Oh Lord, please let O. J. Simpson be found—swiftly—innocent. Thus I prayed, in vain, back in June. Not because I have any love for O. J. Simpson. My second choice, I am ashamed to admit, would have been for the implicit promise of suicide in his lugubrious note to have been fulfilled. But there was no way to stop the media parade that formed up behind the famous Ford Bronco and that would continue for months through what Robert Shapiro, one of Simpson’s battery of lawyers, has called the most intensively covered trial “in the history of the world.” Just having to watch this great bubble of speculation, theory, and interpretation already forming above the case was a cup which I would have had pass from me. Alas, it was not to be.

By August, the acting Secretary of State for the State of California asked the judge in the case to suspend the trial on November 7th and 8th so that people could vote. Governor “Pete” Wilson and his Democratic opponent in that election, Kathleen Brown, were both holding election news conferences down at the court house. That was where all the reporters were, and going to them was the only way they could get a decent turnout. One member of Miss Brown’s staff was delegated to follow the case so that she could avoid conflicts with O. J.-mania. At least four bills, to do with checkbook journalism, spousal abuse, domestic violence, and DNAtesting, were introduced