A blast from the past - my article on the first OJ Simpson trial. This was published in the Gainesville Times the week of October 3, 1995 - just days after the not guilty verdict.

Real Lessons of the Simpson Trial

-by David Matthews 2

A year of deliberations. A year of speculations. A year of accusations. A year of finger-pointing. A year of people being sequestered. A year of people being sequestered to their television sets. It all boiled down to two words: Not Guilty.

The trial of OJ Simpson was probably the biggest public trial of all time. Millions of people watched from the slow-speed pursuit to the final verdict. Hundreds of television and radio stations brought in attorneys and law professors to help decipher the case bit by bit. People became educated on how the law worked in this country.

And what have we learned? What have we learned about the trial of OJ Simpson?

Plenty.

We learned an important lesson about spousal abuse. We learned that even the rich and famous can become abusive and possessive. We heard the police calls. We heard from witnesses. We heard from relatives. Even though Simpson was found not guilty of murder, he will continue to be considered a wife beater and abuser. It is a badge of shame that hopefully Simpson will carry with him for the rest of his life.

We learned about evidence gathering and how the police and the LAPD crime lab made crucial mistakes. The time of death was in dispute because the coroner didn't perform a particular test of the victims at the crime scene. The amount of blood collected was disputed because someone wasn't completely honest about how much they gathered before the trial began. The trial revealed discrepancies in police statements and in evidence gathering. Discrepancies that hopefully will lead to a complete review of how police gather, contain, and test crime scene evidence in the future.

We also learned about the power of money. There are plenty of people who will say that Simpson bought his acquittal through high-priced attorneys. That is nothing new. We learned that lesson from the trials of Claus von Bulow and William Kennedy Smith. But there were others who tried to profit from the trial. One witness turned B-movie actor changed his testimony because it would have ruined the suspense in his forthcoming book. There were former jurors who would write books and one who was dismissed on the allegations of him preparing to write one. And a police detective crucial to the case who forever condemned the prosecution by talking to a screenwriter, using racial statements he would later lie about under oath.

It is no wonder prosecutor Christopher Darden exclaimed "This is a circus!"

Now that circus is over. The Big Top of the media must come down. The performers must move on. The performance is over. Hopefully we walked away a little bit wiser, a little more educated. Maybe we won't look at the world the same way we used to before this circus got started. Unfortunately, two people had to die for us to learn those lessons. And that it is a shame on us all.