Squeezing the Juice

Posted on September 18, 2007 in Celebrity Scoundrels

About three miles from our condo, Nicole Brown lays dead beneath a flat headstone, in a field of flat headstones, at Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest. Here, O.J. Simpson began his famous flight from the law, freeway by freeway, to his home. Crowds cheered him from the overpass as he sped by. Eventually, he was acquitted of her murder though not exonerated by most. A sour taste covered the drooping tongue of the trial-watching television addicts and most said that he’d got away with murder.

Perhaps he will not get away with armed robbery and maybe kidnapping. If convicted, he could face up to thirty years in Nevada prisons. The Smoking Gun has provided details of his life in jail and background on the mastermind behind last week’s escapade. (Could Thomas Riccio become this episode’s Mark Furman?)

O.J. has complained that the reason why he took the law into his own hands is that the police no longer took him seriously. They would not look into the matter of the stolen memorablia. This leads us to ask if this could have been prevented. Clarence Darrow noted that one of the dangers of prohibition was that it denied bootleggers a civil court where they could seek legal redress for bad deals, missed deliveries, etc. When these things happened, they resorted to strongarm tactics and even murder. If guilty, O.J. should go to prison for this, but we should still ask if it could have been prevented by having law enforcement handle the case. Or was this a setup?

Watch to see if this defense plays at the trial.