This paper explores why many people defended O.J. Simpson from the time of his arrest through his civil trial. As he is largely out of the national spotlight, the polls have apparently stopped and we no longer have data indicating his current level of support. The last polls I saw were something like 80-90% of African Americans and 20-30% (a sizable minority) of whites supporting him. As I recall, these numbers didn't vary all that much from the first polls to the last. (His support, particularly among whites, waned as the trials progressed.) Why such numbers in support of a person who was clearly guilty of two murders?

Let me first note a subtlety that was missed (or at least got little play) throughout this "story." There are at least two distinct meanings of the word "guilty." There is the legal sense, the sense in which one is innocent until proven guilty, and there is the "responsible party" sense that applies the moment a deed is done. For example, someone was guilty of killing Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman even before anyone was arrested. In my opinion, there was enough evidence within days of the bodies being found (bloody glove, history of spouse abuse, delay in answering the phone call from the limousine driver, blood on the Simpson estate and in his house, the badly cut hand, the attempted flight from justice, Simpson's reaction to his arrest--not astonishment or anger but resignation), to conclude OJ Simpson was guilty of murder in this second sense. (This early evidence held up well. Over the next year, only feeble explanations were ever given to refute them.) There's nothing unusual or unfair about my early conclusion. Nearly all of us, every day, have to make judgments on who is responsible for particular deeds, then act on those judgments. I would not and did not conclude at such an early stage of an investigation that there was enough of a case yet to find Simpson guilty in the legal sense. Due to the repercussions of a finding of "guilty" in the legal sense (e.g., fines, jail, execution), a more thorough examination of the evidence is demanded.

Though we might hope it would, our legal system is not set up to correlate these two meanings of "guilty." That is, it is not set up to have the responsible (guilty) party of an illegal act be declared guilty (in a legal sense). It doesn't even acknowledge the two meanings of this critical word. The legal system is based on an adversarial model of winning and losing--it is not fundamentally truth seeking. If it were, all evidence would be considered, all possibly involved parties compelled to testify, behavior by lawyers and prosecutors that are attempts to score points with juries by show or by ensnaring, entrapping, or limiting what witnesses have to share, would be prohibited. The prerequisite for determining guilt in a responsible party sense is uncovering truth, at least as all involved parties understand it. Since uncovering truth isn't a primary goal of our legal system, that system cannot accurately claim that its purpose is to identify responsible parties as legally guilty parties.

Though his guilt in the first sense (as the person responsible for two deaths) only grew clearer through the criminal trial, because of his personal appeal, no matter what evidence came out his "guilt" in the legal sense was always in doubt.

What was the appeal that brought out so many OJ defenders? The most obvious one, and perhaps the only one that is ever publicized, is race. Sadly, this is clearly a compelling reason for many. Every large group of people, whether that group is defined along racial, ethnic, national, cultural, religious, political, or belief lines, is likely to have some people in it who do fiendish deeds. The larger the group the more likely it is to have more of such people. It is sad when a group will choose to defend the dishonorable individual over what they would otherwise claim to be the right and honorable. It's nobler, more responsible and more enlightened for the group to identify and call those individuals on their acts then to try to brush the deeds aside, cover them up, or defend the individual. To do the latter is to give the group more importance than the truth, the right, and the larger circle in which the group exists. Many African Americans did (and still do) the ignoble thing of defending OJ Simpson (beyond reasonable doubt) as they did Mike Tyson before him (during his rape trial). Hertz did the right thing early on in terminating its contract with Simpson, a person it earlier considered an esteemed member of the corporate family. The Una bomber's brother did the right thing turning in his sibling for Ted Kaczynski's despicable and cowardly acts. A group is stronger when it rids itself of members who bring it dishonor.

I don't know how many people defended Simpson because they were football fans of his. I was a fan of his but see that as completely irrelevant in judging his guilt or innocent. I suspect this group of defenders was small and limited to pockets in Buffalo and Southern California where Simpson played football. I also believe that this group would have had a lot of members had OJ been in the prime of his football life at the time he took those lives.

Simpson had his supporters early on who rushed to his defense out of a sense of fairness. Shortly after the investigation started, it seemed every story, and therefore the press and therefore the population including the jury pool, was against him. Everybody seemed to be ganging up on this one person. I think those defenders, who were trying to be voices of fairness and deliberation, were providing a positive service. Over time, those that were fair and deliberate and who early on asked us not to rush to judgment, concluded that Simpson committed these two murders.

I believe there is a large group of Americans who supported Simpson (and perhaps still support but would rather ignore him), who did so because he represented the American Dream. Simpson had what we are all culturally taught to want: fame, beauty, athleticism, fortune. How could he have it all, achieve the Dream, then commit murder? If that's what one can do when one achieves the Dream, maybe the Dream is inappropriate? But that's all we know, all we're taught. What are we to do? Rather than question our basic cultural norms and goals, a serious amount of reflective work, this group of people would rather deny the importance of doing so. If Simpson did not do these things then the Dream is still the unchallenged goal. They may have also come to this position from the other direction, that is, the American Dream must be right so therefore Simpson could not have done such wrongs. I believe either way they arrived at their defense of Simpson on American Dream grounds, they did it unconsciously. This set of people (a large set) prefer not to act consciously on fundamentals. It's too much work.

That brings me to the unpublicized tragedy in this story of tragedies. There was an unprecedented opportunity for us as a nation to examine our values and the influences in our lives, and we passed it by. This story had our attention, then we focused on the nuances of the trial, its legal aspects, and the stories of the involved individuals while missing out discussing how one could achieve the American Dream and then commit murder. (An example of the all too common "lose the big picture for the details" behavior.) I realize a discussion of "How could achieving the American Dream end in murder?"could presuppose Simpson is guilty (in the "responsible party" sense; a discussion of the two meanings of "guilty" would have been nationally valuable as well), but we could have explored the question as a hypothetical. I would have loved to participate in a national discussion on what makes a life desirable. What long-term influence do family and childhood experiences have on us as adults? What is in our physiological make-up as a species that unconsciously influences us? What might contribute to setting us up to lie, cheat, be adulterous, commit crimes including murder or to be honest, noble, just, and wise? While we are responsible for our actions whatever the genetic or environmental predispositions placed on us, what actions can we take to help us choose our acts more consciously?

In the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, two lives were lost and a third was ruined. A few dozen others, those of family and friends, were seriously diminished. The residual impact on the rest of the country is negligible. The story entertained us and now it's gone. It would have been a lasting tribute to Nicole and Ron had we grown as a culture because of their deaths. Now it seems the time for that tribute is passed, our attention is turned. We failed to seize an opportunity to grow. That guilt is ours.
 

© 1999 frantzml@juno.com