If it took 94 out of 100 years for the “Trial of the Century,” then the O.J. Simpson murder trial didn’t disappoint.
A new ESPN documentary, “O.J.: Made in America,” analyzes Simpson’s murder trial 22 years ago, described as the most publicized criminal trial in our American history. It fully explores the behind-the-scenes details that encapsulated its proceedings within its venue of jurisprudence.
Simpson, a former star running back for the Buffalo Bills, an NCAA and NFL record holder, an actor and a television spokesman, was accused and acquitted of the June 12, 1994, murder of his wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles, Calif.
The only thing noticeably missing from this expansive, five-part documentary is Simpson’s lead attorney, Johnnie Cochran, who passed away March 29, 2005.
On record, Cochran has always been acknowledged for his contributions for Simpson’s acquittal, as well as throughout the documentary, but to be able to hear his play by play, his perspective of his legal and courtroom defense of Simpson, would have been invaluable. After all, he became as detested and as vilified for his brilliant representation of Simpson as Simpson was by all those who believed in Simpson’s guilt.
By the end of the criminal trial, national surveys displayed dramatic differences in the assessment of Simpson’s innocence based on race—Black and white. Cochran’s masterful defense had veiled Simpson as a Black civil rights celebrity superhero who fought never-ending battles for the truth, justice and the American way on behalf of the struggles of all African-Americans, past and present. Another soul brother being victimized, wrongly accused by the man. For Cochran, Simpson represented the historical disenfranchisement and oppression of Black people.
Like Hollywood screenwriters, the Simpson team of lawyers, because of the history of criminality and injustice within the Los Angeles Police Department, was able to alter the story’s plot, its narrative, from a double homicide to the issue of race there in the courtroom, in front of a worldwide television audience. It was the first televised courtroom trial.
When famed lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, a member of Simpson’s legal team asks Detective Mark Fuhrman under cross-examination about his use of “the N word” and Fuhrman denies using it, especially when asked the final time, you get a deep sense that something is about to go down, whether you’re familiar with the details of this trial or not.
“And you say on your oath that you have not addressed any Black person as a nigger, or spoken about Black people as niggers in the past 10 years, Detective Furhman?” asks Bailey.
The detective responds, “That’s what I’m saying, sir.”
Bailey asks again, “So that anyone who comes to this court and quotes you as using that word in dealing with African-Americans would be a liar, would they not be, Detective Furhman?”
“Yes they would,” says Furhman.
“All of them?” asks Bailey.
“All of them,” says Furhman, who was eventually prosecuted for perjury, although his record was expunged 18 months later.
Like the trial verdict in October of 1995, the documentary leaves its viewers believing Simpson is either innocence or guilty.