ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060037
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
O.J. SIMPSON is not guilty, but he is liable.
Now there is a verdict each to satisfy blacks and whites, one analyst suggested after a civil jury found Simpson responsible for assaulting his former wife and killing her friend: an acquittal that pleased many black Americans, a huge civil penalty demanded by many whites.
But American justice is not supposed to be meted out by racial formula: a little something to satisfy blacks here, a little something tossed to whites there. Either Simpson cut the throats of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, or he did not. Racial, class, gender perspectives aside, there can be only one factual answer to this question, and the justice system should have been able to determine it. Adding the verdicts and dividing by two does not get there.
So, ultimately, the mixed outcome of the O.J. saga will satisfy few, and do little to reduce the country's racial divisions and misunderstanding. Nor should it be of great comfort to those who expect the court system to produce impartial decisions - even if you conclude, as we do, that the difference in outcomes may have had as much to do with the varying competence of the prosecutors and plaintiffs' attorneys in the two trials, as with the different racial composition of the juries.
The Simpson case, though, is hardly typical. Despite its grumbling, white, mainstream America largely continues to have faith in the judicial system, and expects it to redress wrongs. Its outcry that Simpson's acquittal, by a mainly black jury, had more to do with race than justice is often the bitter complaint of black America.
A (mainly white) jury's decision that Simpson is liable in the deaths, and that he acted with malice, gives desperately needed vindication to the Brown and Goldman families, who rightly believe that the man who killed their daughter and son, their sister and brother, got away with murder.
Any larger victory will be even harder fought than theirs. Polls show many blacks once convinced of Simpson's innocence now think he probably is guilty. Before his acquittal, most whites were oblivious to the depth of distrust that law-abiding blacks have of the justice system.
Each race must listen carefully to the other, or this latest tear in the social fabric will close without healing. Justice blind to the race of suspects, victims, witnesses and jurors is still the ideal. Making it the reality is of utmost importance to all, regardless of race.
LENGTH: Short : 48 linesby CNB