Televised Courtrooms and Optic Illusions: ‘The People V. O.J. Simpson’, Episode 4 Recap

Let’s start with a number: 133. That’s how many days of courtroom testimony the O.J. Simpson trial generated, setting the record for longest jury trial in Californian history, a mark previously held by the Manson family trial.

The number begs a question: Why? Why did this trial break the record? Was it the complexity of the case? What caused this particular courtroom to spin out of Judge Ito’s control? Was it the stalwart “dream team” defense? Of all trials, why did this one take nine months and generate 120 witnesses, 45,000 pages of evidence, and 1,100 exhibits?

A possible clue to the mystery can be found in another number: 700. That’s the percentage increase of CNN’s daytime ratings during the O.J. Simpson trial.

Could the camera be the culprit?

Let’s set aside indicting the camera for a moment, to look at some evidence, splattered around this week’s episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson. At this point in the story, we are in the pre-trial phase, an area of jurisprudence not commonly known for its high-impact dramatic potential. But by weaving together two seemingly disparate storylines — jury selection and focus groups — theatrics erupt faster than you can say “Brentwood Hello.”

Selecting a jury is a laborious process that could be summarized as, identifying people who will be sympathetic to your story. Running a focus group is the inverse, a laborious process that involves identifying the story that will be sympathetic to your people. They are mirror images of each other, covering the same jurisdiction: optics.

There’s that word again — and for a second time, Marcia Clark mocks it in this episode. For most lawyers, optics is essentially a synonym for perception, a way to shape the world. But for no-bullshit Clark, optics is deception. And the two-way mirror that separates her from the focus group is a literal optic deception.

The participants behind the mirror eviscerate her.

“She seems like a bitch,” sneers one focus grouper.

“I wouldn’t want to be her boyfriend,” laughs another.

“She’s shifty,” a third.

Based upon the focus group, an image consultant offers Clark some advice: “You might also consider softening your appearance.” She calls the research “horseshit.” Her final likability score is 4 out of 10. Johnnie Cochran scores an 8.

Meanwhile, focus groups from the prosecution reveal that Nicole (the person who was murdered) scores very low, with participants calling her a “golddigger.” But O.J. (the person on trial for murder) scores very high, stacked with a tag cloud of “handsome, masculine, and charming.”

It’s all optics. By the end of the episode, Marcia’s all like:

Sociological quackery in the form of focus groups hit a zenith in late ’80s and early ’90s. Television was particularly susceptible, with shows like Friends testing poorly and Seinfeld infamously almost being scrapped because of low scores. Focus groups almost killed revered products like Aeron chairs (low score) and unleashed disreputable ones like New Coke (high score).

Dubious focus groups in this episode are mirrored with a dubious jury selection process. Both are a game of asking the right questions. For the jury selection, that means asking every interrogative imaginable. Unusual questions about interracial marriage and USC football are mentioned, but to really understand the magnitude of the process, you need only glance at the enormous document, which I have posted here. At 75 pages, it’s like a Buzzfeed quiz that had sex with Myers-Briggs behind a dumpster in Rorschach Alley.

Before the trial started, Judge Ito held a special hearing on whether to allow cameras in the courtroom. Both the defense and the prosecution were advocates of a televised trial, with Marcia Clark arguing that cameras would “enable the world to see what the jury sees.”

Haha.

Of course we now all recognize that the televised experience is never the same as the courtroom’s. The camera is not simply an observer, but another participant in the room. And a television viewer has access to more information (like inadmissible evidence) and less information (like the reaction of fellow jurors, who can’t be televised) and worse information (like the media scrum of the outside world). The difference between the televised experience and the courtroom experience is vast — perhaps as vast as the difference between, say, a prestige cable reenactment and the trial itself.

During the hearing about cameras, Judge Ito was actually the only dissenting voice of his own court, arguing that television would magnify testimony for “its excitement, its titillation value.” If only he heard himself.

But in the end, Ito had little choice — history was on the side of cameras. Since 1979, when Ted Bundy’s trial became the first televised courtroom, momentum had been gaining on televised courtrooms. The practice reached its apex in the ’90s — the golden age of televised courtroom dramas, powered by the rise of cable television. Jeffrey Dahmer’s live trial in 1992, along with the Menendez brothers trial the following year, gave Court TV its raison d’être. And if the acquittal of the LAPD officers who beat Rodney King made it to television (leading to the LA riots, where 55 people were killed), then the O.J. Simpson trial was going to make it, too.

Ito’s decision came down in November 1994: The trial would be televised.

Whoever dubbed it “The Trial of the Century” was a branding wizard who flunked history class. (The twentieth century also adjudicated the Nuremberg trials, Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, the Scopes “Monkey” trial, the Pentagon Papers trial, the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and the trial of Saddam Hussein.) But while the Simpson trial was of no consequence to case law, it had an enormous effect on legal theater: It reversed the trend of televised courtrooms.

“The People v. O.J. Simpson” case is indirectly why you weren’t able to watch the Tsarnaev trial in Boston on TV last summer. It’s why the completely bananas Zacarias Moussaoui trial wasn’t an colossal media event. It’s why a courtroom sketch of Tom Brady went viral, and it’s why Court TV was forced to become truTV. And for anyone who appreciates hyperbolic courtroom reenactments, it’s why E! had to do real-time scripted reenactments of the 2005 Michael Jackson child molestation trial — easily the weirdest thing I have ever seen on television.

To this day, the Supreme Court is not televised, and probably won’t be in your lifetime, at least partially because of the circus around “The People v. O.J. Simpson.” Before the Simpson trial, momentum was heading toward a camera presence in all courtrooms, but the spectacle in and around that courtroom reversed the trend. The governor of California at the time, Pete Wilson, immediately requested a ban on cameras. And today, federal cases are almost never televised, while state cases only sometimes are. (If you are wondering how you saw such scintillating cases as the Lindsay Lohan DUI trials, those were local courts.)

Today, pretty much everyone agrees that cameras altered the course of the Simpson trial, if not the outcome. And without a doubt, it changed the trajectory of televised trials in America.

How you feel about televised courtrooms — essentially a battle between First Amendment media transparency and Sixth Amendment courtroom justice — is ultimately how you feel about the authority of cameras. Do they shed light on injustice or create unmanageable spectacles? Is a camera an impartial bystander, or an active participant whose presence changes the room? Do the players in a courtroom drama — witnesses, defendants, plaintiffs, lawyers, judges, and jurors — act differently knowing that millions of people will be watching?

And how could they not?

Perhaps no one understands this dilemma better than the most tragic celebrity of this trial, Judge Lance Ito himself. Relentlessly (some would say deservedly) mocked during the proceedings, Ito became the subject of a hacky Leno bit, The Dancing Itos, which mystifyingly went viral (or the 1995 equivalent of viral).

The bit seemed to ridicule the theatrics of the courtroom, but a more pernicious presence lurked off-camera: Ito had become privately obsessed with how his courtroom was discussed on television. After holding court all day, he would reportedly turn on multiple televisions at night. Rattled, and maybe a bit paranoid, he essentially became his own focus group, analyzing himself through the two-way mirror of television.

Weeks after the trial, his fame lingered, as Letterman crafted a Top 10 list just for him: Top 10 Ways Judge Ito Will Unwind. The first answer: “Number 10: Going to 7-11s, threatening to turn off the surveillance cameras.”

Six episodes still remain in the series, but this episode implies the verdict. There will be no winners or losers, just better or worse opticians. And only Marcia Clark seems to know that optics are horseshit.

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Miscellaneous Historical Notes:

• The commendable soundtrack continues to be historically sound. The opening scene, with C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” from 1990 at first looked like a timeline gaffe, but then turns out to be a flashback to giddier, cocaine-fueled times for The Juice (who’s now behind bars).
• The song concluding the episode is “Black Superman,” seemingly chosen both for its lyrical content (“I feel good that the city of angels call me black superman”) and the rap act’s name (Above The Law). This track was the first single off Uncle Sam’s Curse (1994), released on Eazy-E’s label, Ruthless Records. (The group was a huge early influence on N.W.A.)
• The only slightly misplaced song is “Mama Said Knock You Out,” which was released by LL Cool J four years prior to O.J.’s plea. But to be fair, that song was ubiquitous in the ’90s. And really, do you expect a deep cut from Nirvana Unplugged to punctuate O.J.’s “Absolutely 100% not guilty” plea?”

• In July 1994, John Wayne Bobbitt, charged with battering his former fiance, would enter the same plea as Simpson: “Absolutely, positively 100% not guilty.” (Well, almost. He added a superfluous positively.)
• This has no relevance, but this factoid belongs somewhere: Nicole Brown Simpson had a Ferrari with vanity plates that read L84AD8.
• As mentioned above, I have posted the gigantic list of jury selection questions from this trial. My favorites include “How do you feel about interracial marriages?” and “Which television news shows do you enjoy watching on a regular basis?” Not guilty, your honor.
• Speaking of optics, the best selling Halloween costume in 1994 was an O.J. Simpson mask.

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Next week: Episode 5: The Race Card!

Rex Sorgatz minds his optics @fimoculous.