O.J. the legal scholar

The front page story at Yahoo:

O.J. Simpson on Friday questioned the system that allowed both him and actor Robert Blake to be found liable for murder after being acquitted in criminal court, calling it "double jeopardy."

"I still don't get how anyone can be found not guilty of a murder and then be found responsible for it in any way shape or form," Simpson said in a phone interview from his Florida home. "... If you're found not guilty, how can you be found responsible? I'd love to hear how that's not double jeopardy."

Later the article says:

Simpson said he hopes that someone eventually will go the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge the system that allows double trials.

The problem with this article is that nowhere does it say that O.J. is just a plain moron. The average American reading this might think O.J. has a point, especially that part of the population who, against all logic, thinks that O.J. is actually innocent.

However, in case O.J. is reading this, the murder victim's family and the state are two different parties,and each party is entitled to their "day in court." Criminal juries don't find a defendant "innocent," they find him "not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Even though a person isn't guilty beyond a reasonable doubt he may still be more likely guilty than not, which is the burden of proof for civil trials.

The Supreme Court has been a lot more lenient than that, treating separate state and federal crimnal prosecutions as not violating the Double Jeopardy Clause because the two governments are different sovereigns. That I don't buy at all, but it's an issues separate from the O.J. issue.

O.J. the murderer should be thankful he didn't have to spend the rest of his life in prison instead of complaining about how the legal system was "unfair" to him.