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Defending If I Did ItSue me, but I'd like to read O.J.'s confession.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006, at 1:10 PM ET
If I Did It.

Let me see if I've got this straight.

O.J. Simpson, 11 years after he's acquitted for a double murder that we all know he committed, writes a book that, according to its editor, constitutes a confession to the crime. Its publication, she says, will not enrich Simpson personally. "I contracted through a third party who owns the rights," she writes in a prepared statement, "and I was told the money would go to his children." Even if the deal contains some loophole that allows Simpson to take the reported $3.5 million, Simpson won't be able to keep it, because of an outstanding debt he owes the family of Ronald Goldman—the man Simpson killed along with his estranged wife Nicole—who won a $33.5 million civil judgment against Simpson. News Corp., the parent company of the publishing house that was preparing to distribute Simpson's purported confession, reportedly offered the Goldman family and the family of Nicole Brown Simpson additional "millions" in profits from the book's publication and the planned airing (through its Fox subsidiary) of an interview with Simpson.

Isn't this the point at which we should all shout, "Hallelujah"? Instead, of course, rising public outrage at what is labeled a commercial stunt prompts News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch, who surely knew about all the various machinations in advance, and has never before shown himself to be burdened with a conscience, to cancel publication, pledge to pulp the books, and pull the plug on the TV interview. Barbara Walters, hardly the queen of good taste, took a pass on an interview, also. Not even the bottom-feeding Phoenix Books, which published Jayson Blair's memoirs, will admit any desire to step into the breach. Various commentators state with much sorrow that the book and maybe even the interview video will doubtless turn up on the Internet, which has no standards and no shame.

At the risk of proving this last point, let me state that those bootleg items can't turn up on the Internet fast enough to suit me. Yes, it's possible that this whole thing is a fraud—that Simpson's hypothetical confession is no such thing, but rather a tease or an evasion. I tend to doubt that, though, if only because the impulse even to tease would go a long way toward constituting a confession. (What innocent man would ever desire to participate in such an exercise? And incidentally, if the book turns out to be a 100 percent total fraud concocted by Simpson and Judith Regan, that's worth finding out, too.) Yes, it's true that if Simpson wanted to confess to the crime at this late date, it would be better if he did so directly to a law enforcement officer or a prosecutor. But that wouldn't spare us an ensuing media circus. Simpson's confession, assuming it is a confession, is news. It may also create an occasion for Simpson to be punished in some way for his awful crime.

Let's be clear. I despise O.J. Simpson as much as the next guy. But I despise him for killing the mother of his children and a perfect stranger in a pathologically jealous rage. I don't despise him for confessing to his crime, if that's what he did, or edging close to doing so. And I do not wish to avert my eyes from whatever it is he has to say for himself at this late date. To understand all is to forgive all, the old saying goes. But I don't want to understand. I just want to know what this son of a bitch has to say for himself. If anyone out there has a copy of this deplorable book, please consider sending it my way.

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Accepting the premise that criminals shouldn't be allowed to publish and profit from their bad acts, OJ offers a procedural and logical dilemma. Whatever Goldman and Brown might have said, and whatever most people believe, and regardless of what the civil jury concluded, there is a fraction of people who believe OJ didn't do it. Plus, there is a criminal jury which found him innocent.

Since the criminal jury acquitted OJ, and the civil and criminal juries disagreed, and there is at least some public division over guilt (Dave Chappelle couldn't have done a certain sketch involving R. Kelly and OJ otherwise), any final conclusion that "OJ did it" assumes a state of facts arguably still in debate until one has read the book.

In other words, the crowd led by family members who at best have second-hand knowledge, have reified their factual POV and then used it to enforce moral rules about profiting from criminality, quite ironic when the criminal jury itself acquitted OJ. They assume what the facts are and what the book says and logically bootstrap to a conclusion.

Thing being, I don't think the book would have been published if the publisher didn't think there was debate and/or interest in whether he actually did it. And if there was debate still about whether he did it, the reflexive application of moral ideas that those "who did it" shouldn't profit has placed the factual and logical cart before the horse. You've assumed away the very issue that the book was possibly to resolve, and assumed away a factual debate we've had for more than a decade.

--ViciousLhasaApsoTres

(To reply, click here.)

As one of the few Americans who did not watch or follow the circus that was the Simpson trial (at least when it could be avoided) I have no bias one way or the other regarding Simpson.

There must be care taken when setting prescedents regarding accused Americans who have been acquitted. If a man is accused of a crime and then acquitted in a court of law, then that man is to have all lawful rights restored to him. Those rights include writing books and doing interviews.

Once we decide that accusations are enough to deny Americans access to the press and the publishers of a free nation then that nation is no longer free.

Yes there was a lot of damning information and evidence that poined to Simpsons guilt, from what I saw, my opinion was that he should probably have been found guilty. But the opinion of juries and judges is the weight of law in the USA. Those who rejoice at the silencing of a man found innocent should stay their celebration as a prescedent has been set to silence others found innocent, and that could some day be myself or you yourselves.

--NickD

(To reply, click here.)

Like Noah, I certainly will be interested to know what the book says once it's out there (as it certainly will be eventually), but that's not the same as concluding that the book is a good thing. After all, we all stare at car wrecks when we pass them on the road, too.

The problem with this book and interview is that it's apparent that O.J. isn't actually confessing. Some people might be happy that he's taken a step from claiming he's seeking out the "real killer" on the nation's golf courses, but the truth is that he's merely continuing a decade-long pattern of evading responsibility. The absolute best we could hope for is that the spectacle of O.J. explaining what he "could" have done while denying that he actually did it would be ugly. More likely, though, it would be pathetic and disgusting, a reminder that this man has no moral center at all. In the end, it would be all about O.J., his desire for attention, and his delusion that his image can be rehabilitated in some way. Since all of that's already established, there's no benefit to finding out about it again.

Besides, we know what happened - he went to his ex-wife's house, saw her there with a random stranger, and hacked them both to death. His non-admission admission won't change that one little bit.

--randy-khan

(To reply, click here.)

Even though you may wish to read this book and watch this interview with O.J. to satisfy your curiosity, there are some things that are so heinous that you must give up your desire to know the truth. This is one of them. What purpose would be served by us knowing the truth? None. Will O.J. be dragged off to prison? No. All it will do is hurt even more those who have already been hurt almost beyond endurance. They have made it quite clear that the civil suit wasn't about money, but more about having someone admit that they knew O.J. did it. Money doesn't justify everything. Does Nicole and Ron's family and O.J.'s own children need to hear the gory details of how their loved ones died? No, I don't think so. The continuing brouhaha about this is bad enough, but let's not make it worse. I'm sure your curiosity will be assuaged, but just remember, it's not all about you.

--AmarrahLaza

(To reply, click here.)

(9/27)