Hell Has Frozen Over!: OJ Simpson Makes Parole

Note: This story originally appeared on my blog on July 21, 2017.

Twenty-two years ago, 150 million people across the country tuned in to witness the reading of the verdict in OJ Simpson’s murder trial. Yesterday, about fourteen million Americans tuned in to see if OJ Simpson would make parole for his 2008 conviction on robbery charges in Nevada. The Nevada parole board voted to release Simpson. Simpson will be eligible for release in October.

I have to say that I was shocked. I was one of many people who thought that The Juice would die an ignomious death behind bars, always falling short of parole, much like various members of the Manson Family.

After all, Simpson’s nine to thirty-three year prison sentence was never about his decision to participate in a poorly planned robbery along with the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. It was an attempt by the American justice system to correct an instance of jury nullification in a long-ago murder trial, a murder trial that, while riveting the nation, exposed the deep racial divides of America.

And I’m okay with that. While I didn’t disagree with Simpson’s 1995 acquittal, I always had doubts about his innocence and Simpson’s post-trial behavior did little to put those doubts to rest. When I consider his behavior before the murder — stealing away wife #1 from his best friend only to leave her with three kids for wife #2, whom he repeatedly beat — I have to wonder if Simpson’s karma finally caught up to him in that Las Vegas hotel room.

And karma is going to keep catching up with him. Not only is Simpson now a convicted felon, he is a pariah; no respectable person will have anything to do with him. While Simpson can rely on his NFL pension and the Screen Actors’ Guild retirement fund for income, he will never enjoy the wealth that he once had. His two younger children are reportedly not speaking to him. At age seventy, Simpson is suffering from all of the pains and limitations that come along with aging. While Americans love a second act, America will not be giving Simpson one.

But worst of all, Simpson will spend everyday of the rest of his life knowing that he will not be remembered as one of the most talented professional football players of all time but as a wife beater/murderer/convicted felon. While that may not qualify as justice, it will have to do.