Reply #11: The O.J. Simpson Verdict, 10 Years Later: The Impact and The Aftermath [View All]

The O.J. Simpson Verdict, 10 Years Later: The Impact and The Aftermath

(excerpt)

“This trial really revealed the extent to which black Americans and white Americans saw things through different lenses,” David Sklansky, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “There was just an astonished lack of comprehension by many white Americans, and there were things that seemed plausible to black Americans that didn’t seem plausible to whites -- like how blacks were much quicker, in general, to believe that police could have planted evidence.”

The person many believed to have planted evidence was Los Angeles homicide detective Mark Fuhrman, who discovered a bloody glove near the murder scene. While on the witness stand, Fuhrman also denied ever having used a racial slur, although it was eventually discovered that he spewed the N-word in a taped interview 10 years prior to Simpson’s trial.

“That was an important lesson from the trial,” said Sklansky, who was a criminal law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles at the time of the trial. “It was a lesson that, despite all of the progress that has been made, we still live in a universe in which black and white lives can be very different. The fact was that police officers that didn’t utter racial epithets in court might very well use them outside of the courtroom.”

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/ojverdict103