(officially The People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson)
was a criminal trial held in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Former National Football League (NFL) player, broadcaster and actor
O. J. Simpson was tried and acquitted on two counts of murder for the June 12, 1994, slashing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson,
and her friend Ron Goldman. At 12:10 a.m. on June 13, 1994, Brown and Goldman were found stabbed to death outside her condominium in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Simpson became a person of interest after police found a bloody glove behind his house and was formally charged with the murders on June 17. When he did not turn himself in at the agreed time (having previously been released after perfunctory questioning by police detectives),
he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white 1993 Ford Bronco SUV owned and driven by his friend Al Cowlings.
TV stations interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals to broadcast the incident. The pursuit was watched live by an estimated 95 million people.
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 because of its international publicity—spanned eleven months, from the jury's swearing-in on November 9, 1994.
Opening statements were made on January 24, 1995, and the verdict was announced on October 3, 1995 when Simpson was acquitted on two counts of murder.
According to USA Today, the case has been described as the "most publicized" criminal trial in history.
Simpson was represented by a high-profile defense team, also referred to as the "Dream Team", which was initially led by Robert Shapiro and subsequently directed by Johnnie Cochran.
The team also included F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Shawn Holley, Carl E. Douglas, and Gerald Uelmen.
Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld were two additional attorneys who specialized in DNA evidence.
Deputy District Attorneys Marcia Clark, William Hodgman and later Christopher Darden thought that they had a strong case against Simpson, but Cochran was able to convince the jury that there was reasonable doubt concerning the validity of the State's DNA evidence, which was a relatively new form of evidence in trials at that time.
The reasonable doubt theory included evidence that the blood sample had allegedly been mishandled by lab scientists and technicians, and there were questionable circumstances that surrounded other court exhibits.
Cochran and the defense team also alleged other misconduct by the LAPD related to systemic racism and incompetence, in particular actions and comments of Detective Mark Fuhrman.
The trial became historically significant because of the reaction to the verdict.The nation observed the same evidence presented at trial but a division along racial lines emerged in observers opinion of the verdict, which the media dubbed the "racial gap".
A poll of Los Angeles County residents showed that most African Americans felt that justice had been served by the "not guilty" verdict, while the majority of whites and Latinos felt it was a racially motivated jury nullification by a mostly African-American jury. Polling shows the gap has narrowed since the trial, with over half of polled black respondents in 2013 stating they believed Simpson was guilty.
After the trial, Fred Goldman, Ron's father, filed a civil suit against Simpson.
On February 4, 1997, the jury unanimously found Simpson responsible for both deaths. The Goldman family was awarded compensatory and punitive damages totaling $33.5 million ($53.4 million in 2019 dollars), but have received only a small portion of that monetary figure.
