Sometimes I find myself despairing at the events that I see unfold in our country .. seemingly against all decency and goodness .. in defiance of true justice. Today my spirits were boosted when I read the headlines proclaiming O.J. Simpson's conviction on armed robbery and other high crimes against others. No more will we see his phony, smug smile on the golf course. No more will we have to hear "if I did it" because this time the tale reads "I did it" and he will spend, hopefully, the rest of his days behind bars in a small prison cell instead. The Brown and Goldman families can now lay just claim to the man's many possessions .. but, more importantly, they can find some small measure of justice and comfort in his incarceration.
Well done to the prosecution, which laid a solid foundation for his conviction on all twelve counts during the trial, no easy task when one considers how hard it was to establish that case and pick a good, solid jury. Well done to that jury, too, which heard the evidence and fairly and impartially found him to be guilty as charged. Now it is up to the Judge to make sure the correct message is sent far and wide throughout our country .. that the harvest of a wicked life is, and always should be, imprisonment. Today, on the 13th anniversary of the perversion of justice that saw this man freed, Orenthal heard more verdicts read aloud in another courtroom .. and this time he heard "guilty as charged". The news reports called it 'eery' .. I agree; exactly thirteen years!
May the face of convicted felon Orenthal James Simpson be forgotten by America, save for the replays of his football dashes on the sports channels and occasional repeats of "The Naked Gun", and may the trophies and trinkets so eagerly coveted by this evil man now grace the walls of the Goldman and Brown homes. May the souls of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman rest easier now that this man has been finally caught up with thirteen years later .. even though he wasn't convicted for their murders, this will do just as well. Let us not forget that Al Capone was finally tripped up, not for racketeering or murder, but for not paying taxes on his wicked wages, and it caused him to die miserably in prison.
The Goldman family, which has labored in the courts for so many years to pursue Simpson, also played a huge part in all this by making him fight bitterly for the material possessions he held dear but had no right to. Were it not for the civil court judgements against Simpson, he wouldn't have been driven to stealing from others as a common thief. It was his persistence and dedication to his son's memory that inspired Fred Goldman in his tireless quest for justice that finally brought this sad story to this end. O.J. departed society today and may he never return to freedom and our American way of life. It made all the other bad news just a little sweeter.
As for me, I will speak his name no more.
