Week Seven, Part 3 - Crim: Dukin' It Out Over O.J.

In Criminal Procedure, Professor Dutile has been avoiding O.J. discussions, preferring to stay on task with Terry stops and automobile searches.

The day after the verdict, however, he gives in. “I want to discuss the Simpson case from a number of different perspectives. The only precondition is we’re all going to accept any opinion advanced in seriousness and good faith. This is a university and I don't want hissing or that sort of thing.”

We discuss major themes in the trial:

• process (“you can get that much deliberation on a purse snatching”),
• wealth,
• fame, and
• media attention (“the Oklahoma City bombing trial will not be televised”).
  

Dutile raises the issue of race. “We all have a world-view, wherever we're from, whatever our socio-economic status. And it affects the way we see things. Maybe the blacks on the jury were receiving the evidence about O.J. through lenses that were affected by their understanding of how things work in L.A., a system that you or I didn't get exposed to." Dutile pauses. "I'm sure that I didn't in Sanford, Maine. If we had had a police officer–"

Class laughter drowns out the rest of his sentence.

Dutile continues. "It’s easy to imagine that gender issues could have trumped race. That is, a concern for battered women could have taken over the trial."

Dutile walks to the side of the room, leans against the wall, arms crossed. "Why didn't it? Eight times the police were called because this 240-pound athlete was beating up this woman. Why didn't that issue become important?"

He waits for comments. "Anybody? Yesterday we had people on television, who themselves were battered wives, applauding the verdict."

The only African-American woman in the class, Dorphine Payne, raises her hand. She's middle-aged, from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and a former IBM employee. "I think that the whole thing centers around a cultural issue. As you would make an assumption that his conduct was battery, a lot of African females may not. A lot of white females may have made an assumption there was evidence of abuse. But a black female in our community wouldn't."

"Why not?" Dutile asks, "if you wouldn't mind elaborating."

"Well, Denise Brown described instances of abuse. For example, O.J. and Nicole were out on the dance floor and he grabbed her by the crotch and said, 'This is where babies come from. It belongs to me.'"

The room is silent as Payne continues. "The sister broke down crying and we were all standing about wondering, 'When is she going to get to the abuse part?' Our approach was, 'He was doing that with his own wife rather than someone else? That's a good thing. That was complimentary to him."

Professor Dutile interrupts her. "But in all fairness, there were other instances more serious... the pictures of her bruised face."

"Right. But to me it sounded like they were fighting. That's different than battering. If you're giving, and you're battering, and you're fighting, that's not abuse. Abuse to me is somebody beating you and you're not fighting back.”

"So the gender issue doesn't arise because it wasn’t there?"

"I don't see it as being an issue at all,” Payne says, “and I don't think the African-American women on the jury did either."

Dutile looks flummoxed. I smile. It’s good to see him grapple with his precondition of accepting any opinion. And it's the first time I've heard a student push back against a prof.

Class is almost over. A student toward the front presses Dutile for his personal view of the Simpson verdict.

“I’d bet $10,000 he did it,” Dutile says, “but I did have a reasonable doubt.”

* * *