O.J.: Made In America - Part 4

[ketose]

On 6/18/2016 at 6:24 PM, Mumbles said:

YMMV.  I have been interested in this case since it happened, and I've tried to see everything about it. What Edelman adds to me is (a) an examination of what made OJ so popular in the first place; (b) what seems to be his belief that he had transcended race (e.g. referring to other black men as "N--ers"), which was probably fed a lot by his general popularity; and (c) a lot more context of the decades-long simmering (and understandable) unease/anger that the black community had toward law enforcement. Yes, I was aware of the Rodney King beating and the resulting riots from the acquittal. And I knew about Watts. But I didn't know how the LAPD had had a long legacy of being run by men who were racist (Gates, and the guy who preceded him who recruited officers from clan rallies), or about Eulia Love, or Latasha Harlins.  In the pre-Internet days, if these last two stories got 2 minutes of coverage on the national news, that would probably be the extent of the coverage.  And I appreciate that he gave people like Ron Shipp time and attention to talk.

As fare as this episode is concerned, I like the contrast between the two jurors - one thoughtful and insightful, and one so infuriating that my blood pressure goes up when I see her (the older one who said she doesn't respect a woman who lets her ass get beat.)

In my opinion, one juror was speaking her mind and the other was doing an OJ-style obfuscation to seem like she was thoughtful, when she was going to find OJ innocent the whole time. Now she knows OJ is obviously guilty, so she blames the prosecution because they didn't "come correct" and put on a good case.

The documentary did two interesting things, it detailed 35 years of OJ's history along with 35-50 years of Black history to show how each intersected in the murder, the trial and OJ's eventual Las Vegas conviction. Ultimately, what I liked is that this installment in no uncertain terms takes the position that OJ is guilty

I could't rewatch all of the terrible moments from the trial, but the only reason I can is because of the remarkable accuracy of karma after the trial.

Bob Shapiro denounced the strategy immediately and is now kind of a legal elder statesman.

Johnnie Cochran and Robert Kardashian are both dead and they were the biggest OJ backers

F Lee Bailey was disbarred in Florida helped by testimony against him by Shapiro

And Barry Scheck just can't get that Simpson DAN off his hands no matter what else he's done. Since the OJ trial, he has promoted the complete authority of DNA to clear people, but not to convict them. All the stories about bare hands and pocket transports would not have altered DNA, especially to turn DNA into OJ's. The LAPD were lazy with protocol because it was expensive and time-consuming. Now they have to because lawyers have access to a lot more information.

One more thing. OJ missed things because this was a completely rage-fueled murder. If he planned it, he might have considered that killing his ex-wife and mother of his children was a bad long-term career plan.

[DangerousMinds]

Not to mention hacking their mother to death and leaving her body there for those small children to possibly see. And then grow up without a mother. 

 

Yeah, karma baby.

[GreatKazu]

Quote

At about 11:00 p.m. Kato walked outside to investigate the bumps on his wall. He saw the limo driver at the gate, who buzzed again and got his first answer from O.J., who said he was just getting out of the shower and would be down in a minute. Between 11:00 and 11:15 O.J. finally appeared, put his cases in the limo and they left. They arrived at the airport at 11:35, ten minutes before the flight. At 11:45, the flight to Chicago departed with O.J. as passenger. 

According to Kato, he assisted Simpson with placing his bags and luggage into the limo. Per Kato's words to Barbara Walters, “I was helping pack stuff into the limo because he was going to Chicago,” Kaelin told Walters. “And there was a bag that was ready to be packed, and he said ‘Don’t touch that bag,’ and that bag was never found."

“It looked like a backpack,” he continued. “I don’t know what was in there, but something in there was enough for O.J. Simpson to say, ‘Don’t touch.’”  http://abcnews.go.com/US/oj-simpson-trial-witness-kato-kaelin-tells-barbara/story?id=35113466

[piccadilly83]

On 6/27/2016 at 9:32 PM, whiporee said:

There were legitimate issues with the evidence. Real ones. The missing blood, the leak through on the sock. The fact that Vanatter brought the blood to the crime scene. Those were real things that happened, and Edleman never addressed them at all. I was hoping he would make the case -- or at least explore the idea -- that a reasonable jury could have acquitted. But he didn't do any of that -- she showed snippets of the case, but never gave a hint as to with Simpson was acquitted, except to say it happened along racial lines. Cochran's closing went on for hours, but he chose only a snippet that showed Cochran saying to send a message. But he never said what the message was -- Cochran never said to send LAPD a message about Rodney King; he said to send a message that they couldn't frame people and misuse evidence. 

I really appreciate this perspective.  It most closely aligns with mine.  I like what Edelman did when he showed the history of abuse by the LAPD and gave us background on OJ's career, but I felt as well that he dropped the ball on some of the defense's better arguments.  Like another poster said, the jury may have been trying to get back at the LAPD, but it needed something to hang it's hat on, and 2 ml of missing blood is a good start.  Going back and testifying that you may have been mistaken and in this case you might have only taken 6 ml is not going to look good to a jury who's already skeptical about the procedures and practices of its local police and officers of the court. Add that to Furmahn's perjury and a lead detective - or was it a police chief (?) - bringing some of the collected blood back to the crime scene and well, you might as well get your coats 'cause the party's over.  

[piccadilly83]

On 7/4/2016 at 6:42 PM, ketose said:

In my opinion, one juror was speaking her mind and the other was doing an OJ-style obfuscation to seem like she was thoughtful, when she was going to find OJ innocent the whole time. Now she knows OJ is obviously guilty, so she blames the prosecution because they didn't "come correct" and put on a good case.

I don't believe this is accurate or fair.  The juror was completely within her rights to acquit if she felt the prosecution did not present an solid case, which she did.  I know there's going to be a lot of argument about what reasonable doubt means, but for the purpose of this trial, this juror clearly had an open-mind when the prosecution presented its evidence.  It was the errors of the prosecution and to some extent the skilled response by the defense that led that juror to the conclusion that the state had not met its burden of proof.  I also appreciated her response to the interviewer's question about the deliberation time.  She was on the money with that.  I can't remember the number she gave, but she let him know in no uncertain terms that she worked that case over every night.  What else was there to do?

I also don't get how or why people just blame the black jurors for the OJ verdict.  There were I believe two white jurors at the trial.  Did they vote not guilty as payback for the Rodney King verdict?
 

Edited July 11, 2016 by piccadilly83

[DangerousMinds]

Deliberating (as on a jury) does not mean just thinking over things in your own head. Otherwise, the court could just poll the jurors individually after the trial ended and let that vote determine the outcome. The jury system was created for a reason, to put 12 jurors together to discuss the evidence, and contribute their individual life experiences and thoughts to the process. It is vitally important that the jurors actually spend time discussing the evidence, and in this case there was a lot of it.

[GreatKazu]

Quote

I also don't get how or why people just blame the black jurors for the OJ verdict.  There were I believe two white jurors at the trial.  Did they vote not guilty as payback for the Rodney King verdict?
 

I believe there was a Hispanic juror as well.

People don't have to be black to be outraged or angry at the police and the system. It is not only blacks who have suffered beatings, and much worse, at the hands of law enforcement.

[FozzyBear]

I believe 100% that OJ is guilty, but I still understand how the jury acquitted. There didn't have to be the grand conspiracy that everyone on the prosecution rolled their eyes at. Just sloppy police work on what PD thought was a slam dunk case. And there was sloppy police work all over this. You don't have to believe that PD tried to frame anybody. You can have concerns that they settled on a suspect and then just steered everything there, even to the point of corrupting evidence. I'm not saying I would necessarily acquit, but I get how reasonable people could in that instance. They didn't know everything that was going to happen. All they knew was they spent a year watching the prosecutions case implode. I could absolutely see 12 reasonable people concluding that the case just wasn't reliable enough to know for sure what happened.  

And Furhman can just shut the fuck up. Nothing was ever his fault. He and OJ have some stuff in common.

[FozzyBear]

So I say this as a white middle class gen Xer, but everytime anyone in the prosecution's side would go on about how complex this conspiracy would have to be and all the stuff Mark Furhman would have to know I just shook my head and sighed. They didn't get it. That's how white middle class people think the police frame someone, with giant well thought out macheviliian plans put into motion in dark rooms by shadowy conspiracies. I don't think that's what the jury was raising an eyebrow at. Furhman didn't have to "know" jack shit about a possible alibi or anything else. He just had to be arrogant enough to think he could do whatever he wanted. And he certainly was that. PD didn't have to have a plan to fuck up an investigation. They just had to be inept enough to let loose ends go and not care. I say this as someone who does not believe there was any frame up or that Furhman did anything wrong during this case, but the prosecution just didn't get how much their world view and life experiences differed from many other people in LA.

[Maherjunkie]

On 6/18/2016 at 9:10 AM, RemoteControlFreak said:

This will be an unpopular opinion, but I've been impressed with Mark Fuhrman in this movie.

No doubt, he had abhorrent views about African Americans and other minorities, especially when he was younger. I'm not excusing that. But it has nothing to do with his investigation of the murders of Nicole and Ron.  His life was destroyed by the defense team to prove Simpson's innocence.  No one deserves this.

There is no indication that he was was other than a good cop with the LAPD in his handling of Nicole Brown Simpson's abuse calls and in the investigation of her and Ron's murders.  He was definitely better than those buffoons Lang and Vanatter who blew their chance to pin down Simpson during the first interview at Parker Center and tossed a blanket from within the house over Nicole's body allowing the defense to claim that the crime scene had been contaminated.

Totally agree.  Have some sympathy for him.

[Crs97]

His life was destroyed because he chose to commit perjury.  No sympathy here.

[biakbiak]

On 11/20/2017 at 1:49 PM, Crs97 said:

His life was destroyed because he chose to commit perjury.  No sympathy here.

Also, he went on to publish several books including one that suggests it' possible that Terri Schavio was murdered so he can go fuck himself.

[Maherjunkie]

But he was not the one that killed two people. I cannot put him on the same level as oj. I might not agree with everything he writes but he is not entirely the person portrayed in the media.

[biakbiak]

14 hours ago, Maherjunkie said:

But he was not the one that killed two people. I cannot put him on the same level as oj. 

No one was doing that. Not having sympathy for him does not equal putting him on the same level as OJ, its judging him by his own actions and I thonk he should go fuck himself.

[Maherjunkie]

A previous poster did, so that was what I was referring to.  I do not condone that language or those actions, but he does claim to be writing for a screenplay, and given his record which was clean, that was likely to be the truth.

The question was "Did you address someone that way in the last 10 years?" and he says he didn't call people that.  As there are numerous black and hispanic officers that refute that, say they were trained and treated well by him, that may be true as well.

I don't recall if he was asked if he said the word in general,  which if he was then he should have said yes, assuming he spoke with Laura Hart McKinney in the last 10 years that Bailey phrased the question.

 

What I don't get is how in court or on the After OJ:The Fuhrman Tapes doc, no one asked her if this guy was so bad why did you sleep with him for 5 months.  I realize that might be legally relevant but for the later doc I really wonder there.

[biakbiak]

4 hours ago, Maherjunkie said:

do not condone that language or those actions, but he does claim to be writing for a screenplay, and given his record which was clean, that was likely to be the truth

The poster stated the thing in common was that they both refuse to take accountability for their actions and his record was not clean before or after thise comments.

[Maherjunkie]

He apologized publicly and in his book. His record had no complaints against him from what I have read. His bragging was investigated and found to be gross exagerations.