Jury Acquits O. J. Simpson

The acquittal of O.J. Simpson is a signal to the world that in America it truly does not matter if you are black or white. With money, you can hire a team of Faustian creatures who will question the very nature of reality and human perception.

Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran’s playing of the “race card” in his pleas to the jury--indeed, to the entire African American community, which overwhelmingly supported him--was the moral equivalent of exhorting blacks to pick up a brick and throw it at a white truck driver, and the jury picked up that brick and threw it.

GARRETT WHITE

Los Angeles

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* My heart and my prayers go out to the families--the Browns and the Goldmans. I wish to tell them to stay strong and together as families. Justice will be done in the long run. My thoughts are with you today!

NICHOLAS COTA

Santa Barbara

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* I was ashamed of the prosecution team, particularly Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, after the innocent verdict was read. In the United States we have a Constitution which defines the rights of all its citizens, not just the ones that the state feels are innocent or guilty. In our system of justice, the jury decides the guilt or innocence. Our elected government officials must not only abide by the law but support the law. The press conference that was held by the prosecution was critical of the jury’s findings. It was a very frightening display of state power.

GENE MORRIS

Lake Forrest

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* I am certain that I am among many who would like to know why it was necessary for Simpson to have a police escort to his home after the trial. Where does this celebrity status end?

J.R. LA ROSA

Long Beach

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* “Send a message,” the jurors were told. They sent a message. The message is that you can get away with murder if you are rich and famous. The message is that if you are black, you can always plead racial prejudice. The message is that women are the property of their husbands and ex-husbands, and it is all right for their men to murder them. The message is that justice is a commodity that can be bought, if you have enough money to hire skillful and devious lawyers. The message is that the taxpayers are getting taken for $9 million. Johnnie Cochran, you got your message across.

BOB SHARPE

Monterey Park

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* Why the jury bashing? The explanations for this jury’s verdict are ludicrous and strikingly far-fetched--black jury wouldn’t convict a black defendant--the race card.

Recall the Rodney King case as decided by the Simi Valley jury. There was nothing at all circumstantial about the evidence in that case. The jury had a motion picture, a movie, of the dirty deeds upon which they were being asked to render a verdict. Yet they found “reasonable doubt” to acquit the morally monstrous LAPD officers involved in the criminal act of beating King nearly to death. They were not asked, as Assistant Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark did this jury, to believe that Simpson was on his way to an isolated part of his back yard to bury the bloody clothes and the murder weapon when he carelessly bumped into the air conditioner behind his guest house!

Also consider this: Clark asserted that Simpson arrived home after the murders and cleaned up and was ready for the airport in six minutes! Yet this is what Clark offered during her closing argument to the jury!

The whole of the Simpson trial is a perfect example of how the massive machinery of the state can be mobilized to quickly remove an innocent person from society. This is the inevitable result of the popular but grotesque over-exaggeration of “law and order” that hangs like a pall over this country. This way of thinking has been a boondoggle for those who would like to completely gut state treasuries and rewrite the Constitution. Instead of progress toward a more civilized society, state legislators are making legal the carrying of concealed weapons and are encouraging certain acts of vigilantism among the citizenry.

HARRIET CARR

Los Angeles

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* Cochran, Mark Fuhrman and the Simpson jury have set race relations back a hundred years.

BOBBIE CORBETT

Garden Grove

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* If the jury’s verdict was correct and O.J. Simpson is innocent of two brutal murders, then we must conclude that the defense theory was correct. We must believe that racist cop Fuhrman planted a mountain of physical evidence, including blood, hair and fibers, in two different locations, that wrongfully incriminated the innocent Simpson. Does anyone really believe we will now see the arrest and trial of Fuhrman?

We now live in an era when high-priced attorneys have become clever enough to circumvent the jury system. As a result, justice was denied in this high-profile case. One can only speculate how often this kind of travesty occurs when the television cameras are pointed elsewhere.

STEVE MARSHALL

Studio City

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* Ever notice? Our justice system is just fine as long as I agree with the verdict. If I don’t like the verdict, the system is a disaster.

NANCY BAKER

Santa Ana

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* One more time we have seen that American justice serves only those who can buy their way through the courts.

The sad thing about the verdict is that Simpson has gone free and now will raise the children knowing full well what he did and that public opinion in general holds him accountable for that crime. At the end two people are still dead and no criminal has been brought to justice.

It is a sad day for America and its justice system.

OSCAR L. ROS

Los Angeles

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* If there were major turning points in the Simpson trial, there were three of major import. First, testimony, especially from the chauffeur, showed Simpson didn’t have enough time to murder two people and get all the blood off him in the short time available. Second, the prosecutors proved the gloves didn’t fit. Third, Fuhrman’s taped comments showed that he, and perhaps others on the LAPD, often manufactured evidence.

JAMES E. VINT

Redondo Beach

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* My faith in the American justice system has been completely shattered. After the Menendez fiasco and the Rodney King disaster, I was sure that justice would finally prevail. We have now proved racism and money are the driving factors in our courts. Justice is dead. Our sorrow and shame should be deep.

MICHAEL HAGER

Yorba Linda

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* I hope Daryl Gates is happy. For years, his Police Department protected corrupt officers like Fuhrman, and now the department doesn’t have enough credibility to convict a murderer. I don’t know if any good will come out of the Simpson circus, but I hope it will finally pressure our civic leaders to clean up the racism in the police force. Of course, it is these same civic leaders that, for years, protected Gates’ racist administration. Willie Williams is a good man, but he can’t do it alone.

MIGUEL MUNOZ

Pasadena

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* The first time I heard limousine driver Allan Park testify--during the grand jury hearing--my question was, where was the Bronco? The Bronco was not parked in front of O.J.’s house--but O.J. was there! It doesn’t fit--the jury must acquit. And did.

YURINIS K. ARTHUR XIII

Moreno Valley

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* Shock and anger at the jury in the O.J. case are a gross understatement. No matter what their verdict, the jury obviously was thumbing their nose at justice with little or no deliberation. A very sick jury, probably anxious to get to the money watering-trough of the tabloids.

BOB BALL

Anaheim

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* After having practiced criminal defense work in the Midwest, I can definitely say that nothing surprises me when it comes to California juries. In L.A. the defendant probably has to kill his victims in front of the jury and then it still might find reasonable doubt. How much more evidence did this jury need to convict O.J.? My heart goes out to the victims’ families and to this country.

It is clear that the lives of women mean nothing compared to a rich, famous and powerful male--black or white. Maybe if the system would pay more than $5 per day for a juror and get some intelligent people on the panel, the system would work. They obviously cannot tell the difference between reasonable doubt and a shadow of a doubt. The country has lost--the criminals have won--once again.

JANEEN WEISS

Sherman Oaks

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* I was an assistant to the three Russian ministers of justice in 1987-1992, the best years of the Russian reforms. Aged Communist leaders were striving to tell people something new. My news was the American legal system. I was obsessed with the jury trial, made a lot of efforts to persuade my bosses, and to some extent am accountable for Russians starting to try cases with juries.

Now, after Simpson and a number of other recent trials in America, I apologize to my compatriots. The Russian opponents to the jury system were right. Better to keep the trial before a judge concerned with his or her professional career than to take chances with 12 irresponsible strangers controlled only by their own claims to the world.

It is true that Russia has many problems. In Russia, however, people who shoot their parents, cut their wives, or mutilate their husbands would never get away with it in such a defiant manner.

VLADIMIR BOGORAD

Van Nuys

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* It was barely 30 years ago that, in the Deep South, an all-white jury could not (would not) find a white man guilty of killing a black man. Now, today, in Los Angeles, a mostly black jury could not (would not) convict a black man of killing two white people. While some people say turnabout may be fair play, it is certainly not justice.

JEFFREY BECK

Los Angeles