Telling, how even the vaguest opinions on the O.J. trial can seem reactive. The phantoms of collective prejudice haunt nearly everything written or said about the defendant and the murder victims -- racism, sexism and class hatred (and, in Goldman's case, anti-Semitism) -- and taint every side of every legitimate question.
All of that is an immense distraction when contemplating the dynamics of the trial: the credulous jury, the virtuosic Johnny Cochran (who remains the best athlete in that historic courtroom) and the pharisaical self-absorption of the prosecutors (F. Lee Bailey's being the foulest example, Darden's, the most tragic).
Our friend in the U.K. seems to confuse Simpson's legal acquittal with the idea that his guiltless status must be accepted as an intuited truth. Not so. Many American citizens, presented with the same evidence as Simpson's jury, would not have reached the same verdict. Even now, said citizens have the right to assert their views on the matter without being accused of contradicting the legal system. What's more,
transcripts of the trial are available.
In theory, jury decisions in American courts should reflect the impartial judgment of randomly selected citizens, not trumpet the divine authority of a chance consensus. Courtroom exoneration has nothing to do with manifest innocence.
Which is why, had I been a member of said jury, I'd have judged Simpson literally guilty but legally innocent. That is, I'd have felt the evidence strongly indicated Simpson's guilt but proved insufficient to convict him technically. Beyond a reasonable doubt means beyond unreasonable certainty. It also means beyond all formidable loop-holes.
Besides, my sense that Simpson is probably guilty has nothing to do with my observation that he's a sociopath: many sociopaths never murder anyone. Rather, it's Simpson's public behavior which leads me to that conclusion.
As a little boy, I happened to know a clinical sociopath (my father's business partner and the father of three of my playmates). This left me with a keen interest in the subject; I've been drawn to abnormal psychology all my life. Also: My sister is a therapist and both my cousin and nephew are psychologists. We've tended to bleat the lingo in casual conversation.
Simpson's oddly culpable behavior, ass-mantling yet compulsive allusions to possible guilt, perverse turns, inappropriately sanguine humor, theatrical half-mocking embrace of the villainous role, avoidance of responsibility for his own public behavior or any part of Nicole Simpson's death, chameleonic self-invention and overarching impatience -- all these, not the actual crime, suggest Simpson's lack of empathy, narcissism and inability to control his impulses. I say this not because Simpson fills me with
disproportionate moral outrage but because I find his pathology fascinating, revolting and amusing. Even apart from what I tend to think of as his crimes, I find Simpson's behavior and self-serving strategies to be the stuff of inspired satire. At least his breathtaking shallowness is epic and extreme. At least he (unlike the Material Crone) isn't pimping a color-coded Kabbalah or feigning the desire to adopt African orphans (though the last would be grimly hilarious).
