>Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 11:09:06 -0700 (PDT) >From: Annelise Anderson >Subject: The Processes of Liberty? As the media proceed with doing what they can to exacerbate racial tension in the wake of the OJ verdict, here's another perspective on recent events. Within the space of a week or so, we have had two events that are outcomes of the process by which we in the United States deal with inevitable excesses and abuses of the police power of the state: the OJ verdict, in which the sloppiness and perhaps intentional methods to make possible the planting of evidence (if it did not actually occur) brought the jury to the point of reasonable doubt, and the setback to the terrorism legislation in the House as a consequence of the hearings on Waco and especially Ruby Ridge. These are messy processes by which the public through a free press and political institutions responsive to voters deals with such matters... I find these processes of considerable interest, as my experience in government and observations over the years suggest that a critical component of liberty is the ability of the people to maintain control of the police power of the state. Incidentally, if any of you happen to be interested in genealogy, I have put my genealogy stuff on my web server (running under FreeBSD) at http://hvrm301.stanford.edu/index.html. Best regards, Annelise Annelise Anderson andrsn@hoover.stanford.edu ========================================================================= >Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 13:27:38 -0800 >From: Jim Chesher >Subject: O.J. verdict A. Anderson says that "the sloppiness and perhaps intentional methods to make possible the planting of evidence (if it did not actually occur) brought the jury to the point of reasonable doubt..." I think that this is euphemism at best, and no doubt what the jury would like everyone to believe. Reasonable doubt in these mattters is supposed to be the result of very serious deliberation. It is quite difficult to believe that anything of the sort went on with this jury. If there is anything reasonable to doubt here, it is this jury's verdict. Further, A. Anderson suggests that this is an example of "the ability of the people to maintain control of the police power of the state." This would be laudable if the jury had been so motivated, and if the jury in fact believed that the evidence was planted. However, even if there were a reasonable doubt as to the evidence, this does not mean that the jury's verdict was an expression of the people's ability to maintain control of the police power of the state. I think that Anderson is much too generous with the jury, giving enormous credit where very little is due. ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: 9 Oct 95 16:21:28 CST6CDT > reasonable doubt...this is euphemism at best, and no doubt what the > jury would like everyone to believe. Are you suggesting that they actually didn't have reasonable doubt? That means that all 12 had to think "I have no doubts in my mind that this defendant is a vicious bloody manaic, but I'll set him free anyway, to make a social statement." I find that wildly implausible. The simpler explanation is that they found a lot of the state's evidence less than convincing. The initially unlikely-sounding story, "yes sure there's blood evidence, but it was planted by a racist cop who was infuriated by the miscegnating Simpons" gained some strength when it turned out, lo and behold, the lead detective really is a racist who has a pathological hatred of race-mixing and habitually plants evidence and lies in court to frame black suspects. Maybe that would seem less relevant to some, but the only 12 people whose doubts matter obviously had doubts. More extravagant theories about "jury nullification" are the expected product of race-baiters, TV talking heads, and sociologists, who have a vested interest in coming up with extravagant theories. (Jury nullification is an odd suggestion here in any case, since it's unlikely the jury thinks the law against murder is a bad idea requiring nullification.) I have no idea whether this jury made the correct decision - I'm simply defending them and the jury concept. In fact, at most 2 people know whether this was the right verdict, OJ, and in case he didn't do it, the killer. So I don't know if we should even get too worked up over this. Lots of other injustice in the world: Milosevic? Arafat? Hussein? Reno? ========================================================================= >Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 15:24:58 -0700 (PDT) >From: Annelise Anderson Jim Chesher writes: >...Further, A. Anderson suggests that this is an >example of "the ability of the people to maintain > control of the police power of the state." This >would be laudable if the jury had been so > motivated, and if the jury in fact believed > that the evidence was planted. However, I don't think the motivations of the jury really matter in terms of the outcome of the process. What the LAPD knows and every other police department is that they will fail in making cases (even when the defendant is the culprit) if their own behavior is such that it casts doubt on the evidence. (One conclusion I heard was "They framed a guilty man.") Nevertheless, I have found some of the jurors who have been interviewed quite reasonable and thoughtful. Annelise ========================================================================= >Date: 09 Oct 95 20:38:35 EDT >From: Steven Yates <102154.3102@compuserve.com> I am finding it increasingly disturbing that so many people are putting the LAPD on trial. True, and obviously, Fuhrman was no saint, but since when has battling racism been more important than two people's lives? That the jury took just four hours to acquit, while reviewing only one item of testimony, was an insult to the prosecution (not to mention the families of the victims) in this case. Let's face it: Johnnie Cochran "played the race card" right to the hilt and it worked; the nation found out that having an ideologically correct verdict - i.e., a verdict which plays to the politics of collective grievance - is now more important than justice. True, I was here, and the jury was out there, but every instinct I have tells me Simpson killed those people. This case may be more about the power of celebrityhood (especially *athletic* celebrityhood) in America than it is about race - can anyone imagine an unknown black kid from the boonies being charged with an identical crime and being acquitted on such flimsy reasoning as the jury offered? Unlike Annalise Anderson and Aeon Skoble, I didn't find their statements convincing at all - not against the backdrop of Cochran and the rest of the "dream team". All the best. Steve. ____________________ Steven Yates Independent Scholar in Philosophy 3900 Bentley Dr., #1028 / Columbia, SC 29210 (803) 731-5483 102154.3102@compuserve.com 09-Oct-95 ========================================================================= >From: sdcox@ucsd.edu >Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 20:17:00 -0700 Concerning recent defenses of the Simpson jury: While one can usually imagine ways in which police COULD have planted evidence, there is no proof in this case of that happening. (If a hostile attitude on the part of certain cops--or A certain cop--is evidence worth acting on in this context, then I guess that virtually all accused persons should be acquitted, just to "send a message" to the state. But the cost of that message could be rather high. . . ) And there's plenty of evidence to indicate that the Simpson jury was simply determined to acquit. After all, they did not deliberate, even after 9 mos. of exposure to what was at times highly technical testimony. The forewoman even expressed the view that evidence of OJS's violence toward his wife was irrelevant to the issue of his capacity for additional violence (i.e., murder). I see no reason why this jury would have failed to acquit anyone whom they felt some kind of bond with, whether that person be rich or poor, celebrity or noncelebrity. How can this jury's decision possibly be construed as a vindication of the rights of individuals (e.g., Brown and Goldman)? Perhaps more to the point: Why do applauders of the Simpson jury assume that a group of people who take such an easygoing approach to evidence will not be just as likely to convict apparently innocent persons as they are to acquit apparently guilty ones? ========================================================================= >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 07:38:07 -0500 (CDT) >From: Tibor R Machan I wrote the attached letter to my 11 year old daughter. It may be of some use in the discussion of the OJ verdict. Dear Erin: Last April when you were here you expressed the opinion that, "Well, I don't KNOW Simpson is guilty, but that is what I think or sense." Yet, as you may know, even if the jurors sensed that Simpson is guilty, the American system of criminal justice requires much, much more in order to reach a "guilty" verdict. You have to believe "without any reasonable doubt" that he is guilty. If you have even the slightest REASONABLE doubt, even if you still think he is guilty, you are supposed to deliver a "not guilty" verdict. The idea, expressed I think by Supreme Court Justice Brandeis, is that "it is better for ten guilty man to go free, than one innocent one to be convicted." In other words it is a policy of exercising extreme caution in the process of taking away a person's life or liberty, to which we all have a basic right. "Reasonable doubt" may not be as clear as it sounds. It means a doubt that is grounded in some actual problem with evidence or the case made against the accused. If one thinks, "Well, some Martians might have done it, not O. J.," this IS NOT a REASONABLE doubt. If one notices, "Well, the testimony of one prosecution witness - say Kato Kalin - conflicts with another - say, the limo driver," that can produce a REASONABLE doubt. (You may recall in this case there was a lot of concern with what the corrupt police detective Mark Furman had the opportunity to do to distort evidence against Simpson. Since Furman lied on the witness stand and since he was the major investigator of the crime, this, too, COULD produce a REASONABLE doubt about the case against O.J., if there is a high probability of Furman's planting or meddling with the evidence. Finally, the verdict is "not guilty," not, however, "innocent." This means that it is still quite reasonable for you and millions of other people to believe that Simpson actually did kill is ex-wife and Ron Goldman, only it couldn't be proven with sufficient conclusiveness in the criminal justice system. (By the way, Ron Goldman's family plans to sue Simpson in CIVIL court, trying to convince a jury that he caused the WRONGFUL DEATH of their son. In a CIVIL court, however, you do not have to prove the case "beyond a REASONABLE doubt" but only to the point of "a preponderance of evidence." So there he might be found guilty and would then have to pay the damages - though couldn't be sent to jail or anything like that.)..... ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: 10 Oct 95 08:24:30 CST6CDT I wasn't applauding the jury, I was defending them. As I said, the reasonable-ness of the doubts is a matter for the only 12 people whose opinions matter. Some respondents to my earlier message continue to insist that they "know" OJ actually did it, which is absurd. If all they mean is that they feel reasonably convinved, that's fine, but the relevant 12 others disagree, and all I'm doing is suggesting that they were not completely insane for doing so. The defense doesn't have to prove the police framed OJ - it just has to show that it is sufficiently possible to raise doubts about the integrity of the forensic evidence, which it did. I don't know whether I would have found that compelling if I had been on the jury, but then that doesn't matter either. (I don't know why anyone would think the jury "didn't deliberate" - they had nothing else to do during their incarceration but ponder the evidence.) I'm not applauding the jury, or Cochran, or OJ. ========================================================================= >From: sdcox@ucsd.edu >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 10:13:00 -0700 On some curious notions, recently expressed in this venue: 1. Only the Simpson jury's opinions "matter"--even if those opinions appear to be the products of something other than an objective look at evidence. This is sort of like saying that our opinions about Congressional actions "don't matter"; after all, we're not Congress, and we don't get to decide these things! 2. The Simpson jury somehow did "deliberate." By this standard, anyone who walks into a room and votes can be presumed to have "deliberated." 2a. The Simpson jury must have pondered the evidence for nine months because they didn't have anything else to do but that. This idea expresses a remarkably limited view of the range of human mental processes. 3. The Simpson jury must have had reasonable doubts, because to think otherwise would mean regarding the jury as "insane." Again, however, there are other alternatives. In this case, inanity seems to have prevailed over "insanity." ========================================================================= >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 13:28:47 -0500 (CDT) >From: Tibor R Machan If the jury took a vote and found that they all agreed, and went around for four hours asking why and came up with similar replies that bore on the question of whether there is reasonable doubt, and considered the motives of each member (are you sure you are not being prejudiced - no I really think they didn't make their case), I don't know why they should be thought inane? Naive, perhaps. Overly cautious, also. Both the defense and the prosecution agreed to the jury, incidentally. And it is common practice everywhere to select relatively uneducated people to sit on juries. They aren't likely to do very complex thinking - they are supposed to reflect the general public, not the academic community. Again, I have no great stake in all this - in fact, I have found myself critical of some libertarians who are trying to make ideological points with the not guilty verdict (a blow against the state, the police, etc.). But I am not so sure all this criticism of the jury washes. Or, at least, the criticism, if it washes, cuts against nearly every verdict in these sort of cases. Tibor Machan ========================================================================= >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:33:14 -0800 >From: Jim Chesher A. Anderson says that "the sloppiness and perhaps intentional methods to make possible the planting of evidence (if it did not actually occur) brought the jury to the point of reasonable doubt..." I think that this is euphemism at best, and no doubt what the jury would like everyone to believe. Reasonable doubt in these mattters is supposed to be the result of very serious deliberation. It is quite difficult to believe that anything of the sort went on with this jury. If there is anything reasonable to doubt here, it is this jury's verdict. Further, A. Anderson suggests that this is an example of "the ability of the people to maintain control of the police power of the state." This would be laudable if the jury had been so motivated, and if the jury in fact believed that the evidence was planted. However, even if there were a reasonable doubt as to the evidence, this does not mean that the jury's verdict was an expression of the people's ability to maintain control of the police power of the state. I think that Anderson is much too generous with the jury, giving enormous credit where very little is due. ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 14:06:16 CST6CDT > 1. Only the Simpson jury's opinions "matter"--even if those opinions > appear to be the products of something other than an objective look at > evidence. This is sort of like saying that our opinions about > Congressional actions "don't matter"; after all, we're not Congress, > and we don't get to decide these things! It's not like saying that at all! That's a bad analogy, and here's why: Our legal system stipulates that matters of fact in a criminal trial are to be decided by a jury who has seen the evidence. Hence, no one else's opinion about what the evidence "seems" to show is relevant to legal establishment of guilt. Our political system stipulates that if a majority of congress decides to violate my rights, they can do so - but it should be perfectly clear that I am entitled to protest a violation of my own liberty. Second guessing congress is based on their claim that such-and-such is good public policy, whereby everyone's opinions matter. Second-guessing a jury in a factual matter could only be based on somehow knowing better, which none of does. > 2a. The Simpson jury must have pondered the evidence for nine months I didn't say they must have - I said their claim to have done so is plausible. > 3. The Simpson jury must have had reasonable doubts, because to think > otherwise would mean regarding the jury as "insane." Again, however, > there are other alternatives. Sure, it is logically possible that they are all insane, and of course there are other alternatives. But all I said was that the most plausible explanation for their acquittal is that they had reasonable doubts about the integrity of the (circumstantial) evidence. ========================================================================= >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 12:18:24 -0800 >From: Jim Chesher Tibor Machan's comments about "reasonable doubt" raise an important question. Isn't it the case that, even if I have reasonable doubt about some of the evidence, so long as the remaining evidence is compelling-- i.e. beyond a reasonable doubt--I as a juror ought to find for guilt? If so, then, I must conclude that the jury actually believed that OJ was framed. However, does Fuhrman's being a racist count as good reason to believe that he planted the evidence? I mean, was there actually opportunity, etc. in addition to this possible motive? If not, then hasn't the jury basically committed (or fallen victim of) the fallacy of poisoning the well? --Jim Chesher ========================================================================= >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:52:04 -0500 (CDT) >From: Tibor R Machan I think Skoble has a strong point about the OJ jury's prima facia superior position for rending a verdict versus mine or other people's, especially folks who weren't in their position (exposed to what presumably impartial jurors ought, in such cases, be exposed to). From what I saw of the trial, moreover, various matters appeared to be brought under a cloud of doubt - where OJ was prior to answering his buzzer, who made the three thumps, was the lab clean enought issue reliable analysis, was OJ in some kind of murderous rage as the prosecution insisted, did he have any plausible motive for killing the two people, did Furman have the opportunity to tamper with the evidence and how much, etc., etc.? I was left with these questions myself after the closing arguments ended, although I heard only bits and pieces of them from both sides. But I still believe he did it. Not firmly, not, certainly, beyond a reasonable doubt, but with a serious degree of probability. I am not really convinced the jury bought Cochran's race card - and even the race card wasn't entire what it was often characterized as, a call for some kind of purely racist verdict but, rather, a mixture of some of that and some serious indictment of the police department's way of going about their business in these kinds of cases (and, by implication, the district attorney's as well). I am mostly amazed about how many people appear to be fully confident one or another way, either for or against the verdict. What if we generalized this to the thousands of verdicts reached every day all around the country? I suspect one would have to end up pretty cynical - or does the mere wide exposure, televising of the trial, have such substantial impact for people to know the results better than the participants? Tibor Machan ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 16:03:07 CST6CDT > does Fuhrman's being a racist count as good reason to believe > that he planted the evidence? No, but the fact that he admits to having frequently planted evidence and lied to judges to frame black suspects counts as reason to believe he might have done it in this case. > was there actually opportunity, Sure: Vannatter took blood samples from Nicole's house to Simpson's house, instead of to the crime lab! There was also plenty of evidence of tampering with the blood evidence associated with the car. There were also lab samples of OJ's blood missing and unaccounted for. None of which means OJ is innocent - but it does mean that if someone says he or she has a reasonable doubt, I can see why. ========================================================================= >From: sdcox@ucsd.edu >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 14:17:00 -0700 Dear Tibor, Thanks for the thoughtful response. You and I clearly aren't arguing about whether the verdict was a blow to the state (and after all, juries are empowered by the state, and if a jury takes the law into its own hands in order to deny justice, it's just another example of the state denying justice). But the premise I'd like to emphasize is the idea that informed persons who are well acquainted with the evidence are in a perfectly good position to judge a jury's decision, just as informed persons can judge by the evidence in any other instance. Information about this case is certainly widely available, and if it indicates that there was plenty of evidence that pointed to Simpson and nobody other than Simpson, then we act in the cause of justice by pronouncing the jury wrong. One factual issue: I don't think the jury actually spent four hours "deliberating." Much of their time was spent waiting for the testimony of the limousine driver to come back to them, and then, I believe, waiting for forms to be handled or something. Thanks again, Steve >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 14:30:00 -0700 Certainly, no one is debating the question of whether or not "our legal system stipulates that matters of fact in a criminal trial are to be decided by a jury." The question is whether we think that justice was done in this case. Just as we are "entitled to protest" a violation of liberty by Congress, so we are entitled to protest a violation of justice by a jury. And, on the purely factual level, why should you think that none of us knows better than any given jury? Clearly, even very ignorant people know better than a lot of juries (e.g., the juries that used to perform legal lynchings in the south). ========================================================================= >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 16:10:06 -0800 >From: Jim Chesher I would like to second Stephen Cox's claim, contra A. Skoble, that we (non-jurors) are entitled to protest a (perceived) violation of justice or possible abuse of responsibility by a jury. The issue is not, as Skoble seems to think we think that the "process" itself is to blame. Our complaint, (or at least mine if not Cox's as well), is that the process seems to have been abused and that there is some good reason to believe that the jurors did not act responsibly. Surely that is a reasonable concern to debate. --Jim Chesher ========================================================================= >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 18:51:51 -0500 (CDT) >From: Tibor R Machan It is just that no one has given me any good reason to think that the jury did anything wrong other than perhaps apply the "beyond reasonable doubt" somewhat more generously than its critics. So the claim that an injustice has been done is dubious, at least as far as the process due us all is concerned. If someone can substantiate that claim, I'll bite. Tibor ========================================================================= >Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 10:29:47 +1000 >From: shejpsci@fac.anu.edu.au (Jeremy Shearmur) >Subject: less OJ - please! While in a way the discussion of OJ is interesting enough, I, for one, have had about enough of him (and I'm not even in the U.S. at the moment!). It is also not clear to me that this trial raises any issues that we did not know before: the depth of racial divisions in the U.S.; the way in which these are echoed in the legal justice system and in people's attitudes towards it; the problems of the LAPD (compare John Rechy's claims in The Sexual Outlaw about the treatment of gays); wealth and a fair trial, etc... The other issues that are being raised - e.g. about the adequacy of the jury system - are also interesting enough but hardly new... Or is it just that the mere mention of OJ makes me react irrationally to what is, in effect, some very interesting discussion. Jeremy Shearmur, Political Science, Faculties, ANU, Canberra ACT, Australia ========================================================================= >Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 21:40:53 -0500 (CDT) >From: Tibor R Machan What makes the OJ thing a subject of discussion is, in part, the same as what made Watergate, Iran-Contra and any widely witnessed public event such - it makes for some common experience against which our ideas can been tested. Tibor Machan ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: 11 Oct 95 08:33:02 CST6CDT > Imagining that someone might have done something is not evidence that > he did it. I never said there was proof that Fuhrman planted evidence. I said that there was evidence that he frequently does such things, and that he _could_ have done so in this case would count as a reason for a juror to have a doubt. That doesn't mean you or I have to have a doubt - just that one can see someone else having them. The defense was not "a bigfoot/martian/loch ness conspiracy planted evidence against me," which would require some indcation of martians or bigfeet, but that "a racist detective, who particularly hates race- mixing, planted blood evidence to set me up," for which there is _some_ evidence. Also, this would not require a conspiracy of the entire LAPD from the Governor on down, as some have suggested - just one or two bad cops, aided by some idiots. Also plenty of them around. It's certainly possible that, as someone said, they framed a guilty man, in which case I would agree that justice was not done, but my point all along has ONLY been that the jurors having doubts about the prosecution's case is not off-the-wall insane. Of course you're entitled to disagree. It just seems that massive outrage is based on the false premise that "it is obvious to anyone" that OJ did it. BTW, I would also say to anyone who cheered the verdict, and is responding with elation that an "obviously innocent victim of racist society" is also operating under a false premise, and for the same reason. To those who say things like "sure he did it - about time a brother got away with something," as one LA shopkeeper was quoted as saying, I would have far harsher words. ========================================================================= >Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 08:55:04 -0500 (CDT) >From: Tibor R Machan Aeon Skoble, I think, has it right - neither the vehement pros nor the outraged cons seem to me to be justified. There is just thing - what does it take for "justice to have been done"? Does it take for the process always to end with the truth about what the defendant did? Would a verdict that someone knew to be wrong - say, because of very privileged information that none other, including members of the jury, could have - have to be UNJUST? I don't think so. Justice in these matters is achieved by way of the best available process being in use for the determination of the verdict. Indeed, apart from that process, it is for the public nearly impossible to learn the truth about the crime. (OJ and/or some other perpetrator may KNOW the truth, extra-juridically, but the citizenry has only the process to go by, even when it criticizes the judge or the jury - which in this highly publicized case was easier than in most others, yet still with some contaminated information [in view of how the process didn't filter out irrelevant, immaterial stuff, as it did for the jury].) Jeremy asked why we bother with this so much. I suggested it's because it affords something of a laboratory for jurisprudential hypothesis. Of course, we go about this somewhat loosely - disputes about the facts are not distinguished sharply enough from disputes about the process, the underlying law, etc. Still, it is no worse, I think, than a pretty good discussion at a pub or Left Bank coffee house. Tibor Machan ========================================================================= >Date: 11 Oct 95 12:18:06 EDT >From: Steven Yates <102154.3102@compuserve.com> Several of Tibor's postings boil down to: let's be cautious and not jump to conclusions. Of course, none of us can *prove* that OJ did it nor can we *prove* that Fuhrman (or someone) tampered with the evidence and effectively framed him. Aeon has made the interesting argument that the latter possibility, though, does in fact constitute all the reasonable doubt the jury needed. The question I would discuss then is: should we rest content with this, if we look at the larger context (which the jury basically ignorred)? What do we KNOW? (1) We KNOW that Simpson had a track record of violent behavior? In 1989 he beat Nicole to a pulp and pleaded no contest. This is not conjecture but a matter of public record. Nicole once told her sister (I think), "He is going to kill me. And he's going to get away with it." (2) During the infamous Bronco ride (a victory lap around the city?) Simpson sure wasn't acting like an innocent man. He had a gun pointed at his head, after all, and was acting like he'd just done something horrible and that it had actually *dawned* on him that he'd done something horrible (let's face it, the man's no rocket scientist). (3) This is *O.J. Simpson* we are talking about, not some poor kid from the boonies or the ghetto. He had the $$$ to buy the best defense team any one person has ever assembled (well, *one* of the best), and he used it. Would any prosecutor in his right mind have gone forward with this case without at least believing he had very, *very* good evidence Simpson did it? (4) Regarding Fuhrman: let's remember the politically correct times we live in, that accusations of racism are now tantamount to accusations of child molestation (if not actually worse). People use the "f-word" with wild abandon - but don't let anybody hear you use the "n-word"! While I don't use the "n-word" myself I find this aspect of the case rather silly, and can't help thinking it predisposed the jury to think the mere possibility that Fuhrman (or someone with him) tampered with the evidence to constitute reasonable doubt. Weighing and considering the bits and pieces of evidence pro and con, I don't think we really had to be there to conclude that something really went wrong with this verdict. To Jeremy Shearmur: I understand fully why someone would get fed up with hearing about the OJ show (as I've been calling it in conversations). But I think all of us, regardless of our positions, have had our critical senses sharpened by this discussion. --SY ____________________ Steven Yates Independent Scholar in Philosophy 3900 Bentley Dr., #1028 / Columbia, SC 29210 (803) 731-5483 102154.3102@compuserve.com 11-Oct-95 ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 11:57:01 CST6CDT > (1) We KNOW that Simpson had a track record of violent behavior? Sure, and that might be a reason to suspect him. As I've said, he may very well have done it. Statistically, when a battered spouse or ex turns up murdered, the batterer is the murderer. But statistics aren't evidence (although they are probable cause, and perhaps even a prima facie case). > (2) During the infamous Bronco ride (a victory lap around the city?) > Simpson sure wasn't acting like an innocent man. He had a gun pointed > at his head, after all, and was acting like he'd just done something > horrible and that it had actually *dawned* on him that he'd done > something horrible There are many explanations for this odd behavior - one is that he was distraught over realizing he'd commited murder. But surely there are others - such as, he was distraught over realizing that he was wife-beating scum, and in some way responsible for her being killed because he wasn't there - distraught over his own self-conception as a failure, a bad person, brought home by the murder. I'm makin this up, but the point is, there are surely other explanations for acting weird besides being a murderer. > (3) This is *O.J. Simpson* we are talking about, not some poor kid > from the boonies or the ghetto. He had the $$$ to buy the best > defense team Mike Tyson, Leona Helmsley, Nixon's aides, John Gotti, et al., all had buckets of cash and slick lawyers, but they all got punished. It's just as likely that they were afraid of being accused of a double standard if they _didn't_ prosecute. Who knows how DAs think? > (4) Regarding Fuhrman: let's remember the politically correct times > we live in, that accusations of racism are now tantamount to accusations > of child molestation (if not actually worse). I'm as sympathetic to this concern as anyone else, but in this case it wasn't the accusation of racism, but taped evidence of racism _and_ of acting on that racism to frame black suspects, and lying about it in court. Obviously there is still plenty to discuss. I don't mind continuing, or we can stop if everyone is getting bored with the topic. (What about this Amtrak thing?) ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 15:32:08 CST6CDT By the way, some of you have been puzzling over my first name: "Aeon" is pronounced as "Ian." Speaking of puzzling names, has anyone ever even heard of anyone else named Orenthal? Is that an allusion to something classical I should know? ========================================================================= >From: sdcox@ucsd.edu >Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 13:31:00 -0700 It means "Guilty as Charged" in Esperanto. ========================================================================= >Date: Wed, 11 Oct 95 10:58 CDT >From: "Lester H. Hunt" >Subject: a reasonable conspiracy theory? Aeon Skoble's recent reply to Stephen Cox overlooks the fact that a conspiracy is an entirely different event from an individual act. That Fuhrman braggingly claimed to have done certain things in the past is not very strong evidence that he did them in this case. They are no evidence at all that someone _else_ did them in this case. And that is exactly what evidence of a conspiracy would be. And, of course, evidence of a conspiracy is required if we are to have reasonable doubt in this case. The huge mass of physical evidence - substantially more, by all accounts, than would normally be enough to convict - could only have been planted by several people, a well-oiled machine that went to work soon after the murders were committed. Lester Hunt ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: 12 Oct 95 08:38:26 CST6CDT >Subject: Re: a reasonable conspiracy theory? > That Fuhrman braggingly claimed to have done certain things in the > past is not very strong evidence that he did them in this case. That's not the question. The relevant question is: Is it _any_ evidence? Enough to make one doubt the prosecution's claim to have a cut-and-dried case? This sort of thing cuts both ways. If it's relevant to OJ's motive for killing Nicole that he had a history of wife beating, then it's relevant to Fuhrman's having a motive to plant evidence against this black that he likes doing it to blacks, and often does. > They are no evidence at all that someone _else_ did them in this > case. Actually, Vannatter taking the blood samples from the crime scene to the suspect's residence alone at night might be reasonably construed as part of Fuhrman's shenanigans. 2 people make a conspiracy. > evidence of a conspiracy is required if we are to have reasonable > doubt in this case. Right - some evidence of 2 people acting in concert, of which there is some. Not proof of such, just enough evidence of it to produce a reasonable doubt. We can disagree with those who find such doubts on this basis, but they're not therefore insane or venal. My ONLY point throughout this! ========================================================================= >Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 10:15:07 -0400 >From: jnarveso@watarts.UWaterloo.ca (Jan Narveson) Aeon Skoble's latest ends with this: >> evidence of a conspiracy is required if we are to have reasonable >> doubt in this case. > >Right - some evidence of 2 people acting in concert, of which there >is some. Not proof of such, just enough evidence of it to produce a >reasonable doubt. We can disagree with those who find such doubts on >this basis, but they're not therefore insane or venal. My ONLY point >throughout this! My Thanks to him for sticking to his guns in this matter of the "reasonable doubt". Fascinating topic, and the interest of the Simpson case is certainly to focus critical attention on the idea and underline the need for clear thought about it. I would like to see some decision-theoretically learned person try to come u with *some* sort of algorithm for reasonableness in such things. It ought to be possible to be a *little* more precise than we are all inevitably reduced to, as things are. All of us can think of examples where doubt would be quite wildly unreasonable, and others where 'reasonable' would be putting it way too mildly. People have been convicted in the latter cases and hanged in the former, and it would seem to be quite a potentially important goal to attain to whatever further precision may be possible. I presume it would have to be along the lines of risk analysis. The famous maxim "better ten guilty go free than one innocent hanged" is going to haunt us here. Is it, really? Maybe: but consider, what if three of those ten then go out and brutally murder a few victims each? If the law is good for anything (I admit room for doubt on that, to be sure) it should be to protect people, which means to protect innocent people from guilty ones - and therefore to identify and deal with the latter (protecting the guilty isn't exactly "protecting" us, is it?) Reasonable doubt should mean something like this: the probability that the accused is innocent is higher than the chances I would like to take being convicted. *Something* like that. Takers? [BTW, this isn't meant as a call for snippet discussions, really, but for somebody to devote a lot of serious and informed thought on the matter.] Jan Narveson (Professor) Department of Philosophy, University of Waterloo; Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1 (519) 888-4567-1-2780# (from touch-tone); or 885-1211, ext. 2780 (via switchboard); FAX (519) 746-3097 Home: (519) 886-1673 (answering machine) e-mail: jnarveso@watarts.UWaterloo.ca ========================================================================= >Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 16:24:15 +0100 >From: Jack Sanders Hello again, Jan - At 10:15 AM 10/12/95 -0400, in the LIBPROFS thread, you wrote: The famous >maxim "better ten guilty go free than one innocent hanged" is going to >haunt us here. Is it, really? Maybe: but consider, what if three of those >ten then go out and brutally murder a few victims each? Well, we're still stuck with the innocent person who was hanged. That's the problem, and the cost that has to be dealt with if procedures other than "innocent until proven guilty" are chosen. That cost is _very_ high as far as I'm concerned. Not only in the abstract, but in the quite personal, dimension. >Reasonable doubt should mean something like this: the probability that the >accused is innocent is higher than the chances I would like to take being >convicted. *Something* like that. Not bad. But how about turning the words around: "a verdict of guilty is warranted if I would be willing to accept that verdict in my own case, given the sorts of doubts that were raised (or which might reasonably be raised, under the circumstances) in the case." Furthermore: I would urge that the only people who are eligible to play this game of formulating the right principle are people who are capable of understanding the horror of being falsely accused. I'd also say that the only people who are eligible to play this game are people who are similarly capable of understanding the horror of being the victim of a crime whose perpitrator goes free. Once those two conditions are fulfilled, I'd be pleased to talk about this with anyone. Kudos, by the way, to Tibor, who has been the very model of humanity and reasonableness on this issue... Cheers, Jack * * * John T. Sanders e-mail: sanders@mercury.ci.uw.edu.pl Professor of Philosophy sanders@plearn.edu.pl Graduate School for Social Research jtsgsh@rit.edu Institute of Philosophy and Sociology Polish Academy of Sciences phone: (48 22) 26 19 81 ul. Nowy Swiat 72 FAX: (48 22) 26 19 81 00-330 Warszawa (48 22) 26 87 33 Poland (48 22) 26 71 81 ========================================================================= >From: sdcox@ucsd.edu >Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 09:27:00 -0700 There are still quite a few straw men and false alternatives in your presentation of the jury's case. For instance, there's a lot of territory between the notion that the jury had a REASONABLE doubt (not just any doubt, which they obviously had) and the notion that the prosecution had a "cut and dried case." You keep defending the jury against a charge of "insanity" which I don't think anyone ever lobbed at them (the same goes for your new defense of the jury against a charge of "venality"). What people are worried about is the jury's possible racial and/or political bias. Another problem is your failure to address the obvious counterarguments and counterevidence that can be used to test whatever evidence might produce "doubt." Any evidence can produce some kind of doubt, but juries are expected to deliberate and weigh one piece of evidence against another, testing arguments for doubt against ARGUMENTS against it. But so far, you've paid no more heed to the prosecution's counterarguments than the jury seems to have done; thus, in your view, the jury should be released with our thanks. ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: 12 Oct 95 14:03:30 CST6CDT > You keep defending the jury against a charge of "insanity" which I > don't think anyone ever lobbed at them Sorry - I wasn't using the term literally. Let me be more specific. Critics are arguing thus: the jury did the wrong thing, because they acquitted someone who they know well is a killer. Why do you say that? Because they couldn't possibly have had a reasonable doubt - no one could possibly have a reasonable doubt about this. This is no straw man: look at the current issues of The New Republic, or The Standard. Watch Crossfire and The McLaughlin Group. Those who are criticizing the jury the most vehemently _are_ basing their arguments on the premise that no reasonable doubt is possible here. That, I insist, is ridiculous. I don't say it is ridiculous to disagree with their conclusion, and I don't say that any evidence that is doubt-producing is therefore exculpatory. Everyone reread that last sentence. All I've been arguing is that the harshest criticism of the jury, of which I've seen an awful lot, is based on a premise that is wrong. (Again, the same goes for the cheerleaders, falsely assuming that his innocence was never in doubt.) ========================================================================= >Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 12:35:57 -0800 >From: Jim Chesher Skoble argues that if OJ's thrashing Nicole is relevant to whether he may have murdered her, then Fuhrman's being an evidence-planting-racist in the past is relevant to whether he may have planted the glove, etc. Yes, in both cases, the past events would speak to at least motive. But motive is not enough--as evidently the jury itself believed. with respect to Mr. Simpson. What we need in addition to motiveis opportunity AND at least SOME EVIDENCE that he did it. This is where the comparison with OJ's beating up Nicole breaks down. Where is the evidence? --Jim ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: 12 Oct 95 15:51:09 CST6CDT > What we need in addition to motiveis opportunity AND > at least SOME EVIDENCE that he did it. How about taking blood samples from the crime scene to the suspect's residence? How about driving around town for a few hours with the blood sample taken from OJ, some of which was later missing? I'd say that's both opportunity and "some evidence," which in addition to the motive is the sort of thing which might create a doubt. It might also not create a doubt, but the point is whether the jury was out of line for having a doubt, not whether Skoble or Chesher or Cox or Machan share those doubts. ========================================================================= >From: Stephen_Cox@SANDMAIL >Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 17:06:00 -0700 Believe it or not, driving around town with a blood sample is precisely no evidence that someone is a criminal mastermind. It may be some indication that he, like many other cops, is an inefficient person with a strong addiction to doughnuts. (Take out your watch and time those cops that hang around your local convenience store.) Further, the "some of which was later missing" doesn't even relate to the "driving around town," since the missing blood was, I believe, missing from a lab, not from a doughnut-seeking auto. Do you want to apply these implied standards across the board and discover the basis for reasonable doubt of a criminal conspiracy in every action that doesn't square with How Things Should Be? Marcia Clark pointed out that the defense depicted "law enforcement agents" as simultaneously inept and fully proficient in complicated conspiratorial behavior. That would indeed be an odd coincidence. >Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 16:23:00 -0700 The "straw man" component would be the idea--if suggested literally, and I'm glad that you don't mean it literally--that anyone who decided as the jury decided must be insane. If one puts the alternative in this way: Either the jury had a reasonable doubt or it was INSANE--then one is inviting everybody to say, well, it's easy enough to see that these people weren't all certifiable lunatics, and therefore they must have had a reasonable doubt. But even people who are reasonable in the sense of not being insane can harbor "doubts" or other opinions that come from something other than reason or evidence. (A straw-man argument isn't one that nobody ever made--people make straw-man arguments all the time; it's one that's easily knocked down and, having been knocked down, falsely suggests that the only available alternative is the acceptance of some particular contrary argument.) In the Simpson case, what is harder to grapple with than the "This jury was insane!" argument is the usual alternative suggestion: This jury apparently did not give enough time and effort to weighing the arguments and counterarguments in the case and therefore can be presumed to have been swayed by something other than arguments and counterarguments; e.g., by preexisting likes and dislikes. >Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 16:45:00 -0700 >To: libprofs, CHESHER@gate1.sbcc.cc.ca.us This is an interesting observation, because it identifies the fallacy that lies at the root of many conspiracy theories. Take the JFK assassination: if we look only at motives--Who wanted JFK dead? or, even more fruitfully, Whom would his death have benefited?--we can generate an enormous cast of characters about whom we can harbor doubts. Maybe it was the CIA. Maybe it was Castro. Maybe it was Khrushchev. Maybe it was everybody who wanted us in Viet Nam, or out of Viet Nam. But these suspicious doubts remain unreasonable until we find convincing evidence that those suddenly suspect people actually did something to kill Kennedy. Establishing that someone who had the motive also had the opportunity may be important, but a moment's reflection shows that one must be very careful with that line of reasoning, too. We all know people who do not like us, and who have the opportunity to hurt us and even get away with it. If my house is vandalized, evidently by disappointed trick-or-treaters, I could always reason: My colleague Smith hates my guts; he's made ugly remarks about me in the past; he had the opportunity to come around at 2 a.m. and vandalize my house in such a way as to make it look as if a bunch of kids had done it; therefore I suspect that he did it and I will urge the police to go after him rather than the bunch of kids that were hanging around the block with paint cans half an hour before the house was vandalized. But my suspicion of Smith would be unreasonable. Further: If the kids had been caught vandalizing my property in years before, had only absurd explanations for what they were doing on my block during the night in question, etc., etc., I could not reasonably urge that I doubted they had vandalized my house BECAUSE I suspected that Smith had faked the evidence, even though he had the opportunity. Opportunity, like motive, is a necessary though not a sufficient condition. The point about the jury's deep meditations on Fuhrman's motives, but not on Simpson's, is also very interesting. ========================================================================= >Date: Fri, 13 Oct 95 00:08 CDT >From: "Lester H. Hunt" Dear Aeon Skoble, Below are my comments on my comments on your comments. (I hope the law of diminshing fleas does not apply here.) > >> That Fuhrman braggingly claimed to have done certain things in the >> past is not very strong evidence that he did them in this case. > >That's not the question. The relevant question is: Is it _any_ >evidence? Enough to make one doubt the prosecution's claim to have a >cut-and-dried case? This sort of thing cuts both ways. If it's >relevant to OJ's motive for killing Nicole that he had a history of >wife beating, then it's relevant to Fuhrman's having a motive to >plant evidence against this black that he likes doing it to >blacks, and often does. > As far as this comment affects the matter of Fuhrman, I agree. But as I pointed out later, reasonable doubt of OJ's guilt, given that the evidence is so huge, requires a conspiracy and not just one rogue cop. >> They are no evidence at all that someone _else_ did them in this >> case. > >Actually, Vannatter taking the blood samples from the crime scene to >the suspect's residence alone at night might be reasonably construed >as part of Fuhrman's shenanigans. 2 people make a conspiracy. > >> evidence of a conspiracy is required if we are to have reasonable >> doubt in this case. > >Right - some evidence of 2 people acting in concert, of which there >is some. Not proof of such, just enough evidence of it to produce a >reasonable doubt. We can disagree with those who find such doubts on >this basis, but they're not therefore insane or venal. My ONLY point >throughout this! > It is not reasonable to construe Vannatter as part of Fuhrman's (conjectural) shenanigans unless there is some evidence connecting them. You are saying that he had the opportunity to carry out Fuhrman's imagined intentions. But opportunity is no evidence at all, in the absence of motive, physical evidence that the deed was done, etc. What you are thinking of is perhaps that the motive here resides in Fuhrman. He is the known racist. But these are two different people. Motive and opportunity only count as evidence when they are present in the same person, or in two people who are acting as one (ie., in concert). But this last possibility - that they acted together - is a separate fact and requires evidence. Of that there is none in this case. Suppose that Hal's wife is murdered. Hal had a motive, but no opportunity. Bruno had opportunity but no motive. Is either fact, or both, evidence of a conspiracy? No - there must also be some distinct separate evidence, however slight, that they cooperated. Eg., that they once met on a train and Bruno suggested a deal: I'll kill your wife if you kill my father. (I hope you catch my sophisticated literary reference here.) I think I can tell you how conspiracy thinking actually works in this case. Suppose a crime is committed, and A has a motive and B had an opportunity. So far, no evidence that either did it, right? But suppose further that the victim was Jewish, and that both A and B belong to a criminal organization that has as its purpose the victimization of Jews. _Now_ we have some evidence! And this is how conspiracy theories often work: whether the organization is the mafia, the Communist Party, the Elders of Zion, or the right wing militias, it serves the purpose non-evidence into evidence. Now, here's my punch line: there is such an organization in this case, at least as the conspiracy idea has it. It is the LAPD. Ordinarily, when one person acts like a racist and another acts like a slob, all we have is one racist and one slob. But if they are known members of an evil organization, it can add up to more than that. In this case, that alchemy is produced by the concept of the LAPD. Of course, the LAPD has more than its share of racists and bunglers, but it is not the Bavarian Illuminati. And that is my complaint. This premise is not reasonable. There are plenty of people whose experience with the police gives them the impression that the police really are like that, people to whom Jonny C's comparison between a rogue cop and Hitler would have seemed perfectly rational. I feel compassion for them. But I also think they should try to filter these thoughts out when they are on a jury. -LHH ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: 13 Oct 95 08:28:21 CST6CDT > Believe it or not, driving around town with a blood sample is > precisely no evidence that someone is a criminal mastermind. Do you actually read my posts before responding? I specifically said that his actions don't prove anything - just that it's the sort of misconduct that might be used to legitimize a theory about planted evidence. Also, yes, Vannatter took OJ's blood sample from the lab and, yes, drove around for a few hours, and some of it was later missing. >Date: 13 Oct 95 08:35:04 CST6CDT > This jury apparently did not give enough time and effort to > weighing the arguments and counterarguments in the case and > therefore can be presumed to have been swayed by something other > than arguments and counterarguments; e.g., by preexisting likes > and dislikes. Obviously anyone who thinks that the verdict was incorrect will say that they didn't spend enough time thinking about it. I'm sure if it had gone the other way, everyone now griping about the speed would be congratulating them on so efficiently seeing through all the smoke and mirrors to render a just verdict. After all, according to jury- critics, it was perfectly obvious that he was guilty. Therefore, you'd expect a quick decision, which we spectators all seem to have made weeks ago anyway. This "four hours" stuff is a canard - if they decided they had doubts 3 weeks before closing arguments, then so what? They deliberated for nine months. >Date: 13 Oct 95 08:45:46 CST6CDT > caught my sophisticated literary reference here. I did. :-) I am not a conspiracy type. I generally regard such theories with the greatest skepticism. In this case I don't postulate a grand conspiracy, just the legally-defined conspiracy of 2, and I don't even _actually_ so postulate. I'm just saying that the suggestion that Fuhrman and Vannatter worked together to set up the suspect is the sort of thing that is not necessarily implausible, and also the sort of thing that the jurors - > There are plenty of people whose experience with the police gives them the > impression that the police really are like that, might see as even more reasonable than the rest of us. > I also think they should try to filter these thoughts out when > they are on a jury. I agree. They should try. The theory of a jury entails that the jurors think objectively. That may have been a problem here. I concede that. ========================================================================= >From: sdcox@ucsd.edu >Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 10:16:00 -0700 No point in being querulous. Your posts indicated a belief that there was evidence for a reasonable doubt that the police may have fabricated their case, the evidence consisting of such things as driving around town with a blood sample. I deny that this "evidence" is in fact the basis for a reasonable doubt. >Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 10:27:00 -0700 Does "deliberate" just mean "go into a room and vote, having already made up your mind because you've been thinking it over yourself"? In fact, juries are instructed NOT to "deliberate" before all the evidence is in! And, as previously mentioned in this correspondence, "four hours" for this jury's deliberation is quite an exaggeration. According to former jury members' public statements, a great deal of this time was consumed in waiting for the return of the one bit of testimony they wanted to review, etc. Suppose that a jury had spent 9 months hearing a lot of evidence, much of it highly technical, and most of it brought by your DEFENSE attorney? Would you feel that such a jury had properly "deliberated" if it acted as the Simpson jury did and then CONVICTED you? A point that was made toward the beginning of this correspondence was that sloppy or biased juries can just as easily convict as acquit, and are therefore much to be feared. ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: 13 Oct 95 14:17:14 CST6CDT > juries are instructed NOT to "deliberate" before all the evidence > is in Sure they're told that, but that doesn't mean they obey. An argument against lengthy sequestration. > was that sloppy or biased juries can just as easily convict as > acquit, and are therefore much to be feared. Oh, I agree with that. All I've been saying throughout is that it's not necessarily true that this jury was sloppy or biased, because it's conceivable that they actually had doubts about the evidence. I'm not trying to argue that there actaully _was_ a frame-up job, or that OJ is innocent, or anything else. >Date: 13 Oct 95 14:21:32 CST6CDT > No point in being querulous. I wasn't being querulous, if that means _unneccesarily_ peevish - your message criticized me for something I specifically avoided saying. I was, however, a tad cranky, as I got that message prior to any morning coffee. No hard feelings. ========================================================================= >From: Stephen_Cox@SANDMAIL >Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 12:06:00 -0700 Thanks for the message. Certainly no hard feelings. I know that my morning coffee is the only thing that allows ME to deliberate. Best, Steve >Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 11:58:00 -0700 >To: AEONS@cc1.uca.edu, libprofs I'm glad you agree that sloppy or biased juries are dangerous, even if they acquit. And it is probably true that lengthy sequestration increases the odds of premature "deliberation." But are you writing to the point when you indicate that juries don't always obey their instructions not to "deliberate" prematurely? We know that. But the point is that if the Simpson jury did "deliberate" before the trial was over, as you have said that they did ("they deliberated for nine months"), then the jury did something wrong and their decision deserves to be criticized. ========================================================================= >From: "Aeon Skoble" >Date: 13 Oct 95 15:41:56 CST6CDT > then the jury did something wrong and their decision deserves to be > criticized. Sure, I'll go along with criticizing them for failing to refuse to deliberate until so instructed (although they could plead mitigating circumstances!). I don't know if it follows just from that that their decision should be criticized. That would depend also, I think, on our other point of contention, whether or not it was right for them to have doubts based on the evidence. Whatever. =========================================================================