It must have been so otherworldly for you
to watch somebody who it sounds like was a friend
and somebody who
your relationship was that he was this wonderful,
generous guy. And then you hear all this evidence and
see pictures of
his ex-wife, you know, with bruises on her face from
his physical abuse of her according to her sister.
And then come to the conclusion that in your view,
your friend did this.
Yeah, I was inclined to give him the benefit of
any doubt.
And remember, he was not.
As Bomani Jones said earlier,
he was not a typical African American
person standing charged for a crime.
He had his celebrity, He had his enormous popularity,
He had the resources to have a great defense team.
But he somehow became an avatar in the minds of
many for all of these other ongoing centuries old issues
that are very legitimate issues.
And he actually benefited from some of that.
You know, if I could give him the benefit of
any doubt,
I would. And I'm sorry to have to say this
on the day that he passed away,
but someone asked me once,
do you think OJ did it?
I said yes. They said why?
And I said because I live on this planet,
it just the evidence just adds up to nothing else.
And I hope I'm not going on too long here,
Jake, but this might be of interest.
I found myself on a plane a few years after
the verdicts,
found myself on a plane sitting next to Johnny Cochran.
We had never met, but we recognized each other.
He sat at the window and I was on the
aisle and we made small talk,
mostly about sports. And then as the plane was descending,
I said, I know Johnny,
you have to deal with this constantly,
so I just want to ask you a question,
just this one question. Did it surprise you that the
the
prosecution didn't in their closing arguments make this point?
Of all the African Americans you can think of,
why would the LAPD, whatever issues we may have with
them,
why would they have been interested in framing OJ Simpson
of all people?
And if they did frame him,
they would have to know.
If he was an innocent man,
wouldn't they have to know that he didn't have an
airtight alibi as they put all this stuff together on
the spot?
Wouldn't they have to know that there's no possibility he
was in Philadelphia or Chicago and had an airtight alibi,
or if someone else actually did it,
that they might not show up with blood all over
their clothes and a bus depot in Fresno someplace?
How would you know? Even if you had the most
malign intentions,
how could you in that moment,
put all that stuff together and not know that it
wouldn't fall apart upon the discovery of other facts?
That makes no sense, Johnny Cochran then said to me.
I wondered why they didn't do that myself,
but I'm glad they didn't.
And then I said, given everything,
it might not have made any difference.
And Johnny said, Bob, I didn't create the facts of
the case.
I just worked with them.
And I said, and brilliantly.
And then, with a handshake,
we parted company.