O.J.: Made in America
 

Someone posted a link about it in a thread about the FX docudrama.

I've watched the first three episodes. To this point it is one of the greatest documentaries I've seen and sets the standard for an analysis of the intersection of race, class, and celebrity in America.

Orange Juice or OJ Simpson ?

Let's just say that Marcus Allen does not come out of this documentary looking the best, either.

Lots of OJ comes from concentrate grown in South America. I try to buy the expensive stuff with all the pulp from Florida, America. Fiber plus vitamin C.

Good thread that makes us all think of our health and wellbeing.

I've got it recorded. Watched a few minutes of episode 2 last night. Looks good.

I really like the "Simply Orange" stuff until I read the label.

I'd rather eat a Mounds bar than drink OJ with that nasty pulp in it.

I might be the only person in a America who didn't give a rat's ass about the trial.

It should be required viewing for all Americans

BS!!

I think its obvious now that OJ had/has CTE when he murdered those people.

Don't know why this made me think of this, I guess because I have a twisted mind. But I've always wanted to go on that show "Naked and afraid" and when the woman gets really hungry and starts bitching about needing food I would just tell her she only needs Protein and Semen is LOADED with protein and you can just suck my dick till your bellys full.

The show reminds me a lot of my crazy teenage years.

I'm leaning more towards him just being a ****ing psycho.

The first two hours is about race in LA, the Civil Rights Movement and African American athletes and OJ's life up through the end of his playing days in Buffalo and meeting Nicole Brown.

The second two hours are about OJ's life after football, his marriage to Nicole, and the increasing discord in LA from the end of the 70's up through the riots. It ends shortly before the murder.

The third episode is about the murder, the initial police investigation, the Bronco chase and the negotiation to get him to surrender at Rockingham as well as the racial elements of the trial.

What makes this series so great is its ambition and how it ties all of these various elements together to tell the story of why this story resonated the way it did and why it's about far more than just a football player.

If you hear his friends tell the stories of his early life, the discussion of how he manipulated people from the very beginning, and his "street smarts", it's pretty clear that he is a textbook psychopath.

I doubt they'll cover the fact that Marcus ****ed Denise and Nicole, along with that raging ****, Faye Resnick, which definitely fueled O.J.'s rage.

OJ alluded to the sex parties, headed by Faye, but they didn't mention the rampant cocaine a use by all of the girls, which also pissed off OJ because they were doing it in the condo(s) he bought for her while the kids were asleep upstairs.

They covered Marcus' affair w/ Nicole in some detail, but I can't remember if it was in Part II or III.

I've detailed brief interaction with OJ and his children and his public self was exactly as he appears in this doc: Charming, talkative, polite and a large physical presence.

But in 1999, the luster wasn't the same, at least to me, which made him seem somewhat phony.

If you think he did it. Watch "my brother the serial killer" comes on ID channel on friday, or go to youtube. Interesting shit. I never thought he or one person did it.

I've got it recorded & will probably binge watch it in July during the AS break.


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You are one stupid ****.

It's must see tv. Masterful, IMO.

:facepalm:

You're a low rent ****tard.

I'm through episode three. I wasn't sure what to expect but it's been pretty great so far. Now they're starting to connect all the dots they've laid out the first couple episodes, it's pretty impressive.

the interesting thing is that in his book, Marcus Allen says he would have been in the White Bronco had he been in the States at the time of the incident....but swears he never ****ed Nicole Brown LMAO

Guy can run fast, gets paid, people project their life's failures on his ability to break tackles... envying his meaningless material collections. Media exploits these primitive/manufactured desires....*proof* superstar. Said Superstar starts to believe all the parasites..who are feeding him with exaggerated images of himself. He forgets that really..if he couldn't run fast..he would be parking cars. Kills girl who only f@cks other rich fast running guys or pretty LA bartenders.

the end...usa.

No one gives a shit....he ran fast...that's it. The rest is media manufactured....

The thing is, though, lots of people DO give a shit.....manufactured or not.

After the failed getaway in the white Ford Bronco, is it just coincidence that Ford stopped making the Bronco and came out with the Escape?

You'll be hearing from Mitch Hurtwitz's attorneys

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TxFp7atlOwI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Now I remember where that thought came from. I knew it wasn't something I came up with on my own, but I had no idea where I picked it up. God, my memory is bad.

I didn't care either. The news was constant and irritating.

:clap:

After the FX series-I now blame OJ for the Kardashians.

Dear lord. What the hell is the matter with people.

Oh yeah? What happened Mr. Witness? He was found not guilty. SUCK IT!!!!!!!!!!! BITCH!

Seek help.

M'lady is a few years younger than I and didn't know much about the whole story so we got hooked into last night on Episode 3. As a JD, it was mind boggling for her. Going to backtrack and watch 1 & 2 tonight.

To me what makes the whole OJ case interesting and sad at the same time is how crazy stupid our legal system can be.

--The accused murderer had his blood and both victims blood in his car, house and drive way and the seen of course. Claimed he cut his finger and just walked around letting bleed.
-- A woman saw him hauling ass in his car right after the murder but that info was never used in court.
-- He mysterious lost a bag that he took to the airport while making his get away. He wrote what sounds like a confession note that was read on the air.
-- He went crazy and tried to run in his Bronco from the cops with a gun in his hand with a costume to hide his identity that he bought two weeks prior to the murder. Claimed he was going to Nicole's grave

People have gone to prison over tiny drops of blood as DNA proof but in this case is was splattered all over the place and the juror's were actually stupid enough to let the defense convince them that the LAPD planted it all the evidence even though they had never done shit to him after the numerous 911 calls they got from Nicole for him beating her up. Now all of sudden in a span of like and hour everyone involved got top together and said "Let's frame OJ". The jurors were also duped into the contaminated evidence bullshit.

All of this happened not long after Rodney King got his ass kicked so the black jury in this case really didn't care because OJ is black. Just set him free for all black people was the theme. The defense messed up plenty but the stupidity of the jury is mind blowing. Furman screwed the pooch bad but how does him being an asshole mean OJ is innocent? Only in America would it be possible for OJ to have walked in this case and all I did was point out a small amount of the evidence. There was a lot more.

I watched it last night. I think up to Episode 4?
Can you imagine the rioting if he was found guilty.
I think it is very well done, covers all the ground necessary to set the stage of why things went down like it did.

Ok...I have to ask. Why?

I met Robert Shapiro twice. The second time he winked at me and said "for justice!" as a goodbye.

I always thought that wink was sinister.

I'm not Dane but personally I think America would have been worse off if OJ would have been convicted.

I think it took the OJ trial for most of white America to realize just how inept and racist those cops were. Having to tamper with evidence just to convict a clearly guilty man was too much.

And I think a lot of black America realized that the dividing line wasn't about race - it was about money and influence...

I don't think he did it alone either.

I think it takes a special kind of dip$3it moron to dispose of the gloves on your own property...

Exposing prosecution negligence and shortcuts is well and good, but this case IMO went to far the other way to cement that reasonable doubt is something that can be manufactured with enough resources, regardless of merit.

Thus the whole power/money thing being what tips the scales the most.

I think the public was willing to believe the worse of law enforcement after Rodney King.

People will deny the truth as long as possible.

It wasn't just one event - it was a number of events in a short period of time...

It wasn't just the cops in the 90s tho.

The brown vs black wars stemming from prisions spilled everywhere. The cops started going after gangs with a fervor. Lots of black men in gangs unfortunately.

But a murder trial is a horrible setting to send a message.

You want to communicate that you don't trust the presenters of fact? Refuse to impanel an impartial jury. Don't sit there, then pronounce after the fact 'this guy gets to go free even if he's guilty because we're not inclined to believe a word you say.'

Isn't that what reasonable doubt is? The idea that there's even a chance, in my mind, that the person isn't guilty?...

Unfortunately America is very good at finding very poor solutions to problems we created ourselves...

That sound more like a shadow of doubt, regardless of the source.

Reasonable doubt presupposes a reasonable juror with an open mind, amenable to convincing of guilt if the facts support it as well as denial if reasonable exculpatory information exists.

These types of documentaries are always fascinating. I've only seen parts of the OJ deal, but it looks really good.

Which way of thinking do you think most jurors employ?

And I don't want to argue this point all that much because frankly I'm not qualified to.

My point being the explosion of anger and release afterwards was better for having happened then than much later...

It seems the LAPD's behavior, policies and racial tension from decades before pretty much already sealed OJ's victory before the trial even began.

I skipped part 1, watched parts 2 and 3 and am now going back to watch all of them.

What an amazing documentary. One of the best I've ever seen and is a brilliant work of art.

I don't think ANYONE has a handle on that question to the extent they think they do.

I've gotten out of jury duty numerous times due to my background. But one time a couple years back, I lingered in the pool to the point where vior dire was underway and we were sent to chambers for a break.

NOTHING about the case had been presented, but the pool was already rife with people, despite being admonished not to discuss the matter at hand, casually talking about how 'fine' the defense attorney was, and what a 'bitch' the prosecutor was, and how the defendant 'looked' guilty.

Jury nullification is most assuredly not the same as reasonable doubt.

Baby Lee's suggested a theory that's floated around the legal community since the verdict was read - that this jury simply didn't give a shit and was going to let him walk either way. Some argue celebrity or money, but the best argument was/is racial strife and this jury wanted a black man to beat the system that so often seemed stacked against them.

That has nothing to do with reasonable doubt (though I'd argue that your definition of it isn't accurate either; Baby Lee's followup response should be). That's simple, straightforward jury nullification and it absolutely ****s the legal process up.

The best, most recent example I can come up with was the 'loud music' shooter out of Jacksonville. The guy fires shots into the crowd after yelling at them for having their music too loud; in so doing, he hits a kid and the kid dies. In the first trial, the jury convicts him of attempted murder but not of murder, despite the fact that someone died as a direct result of the attempt they convicted him on.

Now, by law, that should've been impossible - second degree murder covers reckless indifference. If they found him guilty of attempted murder, they've hit the right mens rea and therefore it's theoretically impossible for 2nd degree murder not to have stuck if the attempt did and someone died.

That jury simply didn't want to send the guy away for life. So rather than find him guilty of attempt AND murder then turn it over to the judge for sentencing, they found him guilty of attempt and hung on murder thus putting a cap on what the judge could sentence him for.

Fortunately, the case was re-tried and the guy was actually convicted on 1st degree murder. But the first jury unquestionably went rogue and ignored Florida law and/or any verdict directors they were given.

I absolutely goddamn hate juries. They aren't attentive, they aren't open-minded and frankly, far too many of them are just stupid. I can't imagine having to deal with juries on any sort of high-profile case. Give narrow-minded and stupid the power of life and death and you just have a massive recipe for disaster.

I watched the trial and I don't have a problem with the verdict. I'm sure OJ was guilty, but IMO the likelihood that at least some members of the LAPD sweetened the evidence pot is pretty high. At the very least, some of them lied on the witness stand. OJ had all the advantages of a best-money-can-buy defense team and it paid off by at least arguably creating a reasonable doubt. I think you should blame the cops and the prosecution for the acquittal, not the jury.

No one should believe Mark Furman jumped the fence without a warrant to make sure OJ was safe.

Even with the verdict taking minutes, and the power salute to the defense team from a juror?

If the jury said "I'm sure he did it based on the credible evidence but the cops may have planted additional evidence so I'm going to let him go" then yes, I'm absolutely blaming the jury.

They put a murdering psychopath back on the street because they were irritated at cops.

Now if they actually felt like the evidence was all false and planted by the LAPD and as such, they couldn't trust any of the evidence, first and foremost they are stupid, but at least in that event, they haven't engaged in nullification.

Your role as a juror is not to be a social activist. You are nothing more than a simple finder of fact. That's why verdict directors are almost kindergarten level in their breakdown. "If you believe that on X date, Y person killed victim, check this box and review Box B" Then box B will list off affirmative defenses that could justify the killing. Something else will lay out possible aggravating/mitigating factors.

You have one goddamn job, jury. You are there to do nothing more than that one job and when you try to do so, the entire trial process - the crux of our legal system- falls apart.

I've had too much time on my hands the past two weeks because both of my children came down with the stomach flu in consecutive weeks. Because of that, I re-read every testimony given in the OJ trial, as well as his interview with the detectives pre-trial.

While I believe that OJ was either present at the murder or committed the murders himself, the defense did plenty, IMO, to convince the jury of reasonable doubt.

While the blood evidence is compelling, the entire LAPD investigation was a complete and utter sham. You've got the first cop that arrived on the scene walking through the crime scene, going into the home and using the phone (something he didn't admit until on trial). You've got Fuhrman at the crime scene for nearly two hours, who then heads over to Rockingham, "finds a spot of blood" on the Bronco, jumps the wall and spends 15 minutes completely alone and isolated, in which he finds the matching bloody glove. And this was AFTER he removed as lead detective of the case and told to discontinue investigating until his superiors arrived. Then, he lies on the stand about using the "N" word, he lies about making outrageous racial claims in the company of reliable witnesses and of course, there's the tapes.

Also, there's an infinitesimal amount of blood found in and on OJ's vehicle and one of his socks. Considering the amount of stab wounds and the gigantic pool of blood at Bundy, it doesn't seem reasonable to find a pin drop of OJ's blood. Add to that, the so-called "bloody clothes" were never recovered, neither was the murder weapon.

What's also interesting is the reported timeline. One neighbor swears to hearing a dog barking at 10:25 to around midnight, another hears absolutely nothing and has a journal of the evening. I've done the drive from Bundy to Rockingham and it would be nearly impossible to make that drive in the 10 minutes that the defense estimated.

Even more intriguing is the physical examination given by Dr. Robert Huizenga, who was the Los Angeles Raiders team physician and in recent years, has gained fame as the doctor on NBC's The Biggest Loser. Huizenga's physical took place over the course of two days. He noted massive inflammation of OJ's hands, knuckles and knees. He stated that OJ had a limp and would need a full knee replacement. While noting that his upper body was "well muscled", he noted that his joints and lower body showed scar tissue and injuries associated with professional football players. Basically, he described him as a gimp.

I could go on and on and on about the case (and probably will!) but to a jury of eight African American women and a few mixed race men that weren't highly educated, it's easy to understand why they voted to acquit, racial issues aside.

And the ironic thing is, which I've mentioned before, I was in a huge conference room on the Universal lot when the verdict was read and I think I was the only person in the room that was even remotely surprised that it was Not Guilty.

I get that there was a racial component at work here and that made the defense's job easier, but I still think the verdict was defensible.

One of these days I'll have to go back through the transcripts. I'm sure something I have access to can get them. It's been probably about 10 years since I've really looked at them at all. Perhaps time will have softened my irritation somewhat as I certainly recall thinking that we had some dense damn jurors on our hands the last time I looked at it.

I still think the biggest issue was the novelty of DNA evidence. Nobody had a damn clue what they were talking about. I recall some of the post-trial interviews with jurors where they flat out said they disregarded it because it was too complicated.

Like I said - if they flat out didn't think they could trust the evidence because of problems with the investigation, that's one thing. But if they were just looking to send a message (and there were definitely indications that they were), that's a miscarriage of justice.

It's important to remember it was a product of the time it happened it.

The justice system doesn't operate in a sterile environment...

I think it was the latter. I'm more empathetic with the jury than you are. For example, DNA evidence was in it's infancy and I thought Barry Scheck ran circles around the prosecution on that component. Beyond that, they sewed seeds of doubt at nearly every stage of the investigation from Furman's first entrance into OJ's property when he found the glove to the chain of custody of the evidence to the DNA conclusions. Those doubts may not have taken hold if the cops had played it straight but they didn't. It sucks that most defendants don't have the resources to hammer away at all of the evidence like that, but that's our system.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/project...ranscript.html

That site has several of the excerpts.

While I agree that the blood evidence was likely way too complicated for the jurors to understand, the LAPD did such a horrific job of protecting the crime scene against contamination that regardless of the results, it's easy to dismiss it altogether.

Additionally, to the this day, I have a very difficult time believing that OJ carried out the murders alone. Ron Goldman wasn't an old, tiny guy. He was young and physically fit. Unless he walked in after OJ killed Nicole, it's difficult to imagine that a 48 year old man in OJ's physical condition would only walk away with a nick on his middle knuckle. I'm not saying that it's impossible but it's difficult to believe he could pull that off, head home as quickly as the prosecution suggested, shower, get to the airport in time to make his flight and not crack. IMO, it just doesn't add up.

From my perspective, in all likelihood, the LAPD framed a guilty man.

I agree with almost all of this.

I'm short, fat, and out of shape. That said if I wanted to I could kill two much more fit people very quickly.

The big problem with that is the amount of blood. It's impossible to think of everything. It's impossible to clean everything.

On top of that it doesn't fit his personality. He's more likely to pay someone and not have to bother with it, while he watches, that do it himself.

She's a juvenile delinquent?
#boss

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That's the irony of all of this. The historic action of the LAPD towards blacks in LA and the rage behind what happened to Lathsha Harlins, Rodney King, and Eula Mae Love in the black community led to the freeing of a man who turned his back on that community, gave nothing back to it, and most importantly of all, was as overwhelmingly guilty as almost any defendant in history.

All that capital that Johnnie Cochran built up in fighting for righteous causes was wasted in defending a guilty man in the most unethical, puerile manner possible, which undercut all of the work he had done before.

When you watch Part 5, you'll see that this is absolutely not a theory.

He didn't seem to have a problem beating the piss out of her numerous times before, using weapons to destroy her personal affects, break into her house, and threaten her friends/lovers previously.

He was fine with hanging his friends out to dry, stealing his best friend's girlfriend, cheating with ferocity, lying constantly, all the while projecting an image of benign charm.

If you look up the DSM's definition of a psychopath it's hard to find a clearer example than OJ Simpson.

And in 1977, when his affair with an 18 year old Nicole Brown began, OJ turned his back on women of color.

Every woman he had slept with or dated since have been Caucasian.

Not quite.

(raises hand)

Another (possibly mentioned) aspect of the case is the use of DNA was in its relative infancy and lacked today's widespread acceptance by jurors.

The irony is, within a decade our consumption of procedurals, CSI being the most prominent, had created an overwhelming presumption the other way. Jurors expect bulltproof forensic evidence, and their verdicts largely rest on it's existence or absence, regardless of quality or chain of custody.

Even though he wasn't found guilty of the two murders, OJ's life is pretty much f'ed up forever. He'll probably die in prison.

Or not...parole eligible in 2017.