Gil Garcetti is the reason why justice was never fully served in the O.J. Simpson trial.
I’ve thought that for two decades, and the recent miniseries The People v. O.J. Simpson only reconfirmed my view.
Garcetti was the District Attorney in Los Angeles when Simpson, the football legend turned movie actor, was charged with murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her acquaintance Ron Goldman. The murders happened at her townhouse in the upscale Brentwood community, just five minutes from O.J.’s mansion. Simpson enjoyed the nickname “the mayor of Brentwood” for his popularity with locals.
But for a variety of politically-motivated reasons Garcetti decided the murder trial would not happen in Santa Monica. But in downtown Los Angeles. Where the jury would certainly not be made up of Simpson’s wealthy and white collar peers who knew him best.
Had that been the case, there is no doubt in my mind Simpson would have been found guilty (as he was later in a civil trial in Santa Monica) and there would have been justice for the victims and their families.
So despite all the errors of the prosecution, and a jury that seemingly checked out of the DNA testimony months before the trial was over, Garcetti is the bottom line why justice was not served.
The People v. O.J. Simpson, an FX original miniseries, was based on an objective book by Jeffery Toobin. I thought it was very good, but I am curious why the great actor Dennis Haysbert was not cast to play O.J.? He would have been fantastic.
Cuba Gooding Jr. is a good actor, but way too small to be believable as Simpson. That’s critical because OJ was 6’1 and 220 pounds and overpowered his victims when he surprised them in the dark walkway. So that’s a big miss.
The episodes flowed well and.. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. Oh, my. That was a lot of pressure on one attorney and especially a woman who was, in addition to overseeing the trial of the century, also dealing with a nasty divorce and criticism about her hair styles. Time has brought a lot more appreciation for what she went through those ten grueling months.
What I loved most about this series is how accurate the details are about the defense decision to make the trial about race. Two years after the Rodney King riots in L.A., it was a brilliant strategy. One could have only hoped, however, that any jury would have put DNA evidence above emotion. That said, the case was lost when the prosecution put an unbelievable racist, Mark Furhman, on the stand. Besides Garcetti, he is the person most responsible for the result of the trial.
What I hated most, however, is how Ron Goldman was nearly forgotten during the trial. He apparently became caught in the middle of the ongoing domestic war between O.J. and Nicole. According to one witness, he heard two men briefly arguing at around the time of the murder. One can only guess that Goldman caught O.J. murdering his ex-wife, tried to stop him, and was killed as a result.
To their credit, Goldman’s family has never stopped fighting for justice in the memory of their loved one.
History must never forget the victims here, even while Simpson currently sits in a Nevada prison for other crimes he committed.
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman