I like your Gatsby theory--kind of makes me want to revisit a lot of what the book presented as "Nick's slanted and unreliable view" (I'm a sucker for the "unreliable narrator" trope).
As for OJ, I believe he committed the murders but benefitted from having the resources to put together a solid enough legal team that they could pick away at every mistake made by the prosecution and police (and prosecutors and police always make plenty of mistakes, but most defendants do not have the sort of counsel who can exploit them--the color that mattered most for OJ was green, we saw a case where a cruel wife-beater and murderer got away with it because he was rich enough to get the sort of lawyers he needed to beat the rap). I doubt his jury acquitted him because he was black, the way Till's murderers' jury acquitted them because they were white.
I was a teenager and crazed football fan the year Simpson broke 2.000 yards rushing in a season. He'd invariably bring the entire Buffalo Bills offensive line with him to press conferences. I remember thinking, "That's a good dude, giving credit where credit's due." I also recall, years later, laughing hysterically during an SNL Simpson hosted.
And then he became a murdering piece of shit and ultimately moved to a state with an unlimited homestead exemption so he could avoid even the civil judgment.
I know people who considered the prison time he served for the heinous crap he pulled in Las Vegas to be some sort of comeuppance for the acquittal, but nope, not even close.
SER- I love you for telling this story like it is. We always want to seem to vilify the victim. “What did YOU do to cause this?” Is a crazy response. I had a man chase me in his car and say to me, “It’s a good day to die cunt”. My husband asked the same question!! I was horrified and saddened. A man whom I consider a feminist! Believe me. We had the talk.
Another example of how we forgive our heroes who don’t deserve that worship because of their public persona.
Great column from Andrea Dworkin about this very subject.
Excellent tribute to Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Thank you, Stephen. I had seen the heartbreaking article by Andrea Dworkin earlier this week. The clip of Chris Rock was horrifying. The audience laughing hysterically at Rock justifying the brutal murder of Nicole and Ron was shocking. Rock is a shrewd businessman, and he is well aware that incorporating hatred for women into a comedy bit has no downside. The most discouraging part is the gross, slobbering praise for Rock's vile misogyny in the comments.
Another phenomenal piece Stephen. I remember the verdict so well. I was a sophomore in college and a bunch of us watched it come in in the campus student center on a big screen tv, the height of hi tech for the 90s. I remember being livid and going to class so angry because his guilt was so obvious to me. How could he have been acquitted? It just didn’t make sense and offended my sense of justice. (This sense has taken enough hits to be rendered somewhat dull since.) I mean, he ACTED guilty as sin. The Bronco chase alone. What innocent man does that? His wealth and fame bought him out of accountability and he still couldn’t leave well enough. The pathology and psychopathy of this man will be a subject of fascination for years to come I think.
It was absolutely quiet on the sales floor of the company I worked when the verdict came down. The white sales people were shocked and the Black sales professionals breathed a sigh of relief.
Given the a constant racism that they were subjected to in their lives coupled with racist Mark Furman elicited that response. I get it. But it wasn’t justice for two people killed in a jealous rage.
Yeah, I can understand a modicum of satisfaction due to the racism present in the trial. And the history of racial injustice in this country. But OJ himself never had the slightest interest in righting social wrongs. And as you say, it does nothing for the 2 victims or their families.
The people I knew who thought OJ was innocent assumed someone else had killed the victims, which while absurd was at least better than when people would later shrug off or support the not guilty verdicts for Zimmerman or Rittenhouse. There was no denying they had killed their victims!
Good point. The Rittenhouse verdict was rage-inducing. That ridiculous judge should have been thrown off the case, for starters. Rittenhouse created the situation that directly led to him killing 2 people. I understand it was some absurd quirk in WI law that led to the not guilty verdict but yeah, still wrong. Very wrong. Zimmerman was another horrific miscarriage of justice. I held my breath for the Chauvin case. What a world to live in where we exist in such completely unreconciled realities.
This was such a sad case and no doubt the prosecutors really screwed it up. The defense had good lawyers who took advantage of every goof made. I can see why the jury felt there was reasonable doubt. Simpson got away with murder, literally, and I think his serving time for armed robbery later was all the justice anyone in the victims families were going to get. Not much of a consolation “prize”.
Thank you, Stephen. Even if OJ was acquitted, he was still a wife beater who psychologically tortured the mother of his children. That is enough to leave a legacy that calls for “wife battering acquitted murderer former football star dies” type of headlines.
About the Chris Rock bit - did I always interpret that wrong? I thought he was lampooning the whole idea, or rather "playing" a part. Bringing attention to something in an unorthodox manner. I could be wrong.
Hey, don't forget that Norm McDonald lost his spot on SNL because he wouldn't stop insisting that OJ was the killer. Personally, I've never known another white dude who was as good at making fun of white dudes than Norm. His comedy taught me a lot.
OJ's death has forced me to look at this once again. I was 23 when this happened, and I only knew OJ from the Hertz commercials and Naked Gun, and my dad telling me he was a good running back. I was working and such, so did not have the time to sit and watch the trial, but I saw some and certainly could not escape the news. This was an important event for me in many ways. I was mad that he got away with his crimes, but not outraged like some. In time, I learned why he was found not guilty, and that changed my perspective in a big way, particularly concerning the police in general.
If this happened now, I think OJ would be convicted on the DNA evidence. The police made mistakes in chain-of-custody of the evidence and lab protocols were getting better. Both of the victim's blood were found inside OJ's vehicle. This leads to the alternate theory of police planting evidence, and whether that could have happened. To me, either OJ did it or the police planted evidence, and I tend to believe they did not. I don't think Fuhrman did anything wrong, as in by-the-book, on the case, but I do believe the LAPD did a poor job vetting their officers. I blame the department, and of course the prosecution, particularly with the gloves.
Taking the whole picture into account, I do not believe I could have voted to convict OJ at the time, if I were on the jury.
Police have a history of planting existence and coercing confessions. A lead detective who’s a known racist is definitely a problem. Did he frame OJ? Probably not, though there is the Claus von Bulow theory of “framing a guilty man.”
The victims blood in the car could be O.J. finding them, freaking out, and then leaving. It does not conclusively prove he killed them. Again, there was unfortunately a significant amount of reasonable doubt on the DNA evidence, whereas the slam dunk for me is that Simpson was violent, jealous, and Nicole feared for her life from him.
You know, in the literally 100s of wrongful conviction narratives that the Innocence Project has put in my inbox or streamed to my podcast app, none IIRC involve "planting evidence." Coercing confessions, sure. OMG, yes.
I'm not sure there would have been much doubt about the DNA evidence if Barry Scheck hadn't been part of that team. His blood was at the scene; their blood was in the car; his blood and their blood was on the glove found behind his home, along with fibers from Goldman, Brown, and his car, and Brown's Akita, who was found wandering the streets with its legs covered in blood. This in addition to the fibers the found from Brown, Goldman, his car, his shirt, his hair all over everything.
The prosecution even did a good job of rebutting Scheck. It doesn't seem that likely that anything was contaminated; but his case is what people remember. That and the conspiracy to plant *all* of the evidence posited by the defense.
Oh, I agree, thus why I never would have voted to convict him. My impressions come from a rather long article from perhaps 10 years ago that went over all the physical evidence. The police failed in multiple ways, that's about the extent of it. Oh, I'm well aware of police malpractice, planting evidence, coercing witnesses, etc. Officers are given the benefit of the doubt much too often.
Given that, I have doubts based only on probability that anyone planted evidence in the OJ case. Their chain-of-custody practice was so bad and Johnny Cochrane (with Barry Scheck) blew holes in the evidence. If I were a nefarious, evidence-planting cop, this would be the last case I would attempt such a thing due to the media coverage. I would view it as far too risky. Which isn't to say that it didn't happen.
This is such a great, holistic piece, Mr. Robinson. I truly appreciate it.
Also, this:
“However, it does bother me that the people who complain that Johnnie Cochran played the “race card” and suggest the jury was filled with members of the Nation of Islam are often the same folks who claim the juries had no choice but to acquit George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse, neither of whom ever worked with Leslie Nielsen.”
is part of what makes you such a wonderful, stand-out writer, IMHO.
Thanks for covering this. I was 13 when this trial concluded. My whole class watched the verdict be read in our science teacher’s room; she burst into tears. Afterwards, some of the boys started vandalizing her classroom after hours. They kept at it for the rest of the school year, and she left the school.
My dad had a similarly explosive temper, resentment towards child support, and pervasive belief that the divorce didn’t stop Mom from being *his* wife. This trial taught me there was no point in reporting the abuse, because belief at best got you mockery. Luckily, between twin talents for obstinacy and argumentation, things ended up working out for my family. I still wonder what happened to the science teacher.
Excellent piece, as always. And the NYT is really eager to make Simpson some kind of martyr again, I guess along with their transphobia and trumpism, they'd like to make this a thing again, having run two articles by the same writer in two days along these lines
I stumbled upon then-executive editor Phil Bronstein’s brief editorial in the SF Chronicle from shortly after the verdict a few years ago and thought it was excellent. He said something along the lines of it being signs of a much deeper problem that people of different races have such different views of the justice system. And, well, find the lie.
It wasn't just Cochran; it was an entire team of exceptional (or formerly exceptional, in the case of F. Lee Bailey) lawyers who were willing to use their reputations to free a man *they knew* was guilty. And I know they were not the first lawyers to defend a guilty client; but this was the case that taught me that trials are not about finding facts. They're about telling a story. And the Simpson lawyers were some great storytellers. Barry Scheck took what was, by and large, decent work on the part of the vile LAPD, and oh-my-god-just-so-so-much physical evidence, and absolutely shredded it. They also had Lance Ito's starfucker tendencies on their side; plus I think a tendency to blame attractive young women for their own abuse (see also: Britney, Jessica, etc), and ignorance of what abusive relationships are like. Jury members were dismissive of Nicole because she "didn't leave," even though she DID leave and they had been divorced for a while when he murdered her.
Also, CHRIS, $4,000 a month for food is $1,000 a week. And she was not the only one eating; she had two children in her home. That's still a lot of money per person per week, but that, I assume, includes both eating out and groceries, plus she was living in a expensive neighborhood. And maybe dating and marrying a teenager and then keeping her AND YOUR CHILDREN in a certain lifestyle for years means they're going to want something similar once she leaves you finally.
It's kind of amazing to me that Rock was able to work this into his routine and get people to feel bad for the very wealthy guy paying for his kids and the wife he didn't let work.
Talking with my wife, Lawyer Lady Vorpal back during the OJ trial... I asked 'OK, your client is guilty and has just confessed to you during the trial, you turn them in and change your plea, correct?'
Fortunately for Simpson, he had so many lawyers he could pursue a bunch of different defense options at once. At the beginning of the trial, the team claimed they were going to lay out who actually done it during the trial. But they never did.
I am sure, given some family discussions at the time, that there was a bit of resentment about Simpson having an interracial relationship. This was a controversial thing at the time among some Black folk; "Black men go out with white women when they get successful" was that sort of refrain. Even used to have this popular term, "Jungle Fever" - so popular a movie was titled that. This was also relatively fresh after the whole Clarence Thomas confirmation and learning about how badly he treated Anita Hill. And a lot of folks kinda ignored Simpson's first wife, who is Black.
As I said elsewhere, I do think that if it hadn't turned out that Mark Fuhrmann was a racist they probably would've had Simpson dead to rights. But that, combined with honestly god-tier lawyering by Johnnie Cochran, meant that the case had established reasonable doubt. Chris Rock actually had a salient point about Simpson's fame insulating him, saying if he drove a bus he'd be "Orenthal the Bus-Driving Murderer."
For the civil trial, supposedly moving it to Simi Valley all but guaranteed the outcome.
As a young teen at the time, I admit I laughed at Rock's "Bring the Pain" routine. And it is of course as laid out here, tied for the worst-aging segment of the routine. Rock is kind of a jerk isn't he? But it also resonated that Simpson beat the criminal trial, which in some ways did feel like some justice against a racist system. Again if not for Fuhrmann I think a lot of people would not have felt that way.
I really loved the point you made (which was sometimes remarked upon post-trial) about Simpson rejecting Blackness. I am certain a number of people imputed his relationship with Nicole Brown in that way, the aforementioned "Black men go for white women when they're a success." And I don't think that, even if reportedly a lot of Black people were in his corner, that he really returned into our fold.
No, what he did was particularly awful. And I don't know if it's just him being an asshole or CTE. But this guy, even post-civil verdict spends so much energy trolling the Goldman family. One of the most fucked up and sadistic things ever, and the culmination of this being the "If I did it" book. And of course he failed to keep his nose clean and did the armed robbery caper (which failed of course).
In the end, it just feels like his crimes and proclivities have just made the world that much worse.
I like your Gatsby theory--kind of makes me want to revisit a lot of what the book presented as "Nick's slanted and unreliable view" (I'm a sucker for the "unreliable narrator" trope).
As for OJ, I believe he committed the murders but benefitted from having the resources to put together a solid enough legal team that they could pick away at every mistake made by the prosecution and police (and prosecutors and police always make plenty of mistakes, but most defendants do not have the sort of counsel who can exploit them--the color that mattered most for OJ was green, we saw a case where a cruel wife-beater and murderer got away with it because he was rich enough to get the sort of lawyers he needed to beat the rap). I doubt his jury acquitted him because he was black, the way Till's murderers' jury acquitted them because they were white.
I was a teenager and crazed football fan the year Simpson broke 2.000 yards rushing in a season. He'd invariably bring the entire Buffalo Bills offensive line with him to press conferences. I remember thinking, "That's a good dude, giving credit where credit's due." I also recall, years later, laughing hysterically during an SNL Simpson hosted.
And then he became a murdering piece of shit and ultimately moved to a state with an unlimited homestead exemption so he could avoid even the civil judgment.
I know people who considered the prison time he served for the heinous crap he pulled in Las Vegas to be some sort of comeuppance for the acquittal, but nope, not even close.
SER- I love you for telling this story like it is. We always want to seem to vilify the victim. “What did YOU do to cause this?” Is a crazy response. I had a man chase me in his car and say to me, “It’s a good day to die cunt”. My husband asked the same question!! I was horrified and saddened. A man whom I consider a feminist! Believe me. We had the talk.
Another example of how we forgive our heroes who don’t deserve that worship because of their public persona.
Great column from Andrea Dworkin about this very subject.
http://evergreenreview.com/read/in-memory-of-nicole-brown-simpson/
Excellent tribute to Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Thank you, Stephen. I had seen the heartbreaking article by Andrea Dworkin earlier this week. The clip of Chris Rock was horrifying. The audience laughing hysterically at Rock justifying the brutal murder of Nicole and Ron was shocking. Rock is a shrewd businessman, and he is well aware that incorporating hatred for women into a comedy bit has no downside. The most discouraging part is the gross, slobbering praise for Rock's vile misogyny in the comments.
Thank you!
Another phenomenal piece Stephen. I remember the verdict so well. I was a sophomore in college and a bunch of us watched it come in in the campus student center on a big screen tv, the height of hi tech for the 90s. I remember being livid and going to class so angry because his guilt was so obvious to me. How could he have been acquitted? It just didn’t make sense and offended my sense of justice. (This sense has taken enough hits to be rendered somewhat dull since.) I mean, he ACTED guilty as sin. The Bronco chase alone. What innocent man does that? His wealth and fame bought him out of accountability and he still couldn’t leave well enough. The pathology and psychopathy of this man will be a subject of fascination for years to come I think.
It was absolutely quiet on the sales floor of the company I worked when the verdict came down. The white sales people were shocked and the Black sales professionals breathed a sigh of relief.
Given the a constant racism that they were subjected to in their lives coupled with racist Mark Furman elicited that response. I get it. But it wasn’t justice for two people killed in a jealous rage.
Yeah, I can understand a modicum of satisfaction due to the racism present in the trial. And the history of racial injustice in this country. But OJ himself never had the slightest interest in righting social wrongs. And as you say, it does nothing for the 2 victims or their families.
The people I knew who thought OJ was innocent assumed someone else had killed the victims, which while absurd was at least better than when people would later shrug off or support the not guilty verdicts for Zimmerman or Rittenhouse. There was no denying they had killed their victims!
Good point. The Rittenhouse verdict was rage-inducing. That ridiculous judge should have been thrown off the case, for starters. Rittenhouse created the situation that directly led to him killing 2 people. I understand it was some absurd quirk in WI law that led to the not guilty verdict but yeah, still wrong. Very wrong. Zimmerman was another horrific miscarriage of justice. I held my breath for the Chauvin case. What a world to live in where we exist in such completely unreconciled realities.
This was such a sad case and no doubt the prosecutors really screwed it up. The defense had good lawyers who took advantage of every goof made. I can see why the jury felt there was reasonable doubt. Simpson got away with murder, literally, and I think his serving time for armed robbery later was all the justice anyone in the victims families were going to get. Not much of a consolation “prize”.
Thank You, Stephen. Thank you for telling the Truth.
Thank you, Stephen. Even if OJ was acquitted, he was still a wife beater who psychologically tortured the mother of his children. That is enough to leave a legacy that calls for “wife battering acquitted murderer former football star dies” type of headlines.
About the Chris Rock bit - did I always interpret that wrong? I thought he was lampooning the whole idea, or rather "playing" a part. Bringing attention to something in an unorthodox manner. I could be wrong.
Hey, don't forget that Norm McDonald lost his spot on SNL because he wouldn't stop insisting that OJ was the killer. Personally, I've never known another white dude who was as good at making fun of white dudes than Norm. His comedy taught me a lot.
OJ's death has forced me to look at this once again. I was 23 when this happened, and I only knew OJ from the Hertz commercials and Naked Gun, and my dad telling me he was a good running back. I was working and such, so did not have the time to sit and watch the trial, but I saw some and certainly could not escape the news. This was an important event for me in many ways. I was mad that he got away with his crimes, but not outraged like some. In time, I learned why he was found not guilty, and that changed my perspective in a big way, particularly concerning the police in general.
If this happened now, I think OJ would be convicted on the DNA evidence. The police made mistakes in chain-of-custody of the evidence and lab protocols were getting better. Both of the victim's blood were found inside OJ's vehicle. This leads to the alternate theory of police planting evidence, and whether that could have happened. To me, either OJ did it or the police planted evidence, and I tend to believe they did not. I don't think Fuhrman did anything wrong, as in by-the-book, on the case, but I do believe the LAPD did a poor job vetting their officers. I blame the department, and of course the prosecution, particularly with the gloves.
Taking the whole picture into account, I do not believe I could have voted to convict OJ at the time, if I were on the jury.
Police have a history of planting existence and coercing confessions. A lead detective who’s a known racist is definitely a problem. Did he frame OJ? Probably not, though there is the Claus von Bulow theory of “framing a guilty man.”
The victims blood in the car could be O.J. finding them, freaking out, and then leaving. It does not conclusively prove he killed them. Again, there was unfortunately a significant amount of reasonable doubt on the DNA evidence, whereas the slam dunk for me is that Simpson was violent, jealous, and Nicole feared for her life from him.
You know, in the literally 100s of wrongful conviction narratives that the Innocence Project has put in my inbox or streamed to my podcast app, none IIRC involve "planting evidence." Coercing confessions, sure. OMG, yes.
That fits with what I've heard or read about wrongful convictions.
I'm not sure there would have been much doubt about the DNA evidence if Barry Scheck hadn't been part of that team. His blood was at the scene; their blood was in the car; his blood and their blood was on the glove found behind his home, along with fibers from Goldman, Brown, and his car, and Brown's Akita, who was found wandering the streets with its legs covered in blood. This in addition to the fibers the found from Brown, Goldman, his car, his shirt, his hair all over everything.
The prosecution even did a good job of rebutting Scheck. It doesn't seem that likely that anything was contaminated; but his case is what people remember. That and the conspiracy to plant *all* of the evidence posited by the defense.
Oh, I agree, thus why I never would have voted to convict him. My impressions come from a rather long article from perhaps 10 years ago that went over all the physical evidence. The police failed in multiple ways, that's about the extent of it. Oh, I'm well aware of police malpractice, planting evidence, coercing witnesses, etc. Officers are given the benefit of the doubt much too often.
Given that, I have doubts based only on probability that anyone planted evidence in the OJ case. Their chain-of-custody practice was so bad and Johnny Cochrane (with Barry Scheck) blew holes in the evidence. If I were a nefarious, evidence-planting cop, this would be the last case I would attempt such a thing due to the media coverage. I would view it as far too risky. Which isn't to say that it didn't happen.
This is such a great, holistic piece, Mr. Robinson. I truly appreciate it.
Also, this:
“However, it does bother me that the people who complain that Johnnie Cochran played the “race card” and suggest the jury was filled with members of the Nation of Islam are often the same folks who claim the juries had no choice but to acquit George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse, neither of whom ever worked with Leslie Nielsen.”
is part of what makes you such a wonderful, stand-out writer, IMHO.
Thank you!
Thanks for covering this. I was 13 when this trial concluded. My whole class watched the verdict be read in our science teacher’s room; she burst into tears. Afterwards, some of the boys started vandalizing her classroom after hours. They kept at it for the rest of the school year, and she left the school.
My dad had a similarly explosive temper, resentment towards child support, and pervasive belief that the divorce didn’t stop Mom from being *his* wife. This trial taught me there was no point in reporting the abuse, because belief at best got you mockery. Luckily, between twin talents for obstinacy and argumentation, things ended up working out for my family. I still wonder what happened to the science teacher.
Excellent piece, as always. And the NYT is really eager to make Simpson some kind of martyr again, I guess along with their transphobia and trumpism, they'd like to make this a thing again, having run two articles by the same writer in two days along these lines
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/arts/oj-simpson-black-america.html
Thanks! Yes, the coverage is pretty awful.
I stumbled upon then-executive editor Phil Bronstein’s brief editorial in the SF Chronicle from shortly after the verdict a few years ago and thought it was excellent. He said something along the lines of it being signs of a much deeper problem that people of different races have such different views of the justice system. And, well, find the lie.
Then as is now, celebrities can get away with crimes. When you're famous, they just let you do it.
It wasn't just Cochran; it was an entire team of exceptional (or formerly exceptional, in the case of F. Lee Bailey) lawyers who were willing to use their reputations to free a man *they knew* was guilty. And I know they were not the first lawyers to defend a guilty client; but this was the case that taught me that trials are not about finding facts. They're about telling a story. And the Simpson lawyers were some great storytellers. Barry Scheck took what was, by and large, decent work on the part of the vile LAPD, and oh-my-god-just-so-so-much physical evidence, and absolutely shredded it. They also had Lance Ito's starfucker tendencies on their side; plus I think a tendency to blame attractive young women for their own abuse (see also: Britney, Jessica, etc), and ignorance of what abusive relationships are like. Jury members were dismissive of Nicole because she "didn't leave," even though she DID leave and they had been divorced for a while when he murdered her.
Also, CHRIS, $4,000 a month for food is $1,000 a week. And she was not the only one eating; she had two children in her home. That's still a lot of money per person per week, but that, I assume, includes both eating out and groceries, plus she was living in a expensive neighborhood. And maybe dating and marrying a teenager and then keeping her AND YOUR CHILDREN in a certain lifestyle for years means they're going to want something similar once she leaves you finally.
It's kind of amazing to me that Rock was able to work this into his routine and get people to feel bad for the very wealthy guy paying for his kids and the wife he didn't let work.
Talking with my wife, Lawyer Lady Vorpal back during the OJ trial... I asked 'OK, your client is guilty and has just confessed to you during the trial, you turn them in and change your plea, correct?'
Her reply: 'It would limit my defense options'
Fortunately for Simpson, he had so many lawyers he could pursue a bunch of different defense options at once. At the beginning of the trial, the team claimed they were going to lay out who actually done it during the trial. But they never did.
Appropriately thought provoking. Thank you for adjusting the bad framing on practically every article I saw.
Though this YouTube clip was good https://youtu.be/7hCEn7nz4ws?si=roPAYR_vjoqBHqu8 (references a better Chris Rock moment FWIW)
Reminds me to watch OJ: Made in America which Reese references here.
I am sure, given some family discussions at the time, that there was a bit of resentment about Simpson having an interracial relationship. This was a controversial thing at the time among some Black folk; "Black men go out with white women when they get successful" was that sort of refrain. Even used to have this popular term, "Jungle Fever" - so popular a movie was titled that. This was also relatively fresh after the whole Clarence Thomas confirmation and learning about how badly he treated Anita Hill. And a lot of folks kinda ignored Simpson's first wife, who is Black.
As I said elsewhere, I do think that if it hadn't turned out that Mark Fuhrmann was a racist they probably would've had Simpson dead to rights. But that, combined with honestly god-tier lawyering by Johnnie Cochran, meant that the case had established reasonable doubt. Chris Rock actually had a salient point about Simpson's fame insulating him, saying if he drove a bus he'd be "Orenthal the Bus-Driving Murderer."
For the civil trial, supposedly moving it to Simi Valley all but guaranteed the outcome.
As a young teen at the time, I admit I laughed at Rock's "Bring the Pain" routine. And it is of course as laid out here, tied for the worst-aging segment of the routine. Rock is kind of a jerk isn't he? But it also resonated that Simpson beat the criminal trial, which in some ways did feel like some justice against a racist system. Again if not for Fuhrmann I think a lot of people would not have felt that way.
I really loved the point you made (which was sometimes remarked upon post-trial) about Simpson rejecting Blackness. I am certain a number of people imputed his relationship with Nicole Brown in that way, the aforementioned "Black men go for white women when they're a success." And I don't think that, even if reportedly a lot of Black people were in his corner, that he really returned into our fold.
No, what he did was particularly awful. And I don't know if it's just him being an asshole or CTE. But this guy, even post-civil verdict spends so much energy trolling the Goldman family. One of the most fucked up and sadistic things ever, and the culmination of this being the "If I did it" book. And of course he failed to keep his nose clean and did the armed robbery caper (which failed of course).
In the end, it just feels like his crimes and proclivities have just made the world that much worse.