Six days after a Los Angeles jury announced its acquittal of O.J. Simpson on two counts of homicide, members of the College community said yesterday that the eight-month trial raised several complex ethical questions, some of which may never be answered.
College President James Freedman was among the five panelists who participated in the discussion titled "The Simpson Verdict: Justice Served or Justice Denied?" The forum, sponsored by the Ethics Institute and moderated by Ethics Institute Director Ron Green, took place in 101 Collis. Approximately 50 people attended,
Women's Resource Center Director Giavanna Munafo, Alumni Relations Director Nelson Armstrong, Vermont Law Professor Susan Apel and Tuck Professor Martin Davidson were the other four panelists.
Freedman, a legal scholar and a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, summarized the general tone of the discussion, saying that the trial "brought dignity on almost none of the individuals affiliated with it."
The public's capacity to appreciate and understand the trial was greatly diminished by the presence of cameras in the courtroom, Freedman said. "Cameras and TV bring out the worst in all of us," he said.
Freedman said he thought Judge Lance Ito was unfairly pressured by the media into allowing the trial to be broadcast.
Freedman also objected to the media's portrayal of the Simpson case as the "Trial of the Century," saying such a label was "absolutely absurd."
He alluded to other trials more worthy of "Trial of the Century" status, such as the Sacco and Vanzetti trials of the early 20th century and the trials of Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the early stages of the Cold War. These trials, Freedman said, "implicated larger political trends" and had "reverberations across history."
Freedman also said Ito seemed to underestimate the effect that nine months of sequestration would have on the jury. "I find it hardly surprising the jury would say, 'Let's get the hell out of here as fast as we can,'" Freedman said.
The speed with which the jury arrived at the verdicts -- after fewer than four hours of deliberation -- was "insulting to both sides," Freedman said. He added Ito could have prevented such a quick decision by putting a cap on the length of the trial.
Munafo discussed some of the racial and gender-related issues of the trial, especially her "intellectual dilemma" over the "racial divide" in America.
Munafo said regardless of what people claim, race was an issue in the Simpson trial. She said "race matters" both in the way the case was managed in the courtroom and in the way it was portrayed by the media.
"America has and always will be divided when it comes to race," Munafo said, alluding to a headline in Time magazine printed before the verdict that said "O.J. and Race: Will the Verdict Split America?"
Armstrong said he felt there was "lots of room for reasonable doubt" in the trial, especially in light of the Los Angeles Police Department's admissions of how they mishandled evidence.
Armstrong cited an apparent double standard in the legal system. In most cases, the race and gender of the jurors is not an issue, he said, but in a high-profile case such as the Simpson trial -- where many people did not agree with the verdict -- the makeup of the jury has suddenly been called into question.
Apel, who is the assistant director of the general practice program at Vermont Law School, said the Simpson trial possessed an interesting irony.
In most trials, she said, the public is not in a good position to question a jury's verdict, because the testimony is not televised.
In the Simpson case, however, not only did the public get to see all the testimony because of the television coverage, but people knew things about the trial that even the jury did not know.
"The observers in this case were 'omniscient jurors,'" she said. "I think that helps explain why people have such strong feelings and a greater sense of confidence" when discussing the verdicts, Apel said.
Davidson also said he thought reasonable doubt of Simpson's guilt was raised. "For black people in Los Angeles, police impropriety and the possibility of fabricated evidence seemed very reasonable," Davidson said. "That was sufficient to create reasonable doubt" in the eyes of the jury, he said.
Davidson, who teaches organizational behavior at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, also said the idea of Simpson lead attorney Johnnie Cochran "playing the race card" was problematic.
Playing cards are dealt, picked up and placed down on a table, Davidson said. "The notion race is something that can be put down or picked up seems absurd," he said.
