This jury had a little bit bigger responsibility than the Devil In Miss Jones jury. The problem is they chose not to accept that responsibility. Like a lot of people I had a problem with their verdict but I had a bigger problem with the speed they seemed to arrived at that verdict. It came after only four hours of deliberation. Hell the car chase on the San Diego Freeway leading to his arrest took longer than that.
It’s over 20 years since I wrote my first letter to a paper complaining about a jury being forced to watch a movie to determine if people could voluntarily watch the movie. In that instance I thought the jury was being asked to do too much. With the O.J. Simpson jury I felt the jury didn’t do enough. They didn’t even come close.
Of course there were more than just Cochran and the jury to
blame for this miscarriage of justice.
Watching this trial for the many months that it went on, one could
easily recall the words of Casey Stengel when he was managing the New York
Mets: “Can anyone play this game?”
The judge made mistakes, the police made mistakes, the
prosecution, the defense, and the press.
If they were catering this event you would have had to be a fool to even
taste the food. Everybody was suspect.
But at least I think everyone was trying to do their job the way
they thought they should. They knew
what was expected of them and they tried to succeed. I think they all failed but at least they tried.
Everyone except the jury, that is. I don’t think they tried hard enough. I can only imagine their frustration at having to give up so big
a part of their lives for this charade that everyone else was getting famous
for and rich from. But still they could
have tried harder. They could have
cared or at least have pretended to care.
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