Leonard Doyle: America's black and white view of crime is changing

America was a different country in 1995, when the most-watched murder trial of the 20th century saw an overwhelmingly black jury find O J Simpson innocent of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.

It seemed like delayed justice when the former footballer was sentenced to a minimum of nine years' jail yesterday for his role in an armed raid on a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007, during which two dealers were robbed of sports memorabilia.

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There was none of the rancour that accompanied the murder acquittal or the civil trial, when a predominantly white jury found him liable for wrongful death.

This could be a hopeful sign that race relations are less poisonous these days. A little prematurely, some are even calling it a Barack Obama effect. There is not only a black President-elect now, but for many years capable black politicians have been elected to leadership positions across the country.

Even if many blacks still feel they are unfairly prosecuted and put upon by police, just because of their skin colour, the general sentiment that the system is unjust may be diminishing.

Two years before Simpson's acquittal, an all-white jury acquitted Los Angeles police officers in the beating of Rodney King, convincing many of the black population that the legal system was rigged. They showed their feelings with the Los Angeles race riots.

Yesterday's sentencing did not seem to stir any of the racial turmoil that so clouded Simpson's murder trial. Back then, what shocked many was the stark nature of the racial divide exposed by the trial and evident in offices and workplaces across the United States. Simpson's murder acquittal was supported by 62 per cent of blacks, while only 20 per cent of whites thought the jury had done the right thing.

The rifts were a sharp reminder of the way race cuts to the quick in the US whenever justice, politics or education are involved; however, the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Polling did not factor in differences in income, education, age, and sex among those it polled. Simpson's celebrity status and his race meant that poorly educated black women were more sympathetic to him than others and those with steady jobs and education were excused from jury duty. Lawyers were able to excuse anyone from being on the jury for any reason. So his defence team did what it could to eliminate jurors who were not black or who had even a smidgen of education.

In the end, Simpson was acquitted by six black women, two black men, two Latinos, one Native-American and only one white woman. No one on the jury had more than two years of university education.

Simpson is now headed to jail where he will find himself in the company of a disproportionate number of black prisoners: 6.8 per cent of black men are jailed compared to 1 per cent of white men. White people commit lots of crime, but somehow they are not the ones most likely to end up in prison.