‘Reasonable Doubt’ Not New Invention

Attorney Robert Shapiro said O.J. Simpson’s defense team not only played the race card but dealt it from the bottom of the deck. Most African-Americans believe the American justice system deals the race card from the bottom of the deck on a continuous basis.

When Simpson was arrested for the homicide of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, most African-Americans felt he would be another innocent African-American male victim of America’s legal system. Most Caucasians felt he was guilty and deserved to be punished. Both opinions were reached without benefit of formal charges being filed or a trial by Simpson’s peers.

Both perceptions were based on the documented performance of the criminal justice system. My mind instantly replayed the 1964 jury’s failure to convict Byron De La Beckwith in the slaying of Medgar Evers, or the fact that no one was ever charged with the lynching of hundreds of African-American men during Reconstruction, or the failure of a Simi Valley, Calif., jury to convict the L.A. police officers charged with beating Rodney King.

African-Americans believed that, because of his race, his money, his celebrity status, O.J. would be convicted.

African-Americans are incarcerated more frequently and judged more harshly than their white counterparts. Penalties are stricter for dealing crack, purportedly the dominant drug among African-Americans, than cocaine, the drug of choice for whites.

Wednesday’s headline in The Spokesman-Review, “Nation watches O.J. go free,” reflects a premise that permeates America’s legal system today: African-Americans are guilty until proven innocent.

And if by chance one is exonerated, an emotional jury “let” him go free in spite of the evidence.

Orenthal James Simpson’s defense team effectively utilized the tool of reasonable doubt. The concept was not conceived by Johnnie Cochran Jr. for the sole use of O.J. Simpson. It is deeply imbedded in a judicial system which required the Los Angeles County prosecution team to prove to 12 of Simpson’s peers, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he committed the murders.

African-Americans’ reaction to the verdict clearly indicated their relief that the legal system had finally worked for them.

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