“I’m in no danger to pull a gun on anybody. I’ve never been accused of it. Nobody has ever accused me of pulling any weapon on them.”
….said O.J. Simpson at his parole hearing.
Brilliant! One simply cannot make a more deceitful statement–literally true, designed to deceive, leading listeners to a false conclusion if they don’t parse the words with care.
Yes, this surpasses Bill Clinton’s deceit classic, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” (Oral sex isn’t “sexual relations” in Bill’s view, so he wasn’t lying. Right.) Bill only was deceiving in one respect. O.J. pulls a hat trick:
1. “I’m in no danger to pull a gun on anybody.”
True! The Juice’s weapons of choice are big knives.
2. “I’ve never been accused of it.”
Also true. O.J. has been accused of murder, but not of pulling guns on people.
3. “Nobody has ever accused me of pulling any weapon on them.”
That’s indisputable fact. Nicole and Ron could and would have accused him of pulling a knife on them, if they had survived the attack.
Ethics Alarms 
Jack, Excellent, to the point, assertions regarding the moronic statements of a criminal.
Moronic on one level. Evil genius on another. Choose between or maybe both. Evil genius moron. Criminal savant.
Re-think about it Jack. You are assuming what the jury was not willing to find. I know you think he did the deed, and we know that he was found pecuniarily responsible in a civil action. However, he was acquitted of the murders. It seems good practice, objective and unbiased if you will, to be clear when you engage in assumptions that fit your narrative, that you be more clear.
Irony?
Sarcasm?
No, I watched the trial, and saw evidence the jury did not. I also read a copy of O.J.’s book. There is no doubt to give him the benefit of, at this point. I’m not assuming anything. In law, we call this the difference between actual guilt and legal guilt. Legal guilt is irrelevant to what OJ says now. We know he’s factually guilty…what created the “reasonable doubt” was a perjuring cop who wouldn’t say under oath that he didn’t plant evidence. (There was more than enough evidence that Furmin couldn’t have planted, including the blood found in his car), the glove stunt, and generally pro-celebrity, anti-cop biases. I don’t have to accept the jury’s verdict as correct or accurate, I just have to accept the system, which I do. The trial, however, was illegally and unethically rigged. The defense cheated. Cochran could have and should have been sanctioned. The stunt with redecorating OJ’s home alone should have resulted in a mistrial. So it’s no “narrative,” Michael. There is more evidence that OJ was guilty than there is that Oswald was guilty, or Bin Laden, ….much more. He’s guilty. It’s ridiculous to see it printed today, as I read in some source, that “the murders of Ron and Nicole remain unsolved.” The cases aren’t cold cases—they are closed cases. Closed cases where the state botched the trial, as with many others.
There were many smoking guns: I like the shoes. There were 200 pairs of Bruno Magli shoes imported to the US in OJ’s size (12), and Bloomingdale’s was one of five stores that carried them. The bloody footprints were clear—in the trial, the prosecution couldn’t prove that OJ had a pair. He had said, one witness said, that he wouldn’t wear the “ugly ass shoes.”
After the trial, a photo was found showing him wearing the shoes as a commentator at a Bills game. The evidence was admitted in the civil trial. The shoes alone were enough to get past reasonable doubt—if the jury had known about them.
Facts have no bias. I have seen arguments made that Lizzie Bordon was innocent (she was guilty as hell), and even that Bruno Hauptmann was innocent (though the wood that was used to make the ladder for the kidnapping was from his attic floor!), and the case against O.J. is stronger than the cases against either. The verdict was moral luck—it doesn’t change what happened.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Lizzie – the facts don’t point to too many other folks and the judge certainly based the trial. Still, do you think she killed her father and mother-in-law naked, as was suggested in the movie?
Bill James, who is an intellectual hero of mine, applied his reasoning skills to Lizzie’s case and concluded that she wasn’t guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. His main argument is that there was no evidence that she was ever violent before. He does not give points (he uses a point system) to note the fact that she was, and remains, the only plausible suspect (along with her sister) who could possibly mince two people like that, crimes that today would be called “personal” and based on rage. Lizzy had motive, opportunity, access, and nobody else did. I can see the verdict—women just didn’t do things like that, or so the jury thought. But I think she was guilty, or abetted her sister.
Sounds about right. The fact that she tried to buy deadly poison (prussic acid) with the pretext of cleaning something it wouldn’t clean (sealskin) prior to the murders certainly points to intent also, though the judge excluded it as too remote in time (probably an incorrect, or at least debatable ruling in today’s jurisprudence). Bridget, the maid, was the only other person known to be in the house, and was in pretty rough shape from digestive tract issues the whole house had been suffering from as well as the physically difficult job of cleaning the windows on a hot day. Lizzie had reasons to be angry at both her father (who had beheaded her pet pigeons) and her stepmother (who was trying to get her and her sister disinherited). Her sister was supposedly not even there at the time…unless Lizzie was covering for her.
So the jury was right to acquit her, and the state was right to prosecute her.
Also: it works the other way too. Scalia had some provocative opinions about it: when appeals have been exhausted, nothing in the law requires new found evidence of “actual innocence” to demand a release. The system has its verdict. There was no procedural error. In the eyes of the law, the individual is guilty, even if we know he was innocent. That doesn’t mean we can’t and shouldn’t SAY he’s innocent.
Sorry, Jacques, but it is a “narrative.” I did not suggest — nor did I intend to suggest — that there was anything false about your belief that he was guilty. Dictionary definition of narrative: spoken or written account of connected events, a story. Synonyms: account, chronicle, history, description, record, report, story. You have just provided a more complete, fact-based “narrative” underlying your belief that he committed the murders. Why did you think “narrative” suggested something negative? Another dictionary definition adds “whether true or fictitious.”
My mistake, Michael. It has so often been the current use of “narrative” in the media and blogosphere to mean a strategically developed framing of reality which all subsequent facts must be altered to match, Procrustese-style.
Oh, you mean story!
It seems that this was an answer in response to a question about the robbery.
Didn’t he pull a gun on the guys in the hotel room whom he accused of ripping off some of his collectibles? I thought that’s what he was convicted of?
But OJ had happier times!