THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510040681
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
The ``race card'' is cited most often in explaining O.J. Simpson's acquittal in the killings of Nicole Simpson, his ex-wife, and Ron Goldman.
From the start, there was widespread conjecture about whether the defense lawyers would play the card, along with pious observations that they shouldn't.
But an entire deck of race cards was stacked in the courtroom, with black lawyers in commanding posts on both sides and a 12-member jury with nine blacks.
The makeup of the cast in the courtroom reflected the awareness of race problems that beset the nation one way or another every day, oppressing most often those of its citizens who are of the black race.
A corollary to the question of the effect of race on the verdict was the stereotypical comment by pundits that some black women, especially those from the South, objected to Simpson's having wed a white woman in his second marriage.
Prosecutor Chris Darden closed with an eloquent summary of O.J. Simpson's brutal abuse of Nicole, which must have seemed particularly painful to the women jurors. Darden traced the killing back to the abuse.
And then Marcia Clark, lest they forget, played again the piteous cries of Nicole in her 911 telephone calls with Simpson bellowing in the background.
It was as if Nicole Simpson pleaded with the jurors from the grave. It seemed another piece of overwhelming evidence in the prosecution's carefully composed jigsaw puzzle of murderous rage.
And yet, in the end, race must have trumped gender in the jurors' minds.
Among some blacks, O.J. Simpson in the dock symbolized their nightmares just as he had played out their fantasies on the gridiron.
A verdict of guilty would have struck them as further verification that justice often is skewed against blacks. To them, it was the spectacle of yet another black man caught in the toils of the white man's justice.
They overlooked the fact that Simpson's millions had set him above them by buying a dream team of white and black lawyers. Such talent is denied the poor.
Even as the trial played out, Congress was setting out in Washington to cut drastically the funds to help pay public defenders of the indigent.
Then came Officer Fuhrman, the epitome of arrogant bigotry polluting the Los Angeles Police Department. He was the prosecution's gift to the defense. More than any other factor, Fuhrman saved Simpson.
Whatever else may be said of Judge Ito's sometimes erratic rulings - a defense lawyer criticized Ito Tuesday for telling O.J. jokes off the bench - Ito was right in allowing the entry of only two of the milder out-takes from Fuhrman's racial tirade recorded on the North Carolina teacher's tapes.
He had boasted to her that if he went down, so did the prosecution's case. He did and it did.
Among other lessons, law enforcement agents watching defense lawyers pick apart testimony of detectives and lab technicians now have a stricter standard for gathering evidence and making arrests. In the San Francisco police department, a special unit is being formed to investigate cases of spousal abuse.
Often, during the past 13 months, black citizens have said that if their white brethren would but walk one day in a black man's shoes they would better understand the need to bridge the divide between the nation's races.
More than O.J. Simpson was on trial in Los Angeles.
KEYWORDS: O.J. SIMPSON VERDICT REACTION by CNB