O. J. Simpson's Trial Sumation Speech

On the evening of June 12, 1994, O.J. Simpson -- a former NFL running back – was tried on two counts of murder for murdering both his wife and her friend. His trial spanned for an extensive 9 months, but Simpson’s lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, managed to successfully raise doubts about the accusation with many of his speeches. One of them, the trial summation speech, was especially powerful in helping him reach his purpose. The language that Cochran uses in the speech lends him credibility through his self-alignment with well-renowned figures and his conciliatory gestures, but it more importantly instills doubt as well as igniting anger in the predominantly black, exasperated jury, all in order to empower the jury to acquit O.J. Simpson of the murder

Knowing that his audience is predominantly black, Cochran relates himself to Frederick Douglass, who is highly respected by the African-American community. Establishing himself as striving for “Equal rights and a common destiny” (386), a goal similar to Douglass, Cochran promotes himself to the jury to be viewed on a similar level to him. When he describes the quote in the next paragraph, Cochran makes sure to include the jury in his journey towards that goal when he states “We haven’t reached this goal yet, but… we’re trying. With a jury such as this, we hope we can do that in this particular case” (386). The use of the inclusive pronoun “we” makes his audience aware that they are also the part of the same goal as him and Frederick Douglass, which then contributes to Cochran’s credibility because he is aligning his audience with Douglass as well. This alignment, in result, leads the audience to be more willing to listen to Cochran’s argument because of their respect for Douglass and his ideals. Although he aligns himself and his audience with Douglass, Cochran also knows that his audience is mainly Christian, and therefore aligns his own words with the words of the Bible. When he says that he “[really likes] the book of Proverbs” (388) and then paraphrases the book, saying “that a false witness shall not be unpunished” (388), Cochran expresses that his argument is

He mentions Mark Fuhrman, a ruthlessly racist detective, a few times in his speech to essentially fuel the lighter to spark a flame in the jury. When he states that Mark Fuhrman is part of the group of people who “hate and are yet embraced by people in power” and then states that both him and the jury need to “fight to expose hate and genocidal racism” (388), Cochran creates a sense of hatred towards Fuhrman and hopes to damage any sense of respect that people have for him. Along with calling him a racist, Cochran also mentions that Fuhrman supports “genocidal racism”, which essentially means that Fuhrman wants to gather together and kill every single black man, woman, and child in the world. This should spark a furious outrage against Fuhrman, as it goes against every single moral right, ideal and law that America is striving for and it bites the majority of the jury on a personal level. Cochran mentions him again later in the speech saying that he is “the biggest liar in this courtroom” (388) which refers to the perjury committed by Fuhrman. This further diminishes the last crumb of trustworthiness and credibility that Fuhrman has, because now, the audience perceives him as both a racist as well as a liar. By exposing the horrible characteristics of Mark Fuhrman, his mainly black audience will feel outraged and prejudiced against him, which will then cause them to not