OJ Simpson's murder trial cost him the American dream WFTV

LAS VEGAS — (AP) For a long time, OJ Simpson was the man who had everything.

He lived the American dream as a sports legend, movie actor, commercial pitchman and millionaire. With his extremely successful career, stunning good looks, and stunning wife, he became an image of success for Black Americans and was embraced by people of all races. It was safe for everyone to I love the Simpsonswho inhabited a world of glamor and privilege accessible to a few.

“I'm not black, I am JO“, he liked to say to his friends.

Everything collapsed in the summer of 1994, when Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, was found dead outside her Los Angeles apartment. Her friend Ronald Goldman, a waiter who came to her house to return a pair of glasses abandoned in a restaurant, was lying a few meters away, stabbed to death.

Simpson, who is dead Wednesday at 76 years old from prostate cancer, was immediately suspected amidst discussions about domestic violence and jealousy.

A correctional jury found him not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him responsible in 1997 for those deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to Brown's relatives. and Goldman.

The criminal case caused a media sensation. Simpson was charged with murder, but before surrendering he directed police to a slow speed chase on the highways of Los Angeles. The so-called Bronco Chase, named after the white vehicle he rode in, was televised in prime time and became the first of many televised moments in the strange saga that captivated America.

I had a great life, great friends, he said in what many thought was a suicide note written just before he left for the Bronco. Please think about the real Olympics and not this lost person.

His 16-month televised trial, called ” the trial of the century“, ended up eclipsing his dazzling record as one of the most gifted running backs in football history. The trial touched on fame and riches, love and hate, the justice system, the media, domestic violence. and racism. It was a Greek tragedy, a soap opera and a circus show. America never had enough.

In 2011, the costume Simpson wore during his acquittal was donated and exhibited at the Newseum in Washington, a remnant of one of the greatest American news stories of all time.

Television comedians satirized the affair. Trial Judge Lance Ito was parodied by a group of ” Dancing Itos“Prosecutor Marcia Clark was courted by an admirer who flew over the courthouse with a banner asking her to marry him.

During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Simpson as a jealous ex-husband and a cold-blooded killer. They pleaded with jurors not to be intimidated by his ” dream Team ” of highly paid defense lawyers, his charisma as an actor or even his status as a football star.

Evidence found at the murder scene seemed overwhelmingly against Simpson: bloody footprints on his waist were present, as were drops of blood appearing to match his DNA and a glove identical in style to the one purchased by his murdered ex-wife. and worn by him during a televised football match. Games. Another glove, stained with his blood and that of the two victims, was found at his home.

But the science of DNA analysis was in its infancy and mistakes were made by police and forensic technicians in handling the evidence. When Simpson tried on the gloves in court, he couldn't put them in place his large hands, leading to the famous line his lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. later delivered to jurors: “If you don’t like it, you must acquit.” »

Simpson uttered only three words during the trial: They're too small. Many felt this was enough to make his point.

Defense attorneys did not hesitate to profess the Simpsons' innocence. He was framed, they said, by naming former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman, who denied making anti-black racial slurs but recanted after a recording was released to the court. He later pleaded guilty to perjury.

It was Fuhrman who found the bloody glove at the Simpsons' house or planted it, as some have claimed, and it was Fuhrman who could not be trusted, defense attorneys said. Jurors apparently agreed, saying Fuhrman's past weighed heavily on their minds.

In his final argument, Cochran highlighted racism and compared Fuhrman to Adolf Hitler.

Acquittal was seen by millions of people on television and on a Jumbotron in New York's Times Square. President Bill Clinton took a break from his meetings to watch.

Simpson's efforts to return to his old life were undermined by Ron Goldman's family. They believed Simpson was guilty and relentlessly pursued their wrongful death lawsuit. In a civil trial, a jury found Simpson responsible for the murders and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages to the Goldman family and Nicole Brown Simpson.

Hundreds of valuable possessions were seized as part of the reward and Simpson was forced to auction off his Heisman Trophy, for $230,000. He was never able to pay the $33.5 million, claiming he lived solely on his NFL and private pensions.

Money is not the problem, never was, said Goldman's father, Fred Goldman. This is about making sure that a man, the man who murdered my son and Nicole, is held accountable in a court of law.

In a statement released Thursday, Fred Goldman and his daughter Kim stressed that with Simpson's death, hope for true accountability had ended.

A decade later, still in the shadow of the wrongful death verdict in California, Simpson led five men he barely knew into a confrontation with two sports souvenir sellers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room. Two men with Simpson had weapons. A jury convicted Simpson of armed robbery and other crimes.

Imprisoned at 61, he served nine years in a remote prison in northern Nevada, including a job as a janitor at a gymnasium. Many believed he was being punished for crimes for which he was acquitted, including the Goldmans.

It's a bittersweet moment, Fred Goldman said. It was satisfying to see him chained up like he belonged.

Simpson was not contrite when he was released on parole in October 2017. the parole board heard it insist once again that he was only trying to recover memories and family heirlooms that were stolen from him after his criminal trial.

I've basically lived a conflict-free life, you know, Simpson said.

Simpson lived his final years in Las Vegas, mostly out of the public eye, but occasionally taking to social media to offer his opinions on the sport and his country club lifestyle. He was sometimes seen attending minor league baseball games and posing for selfies with fans.

Simpson filed a defamation suit in 2017 against a Las Vegas Strip resort, accusing it of telling a celebrity news site that he had been banned for being drunk and disruptive. Lawyers for the Las Vegas Cosmopolitan argued that Simpson could not be defamed because his reputation was already tarnished. THE the case was settled in 2021 under conditions which have not been disclosed,

Public fascination with Simpson never faded. In 2016, he was the subject of an FX miniseries and a five-part ESPN documentary.

“I don't think most Americans believe I did it,” Simpson told the New York Times in 1995, a week after a jury determined he did not kill Brown and Goldman. I received thousands of letters and telegrams from people who supported me.

Twelve years later, after a wave of outrage, Rupert Murdoch canceled a planned book by News Corp.-owned HarperCollins in which Simpson offered his hypothetical account of the murders. It was to be called If I Did It.

The Goldman family, I always continue the multi-million dollar wrongful death judgment, took control of the manuscript. They renamed the book “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.”

It's all blood money, and unfortunately I had to join the Jackals, Simpson told the Associated Press at the time. He raised $880,000 in advance for the book, paid through a third party.

It helped me become debt free and secure my property, he said.

Less than two months after losing the rights to the book, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas.

Simpson played 11 seasons in the NFL, nine of which were with the Buffalo Bills, where he became known as The Juice. He won four NFL rushing titles, totaled 11,236 rushing yards in his career, scored 76 touchdowns and made five Pro Bowls. His best season was 1973, when he rushed for 2,003 yards, the first running back to break the 2,000 rushing yard mark.

I was part of the history of the game, he said years later. If I did nothing else in my life, I would have left my mark.

Orenthal James Simpson was born July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, where he grew up in government-subsidized housing.

After graduating from high school, he enrolled at City College of San Francisco for a year and a half before transferring to the University of Southern California for the spring 1967 semester.

He married his first wife, Marguerite Whitley, on June 24, 1967, moving her to Los Angeles the next day so that he could begin preparing for his first season with USC which, thanks in large part to Simpson, won the national championship in this year.

Simpson won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. He accepted the statue the same day his first child, Arnelle, was born.

He had two sons, Jason and Aaren, with his first wife; one of these boys, Aaren, drowned as a child in a swimming pool accident in 1979, the same year of his divorce from Whitley.

Simpson and Brown married in 1985. They had two children, Justin and Sydneyand divorced in 1992. Two years later, Nicole Brown Simpson was found murdered.

“We don’t need to go back and relive the worst day of our lives,” he said. told the AP 25 years later double murders. “The topic of the moment is one that I will never return to again. My family and I have moved into what we call the “non-negative zone.” We focus on the positive. »

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Linda Deutsch is a retired special correspondent for the Associated Press. She covered all of the Simpsons' legal matters during her 48-year career as a Los Angeles-based trial reporter.

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