Victims’ Families in Simpson Case

Re Bill Boyarsky’s column, “Victims’ Families Should Be Heard,” Dec. 1:

Hear! Hear! Mr. Boyarsky, for putting into words what so many of us out here believe to be an outrage regarding the defense of O.J. Simpson.

What is puzzling to me, and to everyone I have talked to about this case, is why this very costly (to the taxpayers) charade is being allowed to unfold. Our tax dollars should go to educating our children, feeding our elderly, keeping our streets clean and safe--just about anything but this! Robert Shapiro and Johnnie Cochran are living examples of megalomaniacs, and it amazes me that they are allowed to treat the families of the victims and potential jurors as though they were the criminals. I have never seen a more brazen attempt to “stack the deck” in terms of jury selection.

Be a man, O.J.--take your chances for a fair trial like everybody else, save your money for your four children and ailing mother, and send those high-priced roosters packing! Aside from looking very guilty to the public at large--even sadder--you look like a puppet and a fool.

ELAYNE SHAFFER

Palos Verdes

* The Simpson defense team, aided in part by Judge Lance Ito’s somewhat misplaced awe at the media attention to the case, has managed to promote the idea that anyone who thinks O.J. Simpson might be guilty is somehow compromising his right to a fair trial. This is nonsense.

Under our system of law, the presumption of innocence is just that, a presumption--a postulation, a hypothesis--which jurors are bound to make when considering evidence in a trial. It is possible to presume Simpson innocent even if common sense tells us he is guilty, just as it is possible for a scientist to fairly test a hypothesis he may suspect or believe to be false.

Our system of law, in its abstract majesty, recognizes its own limitations. It never presumes to judge whether or not a defendant is absolutely guilty or innocent, in the eyes of God, for example, beyond all doubt. It only presumes to say that 12 reasonable people, presented with all the reasonably admissible evidence, have or have not been convinced of a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

LLOYD FONVIELLE

West Hollywood