LAS VEGAS — As testimony in O.J. Simpson's trial on robbery charges gets underway this week, one thing is already abundantly clear: When the former football star enters a courtroom, so does a debate about race.
In jury selection last week, defense attorneys repeatedly tried to dismiss the mostly white jury pool and accused prosecutors of systematically excluding blacks. The allegation prompted Clark County Dist. Atty. David Roger to insist that his choice of jurors had "nothing to do with race."
The 12-member panel chosen Thursday includes no African Americans, though one black man and one black woman will serve as alternates.
What effect, if any, the absence of African Americans on the jury will have remains to be seen. The charges Simpson faces have no obvious racial overtones. Few prospective panelists, black or white, mentioned the issue during intense questioning about Simpson. But some experts say race is sure to play some role in the jury room.
"If it's just a simple robbery case, then it really doesn't matter if the jury is all white," said Osvaldo Fumo, a Las Vegas criminal defense attorney who has been monitoring the case. "But the problem is it's O.J. Simpson. And then it does matter."
Legal observers said it was hard for people to look at Simpson without remembering his past legal troubles, which polarized black and white America.
Simpson's 1995 trial over the slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman was televised and watched by millions -- leaving enduring, racially tinged images, including that of a handcuffed Simpson and of Los Angeles Police Department Det. Mark Fuhrman getting caught using racial slurs. The defense turned on allegations of discrimination by law enforcement and possible evidence-tampering, and a predominantly black jury acquitted Simpson.
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Do jurors want 'payback'?
A mostly white jury, however, found him civilly liable for the deaths in 1997. Polls since have consistently shown the public divided as to the former football great's role in the stabbings -- with blacks more likely than whites to champion Simpson's innocence.
In Las Vegas, "the defense might be worried that white jurors want payback," said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor. "That's because of how the world divided up after the '95 verdict. . . . I was at the courthouse and remember blacks on one side cheering and whites on the other side stunned."
