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Why Is Oj Simpson Guilty

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OJ Simpson was found not guilty for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1995 (BBC On This Day, 1995). He had been accused of stabbing his ex-wife and Goldman to death the previous year outside her townhouse (Los Angeles Times,1994). The case is often considered to be “one of the most controversial, compelling and repulsive court cases in American History” (The Guardian,2007). In recent years the case has only increased in notoriety when in 2008 when Simpson was found guilty of kidnapping and robbery and was sentenced to 33 years in prison (but was granted parole in 2017) (BBC News,2017), this spurred the public to relive the court case and even ponder if he was truly guilty of the murders all along.

Figure 1 : OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson . (sourced from Google Images)

OJ Simpson was a renowned football player winning awards throughout his time on the pitch. In 1977 he met Nicole Brown and by 1988 they were married and had two children (Simpson,2006). Despite their image as a ‘golden couple’ in 1992 Nicole filed for divorce a few years after OJ pleaded no contest to spousal abuse in 1989. This was followed up by several reports of Simpson stalking Nicole and trying to break into her house in 1993 (Fox News, 2016). It all ended with the discovery of Nicole and Ron bodies on the early morning on the 13th July 1994. Within hours there was a media circus surrounding the murders with reports that evidence found at the scene and at Simpsons estate heavily implicated Simpson despite his attorney proclaiming his innocence (Hunt,1999). CNN highlights that we find the case of OJ Simpson so fascinating due to the idea that when Simpson rose to fame he seemingly overcame the extreme racial tensions in the USA and wasn’t suppressed like other ethnic minority individuals of that time. However, when the murders occurred, and he was named as the prime suspect, that “protective bubble” ceased and the nation was divided on whether he was a black man wrongly accused of the murder of white individuals or if he was a guilty man blaming his arrest on the idea of institutional racism in the criminal justice system. This shows that the Simpson case is captivating to all as

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