SIMPSON TRIAL WAS FLUKE, NOT MIRROR, OF JUSTICE SYSTEM

The O.J. Simpson trial ended this week, but the O.J. Simpson sensation -- the national and even worldwide obsession with every twist and turn of the proceedings, both inside and outside the courtroom, within and without the jury's hearing range, no matter how insignificant or skewed -- will last a long time.

For months, there will be frenzy of shredding and picking apart every last detail of the events that have consumed an obscenely curious public for nearly a year and a half. Lawyers on both sides will talk about their triumphs and their miscues. Witnesses -- and would-be witnesses -- will seek the spotlight. Jurors will make up for their $5-a-day pay with books, paid interviews and movie rights. Even the defendant himself will no doubt take advantage financially of his peculiar situation: Right now, only O.J. Simpson knows for sure if he did or didn't kill his former wife and her friend.

One assessment that already has reached the forefront of the post-trial analyzing is that the jury, which deliberated for a scant four hours after a nine-month trial, sent a message. Of course, deciphering exactly what they were saying is, again, likely to go on and on and on. If there was any significant message at all, other than the fact that it only took a short time to reach a decision after a long trial, it could well be that the trial was too long and poorly guided by a judge who constantly appeared to be wallowing in a legal quagmire.

One troublesome fallout of the circus-like trial is that the O.J. Simpson case somehow is representative of the American justice system. There may be some basis for a restrained argument that the police investigation, the forensic analysis, the prosecutors' game plan, the defense strategy and Judge Lance Ito's joking comments and furious outbursts are a slice of Los Angeles-style justice in high-profile cases. After all, the Simpson case is just one of several peculiar displays of the legal system at work in that city. Consider the trials relating to the Rodney King case, or the seemingly never-ending court proceedings of the Menendez brothers, or the conviction and appeal of the so-called Hollywood madam.

To hold up the Simpson case as a mirror of this country's trial courts, however, is ludicrous. Cases involving politicians, professional sports figures, movie stars and even prostitutes to the stars tend to get considerable attention regardless of locale.

But the simple fact remains that the day-to-day grind of justice is best reflected in county courthouses like those in Jackson, Marble Hill or Benton. In its in these court chambers where truly representative American justice occurs. This isn't to say that mistakes aren't made and that juries made up of well-intentioned folks from small towns and farms don't err in judgment. But the truth of the justice system in this country is that it relies on human beings to do their best without any glamour, without any bright television lights, without any opportunity to write books or sell their stories to Hollywood movie producers.

What a shame it would be if, in the long months of analyzing and rehashing of the Simpson case, the American public concluded that the televised Los Angeles trial was a fair example of how justice works. What would be even more tragic is if legislators in state capitol or in the halls of Congress rushed to overhaul the judicial system based on the sound bites and quirky proceedings of the Simpson trial.

America's justice, like its democracy, isn't perfect. But it is the best system yet to be devised. Individuals who are called to be on juries generally perform a service that is essential. Lawyers who prosecute criminals and lawyers who defend the accused ordinarily participate in a system that isn't always fair but tries very hard to be. Judges who preside over the courtroom are accustomed to using what legal knowledge and rules they have at hand to make justice as swift as the Constitution suggests. Law enforcement officers who investigate crimes and apprehend suspects for the most part routinely perform their duties under rigid guidelines in an attempt to bring lawbreakers to their due.

These workaday stabs at making the justice system work offer a picture of justice that may be blurred in some instances. But overall the system works. And it doesn't usually work the way millions of Americans watched it unfold during the Simpson trial.