O.J. Simpson 'cry racism' watch

By Thomas Lifson

O. J. Simpson is in jail without bail (at least for now), and an audio tape of the "incident" (laughably called a "sting operation" by the Juice) is being broadcast courtesy of TMZ.com.

It looks like O.J. is heading for prison. One can never be certain, of course, but the likelihood of finding a sympathetic jury in Las Vegas in 2007 is pretty low and Johnny Cochran is not available for the defense.

So my question of the day is how long it will take someone to cry "racism"?

Keep in mind that if convicted there is good chance the 60 year old O.J. will get a prison term long enough to be virtually a life sentence. If this does happen, there are a lot of people who make it their business to protest heavy sentences dealt out to black males convicted of armed robbery. No doubt many white defendants convicted of similar crimes get shorter sentences than he will. And the last polling data I saw (a long time ago, admittedly) suggested that a chunk of America's Afican-American population thinks O.J. really wasn't guilty.

It is also a principle of law (as far as I understand it) that a sentence has to be based on the actual crime, not on a belief that the defendant skated earlier on a more serious crime. So there are substantive reasons available for anyone wishing to defend O.J. by arguing unfairness, should he receive the sort of sentence the public seems to want.

But who will do this, and how long will it take?