Oj Simpson Reflection

On June 12,1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered. Their bodies were discovered outside Nicole Simpson's condominium. Nicole Simpson was the estranged wife of the famous football player and T.V. star O.J. Simpson.

The book that I am going to introduce is Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Got Away With Murder, written by Vincent Bugliosi, and was published on June 17, 1996. We all know that Nichole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death and their bodies were discovered on June 12, 1994 early morning. It was said that after a car chase, O.J. was found with $9,000 I cash, his passport, disguise, and a gun. O.J. Simpson who is her ex-husband was acquitted October 3, 1995, for their deaths in a trial that riveted the nation and divided people along racial differences. In 1997, he was ordered to pay a little over $33 million for their deaths. O.J. Simpson is still serving time in prison for things like kidnapping, robbery, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, and numerous other charges. Mr. Bugliosi sums up five reason why the case was lost. Those five can be labeled as the jury, the change in venue or settings, the judge allowing the defense to play the race card, the stupidity of the prosecution throughout the trial, and lastly the summation of what should really have been done. But in honesty when the media started reporting about this case it was already falling apart.

Wealth also plays a huge role on the mass incarceration of minorities. Many of the inmates since kids have lived a life full of poverty. In the article, “From a Tangle of Pathology To a Race-Fair America”, Alan Aja, a professor at Brooklyn College, mentions that “Prior to the Great Recession, white households had a median net worth of approximately $135,000 and black households a median net worth of little over $12,000” (Aja). Such drastic gap in wealth enables white people to hire the best lawyers to represent them while black people can barely afford their everyday lives. African Americans don’t count with the necessary money to hire quality lawyers who can represent them. Most of the times they turn for help to the public defense or in

However, statistics have shown that the death penalty is applied racially and discriminatorily. Three out of five murder cases in which the victim was white and the defendant was black resulted in the defendant receiving a death penalty. Professor Katherine Beckett of the University of Washington reechoed this fact by stating that, jurors in Washington “were four and a half times more likely to impose a sentence of death when the defendant was black than they were in cases involving similarly situated white defendants.” So where is the justice that advocates of the death penalty are imploring? Moreover, the rich are more likely to escape a death penalty than the poor. The DPIC has reported that most defendants in capital cases cannot afford an attorney. Thus, if equal justice for all is anything to go by, then justice should be equally distributed regardless of race and economic

blood on O.J.'s Bronco door, on the console, on the interior side of the door, a

The criminal justice system is made for two groups of people: the poor and the wealthy.

This insinuates that the court system prioritizes getting through cases as quickly as possible to give the community a sense of reassurance that a criminal is off the streets. Poor people accused of crimes typically cannot afford a lawyer who will put their time and effort into proving their innocence, which results in them not receiving the justice they deserve. A

In the book Just Mercy: A story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, there are several topics discussed regarding the American Justice system. One of those many topics discussed is regarding how a person’s race, social status and income, may influence the outcome of a court trail. In present day America, many years after the era of Jim crow and segregation the Justice system still seems to be more lenient towards white Americans, especially those with high income and a good standing in society. The American justice system has become unjust in the trials deemed to be fair, due to an evident prejudice against minorities, their social status and whether or not they receive a well off or poor income.

The O.J. Simpson murder case is a fascinating murder case due to the popularity of the defendant and the circumstances surrounding it. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss the victims and the evidence stacked up against O.J. Simpson. I will also discuss the pivotal points in the trial and the verdict.

Jimmy Santiago Baca is a winner of the International Prize for his work in, A Place to Stand. The making of a poet. He writes, “I had no money. There is no way I’m going to make bail” (Baca, 187). In some cases, prisoners are only locked up because they had to get appointed a defense attorney who convinced them to plead to the charges so they would not have to go to trial and risk getting an extended amount of time. District attorneys are elected by the citizens and those people want someone who is tough on crime. If the district attorney is not tough on crime, the people will not reelect him. This can lead to many innocent lives being wasted; For instance, some criminals will sit in a cell for decades for the smallest offense. However, if a prisoner attempts to plead not guilty and the case goes to a trial by jury and they do find him or her guilty, they will be sentenced to an even longer term. It is obvious that our justice system is unfair and against human morals and ethics. They are somehow “innocent until proven guilty” yet they cannot afford to prove themselves innocent. Not only is poverty a reason for the rising increase in the population of inmates, many lack the education needed to understand the law or what they are being accused of.

The book "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison" by Jeffrey H. Reiman provides a very interesting account of how the rich are being treated by the criminal justice system in a more favorable than the poorer and nonviolent criminals who are generally mistreated. Reiman started his book by stating that the recently noted decline in crime rate is skewed. This is clear in the 12th page of his book when he stated that After more than 20 years of telling us that crime was growing out of control and proposing more cops and tougher laws and more prisons, crime rates are now coming down and politicians are jumping to claim credit for the reductions" (Reiman ,p. 12).The book is a well written text that effectively examines the various harmful acts that are committed by the rich in our society. These harmful acts include bribery, medical crimes, and embezzlement of public funds, crime against consumers as well as environmental crimes such as unsafe workplaces as well as pollution among many others. Reiman's book, in its thorough analysis of the various harmful acts noted that there is a particular bias against the poor people within the American criminal justice system.He demonstrated that acts like murder, assault and theft that are committed by the poor people are treated by the criminal justice system as very serious crimes while on the other hand, other harmful acts like bribery, medical crimes, embezzlement of public funds, crime against consumers as well as

In the Ted video, Bryan Stevenson mainly talked about the injustice of the American justice system, especially the unfair treatment towards the black people. He said that “We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent”. One astonishing fact he talked about

It was the mugshot seen everywhere. The case the shook a decade and changed the way the U.S public handles the crimes of celebrities. In 1994, then America’s sweetheart Orenthal Simpson better known as O.J Simpson was arrested and charged with the murders of his estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. There had never been a phenomenon like this before. It further separated an already divided nation and sparked a conversation on the obsession and idealizing of America’s elite. There have been many depictions of the crime and following court case, but only few correctly capture the essence of the race, celebrity, and power that lied at the center of the case. Ezra Edelman’s OJ: Made in America is one of the better documentaries. Edelman’s OJ: Made in America uses technical codes, specifically music and editing to explore the “Hollywood-esque” magnitude and celebrity of the OJ Simpson murder case and unbiasly connect viewers to the case.

These are overworked and underpaid lawyers – meaning that defendant receives a lower-quality lawyer. These lower-quality lawyers increase the chance of racial minorities’ defendants to be sentenced and convicted at a higher rate. According to the Bureaus of Justice Statistics, 73% of Hispanics and 77% of blacks use a public lawyer. This means that 73% of Hispanics and 77% of blacks have the possibility of facing an underpaid and overworked public attorney thus increasing their chance of going to prison. The unfortunate economic disadvantages cause these people to go to jail more often. Any person may face economic difficulties but as a group Hispanics and blacks face them more and sadly because of this fact as a group they go to jail more

Criminals with no money, often minorities, cannot hire the lawyers needed to defend them so they will most likely be found guilty of the crime they committed.