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NEWS/ The Charlotte Post
Thursday, February 6, 1997
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O.J. trial divides along racial lines
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Continued from page 1A
come back with a fair verdict. I
think an all-white jury couldn’t
be fair.”
At the courthouse in Santa
Monica, a large, mostly white
crowd cheered wildly for the
family of Ronald Goldman and
taunted the departing Simpson
with shouts of “killer! killer!”
The crowd’s elation paralleled
the widely televised nationwide
reactions among many groups of
blacks to the criminal trial ver
dicts.
Yvonne Adler of West Los
Angeles broke down in tears of
joy and huddled in a circle with
her friends, crying and hugging
them as she repeated, again and
again, “12-0,12-0.”
“This is personal,” Adler said.
“This shows me that a man who
does something like this has
been exposed and found guilly.”
At the Boulevard Cafe in the
Crenshaw district, the mostly
African American clientele
expressed dismay but little sur
prise.
The cafe’s owner, 63-year-old
Frank Holoman, stressed that
the new verdicts were wrong
and attributed the decision to
racial motives.
“He was judged innocent in
his criminal trial. They had to
find a way to get him, and this
is how they got him,” he said.
“He’ll be a target as long as he
lives.
“Here in America, black people
have Mways had to accept the
verdict of white jurors - even
when people were totally inno
cent and sent to jail,” he said.
“So we should have accepted the
verdict of the first jury. But
white America was not ready to
accept this.”
The racial divisions in the case
were blurred to some extent by
Simpson’s wealth and celebrity.
In the mostly black Potrero
Hill section of San Francisco,
where Simpson grew up in a
housing project, a number of
residents gathered at a recre
ation center to await the ver
dicts while 25-year-old cabinet
maker Jose Torres played bas
ketball with fiiends.
“They had a lot of evidence
against him. I knew he did it in
the first place,” Torres said.
“If you’ve got money, you can
do anything in the world...His
fame saved him from going to
prison.”
Some in the recreation center
said they were tired of the case—
and tired of reporters who only
visit their community to ask
about Simpson.
“I like O.J. But if he messed
up, he messed up,” said Kerry
Dolford. “I feel like this: The
good Lord takes care of all of it.
If O.J. did it, it’s gonna eat him
up inside.”
Even so, in many black neigh
borhoods the bitterness ran
deep.
“The justice system just pock
eted O.J.,” said one man at a
Crenshaw beauty shop. “White
America, shame on you. Black
power!
“There are some deep wounds
that were created by both of
these trials... a line in the sand
that still divides us,” John Mack
of the Los Angeles Urban
League told television inter
viewers. “I don’t think this deci
sion is necessarily going to
widen the woimds, [but] it didn’t
heal anything...”
Two jurors from the criminal
tria - one black, one white, but
both of whom had voted for
acquittal 16 months ago - split
on Tuesdays verdicts.
“I love it. I couldn’t be happi
er,” said Anise Aschenbach, a
62-year-old white woman who
said she thought Simpson was
guilty but felt compelled by juiy
instructions to acquit him. “It
conflicts with our verdicts, but it
sure doesn’t conflict with the
way I felt inside about whether
he did the crime.
“I always had that feeling that
he did it,” she said. “In the crim
inal trial it had to be proven
beyond a reasonable doubt.
That is the difference between
then and now. They (civil jurors)
only needed 51 percent, plus
they had some additional evi
dence that I thought was impor
tant too.
“It has nagged me that (Fred
Goldman) felt that he hasn’t
had 12 people say that O.J.
killed his son. This will mean
some closure."
But her fellow juror, Yolanda
Crawford, who is black, said she
was shocked that the civil juiy
even reached a verdict, let alone
a unanimous one. “I thought
theyd definitely end in a mistri
al or a hung jury,” she said.
“I still feel good about my deci
sion. I still believe there was
reasonable doubt,” she said.
Crawford stressed that she did
not believe either jury was
swayed by racial prejudice.
“Race was not a part of our ver
dict. I don’t think race was a
part of this verdict,” she said.
The racial split was dramati
cally underscored by a citywide
Los Angeles Times poll conduct
ed after the jury began deliber
ating. Overall, the poll found
that 55% of the respondents
believe Simpson killed his for
mer wife, Nicole Brown
Simpson, and Goldman, while
22 percent believed he did not
kill them, and 23 percent were
undecided. However, the results
differed sharply according to
race: 71 percent of whites said
they thought Simpson commit
ted the murders, while 70 per
cent of blacks said they thought
he was innocent.
Some who gathered to cheer
outside the courthouse saw
more than racial overtones to
the case; they also recognized it
as an unofficial referendum on
domestic violence and the
women’s movement.
“I am so ecstatic,” said
Cardanne Sudderth, a 44-year-
old arborist from Santa Monica.
“I feel like women’s rights every
where have been vindicated. In
a lot of ways, Nicole represented
aUofus."
Still, there were dissenters -
mainly a smaller number of
blacks in the crowd.
“The best thing of all, O.J. is
still free,” said MoUy Bell, 50, of
Compton, finding some consola
tion in the results while she
waved a large sign that read:
“OJ is Not Guilty.”
As Simpson climbed down the
stairs into a big black Chevy
Suburban waiting outside the
courthouse, more than a thou
sand people watched his exit,
and the crowd broke into chants
of “guilty guilty guilty.” Others
yelled “murderer” arid “loser.”
Placards read: “OJ, what next?
Golf?” and “Out of jail but you’ll
never be free.”
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Youth conference set for Feb. 22
Emphasis will be on discussing
concerns from their point of view
By Herbert L. White
THE CHARLOTTE POST
Young people will try their
hand at addressing society’s
problems Feb. 22.
The Community Youth
Conference will he held at
Grady Cole Center. The confer
ence, which is open to the pub
lic, starts at 10 a.m. It’s the first
event of its kind in Charlotte
where young people will control
the agenda. Adults are welcome,
however.
“This is set up where youth
will talk about their concerns in
our communities,” said Linda
Hinton Butler, who helped orga
nize the conference.
The conference was organized
in response to the recent surge
in racial animosity in Charlotte
in the wake of the fatal police
shooting of an unarmed black
motorist. Butler said adults
have dominated the discussion
about community needs, but few
results have been realized.
Topics that will be discussed
include violence, gangs, educa
tion and AIDS.
“I saw so many groups wanti
ng to picket and march after the
(James Willie) Cooper shooting,”
she said. “Obviously, the adults
have been talking for years and
years and the world has gotten
worse. It’s time we listened to
someone else.”
Butler, a former Charlotte-
Mecklenburg PTA president,
said giving young people a
chance to talk about their con
cerns may be the catalyst to
help find solutions and build
coalitions with adults who share
those concerns.
“Any time there’s a negative, I
see where we should want to
make a positive out of it,” Butler
said. “This is a way for us to do
that.”
Lunch will be provided during
the day, and a social will be held
from 3-5 p.m. for youth. A
debriefing for adults will be held
during the social. Registration
for the conference is Jan. 15. For
more information, call Butler at
598-3988.
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'REAL LOANS FROM REAL PEOPLE'
Ji Jaga tries for a new trial
Continued from page 1A
In the photographs, Ji Jaga
was the only person shown
wearing a jacket similar to the
one Olsen described, thus
adding fuel to the theory that Ji
Jaga had been set up. Ji Jaga
claims that he was in Oakland
at the time of the murder, and
that the FBI was aware of that,
because they had been tapping
his telephone and tracing his
movements, which they routine
ly did at the time to prominent
Black Panthers.
The key witness in the 1972
trial was Julius Butler, a former
Los Angeles Black Panther who
testified that Ji Jaga, who was
not a suspect at the time, had
confessed to the murder to him.
Butler also stated imder oath
that he had never informed on
anyone. However, documents
released in 1979 showed that
Butler had, in fact, met with the
FBI 33 times prior to the trial,
to give them information about
the Panthers. Later, it was
revealed that he was also an
informant for the Los Angeles
Police Department.
During the recent hearing, Ji
Jaga’s legal team based its
strategy on showing that during
the original trial, the prosecu
tors knew that Butler was an
informant, but purposely with
held that information. Three
jurists from the original trial
now state that, had they known
about Butler’s role, they would
not have voted for conviction.
In 1996, for the first time,
Butler was named as being an
informant for the
Los Angeles District
Attorney’s office as
well - the same
agency that had
prosecuted Ji Jaga
in 1972.
Investigators found
Butler’s name on a
list of confidential
informants for the
office, and records
showed that Butler
had admitted to
being a paid infor
mant for the
agency, prior to the
1972 trii.
• Ji Jaga is
known to
act as a
peacemaker
for many
inmate
factions
in solitary confinement, he
remains unbroken, and shows
no bitterness for his fate.
Known simply as
“G,” he is highly
respected by the
other inmates.
Rather than taking
sides with any one
group, he is known
to act as a peace
maker for the many
factions.
Stuart Hanlon, a
San Francisco attor
ney who is on Jaga’s
legal team, said in a
telephone inter
view: “Julius Butler
is one of the best
Butler, 64, is now an attorney
and board chairman of First
AME Church in Los Angeles,
the city’s most prominent black
church. During the hearing, he
continued to deny being an
informant, saying that his brief
ings vrith law enforcement were
merely “conversations.”
Richard P. Kalustian, the-chief
prosecutor at the 1972 trial and
now a Los Angeles County
Superior Court judge, admitted
that in 1973 he helped reduce
four felony charges against
Butler to misdemeanors so that
Butler could attend law school.
Ji Jaga’s case continues to
attract international attention,
and he gets many regular visi
tors in prison. Despite spending
his first eight years behind bars
liars I’ve ever seen in court. I
think nothing he says will the
judge believe.”
Hanlon concluded: “I think the
hearing went very well. I think
we were able to prove convinc
ingly that Julius Butler was an
informant for the Los Angeles
Police Department, and got no
jail time when he pled guilty to
four felonies, which was
unheard of in Los Angeles for a
Black Panther.”
Geronimo’s sister Virginia
Pratt, one of his staimchest sup
porters throughout the years,
said: “This is as far as we’ve
ever been, and things are look
ing pretty good at this critical
hearing. And at last, some of the
things that we’ve known all
these years, they’ve allowed us
to bring forward.”
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