After reading Parkland I immediately sought out Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter and his other works of non-fiction. Unfortunately, Outrage was not as fantastic as his previous two works. The singular reason for this was Bugliosi’s overwhelming lack of interest in writing this book.
From the Introduction:
They played a game during the trial, and I had minimal interest in the game.
Because I am a write of true-crime books, during the past year many people suggested to me that I write a book on the case. My invariable response, without giving a second of reflection, was no
But my editor, like the media, was persistent, and he called back a week later to suggest I write not an all-encompassing book on the case, but a book with a narrow focus- why did the prosecution lose this case?
So basically Bugliosi was pressured into writing a book he had minimal interest in writing in the first place because he was bullied by an editor who essentially told him if he didn’t write it someone else would. Not really a recipe for success.
Bugliosi broke his book up into 5 main parts (plus an epilogue which was probably the longest section of the whole book):
-What the jurors already knew going into jury selection
-The transfer of the case to Downtown L.A. (vs. Santa Monica where more white jurors would have been available)
-“The Race Card”
-The incompetence of the Prosecution
-Expanding on the incompetence of the Prosecution through their weak final summation.
Bugliosi also mentions a lot of the bad calls Judge Ito made. Essentially Simpson didn’t win his case because he hired a “dream team” of lawyers but because he went up against a weak prosecution and a judge who made calls that didn’t always have judicial justifications.
I imagine there are better books on the trial of OJ Simpson, and perhaps being rushed to publication (less than a year from the not guilty verdict) didn’t help matters, and I know there are better Vincent Bugliosi books out there.
