I believe you O.J. ... Not!
I remember it like it was yesterday.
October 1995.
It was one of those beautiful fall days we have in Miramichi and I was staring out the window of Joe Breen’s English class at MVHS daydreaming of fishing when I heard the buzz out in the hallway. One of the teachers was going from classroom to classroom excitedly passing on news of some event. My attention was brought back to the then-and-there by the commotion.
This was long before the Internet updated news by the minute, when MSN Messenger had yet to make some 20-something computer whiz an overnight millionaire and cell phones were still called car phones and came in a bag the size of a mid-sized purse.
Our Phys-Ed teacher poked his head in the classroom.
“O.J.’s not guilty,” he said and went on to the next class.
O.J. Simpson, a former American pro football hero, who had been on trial for the last year or more for murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend, had been found not guilty.
I was crestfallen. I was younger then and still believed the world was a fair and just place.
I knew down deep in my bones that O.J. Simpson was nothing but a cold-blooded killer who used a pile of money and a fast-talking, high-priced dream team to get away with two murders. I feel the same way today.
Opinions vary on that topic though. They vary so much in fact you’d be hard-pressed to find any two people with the same point of view on the O.J.’s innocence or guilt.
Well, the Juice, as his loyal fans still call him, was in the news again last week, and probably will be for a long time to come.
The 60-year-old was charged with 10 felonies stemming from an incident at a casino in Las Vegas. The charges include kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, armed robbery with a deadly weapon and assault. If convicted, O.J. could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Well, it’s about time, I say.
Though Simpson was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ron Goldman, he was later found liable in a wrongful death civil trial.
And more than once he just about confessed to the slayings. In the February 1998 issue of Esquire magazine Simpson was quoted as saying, "Let's say I committed this crime … Even if I did this, it would have to have been because I loved her very much, right?"
Well, that may not be an out-and-out confession, but there’s something there.
And only last November, in a disturbing move, Simpson tried to release a book called If I Did It, an account of the double murder his publisher said was Simpson’s confession. Public outrage was so intense the publishers never released the book.
Well, I might not be that starry-eyed kid who thinks the world is a fair place where everything works out for the good anymore, but once in while, things do. O.J. Simpson may or may not have gotten away with murder 12 years ago, but when this trial is all said and done, I have serious doubts Simpson will be playing golf at the country club ever again.
They came in a roundabout way, but I think time and justice may have finally caught up with The Juice.
October 1995.
It was one of those beautiful fall days we have in Miramichi and I was staring out the window of Joe Breen’s English class at MVHS daydreaming of fishing when I heard the buzz out in the hallway. One of the teachers was going from classroom to classroom excitedly passing on news of some event. My attention was brought back to the then-and-there by the commotion.
This was long before the Internet updated news by the minute, when MSN Messenger had yet to make some 20-something computer whiz an overnight millionaire and cell phones were still called car phones and came in a bag the size of a mid-sized purse.
Our Phys-Ed teacher poked his head in the classroom.
“O.J.’s not guilty,” he said and went on to the next class.
O.J. Simpson, a former American pro football hero, who had been on trial for the last year or more for murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend, had been found not guilty.
I was crestfallen. I was younger then and still believed the world was a fair and just place.
I knew down deep in my bones that O.J. Simpson was nothing but a cold-blooded killer who used a pile of money and a fast-talking, high-priced dream team to get away with two murders. I feel the same way today.
Opinions vary on that topic though. They vary so much in fact you’d be hard-pressed to find any two people with the same point of view on the O.J.’s innocence or guilt.
Well, the Juice, as his loyal fans still call him, was in the news again last week, and probably will be for a long time to come.
The 60-year-old was charged with 10 felonies stemming from an incident at a casino in Las Vegas. The charges include kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, armed robbery with a deadly weapon and assault. If convicted, O.J. could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Well, it’s about time, I say.
Though Simpson was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ron Goldman, he was later found liable in a wrongful death civil trial.
And more than once he just about confessed to the slayings. In the February 1998 issue of Esquire magazine Simpson was quoted as saying, "Let's say I committed this crime … Even if I did this, it would have to have been because I loved her very much, right?"
Well, that may not be an out-and-out confession, but there’s something there.
And only last November, in a disturbing move, Simpson tried to release a book called If I Did It, an account of the double murder his publisher said was Simpson’s confession. Public outrage was so intense the publishers never released the book.
Well, I might not be that starry-eyed kid who thinks the world is a fair place where everything works out for the good anymore, but once in while, things do. O.J. Simpson may or may not have gotten away with murder 12 years ago, but when this trial is all said and done, I have serious doubts Simpson will be playing golf at the country club ever again.
They came in a roundabout way, but I think time and justice may have finally caught up with The Juice.
posted by Street Wise Guy | 4:24 AM
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