Hot Take on the OJ Trial, 23 Years Later

I was pretty young when all the OJ Simpson stuff went down. (I mean, the real OJ Simpson stuff, not that weird 2007 sequel that I’m pretty sure people only paid attention to because of the first one, the way that some people watched the second and third Matrix movies or will go see the second, third, fourth, and fifth movies in the Avatar franchise.) I was two-and-a-half when he was arrested, and I had just turned four when the trial ended. So I wasn’t exactly tuned in to what was going on. I had other interests at the time, like Barney and Rugrats and my imaginary friend Lucinda the Chicken who loved Froot Loops.

Since then, I’ve obviously gathered the basics of the case, as well as a sense of how people felt (an continue to feel) about the verdict - and an even stronger sense that it was all a really big deal. But I feel like I didn’t have a full understanding of it all until I watched The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story on Netflix a few weeks ago and then, inspired, did a bunch of reading about it. Now I finally feel like I’m caught up.

Watching the show, I was struck by three main things. First of all: sorry, David Schwimmer, but you’re always going to be Ross to me, and Ross sucks. Second: all those appearances and mentions of the Kardashian children are some weird sort of 2016 fan-service that people from the 90s would likely find baffling. Third, and most importantly: both sides of the case seem to believe that they are the underdog, that they are David up against some massive, systemic Goliath, and that the narrative of it all should be of their triumph over that juggernaut.

Yes, he and Rachel were on a break. But Ross still sucks.

From the defense’s perspective, epitomized by Johnnie Cochran: OJ Simpson is a black man in a country that has a long and awful history of discriminating against black people and treating them unjustly. There is a specific hatred of black men who date or pursue white women - or are believed to. (See: Emmett Till, Scottsboro Boys.) Interracial marriage has only been fully legal in the United States for, like, twenty-five years. (Holy shit.) The Rodney King beating and subsequent riots just happened a couple of years ago, solidifying the idea that the LAPD is a racist institution, or at least an organization that protects officers who hold racist views. Mark Fuhrman, one of the cops who found evidence against OJ Simpson, turns out to be unequivocally racist. The LAPD and the prosecution are therefore “the man” or "the system" - participants (some deliberately, others unconsciously) in America’s long history of bringing down strong, powerful black men.

From the prosecution’s perspective, epitomized by Marcia Clark: OJ Simpson is a very wealthy and famous man who lives not in downtown Los Angeles but in the posh neighborhood of Brentwood. He has reportedly claimed, "I'm not black; I'm OJ." He benefits from having the money to hire a “dream team” of lawyers, as well as from a network of loyal fans and supporters who find it hard to believe that he could have done anything wrong. Even some of the police officers who investigated the murders are fans of Simpson’s. Moreover, Marcia Clark has to contend with sexist criticism of her appearance, voice, and demeanor; her own “likability” becomes a factor in whether the jury, judge, and public will listen to her arguments in a way that it would never be for a man.

Both of these narratives are portrayed in The People v. OJ Simpson (though it is probably slanted towards Sarah-Paulson-as-Marcia-Clark’s side) but I was familiar with them already. They are the two basic stories that I have heard people tell about the trial in the many years since it ended. (By the way, I think they’re both true. OJ Simpson was both black and famous.) Obviously it’s not this simple, but it’s easy to frame them as the “black story” and the “white story.” I certainly have heard the “white story” more, to the extent that I considered it the received wisdom about OJ Simpson, that he got away with it because of his wealth and fame.

Or, as pop-punk demigods and middle-school-angst staple Good Charlotte put it:

“Did you know when you are famous you could kill your wife

And there’s no such thing as 25 to life

As long as you’ve got the cash to pay for Cochran?”

This is what I thought "cool" looked like when I was 12

But there is something more to the “white story” - and this is where things get kind of problematic. Both in the TV series and in many (white) people’s summary of the whole OJ Simpson debacle, there is an implication that the prosecution’s narrative was not a narrative at all. They were focused on the facts, the evidence; it was the defense who crafted a narrative. And that narrative was so appealing that it made many people forget about the evidence. Therefore, there was another element to the Goliath that the prosecution was facing, and that element was the popularity of the defense’s explanation, the whole “race thing”. OJ Simpson was acquitted not just because of his wealth and fame, but because so many people believed that he had been targeted because of his race.

And so I kind of feel like the OJ Simpson verdict was a real turning point in American culture. It became the go-to example that white people could point to as proof that things had gone “too far in the other direction” - that our culture had become so sensitive about race that now we were letting murderers walk free because we were afraid of being called racist. Granted, I wasn’t old enough at the time to know for sure, but I wonder whether this is when phrases like “political correctness run amok” started to be thrown around. If it wasn’t the beginning, it certainly is the flagship example.

And to this day, that seems to be one of the most common narratives that white people (especially, but not exclusively, conservatives) tell regarding race: that tides have turned and now it’s actually white people who are the targets of racial persecution.

Of course, that’s total crap. White people are still the majority and there is still an enormous amount of privilege that comes with being white in America. People of color, and particularly black people, are still so much more likely to be targeted by the police, to be shot in their dealings with the police, and to be given harsher sentences for similar crimes. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The OJ Simpson verdict was a unique event, not proof of a pattern.

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So, would it be better if people had paid attention to the evidence instead of the more interesting story? It’s tempting to say yes, but I think it’s kind of a false dichotomy. Evidence and narrative have to go hand-in-hand. And while the defense’s narrative won in the short term, it is the “white” narrative about the trial that has won in the court of popular opinion after the fact. Hence all the outrage and continued interest in OJ Simpson. I mean, when’s the last time anyone brought up Robert Blake or even Casey Anthony?

And speaking of evidence: how many people have detailed knowledge about the evidence in Simpson’s armed robbery case? And yet so many people maintain vehemently that “that guy” should be locked up.

Besides, what about the old adage to the effect of, “Better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man convicted?” Our whole criminal justice system is supposed to be built around the presumption of innocence, the notion that reasonable doubt about the suspect’s guilt is enough to aquit him or her. Otherwise, we risk becoming an authoritarian state where being accused of a crime is tantamount to being convicted. And honestly, that’s the possibility that frightens me a hell of a lot more than knowing that one black guy might have gotten away with something at some point.