Word: simpson
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...Simpson, of course, is innocent until proven guilty. He may be telling the truth when he says, through his lawyer, that he was at home two miles away when his ex-wife and her male friend were murdered. Furthermore, as a rich man, he is entitled to the true blessing of American justice -- which isn't a fair trial but an unfair trial. Top criminal lawyers don't get $500 an hour or more to supply justice no better than a run-of-the-mill public defender. Even if he's guilty, he may get off, or get off lightly...
...real guarantee against capital punishment is his celebrity, not his wealth. Imagine that the scenario we've all had running through our head actually happened: that O.J. Simpson drove his Ford Bronco over to his ex- wife's town house, donned a pair of gloves, confronted her and a man he at least thought was her boyfriend, inflicted "multiple sharp force injuries and stab wounds" (the coroner's report) on both and slit her throat to boot. Two deaths. Premeditated. Gruesome. No obvious complicating or mitigating circumstances...
...that the kind of thing advocates of the death penalty have in mind when they say that some crimes are deserving of the ultimate sanction? Undoubtedly yes. Would society be able to impose it on O.J. Simpson? Undoubtedly...
...Because O.J. Simpson's celebrity means that for most Americans he is a flesh-and-blood human being. We comfortably call him "O.J.," even though we've never met him, because in our mind he's a friend. Even if convicted of murder, he'll never be an abstract symbol of evil like the typical death-penalty customer with three names -- Robert Alton Harris, Rickey ; Ray Rector, John Wayne Gacy et al. For once, in the competition of humanization between the murderer and his victims, the murderer would have an unbeatable edge...
...Simpson is not just a famous former football star. Through his sports commentaries, his Hertz Rent-a-Car commercials and his movie roles, he has created a persona: manly and likable, the classic good-guy jock. Whatever actually happened last week, we now know that this persona was not entirely accurate. Good guys don't beat their wives until the police have to be called, as apparently happened more than once in the past...