I can still remember my shock and disbelief at the O.J. Simpson verdict.
That trial is intimately bound up with my first year as a mother. As I was being lightly sedated for my C-section, the doctors and staff were joking about the recent headline-grabbing murder. “They say her husband did it,” said one.
“Who, O.J.? Isn’t he a football player?”
“He’s so well-known! He’d have to be stupid to do that.”
“Like I said, he’s a football player.”
Soon, I was much too busy to pay attention to anything on TV. But a year and four months later, when O.J.’s trial had finally concluded, and a verdict was about to be reached, I invited a friend and her 1-year-old over, to watch it with my 1-year-old and me.
As the children played, the verdict was announced: Not Guilty.
We were shocked. Completely shocked. I was speechless for at least a minute. How could this be? He was so obviously guilty. You didn’t even have to have watched the trial to know that, because as the first widely televised celebrity murder trial, it was the water we’d all been swimming in for more than a year.
News programs started showing photos of Black and White people, side by side, upon hearing the verdict. Most of the White people reacted like my friend and me — mouths agape, eyes wide in disbelief.
For the Black people it was another story entirely. No one seemed shocked, and my recollection is that many of them were smiling.
I did not understand any of that, at the time.
In the days and weeks that followed, as the entire nation processed this verdict, that’s when I first heard the phrase, “Jury Nullification.” In a nutshell, it’s what happens when a jury thinks that the accused is, indeed, guilty — but sets that aside to pronounce them “Not Guilty” anyway.
It sounds unforgivable. But in the context of O.J. Simpson’s trial, I learned that “jury nullification” had been the norm in the American South for more than 100 years, with White juries acquitting countless White men who they knew had committed heinous crimes like rape or murder against Black people.
I don’t recall any of O.J.’s jurors specifically saying this, but plenty of commentators seemed sure that the majority-African-American jury had basically decided to let it be a Black man, for once, who got away with something.
Now — 26 years later, and after the murders of Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many more but, especially, George Floyd — I have greater understanding of the racism that permeates every aspect of our national life. I now see how America’s justice system, in spite of everything, too often delivers horribly unjust verdicts.
But I never thought I would witness Jury nullification from the United States Senate…on behalf of a president of the United States.
Because that’s what happened, last week. The evidence of President Trump’s guilt, as presented at his Impeachment Trial, was overwhelming. Undeniable. Even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said so: “There is no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. No question about it.”
And there can be even less question that Trump’s actions were in blatant violation of his oath to defend the Constitution— sending violent people to overturn the most important, Constitutionally-mandated thing the Congress ever does, namely certifying the completely legal election of our next President.
Seven Republican senators must be recognized for their courage in crossing the usually impermeable party line, to pronounce Trump “Guilty.”
They honored the oath they had all sworn, upon taking office, to “support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Their courage is only exceeded by that of the officers who valiantly protected them from the mob, on Jan. 6 — at loss of life and limb.
The rest — a Cowardly Caucus of 43 Republicans, including McConnell — ultimately let ex-President Trump off the hook.
The cowards were afraid of losing …what? Their fingers, like some of the officers? An eye, like another? Their lives, like officer Brian Sicknick did, to protect them?
No. These cowards violated their oaths just to keep their cushy jobs… all while being protected by people who willingly laid down their very lives.
They aren’t fit to polish the boots of the officers they walk past.
