Poll: black opinions shift on Simpson

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- A poll indicates that the majority of African-Americans no longer believe O.J. Simpson to be innocent of his ex-wife's murder.

Polls taken at the time of the 1995 trial suggested that 71 percent of blacks believed Simpson not to be guilty of the killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. But a recent Washington Post poll found that only 40 percent of black respondents still believe in Simpson's innocence, the Post reported Thursday.

The telephone poll of 1,062 U.S. adults was conducted over five days, ending Sunday. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points and minus eight points for the African-American sample.

"Blacks in the survey are probably saying, 'We're sort of fed up with this guy,'" said Earl Smith, a Wake Forest University professor who wrote "Race, Sport and the American Dream." "If you look at his actions since the murder, they've all been bad decisions, just constant."

Other experts and academics agreed.

"There's just been a lot of things that have happened, that robbery arrest and the tape on TV shows the rage he's capable of," said Carl E. Enomoto, a New Mexico State University professor and author of a book on public attitudes toward Simpson.