20 Years Ago: The OJ Simpson Murder Case!

The "Trial of The Century". 20 years ago marks the OJ Simpson murder trial.

Man it's been that long!

I remember I was in the my high school classroom back in the Spring of 1994 when the OJ Simpson trial was going on.

Everyone was glued to the public courtroom trial of Orenthal James Simpson. He was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman.

This trial was so polarizing and divided people among racial lines. Simpson was found not guilty in the murder but liable for their deaths. For about nearly 12 years, OJ Simpson was a free man. But his misfortunes came to court yet again when he was accused of robbing a group of men in Las Vegas.

He was sentenced to 9 to 33 years in the iron college. He is currently working on a new trial.

Many Americans believe that Simpson got away with murder. Many Black people were happy about the decision.

Did you happen to see the infamous white Ford Bronco chase on a Friday night in June of 1994?

The Bronco permanently entered American popular culture on June 17, 1994, when a white 1992 model owned and driven by Al Cowlings with O. J. Simpson, who was wanted for the murders of his ex-wife and her friend, attempted to elude the Los Angeles Police Department in a low-speed chase.

I bet that over millions of people were glued to their televisions with some jumping in the street cheering him on. It would be one of the most memorable moments in my young life.

Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman both were murdered by a butcher knife.

Watching a former football star and part time actor flee the Los Angeles Police with a gun to his head.

The O. J. Simpson murder case (officially the People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson) was a criminal trial held at the Superior Court in Los Angeles County, California, that spanned from the jury being sworn in on November 2, 1994, to opening statements on January 24, 1995, to a verdict on October 3, 1995.

The former professional football star and actor O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder after the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a waiter, Ronald Lyle Goldman, in June 1994. The case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history.

Simpson was acquitted after a trial that lasted more than eight months.

Simpson hired a high-profile defense team, initially led by Robert Shapiro and subsequently led by Johnnie Cochran, and which also included: F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Gerald Uelmen (the dean of law at Santa Clara University), Robert Blasier, and Carl E. Douglas, with two more attorneys specializing in DNA evidence: Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. 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 (a relatively new form of evidence in trials at the time)– 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 in the assessment of Simpson's guilt between most black and white Americans.

Later, both the Brown and Goldman families sued Simpson for damages in a civil trial that came to a total of $40 million. 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.

The Los Angeles court upheld a renewal of the civil judgment against him.

We here at Journal de la Reyna send our condolences to the families of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman.



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