Justice gets shot at make-up call

Now folks are clamoring that the legal system is going too hard on poor, helpless O.J. Simpson, who apparently did nothing wrong when he burst into a hotel room with his posse of gun-toting characters to reclaim some of his memorabilia.

Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear.

If we’re talking about the same O.J. Simpson who got away with murdering his ex-wife and her friend, I have no sympathy.

If prosecutors are being too harsh on O.J., it’s well deserved. To use a sports analogy, it’s a make-up call.

For folks unfamiliar with this terminology, a make-up call works like this. Let’s say a basketball referee makes a really bad call in a game. During the course of the game, the referee might realize he made the bad call, so later on he makes an equally bad call against the other team to even it out so to speak.

If O.J. gets nailed to the wall for a crime he didn’t commit, it’s a make-up call in my book.

The cries coming from the O.J. camp are that the former football star was setup. The so-called ‘friend’ who alerted O.J. about his memorabilia being in this hotel room is the same person who recorded the entire incident on tape. Yes, that is just a bit too convenient.

Problem is, I don’t care. O.J. deserved it. And I say that largely because he not only got away with murder, but he wrote a book flaunting it.

In case you missed it, there are roughly 200,000 copies of O.J.’s book in circulation. It’s titled ‘If I Did It’ and the ‘If’ in the title is emphasized to suggest there is no ‘if’ about it.

To get away with murder is one thing. I’m sure it happens every day in our court system, just not so much in public view as O.J. But to write a book gloating about the fact is simply opening the front door and inviting trouble to take a seat on your sofa.

If I was a relative of one of the two people O.J. killed, I believe I would find a way to get even too.

The fact O.J. could get more jail time for bursting into a hotel room than he did for murder illustrates the obvious flaws in our judicial system. We like to say we have the greatest judicial system in the world, but in reality our justice is determined by 12 people who couldn’t get out of jury duty. Our justice system is terribly inconsistent and very seldom ‘just.’

Consider:

‘ Pamela Rogers was initially ordered to serve six months in jail for a consensual sexual relationship with a male student. Craig Fults was ordered to serve 48 years in prison for a consensual sexual relationship with a male student.

‘ Joe Hale was just convicted of second-degree murder for shooting to death John Scott after a scuffle. He could serve 25 years. Billy Joe Griffin was convicted of reckless endangerment with a weapon for shooting to death Chad Nunley at a late-night party. Griffin most likely will be released on time served, which is 15 months, when he’s sentenced in October.

‘ Deon Fisk was order to serve 35 years in prison for wounding a man in a drive-by shooting. Mary Winkler was ordered to serve 210 days for killing a man in his sleep.

Our ‘justice’ doesn’t always add up and O.J. is the classic example of what can go wrong when 12 jurors decide to toss the law aside and do whatever they please. If O.J. gets shafted this time around, I look at it as merely a make-up call.

James Clark is editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].