O.J. Simpson Is a Free Man
The Los Angeles Dog Trainer (officially known as the Los Angeles Times) reports:
Former football star O.J. Simpson was released from a Nevada prison early Sunday after serving nine years for a 2007 armed robbery and kidnapping in Las Vegas.
The onetime football legend whose 1995 murder trial in Los Angeles inspired years of debate over race and justice was paroled only minutes after he first became eligible for release, a Nevada prison official confirmed.
Simpson left the Lovelock Correctional Center northeast of Reno at 12:08 a.m. in the company of an unidentified driver, said Brooke Keast, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Corrections.
“He is out,” Keast said.
The article adds: “Speculation had swirled over when Simpson would be turned loose after the Nevada Parole Board granted him parole in July for serving a portion of his 33-year sentence and getting credit for good behavior and taking classes in prison.” Gee, that’s great. I hope those classes included a seminar on how not to murder people.
This story means more to us old people who lived through the craziness that was the O.J. Simpson saga in 1994 and 1995. Many words have been written about it. I have written some of those words, including a seven-part series I wrote in 2006 with some inside information.
Today, I think the only appropriate response to this is to give you this video of Norm MacDonald jokes about Simpson from SNL’s Weekend Update.
[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]
Greetings:
It’s nice when Cali and LA get to make another cultural contribution.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 10/1/2017 @ 1:21 pmomg that’s 26 minutes
that is so many humor
happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/1/2017 @ 1:26 pmOK, I’ll say it: “The Juice is loose!”
Kevin M (752a26) — 10/1/2017 @ 1:30 pmHis a double murder, what else needs to be said?
narciso (d1f714) — 10/1/2017 @ 1:35 pmPatterico,
If you can say, how accurate was the recent “The People vs OJ Simpson” TV mini-series, particularly the bits about Fuhrman and Marcia Clarke and the prosecution’s choices?
Kevin M (752a26) — 10/1/2017 @ 1:35 pmSuch as:
“American Crime Story: Conspiracy Theories (#1.7)” (2016)
[holding another glass somewhat distant]
Kevin M (752a26) — 10/1/2017 @ 1:41 pmAt last there’s a chance to catch the real killer.
Colonel Haiku (43fb26) — 10/1/2017 @ 1:43 pmNicole and Ron got a lot more justice than Seth Rich that’s for sure
happyfeet (28a91b) — 10/1/2017 @ 1:50 pmThis is why we have a President Trump.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 10/1/2017 @ 2:00 pmMore than those guys in Benghazi anyway.
Kevin M (752a26) — 10/1/2017 @ 2:01 pmNo Biggie arrest. OJ gets off. Great job LA Law Enforcement!
Poor Biggie (987b85) — 10/1/2017 @ 2:03 pmYeah, I see what you mean about PB, Patterico.
Kevin M (752a26) — 10/1/2017 @ 2:13 pm#12 Facts speak louder than blogs.
Poor Biggie (987b85) — 10/1/2017 @ 2:31 pm“This story means more to us old people who lived through the craziness that was the O.J. Simpson saga in 1994 and 1995.”
Hate to think what that makes us folks who cheered him on against UCLA and other teams in the brand new PAC-8.
Funniest moment of the OJ crime/trial saga:
The week after the Bronco chase, a comedian on Letterman comes out and sits with Dave. He’s been been told “absolutely no OJ jokes”.
First thing he says is: “knock knock”
Crowd says: “who’s there?”
Comedian: “OJ”
Crowd: (with Letterman looking horrified) “OJ who?”
Comedian: “Congrats, you’re on the jury”
I was told this story second hand and also that Letterman refused to allow the joke to make the broadcast show, cutting it out.
harkin (be4c6e) — 10/1/2017 @ 2:57 pmIf O.J. is out and about in Naples Florida, I’ll make an effort to get a cell phone pic and post it here. I haven’t seen the guy in person since a little after he was jumping suitcases at LAX.
ropelight (051652) — 10/1/2017 @ 3:05 pmI am a lawyer and I was an administrative law judge for New York State. I commuted by the Long Island Railroad from my home in Patchogue to New York City. On my homeward trip, I would stop at one of the bars in Penn Station. As a regular, I was known to the bartender and, all during the OJ trial, he would question me about the courtroom events. I waffled quite a bit about what was happening but, one night after I missed my usual train and had more than one drink, I told the bartender that, in my humble but judicial opinion, the District Attorney’s people were throwing the case. I still believe that.
Michael Keohane (947544) — 10/1/2017 @ 3:33 pmPatterico, do you think that Norm’s humor would be allowed today?
Me, I found this refreshing.
Simon Jester (d856de) — 10/1/2017 @ 4:30 pmEven if he were innocent of the murders, he should have served every minute of that 33 years for the kidnap and robbery charges. I wonder what trouble he’ll get into now?
Bill H (383c5d) — 10/1/2017 @ 4:50 pmBTW, Pat’s series from 2006 is worth a read. Nothing has changed even though the “real killer” should have been caught by now.
Kevin M (752a26) — 10/1/2017 @ 4:56 pmI hear they need a pooper picker upper at the playboy mansion. Should be perfect for the juice.
mg (31009b) — 10/1/2017 @ 4:59 pmIf you ever go to Vegas, boy,
nk (dbc370) — 10/1/2017 @ 6:03 pmThen you better walk right.
Let them take all your money,
Then get your ass outa their sight.
Crooked cops are gonna get you.
Crooked judge will send you down.
The next thing you know, boy,
You’ll be penitentiary bound.
It wasn’t allowed then. He was fired from SNL over it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 10/1/2017 @ 6:03 pmAnd yet they allowed one of their nitwit cast to called him a cheap cracker last night.
Imagine the racial equivalent being said about Obama, instant career suicide.
And oh yeah they ran with the mayor’s agitprop, imagine that.
harkin (be4c6e) — 10/1/2017 @ 6:49 pmSomehow I missed the series on OJ when originally published, so thank you for the links so that I could read the whole thing tonight.
Yes, indeed, civil law trial lawyers who can call adverse witnesses and force them to incriminate themselves have a spectacular cross-examination advantage over prosecutors. I’ve been hoisted on that petard when it was my witness — when you know the other side is going to call your chief witness adversely, you have to do extra intensive witness preparation — and I’ve helped more than one such lawyer and adversely-called witness hoist himself on his own petard.
Beldar (fa637a) — 10/1/2017 @ 7:54 pmThe truth, very few really believed oj didn’t do it, it was actually something worse they didmt care like students at middlebury, the San Jose city council etc
narciso (d1f714) — 10/1/2017 @ 7:59 pmI reviewed the posts but I was most interested in the comments.
“If I Did It” was announced just a a few months after that. Would’ve loved to have seen how the “reasonable doubt” crew in those comments would have spun it.
There’s only one high-profile crime I know a lot about, Jack the Ripper. With that one, there is so little evidence of any kind, and so little of it accessible to the public, that writers generally copied from each other, and some of the events recounted didn’t actually happen.
And of course, the most poorly sourced, the most staggeringly hackish book, THAT is the one that gets made into movies and comic books. (The one with the Masons and the Royal family.)
Frederick (152161) — 10/1/2017 @ 9:19 pmIt’s forgotten that when O.J. Simpson pleaded “No Contest” to the January 1, 1989 spousal battery it made him a convicted batterer.
For instance, the Nevada Parole Board didn’t consider it when granting parole. When it was brought up after the hearing by Gloria Allred, among others, the Parole Board said “We didn’t know.”
Despite knowing of the incident at the time, Hertz kept Simpson on their payroll and NBC signed him to a lucrative contract.
Yeah, poor O.J. In 1989, they were trying to railroad a Black Man. Sarcasm off.
DN (4c7af4) — 10/2/2017 @ 11:23 amI attended a presentation by Hank Goldberg – who was on the prosecution team for the criminal homicide trial – regarding his cross examination of the infamous Dr. Henry Lee. It was quite fascinating. Goldberg was of the opinion that he had discredited every bit of Dr. Lee’s “expert” testimony but that the jury had neither paid attention or cared.
SPQR (240837) — 10/2/2017 @ 11:35 amSPQR (240837) — 10/2/2017 @ 11:35 am
Maybe one or the other but nti the same for all the jurors.
It is my opinion that jury was fixed (in spite of the claims that this was supposed to be impossible)
I had thought during the trial when O.J. Simpson made that statement about the jury that his lawyers lied to him about tamepring with the jury (it was clear that O.J. believed the jury was fixed) but it seems like no, they were telling him the truth.
I think not all the jurors were tampered with, and a condition of the tampering was that there should be other untampered jurors who would also vote to acquit. If the tamperdd jurors could not get the untampered ones to acquit, they should not hang the jury, because that could start an investigation. They also used their tampered jurors to get some other jurors thrown off the case.
The case was lost in jury selection. An enormous number of potential jurors was gone through, and an enormous of questions asked. The defense selected people who got their news from the National Enquirer and not other sources, and the National Enquirer had run story after story about how O.J. Simpson was innocent.
After the verdict, the national Enquirer turned on a dime, and ran story afetr story as to how O.j. Simpson had committed the murders acting entirely alone
That was because his co-conspirators, whio had actualkly suggested the idea to him and provided the murder method, wanted to throw a bone to the Goldman family so taht there would not any further investigation.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 10/2/2017 @ 12:11 pm