Last month I started posting haiku I wrote during the 1994-95 Simpson criminal court case, intending them as a 20-year reprise of some of the daily events of that phenomenon that held so much of the public in its thrall for well over a year. A couple of postings into that process, I realized I was a month ahead of the actual 20-year anniversaries. So I stopped, intending to resume this month so the poems would be 20 years to the day from when I wrote them. This morning, I decided to start over — I had posted just a few. So here goes:
By the time the O.J. Simpson case got to the Los Angeles Superior Court after some municipal court appearances and preliminary hearing, it had become clear the the trial was going to be a media-obsessed affair. So for whatever reason, I began to write haiku reflecting an aspect of the proceedings or something that happened behind the scenes. The first was on July 22 when Simpson was asked how he pled to the charges that had been filed against him.
This is that first haiku.
The defendant pleads,
Declaring he’s not guilty.
“100 percent.”
(Explainer: When asked at his arraignment how he pleads, O. J. Simpson says “100% not guilty.”)
July 23 and 24 were weekend days in 1994, so the next haiku I wrote was on July 25. I’ll post that on on Friday of this week.
Anatomy of a Trial blog 