Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (55 page)

He posed a list of fifteen questions for the prosecution to answer. Prosecutor Clark took up the challenge and answered them forcefully in her final summation that followed, evidently not to the jury’s satisfaction. When the verdict of “not guilty” came in on October 3, 1995, after only four hours of deliberation, television pictures showed groups of black viewers elated and cheering while white viewers were stunned and silent, dramatizing the polarization of attitudes this case caused in the nation. Afterward, Cochran co-counsel Robert Shapiro condemned the Cochran summation for “not only playing the race card, but playing it from the bottom of the deck.”

True or not, the skilled lawyer’s argument (and this excerpt includes only his summary of the details he presented to jurors) certainly helped establish the “reasonable doubt” that calls for acquittal. Two years after being freed, Simpson was tried on civil charges of having been responsible for wrongful death, where the standard of proof is lower and incarceration not a penalty. Simpson lost that case and was heavily fined.

***

AT THE OUTSET
, let me join with the others in thanking you for the service that you’ve rendered. You are truly a marvelous jury, the longest serving jury in Los Angeles County, perhaps the most patient and healthy jury we’ve ever seen. I hope that your health and your good health continues….

You are empowered to do justice. You are empowered to ensure that this great system of ours works.

Listen for a moment, will you, please. One of my favorite people in history is the great Frederick Douglass. He said shortly after the slaves were freed, quote, “In a composite nation like ours as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny.”

This marvelous statement was made more than a hundred years ago. It’s an ideal worth striving for and one that we still strive for. We haven’t reached this goal yet, but certainly in this great country of ours, we’re
trying. With a jury such as this, we hope we can do that in this particular case….

A good efficient, competent, noncorrupt police department will carefully set about the business of investigating homicides. They won’t rush to judgment. They won’t be bound by an obsession to win at all costs. They will set about trying to apprehend the killer or killers and trying to protect the innocent from suspicion.

In this case, the victims’ families had an absolute right to demand exactly just that in this case. But it was clear, unfortunately, that in this case there was another agenda. From the very first orders issued by the LAPD so-called brass, they were more concerned with their own images, the publicity that might be generated from this case, than they were in doing professional police work. That’s why this case has become such a hallmark, and that’s why Mr. Simpson is the one on trial.

But your verdict in this case will go far beyond the walls of Department 103, because your verdict talks about justice in America and it talks about the police and whether they’re above the law and it looks at the police perhaps as though they haven’t been looked at very recently. Remember, I told you this is not for the naïve, the faint of heart, or the timid.

So it seems to us that the evidence shows that professional police work took a backseat right at the beginning. Untrained officers trampled—remember, I used the word in opening statement—they traipsed through the evidence….

I was thinking last night about this case and their theory and how it didn’t make sense and how it didn’t fit and how something is wrong. It occurred to me how they were going to come here, stand up here and tell you how O. J. Simpson was going to disguise himself. He was going to put on a knit cap and some dark clothes, and he was going to get in his white Bronco, this recognizable person, and go over and kill his wife. That’s what they want you to believe. That’s how silly their argument is.

And I said to myself, maybe I can demonstrate this graphically. Let me show you something. This is a knit cap. Let me put this knit cap on. [Puts on cap.] You have seen me for a year. If I put this knit cap on, who am I? Still I’m Johnnie Cochran with a knit cap. And if you looked at O. J. Simpson over there—and he has a rather large head—O. J. Simpson in a knit cap from two blocks away is still O. J. Simpson. It’s no disguise. It’s no disguise. It makes no sense. It doesn’t fit. If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit….

I hope that during this phase of my argument I have demonstrated to you that this really is a case about a rush to judgment, an obsession to
win, at all costs, a willingness to distort, twist, theorize in any fashion to try to get you to vote guilty in this case where it is not warranted. These metaphors about an ocean of evidence or a mountain of evidence are little more than a tiny, tiny stream, if at all, that points equally toward innocence, that any mountain has long ago been reduced to little more than a molehill under an avalanche of lies and complexity and conspiracy.

This is what we’ve shown you. And so as great as America is, we have not yet reached the point where there is equality in rights or equality of opportunity.

I started off talking to you a little bit about Frederick Douglass and what he said more than a hundred years ago, for there are still the Mark Fuhrmans in this world, in this country, who hate and are yet embraced by people in power. But you and I, fighting for freedom and ideals and for justice for all, must continue to fight to expose hate and genocidal racism and these tendencies. We then become the guardians of the Constitution….

This case is a tragedy for everybody, for certainly the victims and their families, for the Simpson family—and they are victims, too, because they lost the ex-daughter-in-law—for the defendant. He has been in custody since June of 1994 for a crime that he didn’t commit. Someone has taken these children’s mother. I certainly hope that your decision doesn’t take their father….

I may never have an opportunity again to speak to you, certainly not in this setting…. In times like these we often turn to the Bible for some answers…. I happen to really like the book of Proverbs and in Proverbs it talks a lot about false witnesses. It says that a false witness shall not be unpunished and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.

That meant a lot to me in this case because there was Mark Fuhrman acting like a choirboy, making you believe he was the best witness that walked in here, generally applauded for his wonderful performance. It turns out he was the biggest liar in this courtroom during this process, for the Bible had already told us the answer, that a false witness shall not be unpunished and he that speaketh lies shall not escape. In that same book it tells us that a faithful witness will not lie but a false witness will utter lies. Finally, in Proverbs it says that he that speaketh the truth showeth the forthrightfulness but a false witness shows deceit.

So when we are talking about truth, we are talking about truth and lies and conspiracies and cover-ups. I always think about one of my favorite poems, which I think is so very appropriate for this case. You know when things are at the darkest there is always light the next day. In your life, in all of our lives, you have the capacity to transform Mr. O. J.
Simpson’s dark yesterday into bright tomorrow. You have that capacity. You have that power in your hands. And James Russell Lowell said it best about wrong and evil. He said that truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the future and beyond the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows, keeping watch above his own.

You walk with that every day, you carry that with you and things will come to you and you will be able to reveal people who come to you in uniforms and high positions who lie and are corrupt. That is what happened in this case and so the truth is now out. It is now up to you. We are going to pass this baton to you soon.

You will do the right thing. You have made a commitment for justice. You will do the right thing. I will someday go on to other cases, no doubt as will Miss Clark and Mr. Darden. Judge Ito will try another case someday, I hope, but this is O. J. Simpson’s one day in court.

By your decision you control his very life in your hands. Treat it carefully. Treat it fairly. Be fair. Don’t be part of this continuing cover-up. Do the right thing, remembering that “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” That if these messengers have lied to you, you can’t trust their message. That this has been a search for truth. That no matter how bad it looks, if truth is out there on a scaffold and wrong is in here on the throne, when that scaffold sways, in the future and beyond the dim unknown standeth the same God for all people keeping watch above his own.

He watches all of us and he will watch you in your decision. Thank you for your attention. God bless you.

Wise, principled, good-natured even in the face of death, Greek philosopher Socrates lived his philosophy of seeking virtue in self-knowledge.

Son of an Athenian sculptor, Socrates eschewed other employment to be a public teacher, using questions to elicit dialectical truths. Falling into disfavor with the ruling powers of Athens, however, he was arrested and tried, ostensibly for two stated charges: “firstly, of denying the gods recognized by the state and introducing new divinities; and, secondly, of corrupting the young.” Found guilty in a trial clouded by political issues, he refused to compromise his principles by seeking a lighter sentence and was condemned to death in 399
B.C.

Perhaps most remarkable about his address to the judges is his evenness of temper, evinced by a gentle humor and spirit of teaching that belie any fear of impending death. With an expert use of direct address (“O Athenians” and “O my judges”) and allusions to historical figures “who have died by an unjust sentence,” he leads his listeners into a philosophical contemplation of death and the desire for good.

The peroration, or dramatic conclusion to the speech, summarizes his central point, “that to a good man nothing is evil, neither while living nor when dead.”

***

THAT I SHOULD
not be grieved, O Athenians, at what has happened—namely, that you have condemned me—as well many other circumstances concur in bringing to pass; and, moreover, this, that what has happened has not happened contrary to my expectation; but I much rather wonder at the number of votes on either side. For I did not expect that I should be condemned by so small a number, but by a large
majority; but now, as it seems, if only three more votes had changed sides, I should have been acquitted….

For the sake of no long space of time, O Athenians, you will incur the character and reproach at the hands of those who wish to defame the city, of having put that wise man Socrates to death. For those who wish to defame you will assert that I am wise, though I am not. If, then, you had waited for a short time, this would have happened of its own accord; for observe my age, that it is far advanced in life and near death. But I say this not to you all but to those only who have condemned me to die. And I say this, too, to the same persons. Perhaps you think, O Athenians, that I have been convicted through the want of arguments, by which I might have persuaded you, had I thought it right to do and say anything, so that I might escape punishment. Far otherwise: I have been convicted through want indeed, yet not of arguments but of audacity and impudence, and of the inclination to say such things to you as would have been most agreeable for you to hear, had I lamented and bewailed and done and said many other things unworthy of me, as I affirm, but such as you are accustomed to hear from others. But neither did I then think that I ought, for the sake of avoiding danger, to do anything unworthy of a freeman, nor do I now repent of having so defended myself; but I should much rather choose to die, having so defended myself, than to live in that way. For neither in a trial nor in battle is it right that I or anyone else should employ every possible means whereby he may avoid death; for in battle it is frequently evident that a man might escape death by laying down his arms and throwing himself on the mercy of his pursuers. And there are many other devices in every danger, by which to avoid death, if a man dares to do and say everything. But this is not difficult, O Athenians, to escape death; but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by the slower of the two; but my accusers, being strong and active, have been overtaken by the swifter, wickedness. And now I depart, condemned by you to death; but they condemned by truth, as guilty of iniquity and injustice: and I abide my sentence, and so do they. These things, perhaps, ought so to be, and I think that they are for the best….

I say, then, to you, O Athenians, who have condemned me to death, that immediately after my death a punishment will overtake you far more severe, by Jupiter! than that which you have inflicted on me. For you have done this, thinking you should be freed from the necessity of giving an account of your lives. The very contrary, however, as I affirm, will happen to you. Your accusers will be more numerous, whom I have now restrained, though you did not perceive it; and they will be more
severe, inasmuch as they are younger, and you will be more indignant. For if you think that by putting men to death you will restrain anyone from upbraiding you because you do not live well, you are much mistaken; for this method of escape is neither possible nor honorable; but that other is most honorable and most easy, not to put a check upon others, but for a man to take heed to himself how he may be most perfect. Having predicted thus much to those of you who have condemned me, I take my leave of you….

To die is one of two things: for either the dead may be annihilated and have no sensation of anything whatever, or, as it is said, there are a certain change and passage of the soul from one place to another. And if it is a privation of all sensation—as it were, a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream—death would be a wonderful gain. For I think that if anyone, having selected a night in which he slept so soundly as not to have had a dream, and having compared this night with all the other nights and days of his life, should be required, on consideration, to say how many days and nights he had passed better and more pleasantly than this night throughout his life, I think that not only a private person but even the great king himself would find them easy to number, in comparison with other days and nights.