD consider OJ the same as they would a non-celebrity black man? Would they try to frame a celebrity?  Would they try to "goose" the evidence on a rich, influential person? Because if they did it on purpose, they knew they were doing it to OJ, not just some Joe Schmo. 

 

 

 

 

No, I don't think so because Simpson himself didn't consider himself a black man.  As he famously said, "I'm not black; I'm O.J.!"  He felt he was in a category by himself. 

 

I have no doubt if he had been Orenthal the bus driver, as Chris Rock joked, the LAPD would never have pussyfooted around him in their interview, they would have nailed him down to specific times and exactly how he got the cuts and done their best to get a confession.  They also would never have tolerated that slow speed "chase"; they would have shown up at Kardashian's house to arrest him, not let him schedule turning himself in.  

 

 

I am fascinated/baffled that people think that someone else might have killed Nicole and Ron. Nicole was clearly the target as she was killed first and most violently. Her throat was slashed so deeply it almost severed her head. That is a crime with real emotion behind it. This is not the style of a drug-related hit and as others pointed out, there would have been much easier ways to kill her. I don't think it was uncommon to recreationally use drugs in Brentwood at that time so there is no reason to believe she was hanging out with shady dealers in back alleys. I know the rumor has spread that Faye Resnick owed money, but then why wasn't Resnick killed? And if this was over debts, why not walk off with Nicole's expensive jewelry? Someone with incredibly strong feelings for Nicole went over there that night to kill her. There is one obvious person who fits that description. OJ had beaten her and was clearly stalking her. She was so worried OJ would kill her she left evidence in a safety deposit box. Then someone killed her.

When you hear hoof beats, think of horses, not zebras.

 

So much word.  And yes - -if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and look like a duck, it's probably a duck.

 

I thought the scene where the Goldmans quietly walk to their car after the verdict was very moving. Such a contrast to the celebration and noise going on out in the streets. They had to attempt to return to their normal lives, but without their son and without any justice. And all the while knowing there were people celebrating that. Very sad indeed.

 

Agreed.  I think this scene did a fantastic job showing the LIVING victims.  The Goldmans were devastated; they were left without Ron and without at least the closure of justice for his murder.  The celebrations were simply insult to grievous injury.

 

Never would have happened. He was done in movies and television. There was even overwhelming negatively public reaction to the idea of him having a pay-per-view special that dealt only with the case. People would not have accepted him as a character in entertainment even had he been a good actor.

 

 

Exactly: There is absolutely no way to know who else might have done it, because all of the evidence points to one man. So those advancing another theory are left with these very feeble alternatives: Jason Simpson, Paula Barbieri, the Colombian drug lords preying on well-off people in Brentwood, some kind of Mezzaluna-based crime syndicate that actually was targeting Ron (even though it was Nicole, not Ron, who showed all the hallmarks of a rage-based killing),   

 

 

That cut on Simpson's left middle finger was so deep that it left a scar...and by the way, he had more than one cut. However, the scar on the knuckle of his left middle finger was quite visible when he was testifying in the civil trial, and his attempts to explain it away there were contradictory and implausible. He had told Vannatter and Lange on June 13 that he had sustained it "running around" in preparation for his Chicago trip and "reopened" it somehow in Chicago, cleaning up glass, but he never was able to say how he sustained it in the first place. Not the day after the murders, not in the civil trial years later. Seriously...have you ever cut yourself so badly that you bleed all over your place (he never disputed that the blood in his home was his), so badly that the cut leaves a scar, and the next day you're unable to say how you injured yourself? Photos and video from the dance recital show that his hand was uninjured at that time.  

 

Contamination cannot turn one person's blood into someone else's. It was the defense's theories here that were a house of cards, not the prosecution's case. For example, Dennis Fung was assailed for putting blood in a truck that had a broken refrigerator, so that the blood was "cooked." In fact, the "cooked" blood would simply have degraded faster, so there would be less available for testing. It would be less rich in DNA. That was a break for Simpson and his attorneys. Unfortunately for them, the "cooked" blood still tested as his. And you're aware, I hope, when you make these sweeping statements about how we only had the LAPD's word that any of the blood evidence tested as Simpson's, that all of the same evidence was made available to the defense to do their own independent confirmation. They had unlimited resources, so we know money wasn't the impediment. Not one of their hired guns ever said, "We got a different result."  

 

I remember hearing about the PayPerView thing.  It was dropped when it realized that nobody wanted to pay good money to hear Simpson lie.

 

I was working in Newport Beach after the criminal verdict and he was in Newport having lunch with a friend or something.  Most restaurants would not serve him but he found one that would.  Many patrons got up and walked out.  His life as "O.J." was over.   He would have been best served to have done what Johnnie Cochran told him to do, which was to lay low for a couple of years.

 

I agree about the cut.  No way would you not remember how you had gotten a cut like that, especially less than 24 hours later.  And excellent point about his hands being cut-free during the recital.  He didn't go play golf after the recital so exactly how did he get that cut if it wasn't from the indiscriminate slashing of Ron?

 

And yes, the defense never argued that the blood wasn't Simpson's.  I don't recall that they ever had their own experts test it.  If they were so convinced there was some contamination going on, why wouldn't they?  If they thought the LAPD and crime labs were so incompetent, why wouldn't they?   And why did they never try and introduce evidence that the LAPD conspired in similar cases?  Clark and Darden would have objected (rightfully so) but the defense didn't even try it.  Why not?  Fuhrman alone couldn't have helmed the conspiracy so why not go after Lange and Vannatter? 

[wanderingstar]

I always thought that Cuba Gooding, Jr. was doing a great job as OJ, but he really excelled in the finale. There just wasn't a bad performance in this show, which is quite a feat.

 

I always believed OJ did it, but I also remember the travesty that happened to the Central Park Five, which is what happens when you allow the state to do whatever the fuck it wants, because...well justice.

Agreed.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Gillian Rosh

[J-Man]

 

When they showed the "real pix," they picked older, out of shape OJ, not trial OJ. Cuba resembles that OJ, fersure.

Only at the very end. The initial split-screen shot of Cuba and OJ was of the real OJ seated in the courtroom during the trial.

 

 

I hope American Crime Story isn't going to have to compete with Game of Thrones (or The Americans) because I want it to win all the Emmys. All of them.

I'm pretty sure ACS would not be in the same category with the other two shows, because those are regular series. It WILL, however, be in the same category as the similarly-named "American Crime," which already won an Emmy last year for Regina King.

 

I just discovered today that Dale Godboldo, who played Carl Douglas, was a Mouseketeer! He was on the '90s revival along with Keri Russell, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake.

[CeeBeeGee]

Loved OJ going back to Brentwood and immediately having it put in his face that he's no longer welcome. He apparently thought he could just step right back into his old life; he was found not guilty, so what's the problem?

 

God, I loved that scene. He looked so stupidly surprised. Did he actually think Brentwood would buy his lies?

 

Did Cochran really offer to help "reintroduce" Darden to the black community? That is mind-blowingly, cluelessly arrogant.

 

Yup. Johnnie Cochran, gatekeeper to the black community. 

 

 

Quick question here:

The last scene at the party when OJ interacted with the waiter he didn't know -- was that supposed to signify some larger point?  Was it showing how OJ would no longer be surrounded by close friends and societal elites, but rather, unknowns and suck-ups?  Or was it a subtle reference to Marcia Clark's earlier story about the waiter who raped her?  That Simpson is just like the waiter and every other guilty defendant who has gotten away with a crime?

 

Oooh, interesting interpretation.

[hoosiermom]

Living all my adult life in Indiana I was quite naive when it came to the frequent misconduct of the LAPD so my feeling was that Cochran and his antics had set the race relations back 20 years in our country and I was angry about that as well as a killer going free. My heart broke for all those who received no justice. However, I have never changed my opinion that the LAPD framing OJ was not only rediculous but impossible! IMOO!

[smiley13]

I have always felt worse for the Goldman family.  Their son had nothing to do with OJ, Nicole or their  relationship.  Ron Goldman was just working, doing his job, just returning a pair of glasses; I believe he was supposed to go out later with friends, when he walked in on the scene and paid with his life.  

Ronald Goldman was involved to some extent with Nicole Simpson.  He was seen driving the Ferrari OJ bought for her and they reportedly went out dancing and clubbing together.

 

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-oj-anniv-goldman-story.html

[Chicago Redshirt]

Simpson was also into the party scene.  It was fairly well known that he used coke.  I would say that would lead to some crappy people.  If some random crappy person was going to kill Nicole, why wait until she had her children in the house and she was outside, where she could have called or screamed for help or the killer been seen?  She had a daily routine; she went jogging every morning.  Why not take her out then?  And why do it in such a personal manner as stabbing? 

 

It's absolutely not plausible or reasonable in any way to suggest that Ron pissed someone off (besides O.J. Simpson) and that he was the target.  If so, why wait until he got to someone's front walkway before killing him and therefore being forced to make a second person collateral damage?  

 

This was clearly a crime of rage and passion.  I don't think some random person was wandering the streets of Brentwood and just happened upon Nicole.  If so, why wouldn't they take her jewelry from her body?  Why not go into her condo and take things of value?  Because the perp was there for one reasona only - - to obliterate Nicole.    

You are loading your premises and jumping to various conclusions.

 

There is no way of knowing that the random crappy person "waited till her children were in the house." Or that s/he knew Nicole's routine involved a morning run. Or that Nicole was the primary target rather than Ron. Or that stabbing was necessarily "personal." There are undoubtedly hundreds of stabbings across the country each year that fairly brutal are done by strangers.

 

All of which is not to say I think that OJ is innocent. I do not. I do agree that the prosecution did a terrible job. They thought that domestic violence + DNA equals conviction. They were wrong.

 

They did not, for whatever reason, introduce enough of what I think to be the hardest to debunk evidence of OJ's guilt: OJ's own actions and statements.

 

Even with the soft questioning that was done of him, OJ was contradictory and nonsensical in his answers as to what he was doing and saying along the time of the murders. I remember off the top of my head the notion of when he got the cut on his hand, for example.

 

Then there was the slow speed chase and the suicide note -- it is IMO clear evidence of guilt.

 

The domestic violence stuff you can handwave a little (especially 20 years ago when DV wasn't taken as seriously as it is now) as disconnected from the killing.

 

The DNA you can point to the incompetence and inconsistencies with how the evidence was handled and you can make the claim that the LAPD generally -- and the star detective in Fuhrman in this case -- is racially prejudiced and is willing to plant evidence to implicate black people.

 

You can't make the claim that anyone is responsible for the actions that OJ did but OJ himself, and those actions made him look guilty as hell.

[helenamonster]

I hope American Crime Story isn't going to have to compete with Game of Thrones (or The Americans) because I want it to win all the Emmys. All of them.

 

It won't. Game of Thrones and The Americans will be entered in the Drama Series categories, while this show falls into the Miniseries/TV Movie categories. Its main competition will probably the too-similarly named American Crime and American Horror Story: Hotel...and just typing those two shows out now made me realize how hilarious it's going to be when the Outstanding Miniseries or TV Movie result is read.

 

On a side note: am I the only one who wants to read one of Marcia Clarks books?

 

They all have good reviews on Amazon and "crime novels written by actual lawyers" is one of my favorite subgenres, so I'm planning on getting to them eventually, probably once I get settled after graduation. She was compared favorably to Lisa Scottoline in one of the reviews and I love Scottoline to pieces so I'm looking forward to checking her books out.

 

I was glad Darden and Clark got some vindication.  I had watched The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt from last year, and Tina Fey was just brutal with them (even though the joke was very, very dated.)

 

While I disagree on the datedness of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's OJ jokes (Kimmy was cut off from the civilized world in 1999 and a lot of the humor comes from her being a "woman out of time," but I realize mileages vary on that) I was thinking of the episodes with Clark and Darden throughout this miniseries and they make me uncomfortable now. This show really humanized everyone involved for me and I can't see myself enjoying UKS's take on the case anymore.

 

It is remarkable that two different women will have been nominated for an Emmy for playing Marcia Clark two years in a row on two different shows, in two different categories, though, so that's something.