O.J. Jury, Meeting Informally, Skips Trial, Proceeds Directly To Guilty Verdict

The 12 members and six alternates of the jury selected to decide the case of former football star and alleged double murderer O.J. Simpson met today at a Starbucks near the Las Vegas strip, voted unanimously to skip the trial, and found Mr. Simpson guilty of kidnapping and armed robbery.

Mr. Simpson was sentenced to life in prison.

The jury foreman, Ronald Butts, a sprinkler salesman from Red Rock, told a hastily assembled Las Vegas jury that there was “no need” for the trial, since all of the jurors and four out of six of the alternates considered Mr. Simpson “guilty as hell.”

Mr. Butts told reporters that they had read in newspaper accounts of the defense’s planned “Naked Gun” defense, in which Mr. Simpson, it would have been argued, believed he was rehearsing for a new sequel of the police comedy series in which he appeared with Leslie Neilson.

When Neilson failed to materialize on cue, defense attorneys would have argued, Mr. Simpson, a highly trained Method actor, began improvising lines about kidnapping and guns.

The plot of the new Naked Gun film involved a sting operation in which a police officer disguised as O.J. Simpson sought to retrieve Mr. Simpson’s sports memorabilia from a gang of sports memorabilia thieves.

“Bad acting is no crime,” defense attorneys would have told the jury.

“We weren’t buying it,” Mr. Butts said. “This is O.J., for Pete’s sake. He’s a real bad guy, not a movie actor. Most of us liked him better in the Hertz ads, when he flew through airports. But if he could fly, then why did he need to be at airports anyway? That was our first misgiving about him.”

Having skipped the trial, the jurors voted unanimously for a life sentence based on the concept that Mr. Simpson was “guilty of something,” ordered another round of lattes, thanked themselves for their service to the court, and returned to their regular jobs.

Before departing, Mr. Butts defended the jury's lack of diversity, specifically the absence of any African Americans despite their presence in the jury pool, on the grounds that "Hey, this is Vegas."