Let's talk about Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and how unbelievably fucked up this all is

yeah but like MJ you didn't see editorials making those arguments.

As is often said, if you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.

if you like sausage in your butty, pound sterling

seeing al gore say 'this november bill clinton is gonna be automatic for the people and george bush is gonna be out of time!'

filled w/ a queer and indescribable emotion reading this

Lolling at the notion that today's juries understand DNA evidence any better. They don't -- Jerry Bruckheimer having taught them that it is infallible magic -- and these misunderstandings continue to lead to bad results.

"Meanwhile Ross Perot's gonna yell 'Achtung, baby'!"

Are these lyrics from the new Jay-Z joint?

ppl itt have some weird opinions on the OJ trial huh

OJ was acquitted solely on the basis of his stirring performance in the Naked Gun films

Here's another one: cops frame guilty people ALL THE TIME, and that's not ok.

a black man successfully navigating the system using his money suddenly made a whole bunch of previously apathetic people notice the flaws in our judicial system that had been there for years; HMM I WONDER WHY THAT WAS

booming post

Yeah, because no one was ever outraged at rich famous people getting off before OJ.

i'm having trouble thinking of other high-profile acquittals of rich, famous prior to OJ.

william kennedy smith? not famous in his own right but

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/Reversal_of_fortune_poster.jpg

Give me a fuckin break Josh

http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/q-a-david-lee-roth-vents-about-van-halens-future-20130212/1000x600/dlr-600-1360694851.jpg

pretty sure that trial was televised too, Elmo. But I think ultimately OJ was way more famous, plus it was a grisly double murder so there was more attention paid.

also, have there been murmurs that cops (and the state) intentionally bumbled the Trayvon case?

xp

Anyway, not much murder, you're right. But I'm pretty sure this country was built on rich people getting acquitted of horrible things.

pretty sure

Yes, OJ Simpson created the popular concept of "rich people can buy their own justice," well done everyone.

lol you dopes

i think djp's post was just pointing to the fact that many white people who were previously unconcerned about the unfairness of the criminal justice system were suddenly outraged by the OJ verdict, and the fact might have something to do with race? idk, that's how I read it

iirc the reaction to the wm. k smith acquittal was something to the effect of *shrug* "he's a kennedy, what're you gonna do" and not widespread outrage that a white rapist wasn't found guilty

a black man successfully navigating the system using his money suddenly made a whole bunch of previously apathetic people notice the flaws in our judicial system that had been there for years; HMM I WONDER WHY THAT WAS

You're failing to recognize that hardworking white americans had been living in fear for years as black celebrities murdered their daughters and got away with it.

i mean i remember the big blue dot covering the plaintiff's face on the witness stand and all but i don't recall anyone decrying the judicial system as broken when he got off

Well no, and I agree with all of what you're saying re: the racial politics here. But certainly people had for years decried what Wm. Kennedy Smith's Uncle Ted was able to get away with just because he was rich.

xp i think the legal profession took the hit on that one. i vaguely remember the lawyers becoming a punchline (more so than usual) b/t Johnnie Cochran and the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit. see: Jackie Chiles trying to get Krammer money for some ridiculous reason on Seinfeld. provided ample inspiration to go to law school for a young Spectrum.

Yeah, it was sort of a punchline (re: Kennedys, e legacy that began with Chappaquiddick).

Obviously I get the racial component of the OJ trial, but I think the Rodney King verdict was much more tragic and educational in exploring in underscoring systemic flaws and racism. My personal reaction to OJ, best I can recall, was based on his status as a rich celebrity (and star of the Naked Gun series). My reaction to the Rodney King verdict was disgust and anger.

Like, there was a guy, writing on the ground, getting repeatedly beaten, on camera. And it wasn't enough.

Writhing, not writing, sorry.

My experience with the Rodney King trial was seeing a sizable number of white people asking what he had done to provoke that reaction from the police and when the verdict came out, a bunch of them also went "well obviously there was more information that the jury had that we weren't privy to; also haven't you heard about King's past, clearly he did something to bring this on himself". These were white people in historically liberal MN and MA (moreso in MN).

xp: lol "Dear diary: ow OW ow fuck ow my ear ow"

hah!

sorry to derail but the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit was entirely valid and that poor woman deserved every penny she got.

i will never forget my 10th grade English teacher (white btw) being very troubled about Rodney King's PCP use and calling him a lowlife or something of that nature. i had really liked that teacher up to that point.

xxp

djp otm, likewise in the wm kennedy smith trial, the defense was pretty effective at calling the plaintiff's character & motivations into question because that's what happens in rape trials, lol patriarchy

the other thing to remember about reaction to the OJ trial/verdict is that the whole Rodney King debacle had just happened like 2.5 years prior so everyone pretty much assumed that the court system was going to rofflestomp him with even more gusto than what was done to King

the King verdict had happened years before, but it came up because 10th grade was American lit and race was everything, and all of a sudden i was like, i don't know if you're qualified to teach this class. you fucking moron.

years before my teacher said that, not years before O.J. DJP otm on thaty score.

race & racism obviously influenced reactions to the OJ verdict, but the caylee anthony and rondey king verdicts aroused a good deal of white outrage, too. and i don't remember the reaction to the wm kennedy-smith verdict being as blase as some suggest.

i suspect that most people have a sense that the american criminal justice system is often unfair, sometimes outrageously so. that concern, however, remains a mumbling background issue in many minds (especially white people's minds) until some widely publicized "celebrity case" catches the public imagination. when that happens, the nation watches as a collective, turning the verdict into a public test of america's ability to provide basic justice. if the system seems to fail, public outrage is magnified by the importance attached to the test. something similar happens with close presidential elections and even the outcomes of certain sporting events.

I remember white outrage at the Rodney King verdict transitioning pretty quickly into white outrage at the LA riots

yeah, otm

as a PS to my earlier post: certain cases assume "political" importance, especially where police brutality is concerned. conservatives tend to side with the cops, liberals with the (often accused) victims. this somewhat complicates race as a dividing line.

king and esp oj heightened awareness of the science of jury selection. i haven't followed this case at all - has there been anything on the makeup of the jury?

xpost - i remember my white, upper middle class, gop by default classmates kinda 'getting it' in some way for the first time; a few would parrot the rightwing talking points defending the cops but most realized this was pretty fucked up (probably just my filter at the time but i seem to recall that during the riots even president bush didn't really defend the verdict and they quickly announced doj was gonna get involved), the riots were just 'well yeah' and if anything more interesting/exciting than scary (i can remember a few classmates having a look of panic in their eyes when i mentioned that me and some friends were going to see u2 in atlanta like a block away from where the rioting had happened about a week before, but they tended to get that look of panic for 'going to atlanta' anyway), that could totally just be my perspective though, i was pretty smug - 'see this is why you guys should listen to public enemy, i told you 911 was a joke'.

king and esp oj heightened awareness of the science of jury selection. i haven't followed this case at all - has there been anything on the makeup of the jury?

6 person jury, all women; 5 white, 1 Hispanic, IIRC 4 mothers? There was a CNN article/infographic about them, I'll see if I can find it

Hopefully it is a poster sized info graphic that will take a lot of scrolling to read. Size = impact, amirite graphic designers?

here you go (warning: not an infographic): http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/06/20/who-are-jurors-george-zimmerman

has there been anything on the makeup of the jury?

it's all women, and for that reason i have not been willing to dig too deeply into the chatter on it...

xps that al gore campaign line is craaaaaaaazy

funny enough i just watched 'bastards of the party' last night, amazing doc (re: rodney king riots, briefly)

Fox's Rivera: "I Submit" Jurors "Would Have Shot And Killed Trayvon Martin A Lot Sooner Than George Zimmerman Did"

Most Americans I imagine go their entire lives with little to no exposure to the criminal justice system. It takes stuff like celebrity trials or other salacious spectacles to put the legal system in the spotlight, which is messed up on so many levels, since they are the farthest thing from indicative of how things usually work. And yet they become the basis of commonplace armchair judgement for years to come after the fact.

Other than traffic court, I imagine most go their entire lives with little exposure to the court system, period.