American football star and actor OJ Simpson has died at the age of 76. He was acquitted in a blockbuster 1995 trial for his ex-wife’s murder, but was found responsible for her death in a civil suit and was later jailed for armed robbery and kidnapping. .
Simpson died on Wednesday after a battle with cancer, his family posted on social media on Thursday, in what US media called the “trial of the century” as a Los Angeles jury found Simpson guilty.
Simpson avoided prison when he was acquitted of the 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles. Simpson served nine years in a Nevada prison after being convicted in 2008 of 12 counts of armed robbery and the kidnapping of two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint from a Las Vegas hotel.
Nicknamed “Juice” Simpson, he was one of the best and most popular athletes of the late 1960s and 1970s. He overcame childhood ailments to become a thrilling running back at USC and win the Heisman Trophy as college football’s top player. After setting NFL career records with the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Simpson parlayed his status as a football star into a career as a sportscaster, advertising spokesperson and Hollywood actor in films such as the “Naked Gun” series.
Everything changed on June 12, 1994, when Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman were found hacked to death in a bloody scene outside their Los Angeles home.
Simpson quickly became a suspect. He was ordered to turn himself in to police, but five days after the killing he fled in a white Ford Mustang with a former teammate, taking his passport and disguise with him. A slow-speed chase through the Los Angeles area ended at Simpson’s mansion, where he was later charged with murder.
What followed was one of the most notorious trials and media circus in America of the 20th century. It had it all: a wealthy celebrity defendant; a black man accused of killing his white ex-wife out of jealousy; a woman murdered after divorcing the man who assaulted her; an expensive and charismatic defense attorney. ’s “dream team”; and the prosecutor’s huge gaffe.
Simpson declared at the outset of the case that he was “absolutely 100 percent innocent.” After a predominantly black jury of 10 women and two men acquitted Simpson on October 3, 1995, he told the jury The staff waved and said “thank you”. .
Prosecutors argued Simpson killed Nicole in a jealous rage, and they provided extensive blood, hair and fiber tests linking Simpson to the murder. The defense countered that the celebrity defendant was framed by racist white police.
The trial shocked America. At the White House, President Bill Clinton left the Oval Office and watched the verdict on his secretary’s television. Many black Americans celebrated his acquittal and believed Simpson was a victim of bigoted police. Many white Americans were shocked by his acquittal.
Simpson’s legal team, which included prominent criminal defense attorneys Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz and F. Lee Bailey, often outmaneuvered Prosecution. Prosecutors made the memorable mistake of instructing Simpson to try on a pair of blood-stained gloves found at the murder scene, believing they would fit perfectly and identify him as the killer.
In a dramatic demonstration, Simpson struggled to put on the gloves and told the jury they didn’t fit.
During his closing argument to jurors, Cochran uttered one of the trial’s most famous lines: “If it doesn’t fit, you have to be acquitted.” Dershowitz later said prosecutors asked Simpson to try on the gloves. The decision was “the greatest legal mistake of the 20th century.”
UCLA law professor Peter Arenella told the New York Times: “This verdict tells you how reputation and money can buy the best defense that can turn an overwhelming case of incriminating physical evidence. into a case beyond a reasonable doubt.” time after the verdict.
“Majority African American juries are more susceptible to accusations of police incompetence and corruption and are more willing to impose a higher burden of proof than is typically required beyond a reasonable doubt,” Arenella said.
Simpson said after his acquittal, “I have made it my primary goal in life to hunt down the killers of Nicole and Mr. Goldman… They are out there somewhere… I will not, cannot, and have not killed anyone. .” “.
Goldman and the Brown family subsequently filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Simpson in civil court. In 1997, a mostly white jury in Santa Monica, California, found Simpson responsible for the two deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages.
“We finally have justice for Ron and Nicole,” Ron Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, said after the verdict.
Simpson’s “dream team” did not represent him in the civil trial, where the burden of proof is lower than in a criminal trial – “preponderance of the evidence” rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt.” New evidence also hurt Simpson, including photos of him wearing the kind of shoes that left bloodstains at murder scenes.
After the civil case, some of Simpson’s belongings, including memorabilia from his football days, were taken away and auctioned to help pay for the restitution he was owed.
On October 3, 2008, exactly 13 years after he was acquitted in his murder trial, a Las Vegas jury convicted him of kidnapping and armed robbery. The incidents stem from a 2007 incident at a casino hotel in which Simpson and five men, at least two of whom were armed, stole thousands of dollars worth of sports memorabilia from two dealers.
Simpson said he just wanted his property back, but was sentenced to up to 33 years in prison.
“I don’t want to hurt anybody,” Simpson, wearing a blue prison jumpsuit and shackled on his legs and wrists, said during the sentencing. “I do not know what I did wrong.”
Simpson was paroled from prison in 2017 and moved into a gated community in Las Vegas. At the age of 74, he was granted early parole in 2021 due to good behavior.
His life story was told in the 2016 Academy Award-winning documentary “OJ: Made in America” and several television series.
Orenthal James Simpson was born on July 9, 1947 in San Francisco. He contracted rickets at the age of 2 and was forced to wear a leg brace until the age of 5, but recovered so completely that he became one of the most famous rugby players of all time.
In nine seasons with the Buffalo Bills and two with the San Francisco 49ers, Simpson became one of the greatest ball carriers in NFL history. In 1973, he became the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season. He retired in 1979.
Simpson also became an advertising salesman, becoming famous for his many years of television commercials for Hertz rental cars. As an actor, he appeared in films including “The Inferno” (1974), “Capricorn One” (1977) and the 1988, 1991 and 1994 police spoof “Naked Gun”, playing a Stupid detective.
Simpson married his first wife, Margaret, in 1967 and had three children, one of whom they divorced in 1979 when he was 2 years old and drowned in the family’s swimming pool.
Simpson met his future wife, Nicole Brown, when she was 17 and working as a waitress, while Simpson was still married to Margaret. Simpson and Brown married in 1985 and have two children. She later called the police after an incident in which he assaulted her. Simpson pleaded no contest to a 1989 spousal abuse charge.
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