Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson (born July 9, 1947), nicknamed "The Juice", is a retired American collegiate and professional football player, football broadcaster, actor and convicted felon.

Originally attaining a public profile in sports as a running back at the collegiate and professional levels, Simpson was the American Football League's Buffalo Bills' first overall pick in the 1969 Common Draft, and the first professional football player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season, a mark he set during the 1973 season. While five other players have passed the 2,000 rush yard mark he stands alone as the only player to ever rush for more than 2,000 yards in a 14-game season (professional football changed to a 16-game season in 1978). He also holds the record for the single season yards-per-game average which stands at 143.1 ypg. Simpson was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. He also had successful careers in acting and sports commentary.

In 1995, Simpson was acquitted of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after a lengthy, internationally publicized criminal trial – the People v. Simpson. A 1997 judgment against Simpson for their wrongful deaths was awarded in civil court, and to date he has paid little of the $33.5 million judgment. His book, If I Did It (2006), which purports to be a first-person fictional account of the murders had he actually committed them, was withdrawn by the publisher just before its release. The book was later released by the Goldman family.

In September 2007, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, and charged with numerous felonies, including armed robbery and kidnapping. In 2008, he was found guilty and sentenced to 33 years imprisonment, with a minimum of 9 years without parole. He is currently serving his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nevada.

Early life

Simpson was born in San Francisco, the son of Eunice (née Durden; October 23, 1921 – San Francisco, California, November 9, 2001), a hospital administrator, and Jimmy Lee Simpson (Arkansas, January 29, 1920 – San Francisco, California, June 9, 1986), a chef and bank custodian. Simpson's maternal grandparents were from Louisiana. His aunt gave him the name Orenthal, which supposedly was the name of a French actor she liked. Simpson has one brother, Melvin Leon "Truman" Simpson, and one living sister, Shirley Simpson-Baker, and one deceased sister, Carmelita Simpson-Durio. As a child, Simpson developed rickets and wore braces on his legs until the age of five. His parents separated in 1952.

At Galileo High School in San Francisco, Simpson played for the school football team, the Galileo Lions. From 1965 to 1966, Simpson was a student at City College of San Francisco, a member of the California Community College system. He played both offense (running back) and defense (defensive back) and was named to the Junior College All-American team as a running back.

Football

University of Southern California

Simpson gained an athletic scholarship to the University of Southern California where he played running back in 1967 and 1968. Simpson led the nation in rushing in 1967 when he ran for 1,451 yards and scored 11 touchdowns. He also led the nation in rushing the next year with 355 carries for 1,709 yards.

In 1967, he starred in the 1967 USC vs. UCLA football game and was a Heisman Trophy candidate as a junior, but he did not win the award. His 64 yard touchdown run in the 4th quarter tied the game, with the PAT the margin of victory. This was the biggest play in what is regarded as one of the greatest football games of the 20th century.

Another dramatic touchdown in the same game is the subject of the Arnold Friberg oil painting, O.J. Simpson Breaks for Daylight. Simpson also won the Walter Camp Award in 1967 and was a two-time consensus All-American. He ran in the USC sprint relay quartet that broke the world record at the NCAA track championships in Provo, Utah in June 1967.

In 1968, he rushed for 1,709 yards and 22 touchdowns, earning the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and the Walter Camp Award that year. He still holds the record for the Heisman's largest margin of victory, defeating the runner-up by 1,750 points. In the 1969 Rose Bowl where No.2 USC faced No.1 Ohio State, Simpson ran for 171 yards, including an 80-yard touchdown run in a 16–27 loss.

Professional football

Simpson was drafted by the AFL's Buffalo Bills, who got first pick in the 1969 AFL-NFL Common Draft after finishing 1–12–1 in 1968. Early in his professional football career, Simpson struggled on poor Buffalo teams, averaging only 622 yards per season for his first three.

He first rushed for more than 1,000 yards in 1972, gaining a total of 1,251. In 1973, Simpson rushed for a record 2,003 yards, becoming the first player ever to pass the 2,000-yard mark, and scored 12 touchdowns. Simpson gained more than 1,000 rushing yards for each of his next three seasons. From 1972 to 1976, Simpson averaged 1,540 rushing yards per (14 game) season, 5.1 yards per carry, and he won the NFL rushing title four times. Simpson had the best game of his career during the Thanksgiving game against the Detroit Lions on November 25, 1976, when he rushed for a then record 273 yards on 29 attempts and scoring two touchdowns.

Simpson's 1977 season in Buffalo was cut short by injury. Before the 1978 season, the Bills traded Simpson to the San Francisco 49ers for a second round draft pick, where he played two unremarkable seasons.

Simpson gained 11,236 rushing yards, placing him 2nd on the NFL's all-time rushing list; he now stands at 17th. He was named NFL Player of the Year in 1973, and played in six Pro Bowls. He was the only player in NFL history to rush for over 2,000 yards in a 14 game season and he's the only player to rush for over 200 yards in six different games in his career. Simpson was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985, his first year of eligibility.

Simpson acquired the nickname "Juice" as a play on "O. J.", an informal abbreviation for "Orange Juice". "Juice" is also a colloquial synonym for electricity or electrical power, and hence a metaphor for any powerful entity; the Bills' offensive line at Simpson's peak was nicknamed "The Electric Company".

Acting

Even before his retirement from football and in the NFL, Simpson embarked on a successful film career with parts in films such as the television mini-series Roots, and the dramatic motion pictures The Cassandra Crossing, Capricorn One, The Klansman, The Towering Inferno, and the comedic Back to the Beach and The Naked Gun trilogy. In 1979, he started his own film production company, Orenthal Productions, which dealt mostly in made-for-TV fare such as the family-oriented Goldie and the Boxer films with Melissa Michaelsen and Cocaine and Blue Eyes, the pilot for a proposed detective series on NBC. NBC was considering whether to air Frogmen, another series starring Simpson, when his arrest canceled the project.

Simpson's amiable persona and natural charisma landed him numerous endorsement deals. He was a spokesman for the Hertz rental car company. He would be depicted running through airports, as if to suggest he was back on the football field. Simpson was also a longtime spokesman for Pioneer Chicken and owned two franchises, one of which was destroyed during the 1992 Los Angeles riots; as well as HoneyBaked Ham, the pX Corporation, and Calistoga Water Company's line of Napa Naturals soft drinks. He also appeared in comic book ads for Dingo cowboy boots.

Besides his acting career, Simpson worked as a commentator for Monday Night Football and The NFL on NBC. He also appeared in the audience of Saturday Night Live during its second season and hosted an episode during its third season.

Family life

On June 24, 1967, Simpson married Marguerite L. Whitley. Together they had three children: Arnelle L. Simpson (born December 4, 1968), Jason L. Simpson (born April 21, 1970) and Aaren Lashone Simpson (born September 24, 1977). In August 1979, Aaren drowned in the family's swimming pool a month before her second birthday Simpson and Whitley were also divorced that same year.

On February 2, 1985, Simpson married Nicole Brown. They had two children, Sydney Brooke Simpson (born October 17, 1985) and Justin Ryan Simpson (born August 6, 1988), and were divorced in 1992.

Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman were murdered on June 12, 1994. Simpson was charged with their deaths and subsequently acquitted of all criminal charges in a controversial criminal trial. In the unanimous jury findings of a civil court case in February 1997, Simpson was found liable for the wrongful death of Ronald Goldman and battery of Nicole Brown.

Criminal trial for murder

In 1989, Simpson pleaded no contest to a domestic violence charge and was separated from Nicole Brown, to whom he was paying child support. On June 12, 1994 Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman were found dead outside Brown's condominium. Simpson was charged with their murders. On June 17, after failing to turn himself in, he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white Ford Bronco SUV that interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals. The pursuit, arrest, and trial were among the most widely publicized events in American history. The trial, often characterized as "the trial of the century," culminated on October 3, 1995 in a jury verdict of not guilty for the two murders. The verdict was seen live on TV by more than half of the U.S. population, making it one of the most watched events in American TV history. Immediate reaction to the verdict was notable for its division along racial lines: polls showed that most African-Americans felt that justice had been served by the "not guilty" verdict, while most white Americans did not. O. J. Simpson's defense counsel included Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, and F. Lee Bailey.

Wrongful death civil trial

On February 5, 1997 a civil jury in Santa Monica, California unanimously found Simpson liable for the wrongful death of and battery against Goldman, and battery against Brown. Daniel Petrocelli represented plaintiff Fred Goldman, Ronald Goldman's father. Simpson was ordered to pay $33,500,000 in damages. However, California law protects pensions from being used to satisfy judgments, so Simpson was able to continue much of his lifestyle based on his NFL pension. In February 1999, an auction of Simpson's Heisman Trophy and other belongings netted almost $500,000. The money went to the Goldman family.

A 2000 Rolling Stone article reported that Simpson still made a significant income by signing autographs. He subsequently moved from California to Miami. In Florida, a person's residence cannot be seized to collect a debt under most circumstances. The Goldman family also tried to collect Simpson's NFL pension of $28,000 a year but failed to collect any money.

On September 5, 2006, Goldman's father took Simpson back to court to obtain control over his "right to publicity" for purposes of satisfying the judgment in the civil court case. On January 4, 2007, a Federal judge issued a restraining order prohibiting Simpson from spending any advance he may have received on a canceled TV and book deal. The matter was dismissed before trial for lack of jurisdiction. On January 19, 2007, a California state judge issued an additional restraining order, ordering Simpson to restrict his spending to "ordinary and necessary living expenses".

On March 13, 2007, a judge prevented Simpson from receiving any further compensation from a canceled book deal and TV interview. He ordered the bundled book rights to be auctioned. In August 2007, a Florida bankruptcy court awarded the rights to the book to the Goldman family to partially satisfy an unpaid civil judgment. The book was renamed If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, with the word "If" reduced in size to make it appear that the title was "I Did It: Confessions of the Killer", and comments were added to the original manuscript by the Goldman family, author Pablo Fenjves, and prominent investigative journalist Dominick Dunne. The author was listed as the Goldman family.

Alleged confession

Mike Gilbert, a memorabilia dealer and former agent and friend of Simpson, wrote a book titled How I Helped O.J. Get Away with Murder: The Shocking Inside Story of Violence, Loyalty, Regret and Remorse. He states that Simpson had smoked marijuana, took a sleeping pill and was drinking beer when he allegedly confided at his Brentwood home weeks after his trial what happened the night of June 12, 1994. According to Gilbert, Simpson said, "If she hadn't opened that door with a knife in her hand...she'd still be alive." Gilbert claimed Simpson had confessed. However, Simpson's current lawyer, Yale Galanter, said none of Gilbert's claims are true and that Gilbert is "a delusional drug addict who needs money. He has fallen on very hard times. He is in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service".

Miscellaneous legal troubles

The State of California claims Simpson owes $1.44 million in past due taxes. A tax lien was filed in his case on September 1, 1999.

In February 2001, Simpson was arrested in Miami-Dade County, Florida for simple battery and burglary of an occupied conveyance for allegedly yanking the glasses off another motorist during a traffic dispute 3 months earlier. If convicted, Simpson faced up to 16 years in prison. He was put on trial and quickly acquitted on both charges in October 2001.

Simpson's Miami home was searched by the FBI on December 4, 2001 on suspicion of ecstasy possession and money laundering. The FBI had received a tip that O.J. Simpson was involved in a major drug trafficking ring after 10 other suspects were arrested in the case. Mr. Simpson's home was thoroughly searched for two hours, yet no illegal drugs were ever discovered. No arrest or formal charges ever stemmed from this incident. However, investigators uncovered equipment capable of broadcasting pirated satellite television signals which eventually led to Simpson being sued in federal court.

On July 4, 2002, O.J. Simpson was arrested in Miami-Dade County, Florida for speeding through a Manatee Zone and failing to comply with proper boating regulations. His attorney, Yale Galanter, was able to get the misdemeanor boating regulation charge dropped and Simpson only had to pay a fine for the speeding infraction.

In March 2004, satellite television network DirecTV, Inc. accused Simpson in a Miami federal court of using illegal electronic devices to pirate its broadcast signals. The company later won a $25,000 judgment, and Simpson was ordered to pay $33,678 in attorney's fees and costs.

Las Vegas robbery

In September 2007, a group of men led by Simpson entered a room at the Palace Station hotel-casino and took sports memorabilia at gunpoint, which resulted in Simpson being questioned by police. Simpson admitted to taking the items, which he said had been stolen from him, but denied breaking into the hotel room; he also denied that he or anyone else carried a gun. He was released after questioning.

Two days later, however, Simpson was arrested and initially held without bail. Along with three other men, Simpson was charged with multiple felony counts, including criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, assault, robbery, and using a deadly weapon. Bail was set at $125,000, with stipulations that Simpson have no contact with the co-defendants and that he surrender his passport. Simpson did not enter a plea.

By the end of October 2007, all three of Simpson's co-defendants had plea bargained with the prosecution in the Clark County, Nevada court case. Walter Alexander and Charles H. Cashmore accepted plea agreements in exchange for reduced charges and his testimony against Simpson and three other co-defendants, including testifying that guns were used in the robbery. Co-defendant Michael McClinton told a Las Vegas judge that he too would plead guilty to reduced charges and testify against Simpson that guns were used in the robbery. After the hearings, the judge ordered that Simpson be tried for the heist.

Simpson's preliminary hearing, to decide whether he would be tried for the charges, occurred on November 8, 2007. He was held over for trial on all 12 counts. Simpson pleaded not guilty on November 29. Court officers and attorneys announced on May 22, 2008, that long questionnaires with at least 115 queries would be given to a jury pool of 400 or more. Trial was reset from April to September 8, 2008.

In January 2008, Simpson was taken into custody in Florida and flown to Las Vegas where he was incarcerated at the county jail for allegedly violating the terms of his bail by attempting to contact Clarence "C.J." Stewart, a co-defendant in the trial. District Attorney David Roger of Clark County, provided District Court Judge Jackie Glass with data that Simpson had violated terms of bail. The hearing on this bail issue was on January 16, 2008. Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass raised Simpson's bail to US$250,000 and ordered that he remain in county jail until 15 percent of the bail, in cash, was paid. Simpson posted bond that evening and returned to Miami the next day.

Simpson and his co-defendant were found guilty of all charges on October 3, 2008. On October 10, 2008, O. J. Simpson's counsels moved for new trial (trial de novo) on grounds of judicial errors (two African-American jurors were dismissed) and insufficient evidence. Galanter announced he would appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court if Judge Glass denied the motion. The attorney for Simpson's co-defendant, C.J. Stewart, petitioned for a new trial, alleging Stewart should have been tried separately, and cited perceived misconduct by the jury foreman, Paul Connelly.

Simpson faced a possible life sentence with parole on the kidnapping charge, and mandatory prison time for armed robbery. On December 5, 2008, Simpson was sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison with the possibility of parole in about 9 years. On September 4, 2009, the Nevada Supreme Court denied a request for bail during Simpson's appeal. In October 2010, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed his convictions. He is now serving his sentence as Nevada Department of Corrections inmate #1027820 at the Lovelock Correctional Center.

The O. J. Simpson murder case

The O. J. Simpson murder case (officially called the People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson) was a criminal trial held in Los Angeles County, California Superior Court from January 29 to October 3, 1995. Former American football star and actor O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder following the June, 1994 deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history. Ultimately, Simpson was acquitted after a lengthy trial that lasted over nine months which was presided over by Judge Lance Ito.

Simpson hired a high-profile defense team initially led by Robert Shapiro and subsequently led by Johnnie Cochran. Los Angeles County believed it had a solid prosecution case, but Cochran was able to persuade the jurors that there was reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence (then a relatively new type of evidence in trials) – including that the blood-sample evidence had allegedly been mishandled by lab scientists and technicians – and about the circumstances surrounding other exhibits. Cochran and the defense team also alleged other misconduct by the Los Angeles Police Department. Simpson's celebrity and the lengthy televised trial riveted national attention on the so-called "Trial of the Century". By the end of the criminal trial, national surveys showed dramatic differences between most blacks and most whites in terms of their assessment of Simpson's guilt.

Later, both the Brown and Goldman families sued Simpson for damages in a civil trial. On February 6, 1997, a jury unanimously found there was a preponderance of evidence to hold Simpson liable for damages in the wrongful death of Goldman and battery of Brown. On February 21, 2008, a Los Angeles court upheld a renewal of the civil judgment against him.

The murders

At 12:00 am on June 13, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were found murdered outside Brown's Bundy Drive condo in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. Her two children, Sydney (age 8) and Justin (age 5), were asleep inside in an upstairs bedroom. O. J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson had divorced two years earlier. Evidence found and collected at the scene led police to suspect that O. J. Simpson was the murderer. Nicole had been stabbed multiple times in the head and neck with defense wounds on her hands. The wound through her neck was gaping, through which the larynx could be seen and vertebrae C3 was also incised.

Ford Bronco chase

Lawyers convinced the LAPD to allow Simpson to turn himself in at 11 am on June 17, 1994 even though the double murder charge meant no bail and a possible death penalty verdict if convicted. Over 1,000 reporters waited for Simpson at the police station, but he failed to appear. At 2 pm, the Los Angeles Police Department issued an all-points bulletin. At 5 pm Robert Kardashian, a Simpson friend and one of his defense lawyers, read a rambling letter by Simpson to the media. In the letter Simpson sent greetings to 24 friends and wrote, "First everyone understand I have nothing to do with Nicole's murder ... Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life." To many, this sounded like a suicide note, and the reporters joined the search for Simpson. According to Simpson lawyer Robert Shapiro, also present at Kardashian's press conference, Simpson's psychiatrists agreed with the suicide note interpretation; on television the attorney appealed to Simpson to surrender.

Around 6:20 a motorist in Orange County saw Simpson riding in the white Bronco of his friend, A. C. Cowlings, and notified police. The police then tracked calls placed from Simpson on his cellular telephone. At 6:45 pm, a police officer saw Cowlings' Ford Bronco, going north on Interstate 405. When the officer approached the Bronco, Cowlings yelled that Simpson was in the vehicle and had a gun to his own head. The officer backed off but followed the vehicle at 35 miles per hour (56 km/h), with up to 20 police cars participating in the chase.

For some time a Los Angeles News Service helicopter piloted by Bob Tur, and contracted by KCBS had exclusive coverage, but over 20 helicopters joined the chase; the high degree of media participation caused camera signals to appear on incorrect television channels. Radio station KNX also provided live coverage of the slow-speed pursuit. USC sports announcer Pete Arbogast and station producer Oran Sampson contacted former USC coach John McKay to go on the air and encourage Simpson to end the pursuit. McKay agreed and asked Simpson to pull over and turn himself in instead of committing suicide. He responded to the pleas from McKay and other friends by stating that he was "just gonna go with Nicole". Simpson's friend Al Michaels interpreted his actions as an admission of guilt.

All Big Three television networks and CNN as well as local news outlets interrupted regular programming, with 95 million viewers nationwide. While NBC continued coverage of Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the Houston Rockets, the game appeared in a small box in the corner while Tom Brokaw as anchorman covered the chase. The chase was covered live by ABC News anchors Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters on behalf of ABC's five news magazines, which achieved some of their highest-ever ratings that week.

Thousands of spectators and on-lookers packed overpasses along the procession's journey waiting for the white Bronco. In a festival-like atmosphere, some had signs urging Simpson to flee. They and the millions watching the chase on television felt part of a "common emotional experience", as they wondered if O. J. Simpson would commit suicide, be arrested, or engage in some kind of violent confrontation. Whatever might ensue, the shared adventure gave millions of viewers a vested interest, a sense of participation, a feeling of being on the inside of a national drama in the making.

Simpson reportedly demanded that he be allowed to speak to his mother before he would surrender. The chase ended at 8:00 pm at his Brentwood home, 50 miles (80 km) later, where his son Jason ran out of the house to greet him. After remaining in the Bronco for about 45 minutes, Simpson was allowed to go inside for about an hour; a police spokesman stated that he spoke to his mother and drank a glass of orange juice, resulting in laughter from the reporters. Shapiro arrived and a few minutes later, Simpson surrendered to authorities. In the Bronco the police found "$8,000 in cash, a change of clothing, a loaded .357 Magnum, a passport, family pictures, and a fake goatee and mustache".

Arrest and trial

On June 20, Simpson was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to both murders. The following day, a grand jury was called to determine whether to indict him for the two murders. Two days later, on June 23, the grand jury was dismissed as a result of excessive media coverage, which might influence the grand jury's neutrality. Jill Shively, a Brentwood resident who testified that she saw Simpson speeding away from the area of Nicole's house on the night of the murders, testified to the grand jury that the Bronco almost collided with a Nissan at the intersection of Bundy and San Vicente Boulevard. Another grand jury witness, Jose Camacho, was a knife salesman at Ross Cutlery who claimed to have sold Simpson a 15-inch (380 mm) German-made knife similar to the murder weapon three weeks before the murders. Shively and Camacho were not presented by the prosecution at the criminal trial after they sold their stories to the tabloid press. Shively had talked to television show Hard Copy for $5,000, and Camacho sold his story to the National Enquirer for $12,500.

After a week-long court hearing, California Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell ruled on July 7 that there was sufficient evidence to bring Simpson to trial for the murders. At his second court arraignment on July 29, when asked how he pled to the murders, Simpson, breaking a courtroom practice that says the accused may plead only simple words of "guilty" or "not guilty," firmly stated: "Absolutely, one hundred percent, not guilty."

Following the preliminary hearing, the case was moved from Santa Monica to the Criminal Courts Building in Downtown Los Angeles. The decision, commonly attributed to the District Attorney, was actually the decision of the Los Angeles Superior Court, which cited damage to the Santa Monica Courthouse from the 1994 Northridge earthquake and security concerns for moving the trial downtown. The decision would prove critical because a jury pool selected Downtown would have more Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and blue-collar workers than a jury pool from Santa Monica.

Leading the murder investigation was veteran LAPD detective Tom Lange. In 1995, the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson took place through 134 days of televised testimony. The prosecution elected not to ask for the death penalty, and instead it sought a life in prison sentence. The TV exposure made celebrities of many of the figures in the trial, including Judge Lance Ito.

Prosecutor Marcia Clark, a 40-year-old Deputy District Attorney, was designated as the lead prosecutor, which was to be her twenty-first murder trial during her 13 years with the D.A.'s office. Deputy District Attorney Christopher A. Darden, an African-American prosecutor widely experienced in murder trials, became Clark's co-counsel.

Since Simpson wanted a speedy trial, the defense and prosecuting attorneys worked around the clock for several months to prepare their case. In October 1994, Judge Ito started interviewing 304 prospective jurors, each of whom had to fill out a 75-page questionnaire. On November 3, 12 jurors were seated with 12 alternates.

Covered and televised by Court TV, and in part by other cable and network news outlets, the trial began on January 25, 1995. Los Angeles County prosecutor Christopher Darden argued that Simpson killed his ex-wife in a jealous rage. The prosecution opened its case by playing a 9-1-1 call that Nicole Brown Simpson had made on January 1, 1989. She expressed fear that Simpson would physically harm her, and he could be heard yelling at her in the background. The prosecution also presented dozens of expert witnesses, on subjects ranging from DNA fingerprinting to blood and shoeprint analysis, to place Simpson at the scene of the crime.

The prosecution spent the opening weeks of the trial presenting evidence that Simpson had a history of physically abusing Nicole. Simpson's lawyer Alan Dershowitz argued that only a tiny fraction of women who are abused by their mates are murdered.

Within days after the start of the trial, lawyers and persons viewing the trial from a single closed-circuited TV camera in the courtroom saw an emerging pattern: Continual and countless interruptions with objections from both sides of the courtroom, as well as one "sidebar" conference after another with the judge beyond earshot of the unseen jury located just below and out of the camera's frame.

Defense attorneys

Simpson had hired a team of high-profile lawyers, including F. Lee Bailey, Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Gerald Uelmen (the dean of law at Santa Clara University), Carl E. Douglas and Johnnie Cochran. Attorneys specializing in DNA evidence, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, were hired to attempt to discredit the prosecution's DNA evidence, and they argued that Simpson was the victim of police fraud and what they termed as sloppy internal procedures that contaminated the DNA evidence.

Simpson's defense was said to cost between US$3 million and $6 million. Simpson's defense team, dubbed the "Dream Team" by reporters, argued that LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman had planted evidence at the crime scene. LAPD Criminalist Dennis Fung also faced heavy scrutiny. In all, 150 witnesses gave testimony during the trial.

Prosecution case

Even with no witnesses to the murders, the prosecution presented a very strong case. Supported by DNA evidence, they fully expected a conviction. From the physical evidence collected, the prosecution speculated that Simpson drove over to Nicole Brown's house on the evening of June 12 with the intention of killing her. They speculated that Nicole, after putting her two children to bed and while getting ready to go to bed herself, opened the front door of her house after either responding to a knock on the front door or after hearing a noise outside, where Simpson grabbed her before she could scream and attacked her with a knife. Forensic evidence from the Los Angeles County coroner suggested that Ron Goldman arrived at the front gate to the townhouse sometime during the assault where the assailant apparently attacked him and stabbed him repeatedly in the neck and chest with one hand while restraining him with an arm choke-hold. According to the prosecution's account, as Nicole Brown was found lying face down, the assailant, after finished with Goldman, pulled her head back using her hair, put his foot on her back, and slit her throat with the knife, severing her carotid artery. They then argued that Simpson left a "trail of blood" from the condo to the alley behind it; there was also testimony that three drops of Simpson's blood were found on the driveway near the gate to his house on Rockingham Drive.

According to the prosecution, Simpson was last seen in public at 9:36 pm that evening when he returned to the front gate of his house with Brian 'Kato' Kaelin, a bit-part actor and family friend who lived with Nicole until he was given the use of a guest house on Simpson's estate. Simpson was not seen again until 10:54 pm, an hour and 18 minutes later, when he came out of the front door of his house to a waiting limousine hired to take him to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to fly to a Hertz convention in Chicago. Both the defense and prosecution agreed that the murders took place between 10:15 and 10:40 pm, with the prosecution saying that Simpson drove his white Bronco the five minutes to and from the murder scene. They presented a witness in the area of Bundy Drive who saw a car similar to Simpson's Bronco speeding away from the area at 10:35 pm.

According to his testimony, limousine driver Allan Park arrived at Simpson's estate at 10:25 pm Driving past the Rockingham gate, he did not see Simpson's white Bronco parked at the curb. Park testified that he had been looking for and had seen the house number, and the prosecution presented exhibits to show that the position in which the Bronco was found the next morning was right next to the house number (implying that Park would surely have noticed the Bronco if it had been there at that time).

According to Simpson's version of events, the Bronco had been parked in that position for several hours. Meanwhile, Kato Kaelin was on the phone to his friend, Rachel Ferrara. Park parked opposite the Ashford gate, then drove back to the Rockingham gate to check which driveway would have the best access for the limo. Deciding that the Rockingham entrance was too tight, he returned to the Ashford gate and began to buzz the intercom at 10:40, getting no response. After looking though the gate and seeing the house dark with no lights on, save for a dim light coming from one of the second floor windows, which was Simpson's bedroom, Park then made a series of phone calls from his cellular to his boss's (Dale St. John) pager and then to his home, trying to get St. John's home number from his mother to try to get the phone number for Simpson's house. At approximately 10:50, Kato Kaelin (who was still on the phone to Rachel Ferrara) heard three thumps against the outside wall of his guest house. Kaelin hung up the phone and ventured outside to investigate but decided not to venture directly down the dark south pathway where the thumps came from. Instead, he walked to the front of the property where he saw Allan Park's limousine outside the Ashford gate.

At the same time Park saw Kaelin come from the back of the property to the front, Park testified that he saw "a tall black man" of Simpson's height and build enter the front door of the house from the driveway area, after which lights went on and Simpson finally answered Park's call, explaining that he had overslept and would be at the front gate soon. Kaelin opened the front gate to let Park onto the estate grounds, and Simpson came out of his house through the front door a few minutes later. Both Kaelin and Park helped Simpson put his belongings (which were already outside the front door when Park drove up to the front of Simpson's house) in the trunk of the limo for the ride to the airport. Both Kaelin and Park remarked in their testimony that Simpson looked agitated. But other witnesses, such as the ticket clerk at Los Angeles International Airport who checked Simpson onto the plane and a few others, including a flight attendant who was also called to testify, said that Simpson looked and acted perfectly normal. Conflicting testimony such as this was to be a recurring theme throughout the trial.

Simpson's initial claim that he was asleep at the time of the murders was replaced by a series of different stories. According to the defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran, Simpson had never left his house that night and that he was alone in his house packing to travel to Chicago. Cochran claims that Simpson went outside through the back door to hit a few golf balls into the children's sandbox in the front garden, one or more of which made the three loud thumps on the wall of Kaelin's bungalow. Cochran produced a potential alibi witness, Rosa Lopez, a neighbor's Spanish-speaking housekeeper who testified that she had seen Simpson's car parked outside his house at the time of the murders. But Lopez's testimony, which was not presented to the jury, was pulled apart under intense cross-examination by Marcia Clark, when Ms. Lopez was forced to admit that she could not be sure of the precise time she saw Simpson's white Bronco outside his house. Ms. Lopez was interviewed in English, without an interpreter present.

Later, the defense tried to claim that Simpson could not be physically capable of carrying out the murders, for Ronald Goldman was a fit young man who put up a fierce struggle against his assailant. O.J. Simpson was a 46-year-old former football player with chronic arthritis, which had left him with scars on his knees from old football injuries. But Marcia Clark produced into evidence an exercise video that Simpson made two years earlier which showed that, despite some physical conditions, Simpson was anything but frail.

The prosecution also called Nicole's sister, Denise, to the witness stand where she tearfully testified that on many occasions in the 1980s, she witnessed Simpson pick up his wife and hurl her against a wall, then physically throw her out of their house after an argument. Her testimony was punctuated by a barrage of defense objections and sidebar conferences with the judge.

Then the prosecution turned to the events of the evening of June 12, 1994, where Karen Lee Crawford, who was the manager of the Mezzaluna restaurant where Nicole ate that Sunday night, was called to testify where she recounted that Mrs. Simpson's mother phoned the restaurant at 9:37 pm about her daughter's lost eyeglasses, and how Ms. Crawford found them, put them in a white envelope, and how waiter Ron Goldman departed from the restaurant after his shift was over to drop them off at Nicole's house at 9:50 pm. Nicole's neighbor, Pablo Fenives, testified about hearing a "very distinctive barking" and "plaintive wail" of a dog at around 10 to 15 minutes after 10 pm while he was at home watching the 10 o'clock news on his TV set. Eva Stein, another neighbor, testified about a very loud and persistent barking sound also at around 10:15 pm that kept her from going back to sleep. Neighbor Steven Schwab testified that while he was walking his dog in the area near Nicole's house at around 10:30 pm, he noticed a wandering and agitated Akita dog trailing its leash with bloody paws, which after examining, found the dog uninjured. Schwab told about taking the dog to another neighbor friend of his, Sukru Boztepe, who testified that he took the Akita dog into his home where the dog became more agitated. Boztepe took the dog for a walk at approximately 11:00 pm and testified that the dog tugged on its leash and led him to Nicole's house. There he discovered Nicole Simpson's dead body. Minutes later, Boztepe flagged down a passing patrol car.

The police officer, Robert Riske, was the first officer at the crime scene. He testified that he found a woman in a black dress, barefoot, and lying face down in a puddle of blood on the walkway that led to the front door of her house. Then he saw Goldman's body lying on its side beside a tree a short distance away off the walkway. Riske also described seeing a white envelope, which was later proven to contain Nicole's glasses that had been left at the restaurant. He also saw Goldman's beeper, a black leather glove, and a dark blue knit ski cap on the ground near the bodies.

On Sunday, February 12, 1995, a long motorcade traveled into Brentwood where the judge, jurors, prosecutors, and defense lawyers made a two-hour inspection of the crime scene, and then a three-hour tour of O.J. Simpson's Rockingham estate. Simpson, under guard by several officers but not wearing handcuffs, waited outside the crime scene in an unmarked police car, but was permitted to enter his Rockingham house.

Detective Ron Phillips testified that when he called Simpson in Chicago to tell him of his ex-wife's murder that Simpson sounded shocked and upset, but was oddly unconcerned about how she died. Detective Tom Lange testified that Nicole was probably killed first because the bottoms of her bare feet were clean, implying that she was struck before any blood flowed. This was a key point that Simpson might have set out to kill Nicole; whereas Goldman inadvertently stumbled upon the scene and prompted Simpson to kill him too. In cross-examining Detective Lange, Cochran proposed two hypotheses for what happened at the murder scene. First, he suggested that one, or more, drug dealers encountered Nicole Simpson while looking for her friend and house guest, Faye Resnick, an admitted cocaine abuser. In the second hypothesis, Cochran suggested that "an assassin, or assassins," followed Goldman to the South Bundy house to kill him.

DNA evidence

Samples from bloody footprints leading away from the bodies and from the back gate of the condominium were tested for DNA matches. Initial polymerase chain reaction testing did not rule out Simpson as a suspect. In more precise restriction fragment length polymorphism tests matches were found between Simpson's blood and blood samples taken from the crime scene (both the footprints and the gate samples).

Police criminalist Dennis Fung testified that this DNA evidence put Simpson at Nicole Brown's townhouse at the time of the murders. But in cross-examination by Barry Scheck, which lasted eight full days, most of the DNA evidence was questioned. Dr. Robin Cotton, of Cellmark Diagnostics, testified for six days. Blood evidence had been tested at two separate laboratories, each conducting different tests.

Despite that safeguard, it emerged during the cross-examination of Fung and the other laboratory scientists that the police scientist Andrea Mazzola (who collected blood samples from Simpson to compare with evidence from the crime scene) was a trainee who carried the vial of Simpson's blood around in her lab coat pocket for nearly a day before handing it over as an exhibit. While two errors had been found in the history of DNA testing at Cellmark, one of the testing laboratories, in 1988 and 1989, the errors were found during quality control tests and had not occurred since.

In the 1988 test, one of the companies hired for DNA consulting by Simpson's defense also made the same error. What should have been the prosecution's strong point became their weak link amid accusations that bungling police technicians handled the blood samples with such a degree of incompetence as to render the delivery of accurate and reliable DNA results almost impossible. The prosecution argued that they had made the DNA evidence available to the defense for its own testing, and if the defense attorneys disagreed with the prosecution's tests they could have conducted their own testing on the same samples. The defense had chosen not to accept the prosecution's offer.

On May 16, Gary Sims, a California Department of Justice criminalist who helped establish the Department of Justice's DNA laboratory, testified that a glove found at Simpson's house tested positive for a match of Goldman's blood.

Mark Furhman

In 1983, LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman was interviewed by Dr. Ira Brent in relation to a disability claim for work-related stress. Mark Fuhrman confided to Brent that he beat up suspects, and that he blacked out and became a wild man. In 1984, Fuhrman stopped a young black man named Jarvis Bowers for jaywalking, put him in a choke hold and threatened his life. This happened in front of a movie theater in a predominately white area with several witnesses. This incident cost Fuhrman a day's pay.

In March 1995, Fuhrman testified to driving over to Simpson's house to question him on the night of the two murders and, after getting no response after buzzing the intercom of the house which was empty, scaled one of the walls and found blood marks on the driveway of Simpson's home, as well as a black leather glove on the premises near the location of Kailen's bungalow, which had blood of both murder victims on it as well as Simpson's. Despite an aggressive cross-examination by F. Lee Bailey, Fuhrman denied on the stand that he was racist or had used the word "nigger" to describe black people in the 10 years prior to his testimony. But a few months later, the defense played audio tapes of Fuhrman repeatedly using the word – 41 times, in total. The tape had been made in 1986 by a young North Carolina screenwriter named Laura McKinny. She had interviewed Fuhrman for a screenplay she was developing on police officers. The Fuhrman tapes became one of the cornerstones of the defense's case that Fuhrman's testimony lacked credibility.

In September, Fuhrman was called back to the witness stand by the defense to answer more questions about the discovery of the blood marks and leather glove that he supposedly found on Simpson's property hours after the murders took place. When questioned by Simpson attorney Gerald Uelmen, Fuhrman, with his lawyer standing by his side, pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination to avoid further questioning after his integrity was challenged at this point.

The prosecution told the jury in closing arguments that Fuhrman was indeed a racist, but that this should not detract from the evidence showing Simpson's guilt. Fuhrman's testimony resulted in his indictment on one count of perjury, to which he later pled no contest.

Glove

One dark leather glove was found at the crime scene, its match found near Kato Kaelin's guest house behind Simpson's Rockingham Drive estate. Kaelin testified that he had heard "thumps in the night" in the same area around the guest house the night of the murder. Brown had bought Simpson two pairs of this type of glove in 1990. Both gloves, according to the prosecution, contained DNA evidence from Simpson, Brown and Goldman, with the glove at Simpson's house also containing a long strand of blonde hair similar to Brown's.

On June 15, 1995, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran goaded assistant prosecutor Christopher Darden into asking Simpson to put on the leather glove that was found at the scene of the crime. The prosecution had earlier decided against asking Simpson to try on the gloves because the glove had been soaked in blood (according to prosecutors) from Simpson, Brown and Goldman, and frozen and unfrozen several times. Darden was advised by Clark and other prosecutors not to ask Simpson to try on the glove, but to argue through experts that in better condition, the glove would fit. Instead, Darden decided to have Simpson try on the glove.

The leather glove seemed too tight for Simpson to put on easily, especially over the latex gloves he wore underneath. Uelmen came up with and Cochran repeated a quip he had used several times in relation to other points in his closing arguments, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." On June 22, 1995, assistant prosecutor Christopher Darden told Judge Lance Ito of his concerns that Simpson "has arthritis and we looked at the medication he takes and some of it is anti-inflammatory and we are told he has not taken the stuff for a day and it caused swelling in the joints and inflammation in his hands." The prosecution also stated their belief that the glove shrank from having been soaked in blood and later testing. A photo was presented during the trial showing Simpson wearing the same type of glove that was found at the crime scene.

Prosecutors contended that the presence of O. J. Simpson's blood at the crime scene was the result of blood dripping from cuts on the middle finger of his left hand. Police noted his wounds on June 13, 1994, and asserted that these were suffered during the fatal attack on Ronald Goldman. However, the defense noted that none of the gloves found had any cuts. Plus, both prosecution and defense witnesses testified to not seeing any cuts or wounds of any kind on Simpson's hands in the hours after the murders took place. The defense also alleged that Fuhrman may have planted the glove at Simpson's house after taking it from the crime scene, and that the analysis finding that the hair could be Brown's could not be reliable.

The prosecution contended that this was not the case, pointing out that by the time Fuhrman had arrived at the Simpson home after leaving the Nicole Brown's home, the crime scene had already been combed over by several officers for almost two hours, and none had noticed a second glove at the scene. In his first round of testimony, Fuhrman answered "no" when asked by F. Lee Bailey if he had planted any evidence at Simpson's house. In his second round of testimony, Fuhrman took the Fifth Amendment when asked the same question.

Racial differences

In closing arguments, Darden ridiculed the notion that police officers might have wanted to frame Simpson. He questioned why, if the LAPD was against Simpson, they went to his house eight times on domestic violence calls without arresting him before eventually citing him for abuse in 1989, and why they then waited five days to arrest him for the 1994 murders.

Cochran's jury summation compared Fuhrman—proven to have repeatedly referred to African-Americans as "niggers" and to have boasted of beating young African-Americans in his role as a police officer—to Adolf Hitler, a technique which was later criticized by Robert Shapiro and by at least one juror, as well as Ron Goldman's father, Fred Goldman. Cochran called Fuhrman "a genocidal racist, a perjurer, America's worst nightmare and the personification of evil." Fuhrman later pleaded Nolo contendere to felony charges of perjury, arising from his testimony in Simpson's trial.

Fears grew that race riots would erupt all over Los Angeles and the rest of the country if Simpson were convicted of the murders, similar to the 1992 riots following the acquittal of four police officers for beating black motorist Rodney King three years earlier. As a result, all L.A. police officers were put on 12-hour shifts, and a line of over 100 police officers on horseback surrounded the L.A. county courthouse on the day of the verdict, in case of rioting by the crowd.

Verdict

At 10 am on October 3, 1995, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. It had arrived at the verdict by 3 pm the previous day, after only four hours of deliberation, but Judge Ito postponed the announcement.

Evidence

The prosecution used several tactics to show Simpson's culpability.

• DNA analysis of blood found on a pair of Simpson's socks found in his bedroom identified it as Nicole Brown's. The blood had DNA characteristics matched by approximately only one in 9.7 billion, with odds rising to one out of 21 billion when compiling results of testing done at the two separate DNA laboratories. Both socks had about 20 stains of blood.

• DNA analysis of the blood found in, on, and near Simpson's Bronco revealed traces of Simpson's, Brown's, and Goldman's blood.

• DNA analysis of bloody socks found in Simpson's bedroom proved this was Brown's blood. The blood made a similar pattern on both sides of the socks. Defense medical expert Dr. Henry Lee of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory testified that the only way such a pattern could appear was if Simpson had a "hole" in his ankle, or a drop of blood was placed on the sock while it was not being worn. Lee testified the collection procedure of the socks could have caused contamination.

• African-American hair was found on Goldman's shirt.

• Several coins were found along with fresh blood drops behind Nicole's condo, in the area where the cars were parked.

• DNA analysis of blood on the left-hand glove, found outside Brown's home, was proven to be a mixture of Simpson's, Brown's, and Goldman's. Although the glove was soaked in blood, there were no blood drops leading up to, or away from the glove. No other blood was found in the area of the glove except on the glove.

• The gloves contained particles of hair consistent with Goldman's hair and a cap contained carpet fibers consistent with fibers from Simpson's Bronco. A knit cap at the crime scene contained African-American hair. Dark blue cotton fibers were found on Goldman, and the prosecution presented a witness who said Simpson wore a similarly-colored sweat suit that night.

• The left-hand glove found at Nicole Brown's home and the right-hand glove found at Simpson's home proved to be a match.

• The LA County District Attorney's Office and the Medical Examiner's Office could not explain why 1.5 cm³ of blood were missing from the original 8 cm³ taken from Simpson and placed into evidence.

• Officers found arrest records indicating that Simpson was charged with the beating of his wife Nicole Brown. Photos of Brown's bruised and battered face from that attack were shown.

• Much of the incriminating evidence: bloody glove, bloody socks, blood in and on the Bronco, was discovered by Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman. He was later charged with perjury for falsely claiming during the trial that he had not used the word "nigger" within ten years of the trial. During the trial he pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination to avoid further questioning after his integrity was challenged on this point.

• The bloody footprints were identified by FBI shoe expert William Bodziak as having been made by a pair of extremely rare Bruno Magli shoes, of which it has been reported that only 299 pairs were sold in the US. The large size 12 (305 mm) prints matched Simpson's shoe size. In the criminal trial, Simpson defense attorneys had said the prosecution had no proof Simpson had ever bought such shoes, however then free-lance photographer E.J. Flammer claimed to have found a photograph he had taken of Simpson in 1993 that appeared to show him wearing a pair of the shoes at a public event, which was later published in the National Enquirer. Simpson's defense team claimed the photograph was doctored, although other pre-1994 photos appearing to show Simpson wearing Bruno Magli shoes were since discovered and published.

• Evidence collected by LAPD criminalist Dennis Fung came under criticism. He admitted to "having missed a few drops of blood on a fence near the bodies," but on the stand he said that he "returned several weeks afterwards to collect them."

• Fung admitted that he had not used rubber gloves when collecting some of the evidence. Although, the blood that was tested ruled out Fung within published guidelines.

• LA Police Detective Phillip Vanatter testified that he saw photographs of press personnel leaning on Simpson's Bronco before evidence was collected.

Evidence not presented at trial

• Ross Cutlery provided store receipts indicating that Simpson had purchased a 12-inch (305 mm) stiletto knife six weeks before the murders. The knife was determined to be similar to the one the coroner said caused the stab wounds. The prosecution did not present this evidence at trial after discovering that store employees had sold their story to The National Enquirer for $12,500. The knife was later collected from Simpson's residence by a court-appointed special master, who took control of the knife. It turned out not to be the murder weapon because prosecution tests on the knife determined that an oil used on new cutlery was still present on the knife, thus, the knife had never been used.

• Jill Shively saw a white Ford Bronco speeding away from Bundy Drive, in such a hurry that it almost collided with another car at an intersection. She talked to the television show Hard Copy for $5,000, after which prosecutors declined to use her testimony at trial.

• A women's shelter, Sojourn, received a call from Nicole Brown four days prior to the murders saying that she was scared of her ex-husband, who she felt was stalking her. The prosecution thought that Judge Ito would rule the evidence to be hearsay. In addition, friends and family indicated that Nicole Brown had consistently said that Simpson had been stalking her. She claimed that everywhere she went, she noticed Simpson would be there, watching her. Her friends Faye Resnick and Cynthia Shahian said she was afraid because Simpson had told her he would kill her if he ever found her with another man.

• Former NFL player and pastor Rosey Grier visited Simpson at the Los Angeles County Jail in the days following the murders. A jailhouse guard, Jeff Stuart, testified to Judge Ito that at one point Simpson yelled that he didn't mean to do it, after which Grier had urged him to come clean. Ito ruled that the evidence was hearsay and could not be allowed in court.

Media coverage

The murders and trial—"the biggest story I have ever seen", said one television news producer—received extensive media coverage from the very beginning; at least one nonfiction "instant book" was proposed two hours after the bodies were found, and was published only a few weeks later. The Los Angeles Times alone covered the case on its front page for more than 300 days after the murders, and the Big Three networks' nightly news broadcasts gave more air time to the case than to the Bosnian War and the Oklahoma City bombing combined. The media outlets served an enthusiastic audience; one company put the loss of national productivity from employees following the case instead of working at $40 billion, and an estimated 100 million people worldwide stopped what they were doing to watch or listen to the verdict announcement. Simpson—who, besides his acting career, had worked as a sports reporter for both NBC and ABC—had many friends and relationships in the media world, causing most networks to be reluctant to air a television movie dramatization of the case. Fox was an exception, airing one in 1995, and CBS followed several years later.

The media coverage was itself at times controversial; the issue of whether or not to allow any video cameras into the courtroom was among the first issues Judge Ito had to decide, ultimately ruling that live camera coverage was warranted. Ito would be later criticized for this decision by other legal professionals, and Ito himself, along with others related to the case (Marcia Clark, Mark Fuhrman, Kato Kaelin) were said to have been influenced to some degree by the media presence, and the publicity that came with it. The trial was covered in 2,237 news segments from 1994 through 1997.

Time magazine cover

On June 27, 1994, Time published a cover story "An American Tragedy" with a mugshot image of O. J. Simpson on the cover. The image was darker than a typical magazine image, and the Time photo was darker than the original, as shown on a Newsweek cover released at the same time. Time itself then became the object of a media scandal, and it was found it had employed photo manipulation to darken the photo, for the purpose of, as commentators have claimed, making Simpson appear more "menacing." The publication of the cover photo drew widespread criticism of racist editorializing, and yellow journalism. Time publicly apologized.

Frogmen

One part of the murder case that was never brought up was the broadcast of the two hour-long film pilot for Frogmen, an The A-Team-like adventure series starring Simpson, that Warner Bros. Television completed in 1994, a few months before the murders. NBC had not yet decided on whether to order the series when Simpson's arrest canceled the project. While searching his home the police obtained a videotaped copy of the pilot as well as the script and dailies. Although the prosecution investigated reports that Simpson, who played the leader of a group of former United States Navy SEALs, received "a fair amount of" military training—including use of a knife—for Frogmen, and there is a scene in which he holds a knife to the throat of a woman, it was not introduced as evidence during the trial.

Most pilots that are two hours long (including commercials) are aired as TV movies whether or not they are ordered as series. Because "the appetite for all things O.J. appeared insatiable" during the trial, Warner Bros. and NBC estimated that a gigantic, Super Bowl-like television audience would have watched the Frogmen film. One of Simpson's co-stars observed that their decision to not air it and forego an estimated $14 million in profits was "about the only proof you have that there is some dignity in the advertising and television business".

Reaction to the verdict

In post-trial interviews with the jurors, a few said that they believed Simpson probably did commit the murders, but that the prosecution failed to prove their case. Three jurors published a book called Madam Foreman, in which they described how police errors, not race, led to their verdict, and that they considered prosecutor Darden to be a token black assigned to the case by the prosecutor's office.

Critics of the not-guilty verdict contend that the deliberation time was unduly short compared to the length of the trial, and that the jurors, most of whom did not have any kind of college education, did not understand the scientific evidence.

Defense attorney Robert Shapiro wrote a book, The Search for Justice, in which he criticizes F. Lee Bailey as a "loose cannon" and Johnnie Cochran for bringing race into the trial. He didn't believe Simpson was framed by the LAPD for racial reasons, but believed the verdict was correct due to reasonable doubt.

Former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi (who had handled the Manson trial) wrote a book called Outrage: The Five Reasons O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder. Bugliosi was very critical of Clark and Darden, faulting them, among other reasons, for not introducing the note that Simpson had written before trying to flee. Bugliosi contended that the note "reeked" of guilt and that the jury should have been allowed to see it. He also pointed out that the jury was never informed about items found in the Bronco: a change of clothing, a large amount of cash, a passport and a disguise kit. The prosecution explained that they felt these items of evidence would bring up emotional issues on Simpson's part that could harm their case, despite the fact that the items seemed as though they could be used for fleeing.

Simpson made an incriminating statement to police about cutting his finger the night the murders took place first by claiming to have accidentally cut his finger with a shard of broken glass in his Chicago hotel room, then changing his story minutes later that it was the tip of a knife, and later claiming not to remember at all how he received the cut on his left middle finger. Bugliosi took Clark and Darden to task for not allowing the jury to hear the police audio tape of this statement. Bugliosi also said the prosecutors should have gone into more detail about Simpson's abuse of his wife. He said it should have been made clear to the mostly African-American jury that Simpson had little impact in the black community and had done nothing to help blacks less fortunate than he was. Bugliosi pointed out that, although the prosecutors obviously understood that Simpson's race had nothing to do with the murders, once the defense "opened the door" by trying to paint Simpson falsely as a leader in the black community and that he might have been framed by the overzealous prosecution looking for a suspect, the evidence to the contrary should have been presented, to prevent the jury from allowing it to bias their verdict. Bugliosi also criticized the prosecution's closing statements as inadequate.

Rather than try the crime in mostly white Santa Monica, California, where murders occurring in Brentwood would normally have been held, Bugliosi claimed that the prosecution made a big mistake by deciding to have the trial in mostly nonwhite Los Angeles. During the jury selection process, the defense made it difficult for the prosecution to challenge potential black jurors on the grounds that it is illegal to dismiss someone from the jury for racially motivated reasons (California courts barred peremptory challenges to jurors based on race in People v. Wheeler, years before the U.S. Supreme Court would do so in Batson v. Kentucky.).

District Attorney Garcetti's supporters noted that the decision to move the trial was actually that of the Los Angeles Superior Court Presiding Judge, and not that of the District Attorney. The trial was moved due to security concerns and the poor condition of the Santa Monica Courthouse.

Another common criticism was that Garcetti was "micromanaging" the trial, and made the decision to have Simpson try the bloody leather gloves recovered at the scene of the murder and at Simpson's estate in open court. Simpson's hands appeared unable to fit into those gloves which was highly damaging to the prosecution's case. In fact, the decision to have Simpson try on the gloves was made by both Darden and Clark. Also, pundits criticized the prosecution for calling Mark Fuhrman to the witness stand in the first place and stated that the prosecution failed to do due diligence on his previous racist statements. The D.A.'s office argued that the defense would have called Fuhrman anyway and that no one knew of the existence of the McKinney tapes until after the trial actually started.

According to media reports, prosecutor Marcia Clark thought that women, regardless of race, would sympathize with the domestic violence aspect of the case and connect with her personally. On the other hand, the defense's research suggested that women generally were more likely to acquit than men. Also, the jurors did not respond well to Clark's combative style of litigation, and the defense also correctly speculated that black women would not be as sympathetic to a white woman as the victim. Both sides accepted a disproportionate number of female jurors. From an original jury pool of 40% white, 28% black, 17% Latino, and 15% Asian, the final jury for the trial had 10 women and two men, of which there were nine blacks, two whites, and one Latino.

Discussion of the racial elements of the case continued long after the trial's end. Some polls and some commentators have concluded that many blacks, while having their doubts as to Simpson's innocence, were nonetheless more inclined to be suspicious of the credibility and fairness of the police and the courts, and thus more likely to question the evidence. After the civil trial verdict against Simpson, most whites believed justice had been served and most blacks (75%) disagreed with the verdict and believed the verdict to be racially motivated. An NBC poll taken in 2004 reported that, although 77% of 1,186 people sampled thought Simpson was guilty, only 27% of blacks in the sample believed so, compared to 87% of whites. Whatever the exact nature of the "racial divide," to this very day, the Simpson case continues to be assessed through the lens of race with most white people believing Simpson to have committed the two murders, while most black people believe the opposite.

Judge Lance Ito was also criticized for allowing the trial to become a media circus and not doing enough to regulate the court proceedings as much as he could have. Many law critics claim that Ito allowed the courtroom proceedings to drag on needlessly, as well as allowed both prosecution and defense lawyers to get out of control with arguing with one another over presentation of the evidence. However, Ito and others present in the courtroom dispute this characterization, challenging critics to identify a proceeding that was not under anyone's control. Because the jury was sequestered, an attorney gag order would not have been supported by any appellate court, leading to often chaotic scenes outside the courthouse. Ito also allowed a jury field trip through O.J. Simpson's home after it had been supposedly stage dressed by the defense team, in one case replacing an artistic nude painting of Simpson's then-current girlfriend with a reproduction of Norman Rockwell's painting of Ruby Bridges being escorted to school in the Little Rock desegregation struggle. Ito was also criticized for the way that the jury was handled, bowing to defense team pressure to dismiss various jurors including Francine Florio-Bunten late in the trial.

Civil trial

The parents of Ron Goldman, Fred Goldman and Sharon Rufo, brought suit against Simpson for wrongful death, and Brown's estate, represented by her father Lou Brown, brought suit against Simpson in a "survivor suit", in a trial that took place over four months in Santa Monica and was not televised (by judge's order). The Goldman family was represented by Daniel Petrocelli, with Simpson represented by Bob Baker. Attorneys for both sides were given high marks by observing lawyers. Simpson's defense in the trial was estimated to cost $1 million and was paid for by an insurance policy on his company, Orenthal Enterprises.

At one point, Baker made a mistake that allowed Petrocelli to introduce evidence regarding Simpson's failure of a lie detector test about the murders. Fuhrman was not called to testify, and Simpson was subpoenaed to testify on his own behalf. In addition, a photo of O.J., taken while he was attending a Buffalo Bills game in 1993 was produced and showed him wearing Bruno Magli shoes, the same type of shoes which investigators stated the killer of Goldman and Smith was wearing when the murders were committed. The photo was then presented as evidence against him, as O.J. had previously denied ever wearing such shoes. The jury in the civil trial awarded Brown and Simpson's children, Sydney and Justin, $12.5 million from their father as recipients of their mother's estate. The victims' families were awarded $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

Simpson came under fire following the civil verdict for "dodging" the jury's award against him by allegedly hiding assets from the Goldman family.

Aftermath of trials

Some of Simpson's supporters changed their minds in the years following his trials as to his innocence, as he seemed to dodge the civil jury's verdict for the victims' families and appeared not to search for the "real killer" as he had promised to do.

Apparent confessions

In September 2004, Jennifer Peace, an adult actress who performed under the name "Devon Shire", came forward claiming that she was Al Cowlings' girlfriend, and that Cowlings had told her that Simpson had confessed his guilt. Peace was subpoenaed to testify before a Grand Jury by Clark and Hodgman, and later said that Cowlings had told her that Simpson was guilty of both murders, and that the weapon "sleeps with the fishes." Peace sold her story to Star Magazine and American Journal for a reported mid six-figure sum, an action that discredited her and led to her not being called as a witness during the larger trial. Speculation at the time was that the prosecution was using Peace to try to put pressure on Cowlings to "flip" on Simpson and testify against him. When that strategy failed to work, the Grand Jury was dismissed and the case proceeded to trial.

In the February 1998 issue of Esquire, Simpson was quoted as saying, "Let's say I committed this crime… Even if I did this, it would have to have been because I loved her very much, right?" Simpson said that he would look for the real murderer, who he said he believed was a hitman.

In November 2006, ReganBooks announced a book by O. J. Simpson, as well as a TV interview, titled If I Did It, an account that the publisher pronounced a hypothetical confession. "This is a historic case, and I consider this his confession," publisher Judith Regan told The Associated Press. On November 20, News Corporation, parent company of ReganBooks, canceled both the book and the TV interview due to a high level of public criticism. CEO Rupert Murdoch, speaking at a press conference, stated: "I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project." Regan was fired in December 2006 for apparently unrelated reasons.

In June 2007, a federal judge ruled that Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman's father, could pursue the publishing rights to Simpson's book. In July 2007, a federal bankruptcy judge awarded the rights to the book to the Goldman family to help satisfy the $38 million wrongful death civil suit judgment against Simpson. After Goldman had won the rights to the book, he arranged to publish it under the new title If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.

The book was ghostwritten by Pablo Fenjves. Fenjves stated in interviews that Simpson actively collaborated on the book, and that he "knew" him to be the murderer.

Fox Television was to air a related interview with Simpson in late November 2006, in which Simpson would allegedly describe how he would have committed the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, "if he were the one responsible."

In May 2008, Mike Gilbert released his book How I Helped O.J. Get Away with Murder, which details O. J. confessing to the killings to Gilbert. Gilbert, a memorabilia dealer, is a former agent and friend of Simpson. He states that Simpson had smoked marijuana, taken a sleeping pill and was drinking beer when he confided at his Brentwood home weeks after his trial what happened the night of the murders. Simpson allegedly said, "If she hadn't opened that door with a knife in her hand... she'd still be alive." This, Gilbert said, confirmed his belief that Simpson had confessed. Simpson has denied ever having said this, although smoking of marijuana and crack cocaine has been known to cause memory blackouts.

Alternative murderer theory

An alternative theory is that Simpson's son, Jason Simpson, committed the murders. This is the central theory of a book by private investigator William Dear titled O.J. is Guilty, But Not of Murder. Published in 2000, the book was the result of a six-year investigation by Dear. He attempted to explain Simpson's incriminating behavior and the incriminating evidence. In the book, Dear claimed numerous elements to support his theory.

The book is also the basis of a documentary film, including new evidence, entitled The Overlooked Suspect, released in late 2007.

Further reading

• Bugliosi, Vincent (1997). Outrage: 5 Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder. Seattle: Island Books. ISBN 0440223822. 

• Cotterill, Janet (2002). Language and power in court, a linguistic analysis of the O. J. Simpson trial. Basingstoke: Palgrave. ISBN 0333969014. 

• Felman, Shosana (2002). The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674009312. 

• Garner, Joe (2002). Stay Tuned: Television's Unforgettable Moments. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 0740726935. 

• Hunt, Darnell M. (1999). O. J. Simpson facts and fictions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521624568. 

• Dear, William C. (2000). O.J. Is Guilty But Not of Murder. Dear Overseas Production. ISBN 0970205805