Trial, Trial Again 



By Tony Kornheiser



Sunday, October 6 1996; Page F01

The Washington Post 



They're hard at work in the O.J. Simpson civil trial, trying to seat a jury. Of course, the

problem is finding people who haven't already formed a strong opinion about O.J., such 

as:



1. He definitely did it.



2. He most certainly did it.



3. He did it, yessirree Bob. 



4. He was framed by the Trilateral Commission, working in concert with an alien strike 

force.



Good luck finding anybody who didn't follow the O.J. trial. You might as well try to find

somebody who has heard of Ross Perot's running mate, whatsizface. 



So you can imagine my shock when I read a wire service story that said two women had

been admitted to the jury pool last week who claimed to know next to nothing about O.J.

They said they hadn't watched O.J.'s murder trial at all and barely knew what the whole 

thing involved. (Where were these people? And does this place take reservations, because I'd 

like to be there to miss the next PBS Pledge Week.)



One was a woman in her thirties who told the court, "It's hard for me to remember what

happened last week." And one is a woman in her twenties who said, "I don't have any

opinion of anything." 



Now, ever since the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice David Souter -- who

was such a nebbish he didn't even cast a shadow -- it has been politically advantageous to

appear to be a blank slate. But even jaded courtroom participants were stunned by these

opinionless O.J. jury prospects.



A lawyer asked one of them, "Are you aware of Shannon Lucid?" 



Nope, never heard of her. 



And so then the lawyer said of the woman who had been circling the Earth in a coffee can

since the second Eisenhower administration: "Well, she knows more than you know about

this case."



My first reaction to reading this was that if these people are that out of touch, maybe I can

sell them my Betamax. But my second reaction was disbelief. So I phoned a reporter in 

Los Angeles who has been covering the civil case every day. She confirmed it all, and told me

there is a third woman still in the jury pool even dumber than the first two. 



This third woman, a college student -- undoubtedly majoring in penmanship -- told the 

court she first learned of the O.J. case when her parents mentioned it in conversation a week 

after the verdict. 



"O.J. is free, dear."



"Where? Safeway?"



I called my friend Mike, who used to live in L.A., and asked him how it was possible for

anyone out there to have missed the O.J. trial, and he said, "Look, there are lots of things 

to do in L.A. Getting through the Mexican restaurants alone will take you six years." 



Of course it is always possible that they are lying, and are trying to get picked for the jury 

so they can write a book about it. 



So far the list of people who have written or are writing books about O.J. includes

Christopher Darden, Gerard Uelman, Johnnie Cochran, Martha Stewart, Jeffrey Toobin,

Feodor Dostoyevsky, Faye Resnick, Binti, Marcia Clark, Vincent Bugliosi, Anonymous,

Alan Dershowitz, Kerri Strug, Roh Tae Woo, Jimmy "The Weasel" Fratianno, Bruce 

Willis, Robert Shapiro, Roberto Alomar, Shannon Lucid, Dennis Rodman, Oprah Winfrey's 

father, and O.J. himself, and I have no doubt Andrew Lloyd Webber is already working on a

musical ("Juice!"). 



So assuming these three women aren't in it for some hidden agenda, this means that for 

the last 18 months they haven't read a newspaper or a magazine other than The Camus

Quarterly, or watched TV, listened to radio, or had a conversation that lasted longer than 

30 seconds and contained words of more than one syllable.



When they meet, what do you suppose people like that say to each other? Their

conversations must sound like the idiotic dialogue in books by P.D. Eastman that I used to

read with my 5-year-olds:



"Do you like my hat?"



"No, I do not like your hat."



"Goodbye!"



"Goodbye!"



Except, come to think of it, these people probably wouldn't have an opinion on the hat.



People without opinions shouldn't sit on a jury, they should sit in a sandbox. (Maybe O.J.

could come by and take some chip shots.)



What is wrong with our legal system? Why are lawyers so desperately seeking dummies to 

sit on juries? 



Why not go all the way and start seating dogs? Or hamsters? Or how about bowls of nice

fresh fruit, tastefully arranged? 



Or maybe just cut all pretense and choose actual dummies. Juror No. 3 would be Howdy

Doody. The foreman could be Farfel. 



© Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company