O.J.’s parole: What we know now that The Juice is loose
Yesterday afternoon, O.J. Simpson was granted parole by a board of Nevada commissioners, for an attempted armed robbery in 2007. Rumors are swirling about what he could do next.
After a mere half-hour parole hearing that was streaming literally everywhere on Thursday, O.J. Simpson wept tears of joy and gratitude as one by one, the four commissioners granted him parole. This seems to be one of the final chapters in a 20-year saga that has received a lot of attention in the past year. What we know now is that he could be out as early as October 1, and that he will probably apply to be transferred back to Florida, where he was maintaining residence before his last arrest.
2017 has been the Year of The Juice in a way—it’s the twentieth anniversary of the not guilty verdict he received after being charged with the murders of his late wife Nicole Brown-Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. It was “the trial of the century” according to many and symbolized a long-standing racial tension in America, punctuated by a string of violent incidents in Los Angeles. This trial also gave way to a different, more sensationalized treatment of the judicial system in the media, and in a lot of ways celebrity blurred the legal lines of this case.
These were all themes that were heavily explored in two separate miniseries about the trial, O.J.: Made In America and American Crime Story: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson. The former is a documentary series included in ESPN’s 30 For 30 collection, the latter a dramatic re-telling from the same production team as American Horror Story and Feud. At this point, many people have seen both and have drawn their own conclusions about O.J.’s innocence or guilt (I’ve also read Outrage: The 5 Reasons Why O.J. Got Away With Murder by Vincent Bugliosi so I feel like I know everything there is to know about this trial). Between the two (or three) of these examinations, the O.J. Simpson trial has achieved a level of almost Shakespearean drama, becoming a story in which everyone knows the characters, who’s good, who’s bad, and who wins and loses.
Surely, in the wake of all of this renewed media attention, Simpson will capitalize, right? With a net worth of about a quarter of a million dollars, one would think he’d be quick to leap back into the spotlight. There is already news of producers circling Simpson to sign him to a reality show deal, perhaps to rival that of his old friends the Kardashians. Simpson also has access to social media now in a way he never did before—even though smartphones existed in 2007, social media use was nothing like it is now. The Supreme Court also recently ruled in favor of ex-convicts having more access to social media, as per their First Amendment rights. So this development might make The Juice visible in ways we never anticipated.
On the flip side, legal experts don’t know how the public is going to receive Simpson in the wake of his release, according to ABC News. In spite of his relentlessly charming demeanor (which is totally helped by his AARP status now), do people actually like him anymore, knowing everything we know about him? Maybe that’s besides the point, because being the butt of an ongoing joke (see multiple Juice memes circulating on the web) can be just as lucrative as being a “babyface” in celebrity culture. Also, there’s the fact that any work he does while on parole means he’s going to have to turn a lot of his money back over to the state. So it might actually be in his best interests to lay low for a while. However that doesn’t mean he has to stay off Twitter. Could O.J.’s Twitter-fingers rival those of Trump?
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One thing’s for sure, we haven’t seen the last of The Juice. For better or for worse, he will continue to assert himself in the public eye and there’s nothing we can do about it. Except, of course, make another miniseries.