Jay...Actually, due to a few substitutions, the FINAL jury...the ones that RULED were made up of 9 blacks, 1 hispanic and 2 whites.
We're getting WAY off the IPT topic here but we need a break from that crap so here goes...
The venue issue was tricky and almost a no-win proposition for the prosecution...(which I nevertheless believe was HORRIBLE).
As quoted below by asst. DA Hodgman...nearly all "long cause cases"...those that were expected to take more than 3 weeks were routinely assigned to the Downtown division regardless of where the crimes were committed since it has generally better facilities. In fact, most long-cause cases filed elsewhere were REMOVED to the Downtown division.
Given that, had they gone for Santa Monica, they would have...quite correctly...been accused of trying to "pack the jury" with whites.
They felt they had the blood evidence that would have made conviction unavoidable...and it SHOULD have been except that the prosecution BOTCHED the case so badly and so often...like the glove fiasco and putting Mark Furhman on the stand...the cop who perjured himself re: the use of the "N" word...and the ENDLESS presentation of the DNA evidence which not only hopelessly confused the jury but would have confused a panel of rocket scientists...because they would have SLEPT through most of it.
Personally, I think the verdict was "payback" for the Rodney King beatings. I am NOT taking ANY side on the racial aspects. Not gonna go there but I will say that if Simpson was white, black or BLUE and ORANGE he was guilty as sin and will rot in Hell...and that PLENTY of mostly black juries have convicted black criminals...and vice versa. In fact, most crimes committed by blacks are perpetrated by other blacks and the black jurors are, in general, NOT happy about that.
Quote from Hodgman interview
In terms of other things, there was a myth associated with the case, if you will, that somehow Gil Garcetti moved the case from the Santa Monica Judicial District or the West Judicial District downtown, and that was not the case. At the time, all long-cause cases in Los Angeles County were being tried on the very floor, in the very courthouse, here in downtown L.A. where the O.J. Simpson case was tried. Many, many cases, from Pomona to Long Beach to the Valley and elsewhere, which had a time estimate of three weeks or more all were being sent downtown, and unfortunately, it was a lot of murder cases, because the long-cause courtrooms could process those cases, try those cases faster. It was something that had been a subject of some dispute between my office and the courts.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Simpson/finaljury.html