OJ: Made in America - Part 4 (2016)

This installment of the series was entirely focused on the trial and the things that surrounded it.

Mark Fuhrman played a big role in this part of the documentary. He had appeared prior to this but for the first time the spotlight is turned on him. His reputation is that he is a racist. He denies this under oath, on the witness stand. Later tapes emerge from 1985 of him using racial epithets and advocating very heavy handed tactics against African-Americans. Fuhrman is interviewed for the documentary and he plays it off as stories he made up. When asked about the tapes during the trial he invokes his 5th amendment rights and refuses to answer the questions. The jury only gets to hear a couple snippets from the tapes.

The questionable methods used by the Los Angeles Police Department in gathering evidence are also spotlighted. There were cameras everywhere when the police were working and by carefully examining photographs and video of crime scene investigators the defense team was able to poke a number of large holes in the value of the evidence being used by prosecution in their case against O.J. Simpson. At first it seemed like there was a preponderance of evidence that OJ killed his ex-wife, Nicole, and Ron Goldman but the case made by the defense calls into question the validity of much of that evidence based on the fact that there was lots of potential for contamination of the evidence.

Underlying the murder case is the the larger context: the African American community vs the Los Angeles Police Department. As was made clear in the first two installments, the LAPD had a very poor track record when it came to how they treated African Americans who lived in LA. A large portion of the African American citizens felt that OJ was innocent. The subtle implication is that their support for him was not because they felt he was innocent but because he was an African American man on a big stage in their hometown who was being put through the ringer. He was emblematic for them, his case was emblematic for them. It wasn't that he did or didn't do it. It was that he was one of their community (or at least looked like he was) and facing off against the same police department that had treated them poorly for decades.

There are a number of smaller spotlights cast on people like Ron Shipp when he tried testifying for the prosecution, and Ron Goldman's father's public reactions to the defense team's tactics. The bloody gloves that were found, one at the murder scene and the other behind OJ's house, also get their own moment as Chris Darden gets goaded into asking OJ to try them on only to discover that they don't fit. The installment winds down with the closing remarks of Johnny Cochran and leaves it there for the final installment.

Once again fascinating to watch. It is much easier to watch now that it isn't everywhere on the news like it was back then. It also doesn't hurt that the dust on the case has settled.