In 1995, OJ Simpson was being charged with first degree murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
OJ was an excellent football player. He received a Junior College scholarship and later enrolled at USC. He was named All-American twice and was awarded the Heisman trophy. OJ set multiple records in the NFL and is still remembered as one of the most amazing running backs in football history.
OJ was strong in the face of adversity. He overcame the racial barriers that had been put in place by past societies. He was respected and loved by so many people. However, in Nicole’s diary, she described how OJ became violent and had issues with anger.
If OJ was loved by so many, what pushed him to be so aggressive with Nicole? Neurobiologists believe that OJ has chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is a degenerative brain disease that is linked to suffering repeated head trauma. Throughout his career as a football player, the head trauma he could have suffered can be closely linked to CTE being present in OJ’s brain. Symptoms of CTE include behavioral and mood problems, as well as, problems with thought processing. Many people speculate that OJ was not in the right state of mind due to CTE, however, CTE is only diagnosable once the individual is dead.
What do you all think? Do you think OJ is suffering from CTE? If other defendants are being tried for crimes of this severity, do you think the jury should take into consideration diseases such as CTE that may be present?
I think that since this disease is undetectable until death, it would be irresponsible to give leniency based off of something that is not provable. Also, as Mr. Stewart has already explained in class that the insanity plea rarely even works when it is provable that someone does have some sort of mental illness. So even though it is a possibility that he suffers from it, based off of the current legal system, I find it doubtful that it would make any effect on the final decision. Not that I agree with the current system, but there needs to major change in order for something like OJs possible illness to even be a consideration for leniency.
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