Trial May Have Fallen Short of Truth but Not of Irony
So this is what it feels like. So this is what it feels like when you think justice wasn’t done in a court of law and that someone got away with something because of the color of his skin.
Large segments of white society are decrying the O.J. Simpson verdict and wondering why so many black Americans are celebrating it. Is it really that complicated?
You talk about your ironies.
In a perfect world, murder-case acquittals would prompt celebrations from nearly everyone. We would all be happy that the innocent man had been freed and that the tragedy of a murder wasn’t compounded by a wrongful conviction. As a country, we’d feel prouder, stronger, freer that the system worked.
In the world’s current state of imperfection, however, the Simpson acquittal isn’t generating universal reveling. Rather, the giddiness is confined largely to those whose unswerving faith in Simpson’s innocence rivals that of religious zealots.
Theirs is the kind of Rock of Ages belief many of us strive for but never attain. It’s a faith that would guide you through Simpson’s conflicting statements to police when he returned from Chicago, his suicide note, his flight from prosecution in the Bronco, his blood on the Bundy walkway, the huge odds of the rare glove like Simpson once owned being found at the crime scene, the absence of the Bronco when limousine driver Allan Park arrived that night, the odds of cutting yourself at home on the same night you’re accused of a knifing murder. . . .
And on and on. To believe that strongly in his innocence in the face of overwhelming contradictions requires a surrender of self that Sunday morning preachers can only hope their congregations have. It requires convincing yourself that you have such a personal stake in someone else’s righteousness that you rationalize everything. The last time we saw anything approaching this level of blind fealty was the support for the LAPD officers who beat up Rodney King. Before that, it was the lynch mobs of the Old South.
I’m not including people--like the jurors, perhaps--who favored acquitting Simpson on grounds of reasonable doubt. That time-honored legal principle should be revered, and many legal experts felt it applied to the Simpson case. But it doesn’t speak to the reality of whether or not he killed his ex-wife Nicole and Ron Goldman. It is sad but true that many people who think Simpson was rightly acquitted on legal grounds also think he committed the murders. In that sense, they’re more linked to those who favored a conviction than they are to those who just knew he was innocent before they heard any evidence.
The point of all this is that as a search for truth, the trial may have flopped. As a search for irony, however, it more than delivered.
The most delicious one is that served by Mark Fuhrman. Is there anything more ironic than a racist cop with a bent on framing African-American men perhaps being a crucial factor in Simpson’s acquittal?
Another irony is that Simpson’s broad-based commercial appeal stemmed from the fact that he transcended racial lines. He lived in Brentwood, played golf at Riviera and hobnobbed with white corporate America. In settings like that from now on, according to polls, three of every four people will believe a double-murderer is in their midst. The setting in which those numbers would be reversed--namely, the African American community--is a world that Simpson apparently didn’t frequent that much before the murders.
To me, though, there is a supreme irony awaiting Simpson. He often said that one of the hardest periods of his life was in the late 1970s when his fabled career was winding down, somewhat simultaneously with the break-up of his first marriage. He found solace, he said many times, in a teen-age girl named Nicole.
Simpson now enters a transition phase infinitely more challenging than the end of his football career or a divorce. Being a former ballcarrier is one thing; being a suspected double-murderer is a whole new ballgame.
Who will hold his hand through this phase? Who will provide solace?
Just wondering.
That’s the problem with ironies: much like skewed justice, they aren’t much good at producing big laughs.
Mostly, they just leave you shaking your head and hoping we somehow muddle through.
Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.
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