You know how the nights have started to draw in earlier lately? That’s not autumn, that’s nature setting the scene for OJ Simpson’s newest trial.
You know, the trial about how OJ Simpson allegedly stormed into a sports memorabilia collector’s hotel room with a bunch of gun-brandishing heavies and demanded that they give him everything with his face on it, or thereabout. Well guess what – OJ Simpson’s trial started yesterday, or at least the jury selection process part of it.
It’s an extremely tricky part of the trial procedure, too. Not just because OJ Simpson faces the rest of his life spent in jail if he’s found guilty of his charges, but because the judge doesn’t want to pick jurors who’ll punish OJ for his murder trial acquittal. Jurors who’ll punish OJ Simpson for his creepy book about the murder or his role in the underwhelming Naked Gun 33/3, sure. Just not the murder thing.
There’s been a dearth of decent celebrity trials lately, hasn’t there? Phil Spector’s murder trial ended up all muddled and crap, and R Kelly’s child pornography trial wasn’t as hilarious as everyone thought it’d be. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Uma Thurman’s berserko stalker, we’d have given up hope long ago.
But maybe our celebrity trial ennui was down to the fact that we were waiting for the daddy of them all to resurface: OJ Simpson. Acquitted of murdering his wife in 1995, but later found responsible for her death in a civil trial, OJ Simpson had been keeping himself to himself in recent years, only pottering around with hobbies like writing the stupidest book in the entire history of humanity. But then the unthinkable happened – OJ Simpson got arrested again.
For those with short memories, here’s a quick recap of the crime OJ Simpson was alleged to have committed. Almost exactly a year ago, OJ Simpson and a gang of gun-toting hired goons stormed the Las Vegas hotel room of a sports memorabilia collector in an attempt to recover items that OJ says were stolen from him. He did this by yelling “You think you can steal my shit?” a million times in a row and calling people a “motherfucker” and so forth.
Unfortunately, one of the men OJ Simpson was allegedly robbing was recording the incident and most of OJ Simpson’s hired goons were only too quick to blab about what a violent criminal mastermind OJ was to get themselves shorter sentences – proving once and for all that you should never trust goons recruited at a wedding reception. And now, despite OJ Simpson’s claims of innocence, it’s gone to trial and Simpson faces life in jail if he’s convicted.
But before any of that can happen, a jury has to be picked. And that might prove to be quite tricky, given that half the population thinks that OJ Simpson is a murderer who narrowly avoid his well-deserved time in jail 13 years ago, and those who think that OJ Simpson was innocent of the murder and therefore innocent of all other crimes as well.
And the Judge presiding over the OJ Simpson trial has decided that she’s not even letting one bitter, drooling, revenge-obsessed lunatoid in the jury. Not one. We know. Weird. Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass told the jurors:
“If you are here thinking you are going to punish Mr. Simpson for what happened in Los Angeles in 1995, this is not the case for you. If you’re looking to become famous because of your service in this case, write a book, then this is not the case for you.”
Several potential jurors have already been dismissed from the trial because they say they can’t put aside feelings about OJ Simpson’s murder trial. How odd – it’s almost as if they knew that by saying they hated OJ Simpson and wanted him to go to jail for stabbing his wife to death over a decade ago they’d be spared a role in a tortuously long, often quite tedious trial. Funny, that.
The testimony in the OJ Simpson trial is set to begin next week, but before then the court has to whittle 500 prospective jurors down to a pool of 40, and then pick the final 12 from that. So don’t hold your breath.
But know one thing – the OJ Simpson trial will start soon, and it’s going to be one exciting ride. Wait, did we say ‘exciting’? We meant ‘really incredibly lose-the-will-to-live long’. Sorry.
Shooty* says
They should get Simon Cowell in to whittle the jurors down, X-factor/ PopStar/ Country X has got talent! style-ee.
And then sell the rights to Sky.
Mark Johnson says
Good things come to those who wait…