Introduction:

As ancient as the Babylonian time in 1750 BC, the concept of “an eye for an eye” emerged in the Code of Hammurabi, the oldest organized legal text, and the law of retaliation became the earliest verity of criminal retribution. History unfolds its course: lex talionis gradually evolved into passages of legislation and elaborate proceedings, seeking instrumental and appropriate good. However, enlargement of the judiciary system potentiated outside factors like authority, prestige, or wealth to covertly affect the policies, ultimately altering the purpose of proportionate penalty. Under the influence of preconceived bigotry, power may directly impact procedural criminal justice, while the truth is merely supplementary in the adjudication — such phenomenon especially protrudes in these three cases: Trial of Chicago Seven, Trial of Central Park Five, and Trial of OJ Simpson.

Trial of Chicago Seven:

Following the assassinations of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. and former US attorney general Robert F. Kennedy in April and June of 1968 respectively, the simmering national disapproval of the Vietnam War started to boil, not excluding citizens of the Chicago’s Garfield Park neighborhoods. It was a time of oppression and resistance: from August 26th to 29th, the Democratic National Convention was held at the International Amphitheatre on southern Hasted Street, in which Hubert Humphrey was selected as the party’s candidate for the November presidential election. Mayor Richard Daley wished to showcase his city, claiming “law and order will be maintained” repeatedly (George 2020) — however, the anti-war protestors, including the Yippies (members of Youth International Party), MOBE (National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam), SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), and more, had different ideas. Successively, they defied curfews, confronted enforcement officers, and rallied several miles away from the site of conference. Finally, when protestors were granted permission to march in the Grant Park on August 28th, a violent clash with the police occurred in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue, where, ironically, the presidential candidates and their campaigns were headquartered. Later in September, a federal grand jury indicted Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin (founders of Yippies), David Dellinger (chair of MOBE), Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis (founders of SDS), John Froines, Lee Weiner (producers of incendiary devices) and Bobby Seale (co-founder of the Black Panther Party) with “conspiring to use interstate commerce with intent to incite a riot” charges — evidently, rather than a trial, this was a collective deterrence to all involved protestors and the anti-war spirit. Thus, under scrutiny and contention, the Trial of Chicago Eight — soon to become “Seven” — began.

Presiding the conspiracy trial was Julius Hoffman, former Judge of the US District Court in Northern Illinois: a “small but combative” white man in his 70s, who openly despised the defendants and their misdemeanor. Towards the defense party, Hoffman rejected all pretrial motions, disallowed key evidence presentation, and behaved with a “deprecatory and antagonistic attitude” (The New York Times 1983). Impeccably groomed and precise, the Judge was targetted by the defendants, as they continuously munched jellybeans, wore judicial robes, and referred to him as “Mr. Magoo” — in response, Hoffman cited all litigants, along with defense attorney William Kunstler and co-counsel Leonard Weinglass, a staggering 181 contempt of court citations. In particular against Bobby Seale, who was almost irrelevant to the rest of the defendants, Judge Hoffman declined the Black Panther leader’s request for a preferred lawyer or to represent himself, then admonished to silence him when Seale insisted that his constitutional rights were violated. The duo’s hostility erupted on October 29th, 1969, when Seale lost his temper and scolded Hoffman with profanities like “pig”, “fascist”, and “liar”, these unruly screams forcing the trial to a halt. What happened next was a shock — “the whole world was in shock”, according to prosecutor Richard Schultz (Roger 2020) — Hoffman demanded the transcript record solely the defendant's shrieking tone, then ordered Seale dragged out to be gagged and chained to a chair for several days without removal. “A black man was bound and gagged in a federal courtroom,” Schultz recalled, “What an awful sight!” Seale’s case was later separated from that of the other seven, and himself jailed for contempt. “I did nothing in the trial that I'm not proud of,”' the Judge declared in a 1982 interview. “I presided with dignity. When I felt I had to be firm, I was firm.” Another instance of Hoffman’s mismanagement was when he barred defense witness Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General, from testifying through a government objection that denied Clark’s relevance or material contribution in appearing. After defense attorney Kunstler strongly contended such unprecedented and unconstitutional ruling, the Judge tolerated the testimony in the jury’s absence. Kunstler pursued to ask the witness 38 questions, the prosecution objected to 14 on grounds of disclosure, and Hoffman upheld every objection; all information regarding cabinet conversation and city arrangement of the convention were curbed. On January 29th, 1970, though opposed by Kunstler, Clark was barred from attending for being “not admissible” — the jurors neither glimpsed nor knew of the witness’s presence throughout the proceeding. The tumultuous hearing concluded with the jury’s verdict on February 5, sentencing five of the seven defendants — Davis, Dellinger, Hayden, Rubin, and Hoffman — of “crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot”, extracting the conspiracy charges, and acquitting the other two litigants. Of even more controversy, the Judge sentenced defense attorney Kunstler to 4 years in jail for “contempt of court”.

And yet, what was the truth? Back to the night of August 28th when the clash occurred — nationally televised, Americans were displayed images of tear gas diffusion and bloody protestors buffeted by police, alternating with coverage of Humphrey’s nomination as the democratic candidate. “It was violent, it was wild, demonstrators were being beaten on the head… with boards with nails sticking out…” prosecutor Richard Schultz recollected as a spectator of the event, “The protesters were chanting, ‘The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching,’ and they were” (Roger 2020). However in the hearing, evidence concerning the defendants’ mobilization of a peaceful parade was invariably obstructed by Judge Hoffman. Nine months after the trial, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturned the convictions: “The demeanor of the judge would require reversal even if errors did not” (The New York Times 1983). Fortunately thereby, none of the defendants or counsels served their sentences — it seemed like, despite the abuse of magisterial power and procedural malpractice, justice was achieved with a nine-month delay. Afterwards, Hoffman became the president of Northwestern University Alumni Association, taught at its law school, and remained unapologetic for his conduct in the case, maintaining that its overall impact on the legal system was positive.

For nine months the empowered claimed victorious, which is more than enough time for Judge Hoffman to preside over another trial before his retirement in February of 1972: what would happen if a wronged conviction is overturned after years? Furthermore, if the Court of Appeals reversed the sentencing due to “the demeanor of the judge”, not “the errors”, the judiciary is essentially dissociating the judgment from the actual police over-enforcement — hence, what use was the truth in such arbitration?

Trial of the Central Park Five:

With societal tension of the Cold War slowly fading under President Goerge H. W. Bush’s inauguration, the unspoken influence of racism revives with the upsurge of crime rate, along with stricter policies regarding narcotics, alcohol, and mental illness. In this time of “equity” and discrepancy, one scandal illustrated the racial disparities in sentencing and the unfairness at the core of the criminal justice system. On the night of April 19th, 1989, a group of black or hispanic boys entered the Central Park, New York, intimidated passerbys with rocks, and assaulted a male jogger who later had to be hospitalized for two days — two 14-year-old of which, Kevin Richardson and Raymond Santana, were apprehended on grounds of “unlawful assembly”, later joined by Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, both 15, and 16-year-old Korey Wise for questioning. Around the same time of the arrest, 28-year-old Trisha Meili entered the park for her regular after-work jog: while running near 102nd Street Cross Drive, she was struck head-on by a tree branch, dragged off the path, beaten, and raped in seclusion. When Meili was discovered, she lost 80 percent of her blood, remained in coma for 12 days, and suffered memory loss of the perpetration due to permanent brain damage. Without any standard examination, the police department linked the horrendous attack to the minor offense prior — it was this prejudiced investigation that led to the infamous trial of the Central Park Five.

Wise, who underwent hearing loss and learning disability, was old enough to be legally questioned without a guardian present, thereupon experienced 14 to 30 hours of stressful police interrogation with shouts, verbal threats, and physical abuse. Listening in the adjacent room were the other four teenagers, psychologically tortured as the officers falsely claimed that Wise admitted all their wrongdoings already, and promised to return them home once confessions were produced. “The police deprived us of food, drink or sleep for more than 24 hours,” Salaam remembered in a 2016 interview, “I would hear them beating up Korey Wise in the next room. They would come and look at me and say: ‘You realise you're next’” (BBC News 2019, Onion, Sullivan, &Mullen 2019). Under unimaginable duress, four of the juveniles gave signed and videotaped statements pleading guilty to the assault on Meili, except for Salaam, who wrote his confession but refused to sign it. Turning away from the camera and cringing at the sexually explicit details of his “misdeed”, Richardson narrated, “I was crying. [The cop] said: ‘Don't worry. You did good. Everything’s gonna be alright’” (Smith 2012). That was a lie: on April 27th, despite occupying no eyewitness or DNA matching, the boys were indicted for attempted murder, rape, assault, and rioting. Confirmed by the powerful statements of multiple police officers, the “interracial attack” waged a media tsunami and public outcry.

The crime clouded over front pages for months. New York Daily News first associated the boys with “Wolf Pack”, a gang of approximately 30 teens with belligerence, and used the word “wilding” in describing their acts (Onion, Sullivan, &Mullen 2019). Rippling in response, Poynter Institute labeled the teens as “bloodthirsty”, “animals”, “savages”, and “human mutations”; New York Posts wrote that the youngsters hailed “from a world of crack, welfare, guns, knives”, as their “enemies were [the] rich” and “[the] white”; myriad more publishing houses derided the juveniles as “savage beasts”, “mutants”, “sociopaths”(Smith 2012, Onion, Sullivan, &Mullen 2019). “It was so competitive,” former New York Daily News police bureau chief David Krajicek explained, “the city desk absolutely demanded that we come up with details that other reporters didn’t have”. Adding fuel to fire in May 1989, real estate developer Donald Trump paid $85,000 to publicate a full-page advertisement in all major papers of the city — New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and New York Newsday — with the headline, “Bring Back The Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!” Deliberately emphasizing the incident’s impact on all ethnic communities to avoid discrimination, the author emotively stipulated the perpetrators be as severely penalized as possible: “I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them” (New York Times 1989). With a barrage of provoking media vitriol, the public exclusively condemned the five, as the implicit abhorrence to communities of color aggravated. “Had this been the 1950s,” Salaam later inferred, “somebody from that darker place of society would have most certainly came to our homes, dragged us from our beds and hung us from trees in Central Park” (BBC News 2019). Notwithstanding the absence of forensic evidence, witness testimony, and the inconsistencies in their stories, on December 11th, 1990, the five were separately convicted of attempted murder, rape, sexual abuse, assault, robbery, and riot, a sentence that puts them behind bars for up to 15 years, the maximum penalty given their juvenile status.

And yet, what was the truth? On June 12th, 2002, New York Times reported the confession of 31-year-old Matias Reyes, a convicted serial rapist, to the Central Park Jogger attack 12 years ago, which, unlike the initial admissions made by the five, contained details closely aligned with the known facts. Reyes, after conversing with Korey Wise twice during imprisonment, felt guilty for an innocent man to scapegoat his crime: “At first I was afraid, but at the end of the day, I felt it was definitely the right thing to do” (BBC News 2019). As the current confessor’s DNA matched positive to the found evidence, New York Supreme Court vindicated the five middle-aged men from a wrongful fetter they carried lifelong. On January 27th, 2003, NYPD found no and maintained that Richardson, Santana, McCray, Salaam, and Wise were likely culpable. After a decade-long legal battle, on June 29th, 2014, New York City settled a civil rights lawsuit brought by the Central Park Five for 41 million dollars, the payout equaled about $1 million for each year of imprisonment.

Nonetheless, what 41 million dollars could not restore is “the life that was missing or the time that was taken away”, as Wise stated (BBC News 2019); what 41 million dollars could not change was the police department’s dehumanizing enforcement; what 41 million dollars could not erase were the indirect but insinuating remarks of news articles. Trial of the Central Park Five unveiled the hypocrisy of our justice system, proclaiming fairness while mistreating the community of color, as media cooperates in gaining public support for justification. Such prosecutorial power can be overwhelming in affecting procedural correctness, unless the defendant possesses a comparable amount of influence. Otherwise there is only waiting, for truth to condense and be excavated, for custom to evolve and be re-examined, for justice to eclose and be questioned, as the five boys did for 25 years.

Trial of OJ Simpson:

From the restraint of Bobby Seale to the persecution of the Central Park Five, our criminal justice system manifests “colorblindness”, disproportionately victimizing defendants of color. 5 years after the Central Park Jogger attack, another interracial felony subverted such unjust, although earning the title as “one the most notorious criminal trials” (Tikkanen 2014). 1994 was a year of recovery and expansion: the decade-long Cold War ended, GDP, Internet, and cinematic arts flourished, so did multiculturalism, social contradiction, and crime rate. Whether the intricacy of legal proceedings, polarization of public perspectives, or contribution to future analysis, the O.J. Simpson trial was an unparalleled sensation in the duel of individual and institutional power.

On the evening of June 12th, 1994, a white akita with scarlet paws was spotted barking near 875 South Bundy Drive in Brentwood, California. At midnight, the police department was informed of the two corpses lying near that condo’s gate, who were later discerned to be Nicole Brown and her friend, Ronald Goldman, both stabbed to death. At 4:30 AM, when leading detective Mark Fuhrman arrived at the Rockingham mansion — just 2 miles south of the crime scene — to inform Brown’s ex-husband, Orenthal James Simpson, he discovered instead a bloodstained Bronco and a smeared glove that matched the one found near Goldman’s body, and Simpson himself departed to Chicago 4 hours ago. As the police issued a search warrant at 10:45, investigators obtained more blood traces in the property, making Simpson the primary suspect, and was immediately escorted back to California. After extensive interrogation, attorney counseling, and his apparent surrender to authorities, the suspect fled from impending charges in a white Bronco, driven by his friend Al Cowling, and repelled the tracking officers by threatening to suicide. Thus they sped for an hour on the 91 freeway, and since the entire chase was televised, an estimated 95 million viewers spectated the 60-mile pursuit live, while hundreds of fans lined the streets in support of the football superstar (Tikkanen 2014) — ultimately, Simpson yielded before 9 PM at his residence, and was taken into police custody. Against numerous felony charges with unshakable evidences including blood drops, complimentary gloves, and fugitive absconding, Simpson surprisingly pled “100% not guilty” on July 22nd. Japanese-American Judge Lance Ito was assigned to the case for impartiality, as prosecution sought life without parole for the defendant if convicted, daring a deathmatch without leeway.

What the prosecution underrated was Simpson’s wealth and prestige, which overpowered the unfavorable position. The athlete millionaire assembled a legal "dream team" of lawyers that reportedly cost him an estimated $50,000 a day, headed by Johnnie Cochran along with Robert Kardashian, Robert Shapiro, Barry Scheck, Alan Dershowitz, and F. Lee Bailey, all renowned and experienced personages in the field. The prosecution proposed that Simpson “killed [Brown] because he couldn’t have her” after divorce and “killed [Goldman] out of jealousy” (Pak 2019), fortified by the tearful testimony of Brown’s sister-in-law on February 3rd, 1995, confirming the defendant’s persistent and menacing attitude towards the victim succeeding their breakup — defense, on the contrary, centralized their argument around procedural injustice. During cross-examination on March 13th, defense attorney Bailey questioned the integrity of lead detective Mark Fuhrman at the crime scene, in which the witness denied being racially prejudiced. However, the testifier’s affirmation was revoked by the statements of Laura McKinny on August 29th, who videotaped Fuhrman speaking the discriminatory “N-word” 42 times during a regular police procedure and bragged about police brutality; vilified by the dogged inquisition, on September 6th, the detective asserted his 5th amendment privilege of silence to all defense questions the second time on stand. Taking quietude as consensus, the “dream team” summoned numerous specialists to reinforce their argument of tempered blood evidence: criminologist Dennis Fung revealed that proper protocols were not entirely enforced at the crime scene, leaving Fuhrman alone at Simpson’s mansion without company for 6 hours until the search warrant’s arrival; forensic expert Henry Lee doubted the legitimacy of bloodstain preservation by the police department based on the fluid’s unscientific dryness; DNA testimony signified that Simpson, along with another 170 million people, would have the generic characteristics of the blood drop (Moxham 1994, Pak 2019). Lastly, the most unswerving glove evidence was challenged during the testimony on June 15th, when prosecutor Christopher Darden, under multiple implications of defense lawyer Cochran, advised Simpson to try on the pair of gloves found separately at his estate and the crime scene. Transcript recorded that the defendant encountered difficulties extending his fingers into the fourchettes, as even the prosecutor witness Isotoner Glove executive Richard Rubin indicated that the gloves were undersized for Simpson. With over 150 witness testimonies and Cochran’s powerful proclamation, “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” in the defense closing arguments (Moxham 1994), the jury finished deliberating and reached a verdict in less than 4 hours: on October 3rd, 1995, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman.

Due to the litigant’s celebrity fame and the incident’s tortuous development, media dramatized and publicized the uncanny escape, the fiery hearing, and the miraculous overturn to the fullest extent, uplifting national fanaticism towards the case. However, common citizens, unlike the jurors and clerks, were unable or unwilling to completely perceive every detail of the 8-month hearing, causing the polarization of public opinions according to ethnic differences. In 1995, Washington Post conducted a telephone survey, asking 312 randomly selected blacks and 315 whites for their views of the trial: considering 8 of the 12 jurors were African Americans, 85% of the black interviewees agreed with the court decision, 55% of the whites disagreed; 52% of the blacks agreed that white establishment intended to bring down successful African Americans, 86% of the whites disagreed; 66% of the whites agreed that blacks often used race as an excuse to justify wrongdoings, 64% of the blacks disagreed. Undeniably, communal discussion simultaneously existed with the proceedings, turning a trial into a scrutinized controversy.

And yet, what was the truth? Agent Mike Gilbert later explained that one of the defense's strategies was to allude the prosecutor in requesting the glove try-on, for Simpson stopped ingesting his arthritis medicine two weeks prior, resulting in swollen fingers. In addition to the control of demonstration, “dream team” purposely targeted detective Fuhrman’s discriminatory comments to topple the credibility of evidence gathered by the police, concurrently gaining societal resonance as racism was involved. With prudence, perseverance, and popularity, defense executed a successful turnaround, as O.J. Simpson, the iconic representative of African Americans, earned his justice in the criminal trial.

However, one victory did not conclude the case. Four months after his acquittal, the civil trial found Simpson responsible for the deaths of Brown and Goldman and awarded their families $33.5 million in damages. After 13 years of institutional inspection, Simpson was charged with armed robbery in 2008, and was sentenced to 33 years in Lovelock Correctional Center, Nevada. Paroled in 2017, the 75-year-old football remained in debt for an enlarged $70 million restitutive fine and is still avoiding his financial owings with legal loopholes. Despite ostensibly retrieving his reputation, Simpson attained nothing from the trial but a shattered career, drained asset, sordid history, and a tormented heart. In this trial when the magistrate ensured judicial justice and both sides exerted counterbalanced power, the prosecution achieved retribution but lost its reliability, while the defense achieved honor but lost his life. 

Conclusion:

In all three examples, the empowered “win” the initial adjudications: Judge Hoffman silenced and sentenced all opposing voices, the prosecution chastised and incarcerated five confessed perpetrators, while O.J. Simpson defied institutional racism with dignity. Nonetheless, two of the cases were overturned, and one lingers for debate: this is due to procedural injustice, the misuse of power caused by personal prejudice, systemic racism, or lionized influence. As egalitarianism and humanism continue to rise — a shift of power —  the public’s perspective on criminal justice changes, which is when new specks of acceptable truth supplement the reexamination and justification. Summarized by the Conflict Theory, society is the dispute between the dominant and the subordinate, in which legal definitions will skew to favor the powerful — in derivative, “justice”, too, can be a temporal concept that favors the empowered mainstream.

And yet, in our era of anti-racism and “black lives matter”, why do all students in my Criminal Justice class believe O.J. Simpson is guilty? Shouldn’t we laud the victory of an African American in the white-dominant and racially discriminatory institution? Truth is, the sole difference between Simpson and the Central Park Five is that the former wielded financial and prestigious power which peaked the African American community, while the latter were poor Harlem boys without rights — empirically, we are overturning the abuse of power affected by bigotry.

Who killed Brown and Goldman? Are we questioning the truth or the truthfulness? All the mystery dissipates in the ingenuous eyes of Simpson when he raised his arms with the black gloves on, as if succumbing to the system, or perhaps satirizing its incompetence.