We will now continue to explore the 2016 ESPN documentary. Judge Lance Ito proceeds to let the jury take a field trip to O.J.'s house. Why still perplexes me since all the scientific evidence from both murder victims would have already been photographed, collected, & placed in the relevant store facility for trial purposes. Yes, I know. The defense claimed that police officers & detectives on the scene mishandled blood & hair samples, were sloppy in how they preserved & cataloged what they found, & that DNA testing & forensic science in general was new, foreign, & untrustworthy as a tool that could determine who the alleged killer of Ron Goldman & Nicole Brown truly was with absolute certainty. Well, before the jurors arrived Carl Douglas & other members of the Cochran Dream team went through OJ's residence removing or thinning out all the pictures of white executives & prominent friends on his walls. They needed to make Simpson appear more culturally diverse to a number of black citizens in the jury box so the dream team preceded to put up more pictures that would make OJ more sympathetic to African American culture. I wasn't offended by this act too much since lawyers on the defense are being paid to do whatever they can to make their client more everyman in appearance & elicit favor with the community who can get you an acquittal. Fat pocket buys celebrities the best representation possible. Justice is based on fairness not necessarily a limitation on the size of their client's wallet. 

The duration of the trial lasted 9 months & something like 267 days. That's a long time to be sequestered, isolated, & quarantined in a hotel room with no newspaper or current events TV coverage. When both the prosecution & the defense rested their case, it was time for the jury to deliberate over a mountain of physical evidence. Marcia Clark was confident that OJ would be convicted because the white bronco had blood everywhere indicating matches for Nicole, Ron, & OJ presumably under a special black light since a person can't eliminate all traces of DNA no matter how hard they clean & scrub. In addition, during the bronco chase/diplomatic police motorcade escort, OJ refused to turn himself into the LAPD peacefully as previously arranged by Robert Shapiro, he took $10,000 with him, & low & behold a passport. So, let's review shall we: Simpson is now a fugitive from the law, has a large amount of bills on him, & passports usually allow you to leave the United States & go to a country with no extradition treaty in practice. Oh yeah, I almost forgot he's suicidal pointing a gun to his temple. Now, does sound like a stable, innocent man of sound mind & body with all his mental facilities operating on all cylinders to you? Hmmm...

Deliberations ended in like 3 hours with a decision of a complete acquittal. Wait. What? How seriously did these jurors take their responsibility? 1 juror named Yolanda Crawford claimed that she just wanted to go home & that freeing OJ was payback for the Rodney King beating. Whoa. So, black jurors were compelled to release OJ from federal prison in CA as a means of revenge for decades of mistreatment by the LAPD? Seriously? Not all white citizens thought Rodney King deserved to get beaten & they wanted a minimum of 30 yr. prison sentences on the 4 white cops that committed assault & battery nearly killing a black man. I was one of those people & I'm sure I wasn't alone in that assertion either. 

I remember when I heard the verdict. I was like what just happened? Did they say what I just thought they said? What? Okay, I get that Mark Fuhrman is a racist, but do you know how enormous of a conspiracy there would have to be across the entire LAPD to frame a HOF RB from the Buffalo Bills? It would require cops, coroners, district attorneys, DNA experts, property clerks, & detectives all working in concert with each other always knowing what the other personnel are doing in order to avoid an appearance of impropriety, fraud, & corruption during a fluid & ever twisting trial dynamic. That's like a billion to 1 odds. To quote Jim Carrey from the movie 'Dumb & Dumber,' "so you're telling me there's a chance?" Look, I know excessive brutality & harassment takes place when black people sometimes get pulled over by the police because I've seen in 2nd hand with black relatives driving their cars while I sit shotgun in the passenger seat. However, OJ Simpson is not the perfect candidate to prop up as the poster child for representing the plight of all African American citizens tormented & tortured by cruel & vindictive police officers drunk with power. I don't expect celebrities or famous people to be saints, but I would prefer it if icons of society didn't routinely beat the mother of their children, show up at their spouse's wake, & only give a darn about their own ego, popularity, & immediate self gratification since they believe ordinary codes of conduct & decency don't really apply to them. 

My roommate in college at the time in the dorms was named Al. Al was an Oneida Indian & he and I often had insightful discussions about race relations as a minority. Al as a Native American & me as a person born with a disability. We would often talk about discrimination we'd experience in our lives growing up & we established a comfort zone with each other where we could ask each other anything because we knew it was meant to learn & expand our knowledge not belittle, mock, slam, & condemn. We both knew OJ had a tremendous ego who used his glory days in football to get women, sex, money, power, & influence. We also knew OJ was very possessive of his image, his brand, & his girlfriends. They were his property & they didn't a right to resist whatever they wanted him to do. If they do, there would be black & blue consequences for Nicole Brown. 

The irony is that from 1966-1994, OJ attached himself completely to white America. However, from 1994-2007, OJ attached himself to the black community since corporate america had cut him off from the world of Naked Gun comedy movies & Hertz Rental Car spokesman permanently now. It's strange to watch a needy man in Simpson craving to be beloved by the white masses roll his preferences toward a new community he previously ignored & viewed with contempt & that was only because black citizens put him on a pedestal for getting an acquittal in an era of police unrest & tension on a wide scale. 

The people are really have empathy for are Fred & Kim Goldman, the father who lost his only son & the sister who lost her brother. Ron's death get's overshadowed by OJ's popularity/smugness & Nicole's struggles with domestic violence courtesy of Mr. Simpson. Ron is treated like an afterthought. He was planning on opening his own restaurant & he was even doing a good deed [dropping off glasses for Nicole's mother] & unfortunately was stabbed to death because of it. Later on, we learn that OJ left CA for FL where he relocated to South Beach, bought a house, enjoyed a vivid nightlife, & became decadent taking drugs & sleeping with several women. Fred Goldman slowed down this gigolo like lifestyle by suing OJ in civil court where the burden of proof is significantly lower than criminal court. This jury found Simpson guilty of double murder, awarded the Goldman's a $33,000,000 dollar settlement for pain & suffering, & could start selling possessions of OJ's into order to fulfill the terms of the settlement. OJ even attempted to publish a fictional book called If I Did It hypothetically describing how he allegedly committed these double murders. Sick man. Just sick. First, OJ claims he's innocent & now he desecrates the memory of the mother of his children Justin & Sydney. Unbelievable. SMH. 

I was disturbed by a radio interview OJ did in Florida with a black, female DJ where by the end of the conversation this woman is flirting with Mr. Simpson. She's smitten with a double murder for crying out loud. Grr! I realize con artists & cold blooded killers can lay on the charm quite thick but come on lady. It's like befriending a convicted pedephile; you just don't do it period. Funny how after OJ lost his civil trial no large crowds of free Simpson supporters showed up or even rallied around "the juice" after that. OJ did have gang bangers come to his defense, but that's about it. 

In 2007, 13 yrs after the murder trial, OJ Simpson got busted in LA for stealing his own memorabilia in a hotel room at gunpoint. I laughed my caboose off when he stood before a magistrate in Nevada. I said out loud when the story broke on TV, "Hey there OJ., Karma is a [rhymes with witch] eh juice!" LOL!  Bye Bye Mr. Simpson. Actually, he stole Pete Rose & Joe Montana stuff too. Also, OJ didn't own anything he took in that room since dealers already paid him years ago for his signature so they could turn a profit. So OJ gets charged with robbery & kidnapping 4 people at gunpoint. My, my, my, how the once mighty have fallen eh? 

It ticked me off how Marcia Clark working as a journalist for Entertainment Tonight covering OJ in Nevada said that the civil case attorneys presented the same case her team did in CA. Shut up Marcia. You don't get to ride these new coattails to glory lady because I'm sure they never put a racist cop under oath or try on any gloves so zip it please. SMH. She doesn't deserve to be rich & famous after her debacle back in 1994. I truly loathe this woman. She screws up primary witness testimony in not vetting Mark Fuhrman, loses a case with a mountain of physical evidence in it, & she acts like she was awarded a not guilty verdict. Grr! 

I also find it to be a weird coincidence that Johnny Cochran defended both Michael Jackson & OJ Simpson 2 iconic celebrities who both made a conscious decision to flee from their African American roots &, in their eyes, embrace the white community full throttle. 2 men with gigantic identity crisis issues IMO. 

Made In America was a groundbreaking documentary because it proves that money can't buy love or universal acceptance among the masses. I do wonder if Sydney & Justin reached out to Denise, Nicole's Brown's sister, to reconnect with the Brown Family after their dad went away to prison for 33 yrs though.