From the editor: There is no legacy

I first heard of O.J. Simpson on television—black and white television, to be precise.

During some long ago bowl game, the announcers kept referring to “Old Jay” Simpson, or at least that’s what I heard. I imagined a grizzled veteran named Jay, his hair dusted by age, slipping through the line of scrimmage.

College kids looked old to a tyke like me, anyway.

His college career was legendary, as was his time in the NFL. But those of us once forced to dial up friends from fixed positions or stop them on street corners to pass along the most recent information gleaned from 24 hour news networks that—if youngsters can possibly imagine such a thing—broadcast actual news remember the occasion when Simpson truly became an American … well, I was about to say “game changer.”

But everything about Simpson’s alleged murder of Nicole Brown SImpson and Ronald Goldman, from the low speed chase 20 years ago to the trial, the verdict and O.J.’s desperate search for the “real killer” on every golf resort in America, was base entertainment on one level (including the first national television appearance of a Kardashian) and simplistic social talking point on another.

At the time, Americans were transfixed by prosecutor Marcia Clark’s hairstyle, Simpson’s cunning legal dream team and late night television’s mockery of judge Lance Ito. The two dead people didn’t seem to matter as much as defense lawyer Johnny Cochran’s quips. Remember, “if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.”

Once the jury came back with an inexplicable not guilty verdict, talk turned to the apparent “fact” that all blacks cheered the decision while all whites deplored it—something assumed from images of black Americans cheering outside the courtroom.

Of course, there was good reason for some blacks to applaud the verdict. We still read, after all, of urban police engaging in racial profiling.

Yeah, I know—people like me never experience such a thing first hand. In fact, we sometimes benefit. After the bars closed one night I drove through Dallas’ Highland Park neighborhood—the same where a story on a black family’s move to the district was met with an article that started “Guess who’s coming to dinner and staying”—at a pretty noticeable clip above the speed limit. An officer pulled me over, peeked in, caught a whiff of the last tavern I visited that evening and told me to slow down next time.

If I had been of a different race, creed or color, I doubt the outcome would have been the same.

But we’ve been slowly working through our racial differences for 50 or 60 decades, and making great strides. What troubled me was something lost in the circus surrounding that courtroom.

You see, Simpson’s legal team set out to absolve him of all charges, guilty or not. Some people even say that Robert Kardashian, part of his defense team, was supposedly spotted carrying a bag—perhaps full of O.J.’s bloody clothing, at least according to tales at the time—from his home.

To be sure, unleashing his daughters on this nation might be a greater crime, but it brings up a point. Legal assistance was never intended to get a defendant “off the hook” when guilty. Trial by jury and innocent until proven guilty are enshrined in our justice system. Lawyers therefore should exist to ensure the defendant’s rights are not infringed upon, that every legal step had been followed, that evidence has been collected according to the book—nothing more.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say “justice shall be determined by the best legal team” or “have you been hurt in an accident? We can get you millions.”

The overwhelming majority of lawyers, I will say, abide by ethical standards. A few, however …

So imagine if the law had been rewritten so that a lawyer knowingly—and that is the critical term—working to wriggle a guilty client from justice would be equally liable for the crime committed by his or her client (as well as any subsequent crimes). Would Johnny Cochran stand so cockily in front of the court? Would his team work so hard to clear a person most consider a cold blooded murderer?

Or would they simply make certain all rules were followed in the courtroom? In some moments I like the idea of adding accountability to the legal profession—not because attorneys around here need it, because high profile types have turned their back on the purpose of the legal profession. In others, I realize just how many times we’ve applied new laws on all, just to clamp down on the few.

Whatever, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are dead. O.J. Simpson is finally serving jail time. Cochran and his ilk are dining out every night and the Kardashians continue to wreak cultural havoc.