Simpson or Unsolved?

Two decades later, no one has been convicted in double murders

Twenty years ago Thursday, someone brutally murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman outside Simpson’s Bundy Drive condominium. Twenty years. It hardly seems that long ago. The murders were headline news across the country, around the world.

Even more so when Simpson’s former husband, football legend O.J. Simpson, emerged as the chief suspect in the crimes.

Millions of TV viewers watched just a few days after the murders as Simpson and his friend, Al Cowlings, took to the highways of Los Angeles in a white Bronco, leading police on a slow-speed chase back to the athlete’s Brentwood estate.

There was a trial. The “trial of the century,” the media called it. And there was a verdict: Not guilty.

Some saw that as justice. They say O.J. Simpson was innocent, a victim of Los Angeles Police Department racism. Others maintain he was guilty and that celebrity—and perhaps reverse racism—played a big role in his acquittal.

A few of the jurors interviewed after the trial said they thought Simpson was probably guilty, but that the prosecution hadn’t proved their case.

Simpson later lost a multimillion-dollar lawsuit to the families of the two victims. But 20 years later, no one has been convicted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

We want to know what you think. Should O.J. Simpson have been convicted? Or did the jury make the right call?

Send your response (50 words maximum) to opinion@texarkanagazette.com by Wednesday, June 18. You can also mail your response to the Texarkana Gazette Friday Poll, at P.O. Box 621, Texarkana, TX 75504. Be sure to include your name, address and phone number. We will tabulate the results and print them in next Friday’s paper. We will also print as many of the responses as space allows.

Last week’s question was about the heat President Barack Obama is taking over the deal to trade five senior Taliban detainees for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held by the Taliban since June 2009.

Did President Obama do the right thing in securing Bergdahl’s release? Or were his actions wrong? Here are the responses:

I can understand wanting to bring a soldier home. But then our liberal president and Senate wanted to shut up Bowe’s platoon members by making them sign a nondisclosure document so the public would not hear he was a defector. The platoon members could not be kept quiet when Washington was saying Bowe was a hero and served honorably. The soldiers are on Fox News telling their story. Then Obama let the most highly dangerous detainees out to create more damage to our soldiers in Afghanistan and the U.S. Not a very leadership move for our commander-in-chief.—N.P., Texarkana, Texas

A responsible nation expediently returns her troops by whatever means available. Battle fatigue, shell shock, trauma, disillusionment and more befall our troops’ psyches during combat. Are they promised they can keep their GI insurance and Army doctors? Mind, limb or life is a terrible thing to waste. America anxiously awaits Sgt. Bergdahl.—J.R., Hope, Ark.

At the end of war, enemies negotiate truces and exchanges of POWs wait until hostilities have ended. Is it not more important that even one soldier be returned than five foreign fighters to be kept in captivity? Finish Afghanistan occupation, empty Guantanamo.—K.K., Texarkana, Ark.

President Obama did not do the right thing in the trade of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees. Why five Taliban detainees for one captured soldier? It was a bad decision, and he owes the United States government and the American people an apology. Why five detainees, why not one for one? Seems as though he made an unfair trade with the Taliban terrorists, and he violated the law regarding congressional notification negotiating with terrorists without their knowledge. That sends a wrong message to other terrorists and weakens our national security. It just deplores me that he traded five terrorist detainees for one deserter. Yes, President Obama, Mr. Bergdahl is a deserter. President Obama is without backbone.—E.R., Texarkana, Texas