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As of today, June 12, there are people alive who can legally run for the U.S. Senate who have no recollection of the public hysteria and legal turmoil that happened because of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman in a residential L.A. neighborhood 30 years ago.
It’s almost outrageous how all of this could’ve easily been avoided had Nicole’s mother, Juditha Anne Baur Brown, didn’t leave her glasses on the table at Mezzaluna. It was a restaurant where Nicole, her mother, her children, and others had gone to eat at. It’s no longer there. It closed down in 1997 due to the publicity over the double murders.
As for Judi as she’s was often called, that poor woman probably spent way too much time wondering if things had been different had she not made a simple, harmless mistake so many of us have often done. Judi passed away Nov. 8, 2020 at the age of 89. Incidentally, it was the same weekend that the Electoral College votes determined Joe Biden had won the election over Donald J. Trump, who was O.J. Simpson’s buddy.
Ron Goldman, a waiter at the restaurant, made the friendly gesture to return them on his way home. Despite what some people have said, especially Chris Rock, Ron and Nicole were having an affair. That has been denied left and right as Ron was on his way to meet with his girlfriend. Or maybe Ron should’ve just dropped them off the next day. Or the restaurant could have placed the glasses in a drawer or cabinet where “Lost and Found” are placed. If there ever was an example of “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished,” Ron’s murder is the textbook example.
Two months ago, O.J. died of prostate cancer. Not too long after his death made headlines, an 11-minute clip was posted on YouTube featuring all the jokes Norm Macdonald said on Saturday Night Live about O.J. Now, I may not have ever agreed with what Macdonald said all the time, but he really gave it to O.J. And he lost his job at SNL over it because O.J.’s friend, Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC’s West Coast Division, demanded it. Even though Macdonald died in 2021 and Ohlmeyer died in 2017, Macdonald got the last laugh from the grave.
Public opinion of O.J. changed in the 30 years from this date to the day he died. I felt a lot of people suspected he had committed the murders. If they had been living anywhere but the L.A. area, it’s likely he would’ve been convicted. The blame has to go on then District Attorney Gil Garcetti for rushing the case into trial so quickly. And I do think he was wanting to do it before the Santa Monica Courthouse could be fully renovated following the earthquakes earlier that year. Even when I have covered murder cases, most of them took at least two years to go from the initial arraignment to the jury trial docket.
The only one I can think of that went to trial so quickly was a murder-for-hire but that’s because the two other people involved had already pleaded and were acting as witnesses for the prosecution. And even that one took about a year from the arrests to the jury trial. In Simpson’s case, they were still collecting evidence while the jury was ongoing and then there was the whole deflection of how it was really Mark Fuhrman planting evidence.
But I don’t want to make this a post about O.J. He’s had too many so far about him from me and everyone. The man is dead and has been cremated into ashes. If he was in pain before he died, he deserved it. But he got a far more fitting end being surrounded by friends and family than Ron and Nicole got. For 30 years, their names have been drug through the mud for no reason. Even after the success of The People vs. O.J. Simpson in 2016, people still brought up the crazy conspiracy theories that have been debunked.
I don’t wish the man any ill-will but if there is one person who deserves a Fast Pass through the Pearly Gates, it’s Ron’s father. Fred Goldman looks like the type of guy who doesn’t take shit from no one. So, to sit mere feet away from the man who killed his son for months and hearing so much defensive shit said about him not just in the court but outside, shows he has the patience and resilience of a saint. I’m almost certain any other father would’ve eventually snapped and attacked O.J. to get in as many blows he could in before the courthouse deputies and others pull him off.
Even worse was during the civil suit hearing as O.J. sat with such mockery and disdain that he could do whatever he wanted. You know, good and well if Fred had been gnawing on a lump of coal, it’d be a diamond as much as he could grit his teeth. The tragedy of the case is O.J. played the black jurors for all he could. So did Johnny Cochran and Carl Douglas, another black lawyer representing O.J. They knew what buttons to push because they knew the jurors weren’t going to be as smart. Hell, the one thing the trial opened the public to was how boring jury trials are. Perry Mason and Law & Order are fiction.
I don’t know whatever happened to her after the O.J. documentary, but juror Carrie Bess deserves whatever scorn and hatred she receives. She’s even come out and said they mostly believed O.J. is probably guilty but they had to have payback for what happened to Rodney King. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I’d even argue that the acquittal of O.J. Simpson propelled law enforcement and courts to double-down on their two-tiered system of justice. How many people were angry that they went into law enforcement to get back? That’s why Kyle Rittenhouse and George Zimmerman was treated with kid gloves and Betty Shelby got away with shooting Terrence Crutcher. Tamir Rice gets killed for playing with a toy gun in a park and Eric Garner is choked to death for illegally selling cigarettes. Yet, Dylann Roof is taken into custody after murdering nine black people at a church and gets Burger King.
I also see Bess as an opportunist. She had an agenda for wanting to be on the jury. She is one of the most despicable people and further perpetuated the stereotypes that Cochran and Douglas wanted. The good news is that Cochran wasn’t around when O.J. and others were convicted of the robbery in Las Vegas, Nev. Ironically, black people had seen how they had been played and their sentiments were different this time. O.J. should’ve used his acquittal to do some good or just retreat into privacy. And worse, many I think saw how poorly they were portrayed celebrating the murder of two people by a man who would call 911 if he saw the same people within 100 yards of his property.
Now, I think some people are different. “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” as the old saying goes. I don’t mean to bring up Trump again but you’re seeing the type of financial donations toward him that probably would’ve gone to O.J. had he been convicted. Black communities especially churches would’ve intimidated everyone into donating toward the O.J. Simpson Appeals Fund. This would have been their monies from their paychecks and savings to go to O.J. That’s what happened to Trump. People are donating to a convicted person because in their deluded mind, they see him as railroaded. I haven’t been to church in years but I’m sure donations for Trump are part of the sermons.
But Trump, just like O.J., is only thinking of himself. And as I write this, Hunter Biden has been found guilty in federal court on gun charges. Joe Biden has said he wouldn’t pardon his son. Responsibility and accountability are virtues that people say they have but they don’t. People forget O.J. knew when the cameras were rolling to paint a different portrait. If you believe someone was going to kill themselves with $10,000 in cash and a passport in their possession, I have some mountain property in south Florida to sell you. He was heading toward Mexico before he was spotted. Al Cowlings would have said he started the Chicago Fire if O.J. asked him to. The man has a sick fascination with his friend that went beyond friendship and support.
As I’ve said the great irony of O.J.’s life is that he did everything he could to move away from just another black thug growing up in the hood or the ghetto. He went to college and became a star. All he had to do was be a decent person for the rest of his life. It’s not that hard. Be nice to people the best you can and try to avoid conflicts unless it’s really necessary. But, like so many athletes, especially black athletes, he put on airs and mugged all he could for the cameras. Still, it could’ve been easily dismissed.
But the spousal abuse was unforgivable. Photos don’t lie. Police reports from several officers over years are hard to point to a conspiracy. O.J. became another black man who was a domestic abuser. He became another black man who was violent. And when he got convicted in 2008, he became another black man behind bars. I have no sympathy for people who blow their second chances, but the old saying is “The only second chances in life you get are to make the same mistakes again.”
Sadly, Nicole didn’t get her second chance to rebuild her life after O.J. It was a different era in 1994 where being a single mom in your mid-30s isn’t a sign your life is over. O.J. took that for her because he wasn’t going to be a part of it. And Ron didn’t even get much of a chance to start his life.
And that’s what people celebrated. Wherever all the people are who cheered when O.J. was acquitted, I hope you feel some shame. And for those who wanted to bring God, Jesus and Christianity into it, if there is a Heaven, I hope you have a good answer why you were so happy.
What do you think? Please comment.