Where were you when the world stopped turning,
That day in June 1994?
Were you watching Home Improvement,
Playing Super Nintendo,
Or so drunk you passed out on the floor?
I just write stupid shit on the internet,
I’m not a real lawyerly man,
I watch CNN, but I’m not sure,
I know the difference between Shapiro and Cochran
(It rhymes if you really force it. I’ll stop now, while some of you are still reading and before Alan Jackson’s lawyers see this.)
I was at the Majestic nightclub in St. John’s, Newfoundland, with some friends. Designated driver that night, alas. The NBA finals game was showing on a big screen near the bar, and I noticed that it was showing a white SUV driving slowly on a highway for some reason.
Then I noticed the police cars following it, and finally a caption appeared on screen saying the newscaster was speaking to a colleague of OJ Simpson. And I realized what was happening. I actually exclaimed “That’s OJ! That’s OJ!” to some people nearby but they didn’t believe me. A few minutes later, as word had gotten around the club, some people were actually chanting OJ’s name as they watched.
I rushed home and saw the “chase” just coming to an end near Simpson’s place in Brentwood. My head canon has it that I was watching ABC and heard the legendary “Baba Booey to y’all” prank call live, but that could be my memory playing tricks on me.1
The Bronco chase was a surreal moment, but I’d read about Simpson’s domestic violence charges in a tabloid some years earlier. When I heard that Nicole Brown Simpson had been murdered alongside Ron Goldman, my first thought was, “he did it. He finally fucking did it.”
A year later, during my first year of law school, classes were cancelled so everyone could watch the verdict on television in the student lounge. When he was found not guilty, my sole African-Canadian classmate was the only person who applauded.
I often use Simpson’s trials to explain to my clients the difference between the standards of proof in a criminal trial and in a civil trial. I haven’t yet heard “who’s OJ Simpson?” in response, but I know it’s coming.
The Simpson trial involved the horrifying, violent slaughter of two innocent people, turned into a ugly media circus, further pried open gaping American wounds about racial and class divides, and ended with an obviously guilty man getting away with murder because of blatant jury nullification.
So am I weird for feeling a strange kind of nostalgia for when it was going on?
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