Simpson trials

The Event: Two trials concerning O. J. Simpson’s role in the murder of his former wife and her friend produced conflicting results

Date: January 24-October 3, 1995 (criminal trial); October 23, 1996-February 12, 1997 (civil trial)

Place: Los Angeles, California

Significance: The Simpson trials became major cultural events, attracting the interest of tens of millions of people, but resulted in divisive social attitudes and numerous calls for judicial reform.

On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were savagely stabbed to death outside Simpson’s Los Angeles home. Five days later, Simpson’s former husband, Hall of Fame football star and media celebrity O. J. Simpson, was arrested and charged with the murders following an ambiguous suicide note and a nationally televised car chase.

The Criminal Trial

O. J. Simpson’s wealth and celebrity permitted his attorney Robert Shapiro to assemble a high-priced “dream team” for the defense that included F. Lee Bailey, Johnnie Cochran, Alan M. Dershowitz, Peter Neufeld, Barry Scheck, and Gerald Uelman. Following six months’ preparation, an eight-month criminal trial was presided over by Judge Lance Ito.

Los Angeles County prosecutors, including Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden, showed that Simpson had motive and opportunity. They presented extensive physical evidence pointing to him: bloody gloves, socks, shoe prints, hair, and fiber traces. The defense focused on irregularities in the collection, documentation, and analysis of the evidence, arguing that through incompetence and racially motivated conspiracy, the police had contaminated or planted evidence to link the DNA of Simpson, his former wife, and Goldman.

Forensic scientist Henry Lee declared that there was “something wrong” with the evidence, and defense attorneys expanded on that theme. Testimony by Mark Fuhrman, the police detective who had found the bloody glove outside Simpson’s home—especially his lies about not having used “the N-word”—permitted the defense to shift the focus from the murders to an alleged police conspiracy to frame Simpson, a man who had, in fact, long received special consideration. When prosecutor Darden asked Simpson to try on the gloves in court, and the gloves appeared to be too small for Simpson’s hands, the defense took up the mantra, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

Cochran even flirted with jury nullification, inviting the jury to send a message to society about police racism. Some critics saw this as analogous to ignoring fact and law to acquit whites who murder blacks, as in the famous case of the lynching of Emmett Till in the 1950’s. Simpson was acquitted, and national reaction to the jury verdict revealed visceral disagreement between many black and white Americans, who seemed to have different views about the likelihood of police conspiracies.

The Civil Trial

A year later, Simpson defended himself again, this time against civil suits brought by Ron Goldman’s parents and estate and Nicole Brown Simpson’s estate. Differences between the civil and criminal trials included the kinds of evidence that could be introduced, the standards of proof (preponderance of evidence rather than reasonable doubt), and venues and jury composition. Television was excluded, and in general the judge, Hiroshi Fujisaki, exercised tight control. The civil trial jury found Simpson “liable” for the attacks, and he was assessed more than $33 million in compensatory damages and punitive damages.

Legacy of the Trials

Public attention was riveted during the two-and-a-half year media saturation of the Simpson saga. The criminal trial received, communications scholar Janice Schuetz claims, “the most extensive coverage of any event in history.” Its live verdict was watched by an estimated 150 million viewers, becoming a defining moment in Americans’ collective memory.

The trials prompted much soul-searching about the jury system. Some observers argued that, regardless of Simpson’s guilt or innocence, the first jury’s verdict was correct, given the higher standard of reasonable doubt. Many critics faulted the jury for incompetence or bias. Other candidates for reform included the defense, the prosecution, the judge, the police, the expert witnesses, the jury consultants, the media, the adversary system itself, or the influence of wealth, celebrity, or race on justice.

Critics have drawn diverse lessons and consequences from the Simpson case. To federal judge William Dwyer, for example, the lesson is that judges cannot passively allow lawyers to become overly contentious. To Lee, the effect of the case has been to make it clear that in forensic science “only the highest professional standards would be tolerated in the future.” Prosecutor Clark went so far as to suggest that a ballot measure to eliminate affirmative action programs in California, approved by voters in November 1996, would not have passed “if white Californians had not been so infuriated by the Simpson verdict.”

The Simpson trials led to conflicting results, complicating judgments about their ultimate legal or social legacy. Simpson emerged a free man, one of the most famous defendants of all time—liable but not guilty.

Bibliography

Bugliosi, Vincent. Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. The prosecutor of convicted murderer Charles Manson provides a detailed analysis of the evidence in Simpson’s criminal trial and a pugnacious critique of the performance of the prosecution.

Dwyer, William L. In the Hands of the People: The Trial Jury’s Origins, Triumphs, Troubles, and Future in American Democracy. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2002. A federal judge sets the Simpson trials in the context of his defense of juries as “America’s most democratic institution,” faulting Judge Lance Ito’s passivity and the lawyers’ contentiousness.

Knappman, Edward W., ed. Great American Trials: Two Hundred and One Compelling Courtroom Dramas from Salem Witchcraft to O. J. Simpson. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2004. Includes a concise overview of key events in the criminal trial.

Lee, Henry C., and Frank Tirnady. Blood Evidence: How DNA Is Revolutionizing the Way We Solve Crimes. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2003. Lee, an expert witness in Simpson’s defense, offers an extensive discussion of the DNA evidence in that case and others.

Petrocelli, Daniel, with Peter Knobler. Triumph of Justice: The Final Judgment on the Simpson Saga. New York: Crown, 1998. The successful lead attorney for the plaintiffs describes the strategies involved in Simpson’s civil trial.

Schuetz, Janice, and Lin S. Lilley, eds. The O. J. Simpson Trials: Rhetoric, Media, and the Law. Carbondale: University of Southern Illinois Press, 1999. A collection of essays by scholars discussing the interaction of legal and rhetorical strategies in the trials.

Toobin, Jeffrey. The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson. New York: Random House, 1996. An account of the criminal trial by the attorney/journalist who revealed in The New Yorker (and thereby began the implementation of) the defense’s “race card” strategy.