Thursday, November 14, 2013
Sympathy for O.J
There was a lot of evidence in the criminal case that was convincing that O.J could have murdered his wife. He had really good lawyers that defended him and did their job. The prosecutors on the other hand had all the evidence yet failed to present them in a winnable way. I feel like the prosecutors towards the end of the trials gave up easily because their hopes of winning the case were going down. Another thing that got me thinking was the civil court battle between the victims families and O.J. If the Browns and Goldmans were suing O.J for justice and claimed in the video that it wasn't about the money then why take the money that was offered. Couldn't the family just deny the money and be happy that they did get what they want. I also think taking O.Js trophies and jersey's were useless. Obviously it wasn't going to make a lot of money and a few people would not even take that in as something honorable after what just happened. That's taking O.J's personal stuff which I think is wrong. Also, O.J will have to live with being labeled for the rest of his life and if he really did commit the murder then he would have to live with that guilt too. Making O.J pay a huge amount of money to these families that he didn't have just didn't make sense. Personally I feel like the juries on the Civil Case were more bias and didn't really think things through. With all of these points added up, I feel like it's cruel punishment BUT that's just MY opinion.
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I do think that the jury went too far when they came up with the $33.5M number that they did. However I do think that O.J. deserved to pay a lot. It is true that him or his lawyers didn't do anything wrong during the trial. O.J. did do something wrong earlier, however, when he murdered two people (in my opinion).
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't about the money for the Goldmans, it was about justice, punishing O.J. for what they believed he did. Like they said in the documentary, if he had been found guilty in the criminal trial, they would not have pursued him in civil court. But since O.J. wasn't going to be punished by jail time, they thought they had to punish him by taking his wealth away. While they didn't have to absolutely cripple O.J. the way that they did, the jury needed to punish him. Looking at the finances sheet we got in class, I'd say something around $20M would have been more fair.
You do have a poin and a very good argument. I didn't fully understand that the reason why they took the money was in order to punish O.J through his money. I understand the Goldmans point of view more. Thank You Kevin for making it clear for me. I also do agree with you that $20M would have been more fair.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone have a feeling that this civil case severely encroached upon (if not flat violated) the Fifth Amendment? I suppose I am have not yet decided for myself, but I do believe a certain hypothetical can anyone else decide for him/herself. So, if OJ had been found guilty in the criminal case, would the civil case have been unfair? Could one even make the argument of cruel and unusual punishment? Kevin, you mentioned how the ruling in the civil case on its own merits was unfair. What if OJ had life in prison on top of that? Once again, I am currently not especially leaning one way or the other. I would merely like to know if these ideas seem to have some merit, or are just a bunch of malarkey.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, if OJ had been found guilty the Goldmans would never have filed the civil suit, making this argument mute.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if OJ was found guilty, was serving life in prison, AND was being sued in civil court, I don't believe any punitive damages should have been collected (life in prison is punishment enough), however the compensatory damages of $8.5M would still have to be paid.
I think that O.J. did commit the two murders, so I don't have any sympathy for him. I do however think that the jury in the civil court shouldn't have made him pay 33.5 million, because he most likely wouldn't have made much money after the trials. Plus he probably didn't have that much money left over after paying for his defense team.
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