Some of you may remember a guy named O.J. Simpson. He was convicted of robbery, kidnapping with a deadly weapon, conspiracy, coercion and just plain being someone who seriously belonged in prison. Tomorrow, he's scheduled to be sentenced for those crimes and his attorney is pleading with the judge to make the sentence "only" six years. That's what his side is hoping for. On the other end, life imprisonment is possible, the judge is said to be a harsh one, and the most likely sentence will be somewhere between 12 and 18 years. As Karma goes, that ain't bad.
It seems like ten eons ago that Simpson was pronounced Not Guilty in a double murder that almost everyone knew he'd committed…and five eons since he was found Liable in the civil case replay. So it won't surprise me if Friday's sentencing passes with little attention. We have a messy war and a messier economy at the moment and somehow, O.J. justice doesn't seem all that important these days. The damage it all did to everyone's faith in our judicial system has been done.
And speaking of stealth murder retrials, have you heard anything about the Phil Spector case lately? No? Gee, remember what Big News it was the first time around. Now, Spector's standing trial again for the slaying of actress Lana Clarkson and it took me a long time to find anything on the Internet about it. Only the L.A. Times seems to be covering it and they only check in about once a month. The most recent story is dated 12/1/08 and the one before that is 11/4/08.
The latest is that Spector's attorney is trying to knock down the accusation that Spector had a history of pointing guns at women and saying he was going to to kill them. The lawyer's doing this — I'm not making this up — by trying to make the case that Spector has a history of threatening to shoot men, as well. That makes all the difference in the world, I guess.