The one thing that's amazing about the Simpson case ... [is that] no one's mind has changed in a decade. The whites who thought he was guilty haven't budged an inch, and the blacks who thought he was not guilty haven't budged an inch. They both saw the same program played out on American television, and they both had very different views about it.
And in both cases, their views were influenced by their experiences with race and their experience with the criminal justice system. Whites assume that if there were enough accusations, Simpson would be convicted. Blacks assume that here's another black man drawn into the criminal justice system. But this time he had Johnnie Cochran; this time he had resources; this time he had experts like [criminalist] Dr. Henry Lee and [forensic pathologist] Michael Baden. This time he was somebody who could fight back to a system that is frequently unfair, and to make it show its many flaws. …
Was it a watershed case? If so, why?
This case was a watershed case in an important respect: It placed the issue of race and justice squarely before the American public, and we had to confront the ugly underbelly of the criminal justice system.
It was a watershed case for African Americans because it helped them celebrate the fact that when there's a doubt in the system, people will be found not guilty. It was a watershed case for whites because it led to remarkably short-sighted and dangerous suggestions about revamping the criminal justice system because one man was found not guilty; that we would give up hundreds of years of justice and a jury system that worked, hundreds of years of a jury system [that] became more representative because people of color and women could finally serve in it -- to give up all the benefits of a system because one man was found not guilty.
And thank God that, ultimately, justice prevailed. The system remains intact, and the reactions that followed the verdict didn't allow us to make a terrible mistake to try to adjust a system because one person was able to get the benefit of a doubt in a major criminal case. …
