Washington –
American football star and actor O.J. was acquitted in a sensational 1995 trial of murdering his ex-wife, but found responsible for her death in a civil suit and later imprisoned for armed robbery and kidnapping. Simpson died at the age of 76. .
Simpson, who was acquitted by a Los Angeles jury in what U.S. media called the “trial of the century,” died Wednesday after a battle with cancer, his family said in a social media post Thursday.
Simpson was found not guilty in the 1994 stabbings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles and avoided prison. Simpson was convicted of 12 counts of armed robbery in 2008, including kidnapping two sports memorabilia salespeople at gunpoint from a Las Vegas hotel, and subsequently served nine years in a Nevada prison.
Simpson, affectionately known as “The Juice,” was one of the best and most popular athletes of the late 1960s and 1970s. He overcame his childhood ailments to become a phenomenal running back at the University of Southern California, winning the Heisman Trophy as college football’s top player. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame after a record-setting career in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers.
Simpson parlayed his football stardom into a career as a sportscaster, public relations man, and Hollywood actor, including in the “The Naked Gun” movie series.
Everything changed on June 12, 1994, after Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman were found near death in a bloody scene outside their Los Angeles home.
Simpson quickly emerged as a suspect. He was ordered to surrender to police, but five days after his murder, he fled in a white Ford Bronco with his former teammates, wearing a passport and disguise. A low-speed chase through the Los Angeles area ended at Simpson’s residence, and he was later charged with murder.
What followed was one of America’s most infamous trials and media circuses of the 20th century. Everything was there. Rich and famous defendants. A black man is accused of murdering his white ex-wife out of jealousy. A woman was murdered after divorcing a man who beat her. A “dream team” of expensive and charismatic defense attorneys. And the prosecutor’s blunder.
Simpson declared at the beginning of the case that he was “absolutely 100% innocent,” but on October 3, 1995, after a predominantly black panel of 10 women and two men acquitted him, the jury was cleared. He waved at them and said, “Thank you.” .
Prosecutors argued that Simpson killed Nicole in a fit of jealous rage, and presented extensive blood, hair, and fiber tests that linked Simpson to the murder. Defense attorneys countered that celebrity defendants were framed by racist white police.
This trial transfixed America. At the White House, President Bill Clinton left the Oval Office and watched the verdict on his secretary’s television. Many black Americans saw Simpson as a victim of bigoted police and celebrated his innocence. Many white Americans were appalled by his innocence.
Simpson’s defense team included prominent criminal defense attorneys Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz, and F. Lee Bailey, who often outmaneuvered prosecutors. When prosecutors instructed Simpson to try on a bloody glove found at the murder scene, convinced that it fit perfectly and could prove he was the killer, he made a memorable breakthrough. I made a mistake.
In a highly theatrical demonstration, Simpson struggled to put on his gloves, pointing out to the jury that they didn’t fit.
Mr. Cochran uttered his most famous line at the trial, referring to the gloves in his closing argument to the jury, rhyming, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Mr. Dershowitz later called the prosecutor’s decision to require Mr. Simpson to try on gloves “the greatest legal blunder of the 20th century.”
“This verdict teaches us how fame and money can provide the best defense and transform a case of overwhelming incriminating physical evidence into a case of reasonable doubt. Peter Arenella, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told The New Yorker. Post-judgment time.
“Predominantly African-American juries are sensitive to allegations of police incompetence and corruption, and are less likely to impose a higher burden of proof than is normally required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” Arenella said. I’m willing,” he said.
After the acquittal, Simpson said, “My primary goal in life is to go after the killers who murdered Nicole and Mr. Goldman…They’re out there somewhere…I don’t want to kill anyone, I can’t kill anyone.” “And I didn’t kill him.” . ”
The Goldman and Brown families subsequently filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Simpson in civil court. In 1997, a majority-white jury in Santa Monica, California, found Simpson responsible for the deaths of two people and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages.
“Justice is finally being served for Ron and Nicole,” Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman’s father, said after the verdict.
Mr. Simpson’s “Dream Team” chose to represent Mr. Simpson because the burden of proof was lower in civil trials than in criminal trials, and there was a “preponderance of the evidence” rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt.” I didn’t serve. New evidence also hurt Simpson, including a photo of him wearing the type of shoes that left bloody footprints at the murder scene.
Following the civil suit, some of Simpson’s belongings, including memorabilia from his football days, were confiscated and auctioned to pay for the damages he sustained.
On October 3, 2008, exactly 13 years after his acquittal in the murder trial, he was found guilty by a Las Vegas jury of charges including kidnapping and armed robbery. These stem from a 2007 incident at a casino hotel in which Simpson and at least two other five men with guns stole thousands of dollars worth of sports memorabilia from two dealers. is.
Simpson said he was only trying to get his property back and was sentenced to up to 33 years in prison.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Simpson, wearing a blue prison jumpsuit with shackles on his feet and wrists, said at his sentencing. “I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong.”
Simpson was paroled in 2017 and moved to a gated community in Las Vegas. He was 74 years old and was released early from parole in 2021 due to good behavior.
His life story was told in the Oscar-winning 2016 documentary “OJ: Made in America” and in various television adaptations.
O.J. Simpson appears in court for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 in Las Vegas in this file photo. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, Pool, File)
Orenthal James Simpson was born on July 9, 1947 in San Francisco. He contracted rickets at the age of two and was forced to wear leg braces until the age of five, but he made a full recovery and went on to become one of the most famous football players of all time. Ta.
Simpson spent nine seasons with the Buffalo Bills and two with the San Francisco 49ers, becoming one of the greatest ball carriers in NFL history. In 1973, he became the first NFL player to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season. He retired in his 1979 year.
Simpson also works in advertising and is best known for his long-running television commercials for Hertz Rent a Car. As an actor, he appeared in films such as The Towering Inferno (1974), Capricorn One (1977), and the police parody film The Naked Gun in 1988, 1991, and 1994. He played a detective who lacked wit.
Simpson married his first wife Margaret in 1967 and had three children, one of whom drowned in his family’s pool at the age of two in 1979, the year the couple divorced.
Simpson met his future wife, Nicole Brown, when she was a 17-year-old waitress and still married to Margaret. Simpson and Brown married in 1985 and had two children. Later, an incident occurred in which the girlfriend’s man hit her, and she reported it to the police. Simpson pleaded no contest to her spousal abuse charges in 1989. (Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Bill Trott and Diane Craft)
