EDITORIAL : TRIAL OF THE CENTURY II THIS TIME, A JURY RENDERS A VERDICT AGAINST O.J.

THE wait is over, finally, and there is at last a small sense of justice.

The civil jury in Santa Monica Superior Court contradicted the not-guilty verdict handed down by the jury that heard the criminal case against O.J. Simpson. The Santa Monica jury held Tuesday that Simpson was responsible for the June 12, 1994, deaths of Simpson's former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Before anyone shouts ``double jeopardy,'' remember that this was a civil case about money, not a murder trial. No criminal sanctions could be imposed.

Moreover, the standard of proof in the civil case was different. The test in the criminal case was ``beyond a reasonable doubt.'' The civil jury only had to find that the preponderance of the evidence pointed to Simpson's guilt.

The verdict in the civil case certainly will restart the debate over the influence of race. Simpson is an African-American and most of the jurors in the criminal trial were African-Americans, too. In contrast, the jury in the civil trial was made up of nine whites, one Latino, an Asian-American and a man of Asian and black heritage.

But even as we talk through these difficult issues, most Americans felt a sigh of relief that a jury found O.J. Simpson responsible for the two deaths and awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages against him.

He will not spend the rest of his life in prison. But he will live the rest of his life with the stigma that he was found liable for these deaths in a court of law.