Ask Lemmy

I think a major factor was also that the police apparently tried to frame him. It's unfortunate that this resulted in the jury not believing the actual evidence, but the blame lies with the police for that.

it's true that it was close to impossible for the jury to remain unaffected by the political situation in LA at the time.

But the police and prosecutors did such a bad job it was almost impossible to convict him beyond reasonable doubt. He was convicted easily in the civil case later.

There was something that you touched on that goes unnoticed in your presentation. The context also includes the media cycle. OJ's case was HIGHLY publicized. It was unlike any other trail in history. There was constant coverage of a former NFL superstar turned into a movie star under a murder charge that he ran away from in a high speed freeway chase. We literally watched the verdict being read in highschool where everyone could hear it. The scale was phenomenal and I don't feel it has been followed the same since.

This is probably the most succinct I've ever heard it described.

This is a really good point.

If this opinion is indeed common, it is so fucked up. "Yes, he is criminal, but he is my race criminal, so I am glad that he could escape accountability because he is rich (while I am not)". This seems to me just insane, or at very least deeply immoral.

That was a good read, thanks for posting it.

It's the perfect example of what happens when your police department is so corrupt and racist that they try to frame a guilty man.

Essentially nobody now, there has been decades of right wing spin trying to make everyone forget just how badly the LAPD compromised the case with insane overt racism and mishandling evidence. The reason OJ Simpson was found not guilty wasn’t because the jury was hypnotized or just wanted to let him go, it was because of police misconduct.

An awful lot of people at the time, especially black people, believed he was framed by the LAPD. And they tried to, despite the fact he actually did it, which came out during the trial.

In retrospect, most people realize that he was definitely guilty, but that, because of the corruption of the LAPD, the racism during the trial, and how mishandled everything was, the trial was totally fucked. As a result, OJ got off.

There was a huge disparity in opinion between black and white communities at the time of the trial: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/files/2015/09/Simpson-Public-Opinion.png

Was anyone on Lemmy, except me, alive at the time of the trial?

I remember that fucking bronco car chase interrupted my cartoons and I was like, "get this car off the screen, I want to watch Batman the animated series."

I mean… someone else wrote that book, and then offered him $600,000 to endorse it… and $600,000 is a lot of money.

It was fun watching the whole legal lawsuit with that book thing.. it's actually technically called 'if I did it' but something something.... People sued or whatever and now legally the 'if' is in very very very very small print and the 'I did it' is extremely large and I think that's pretty cute

No he did not confess to it.

"at the time of the trial"