Ex-Cons Look at the Trial and See a Different Case

After listening to lawyers and other so-called experts pontificate on O.J. Simpson, the police and the courts, I decided it might be interesting to consult some people with a different perspective--those who know the criminal justice system from the inside.

So I spent several hours two Saturdays ago talking to 11 men, all of them former convicts who have done long, hard time in the Los Angeles County Jail and state prison.

The session was arranged by the Rev. Phillip Miles, pastor of the Lively Hope Evangelistic Ministry, and his wife, Patricia Logan-Miles, who is executive director of a halfway house for ex-cons known as Creative Neighbors Always Sharing. They also operate a nearby facility for 26 women who are recovering addicts.

The pastor had suggested that I’d find it enlightening to talk to the men in his program, who are all African American. I’d not only find out how they felt about the Simpson case, he said, but would learn their take on the criminal justice system. This, in turn, would help me understand some of the feelings about Simpson in the African American community.

*

The halfway house is located in what was once a two-story apartment on Broadway, a few blocks north of Manchester Avenue. It’s a neighborhood of small businesses, vacant stores, churches and empty lots.

Late on this Saturday morning, Broadway was beginning to fill up with African American and Latino families, shopping, strolling, chatting with friends.

The Creative Neighbors Always Sharing house struggles against a perennial shortage of funds, but everyone pitches in and the place, while spare, is well-maintained and pleasant. I found the residents waiting for me in the community room. Some, the reverend had already told me, had served time for crimes such as armed robbery, house burglary and shooting a police officer.

The ages of the men appeared to range from the mid-20s to the late 30s. If they were in a crowd, I wouldn’t have been able to pick them out as ex-cons.

At first, they were hesitant to talk, some declining even to give their first names. But they soon opened up. We joked about what would happen to me if I ended up in jail. They didn’t think I’d do very well. The discussion was, as the Rev. Miles had promised, a real education.

Every man who voiced an opinion believed Simpson was innocent. As one put it, “You know when a killer is a killer. . . . There are two different kinds of people that kill. You’ve got one kind that kills out of rage. The other person kills because he’s a plain killer. O.J. had a good life, all his life. He never grew up in no bad environment. He ain’t never been to jail. He ain’t no killer. He ain’t got no type of nerve or courage to cut somebody up like that. . . . He’s got millions of dollars. He could pay somebody to kill somebody.”

What about jealous rage as a motive?

“He could get any woman he wants,” one man said. “It’s just like Johnnie Cochran said the other day, it’s that Faye Resnick,” another man said. “Somebody involved in the Colombian mafia was planning to get her.”

It didn’t surprise me that the parolees, to a man, were hostile to the Police Department and the rest of the criminal justice system.

“Back in ‘84, (the police) came at me, they rushed me,” one man said. “I had one robbery. There was no witness (but) they had a witness. They rushed the jury in. I told the judge we’re not ready to pick the jury. I had a lawyer, a public defender.” In the trial, the man was found guilty, sentenced to 12 years and was out in eight.

“The police do as much wrong as we’re supposed to do,” another man told me. A third one said, “It’s easy for us to believe (Detective) Mark Fuhrman planted evidence against O.J. Simpson. We see them do that all the time.”

From that point of view, the O.J. Simpson trial isn’t a circus at all, but a welcome attack on the system.

“I feel good that O.J. is a black man who is up there and able to actually defend himself,” one of the parolees said. “I feel good he will get justice. Everyone is focused on this. He has the people behind him and the case isn’t strong.”

Still, the admiration was mixed with deep cynicism, even toward Simpson’s lawyers. “The whole thing is they want to take O.J.’s money from him,” one said. “That’s what the criminal justice system is about--money. If he has more to spend than they’re going to take, then he gets out. If he can’t spend enough . . . they’ll put him in jail.”

*

Pastor Miles sat in on the meeting, and afterward, I talked to him about it. I said that I thought what the ex-cons said was interesting, but that they were a specialized group. Did their words, I wondered, have any relevance to law-abiding African Americans?

“They still understand the horror stories of the African American men who have been unfairly treated by the judicial system,” he said. “The African American community is very small and close-knit, and talk to each other constantly. Everyone knows somebody who has been arrested, who has not received a just trial or who has been framed.

“The law-abiding African Americans, as well as those breaking the law, are all fearful of the Police Department and the judicial system, even if they are pulled over for a traffic ticket. They don’t feel they have been fairly or justly treated, and that is the experience of the African American community.”

He concluded by discussing a program that is popular in the African American community, community policing, where residents form councils to work with the Los Angeles Police Department.

“The only way we can get fair treatment is to have community block clubs (working with the police).

“We have never been able to express to the Los Angeles Police Department our horror stories, or why we are unfairly treated.”