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
O.J. Simpson should have been found guilty of murder because of evidence found before his trial. O.j. and Nicole married in 1985 and began their family by having their first child, Sydney and three years later, Justin. All seemed well in the relationship until family members and friends came out that O.J. has been abusing her all seven years of marriage (Noble). Nicole kept journal entries recording what she went through daily from mental and physical abuse to stalking. “Threw me on the floor hit me kicked me. We went to Sherry Land Hotel where he continued to beat me for hours as I kept crawling for the door” (Brown). Nicole called the police eight times, but O.J. was never actually arrested, only once. “She’s wearing nothing but a bra
In conclusion after reviewing the arguments on both sides, there is no way one can believe O.J. Simpson is innocent and did not kill Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown. As Vincent Bugliosi states, “When a person is innocent of a crime, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, chances are there is not going to be anything whatsoever pointing toward his guilt ... Not only does the physical, scientific evidence in this case conclusively prove this defendant's guilt, but virtually everything he said and did points irresistibly to his guilt“ (279). In the infamous Bronco chase, O.J. was to turn himself in by 10 a.m. on June 17, 1994 and never showed up. Police drove over to Simpson’s home sometime around 1 p.m. and he was nowhere to be found. There, they found
The book that I am going to introduce is Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Got Away With Murder, written by Vincent Bugliosi, and was published on June 17, 1996. We all know that Nichole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death and their bodies were discovered on June 12, 1994 early morning. It was said that after a car chase, O.J. was found with $9,000 I cash, his passport, disguise, and a gun. O.J. Simpson who is her ex-husband was acquitted October 3, 1995, for their deaths in a trial that riveted the nation and divided people along racial differences. In 1997, he was ordered to pay a little over $33 million for their deaths. O.J. Simpson is still serving time in prison for things like kidnapping, robbery, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, and numerous other charges. Mr. Bugliosi sums up five reason why the case was lost. Those five can be labeled as the jury, the change in venue or settings, the judge allowing the defense to play the race card, the stupidity of the prosecution throughout the trial, and lastly the summation of what should really have been done. But in honesty when the media started reporting about this case it was already falling apart.
O.J Simpson should have been found guilty due to his violent actions on June 12th, 1994. There were many actions or causes that led up to his violent act. The main and most known cause of Simpson’s act was “infidelity”. Simpson’s wife Nicole Simpson had been spending too much time with a man by the name of Ronald Goldman. When O.J became suspicious, he took immediate action.
On June 12, 1994, the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found dead at her home in Brentwood, CA. Orenthal James Simpson, or O.J. Simpson was notified of their deaths and immediately taken into custody for questions. Upon the collection of various pieces of evidence from the crime scene, all avenues pointed to Simpson as the culprit for the double murder. The conclusion of Simpson criminal trial resulted in his acquittal. There were various reasons for this acquittal. The most prominent reasons include accusations of racism, evidence contamination, and the lack of faith in DNA profiling. This paper will discuss the issues that arose with the trial in depth and offer an explanation and solution to resolving issues
The O.J. Simpson trial was one of the most recognizable cases in American History. It went on for 9 months. At 12:10 am on June 13, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were found murdered right outside of Bundy drive condo in Brentwood. Evidence found in the scene led the Police to suspect that O.J. Simpson was the murderer. Although the prosecution pointed to the evidence of the case Simpson lawyers argued that the police bungle the investigation and planted evidence. An examination of the case is that one of the policemen was racist and planted evidence in the scene to accuse O.J. Simpson of being the murderer.
The OJ Simpson murder case was an event that transfixed the nation over 20 years ago, with everyone who was around back then having some recollection of the whole ordeal. Today, that same case in entering back into the public consciousness, as a new television series dramatizing the events, entitled “The People vs. OJ Simpson”, just premiered. In an op-ed for the New York Times, John McWhorter pens an argument that the case was symbolic of race relations between the police and the African-American community. McWhorter, an African-American, goes into detail about how he did not understand why his community was cheering back in 1995 about Simpson being acquitted. McWhorter even believed that Simpson was guilty. However, he does now
OJ was a former NFL hero, played for several teams including the Buffalo Bills, OJ had two friends which were Al Cowlings and Robert Kardashian. OJ was accused for the murders of his ex wife Nicole Simpson Brown and Ron Goldman. There is hundreds of evidence that says OJ was the killer of these people, he even admitted multiple times to “ I didn’t mean to do it. I’m sorry.’’ OJ’s lawyer even said he probably did the murder. Multiple times before Nicole thought and dreamed of OJ killing her, she said that several times she has had to call 911 because of his extreme anger issues, which he says was from former football
The O. J. Simpson double murder case, also titled “People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson was a trial in which James O.J Simpson, a former National Football League player was convicted at the Los Angeles County Superior Court of two murder offenses on June 12, 1994. He was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, a restaurant waiter at Mezzaluna. The trial spans for a period of eight months. The opening statements were read on January 23, 1995, whereas the verdict, which left Simpson a free man, was declared on October 3, 1995. “The Trial of The Century,” as it is commonly known, has been described as the most publicized trial in history. However, before Simpson could be arrested and prosecuted, they had to go through an investigation process with the implementation of some techniques used by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as this essay illustrates.
A crime being committed is the first event to initiate our criminal justice system. On June 12th 1994 a double murder was reported at the residence of Nicole Brown Simpson the ex-wife of the then beloved Orenthal James (OJ) Simpson. It was discovered that Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman had been brutally murdered and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) began their investigation, this being the second step in our criminal justice system.
This essay is purposed for the evaluation of the provocative case, The State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, more commonly referred to as O.J. Simpson. On the 12th of June, 1994 the homicide of Nicole Simpson, O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife, occurred at her home. Reports of a body sprawled out the front of Nicole Simpson’s house were made through a 911 call. On arrival, police made the discovery of Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman’s dead bodies outside the house. The review of this investigation will be achieved through; Assessment of the key aspects of the process of investigation. Evaluation of the main investigative flaws made throughout the investigation. Identifying strategies to prevent these flaws from happening in
The New York Times bestseller book titled Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case examines the O.J. Simpson criminal trial of the mid-1990s. The author, Alan M. Dershowitz, relates the Simpson case to the broad functions and perspectives of the American criminal justice system as a whole. A Harvard law school teacher at the time and one of the most renowned legal minds in the country, Dershowitz served as one of O.J. Simpson’s twelve defense lawyers during the trial. Dershowitz utilizes the Simpson case to illustrate how today’s criminal justice system operates and relates it to the misperceptions of the public. Many outside spectators of the case firmly believed that Simpson committed the
On June 17, 1994 when police charged Orenthal James Simpson, Brown's ex-husband, and after leading police on a 60 mile low speed chase down the highways of southern Los Angeles in his friend Al Cowling's white Bronco, was arrested and jailed without bail, the story became even more complicated. This was when the police knew this would not be just any murder case. This was OJ Simpson, the famous football player, this would be complicated. Their only hope of conviction was the evidence that would place him as the murderer.
It is difficult to believe that O.J. Simpson was once a respected and celebrated professional football player, sports commentator, and actor. However, his image was irrevocably shattered on June 17, 1994 when Simpson was involved in a car chase that lasted about an hour on California's I-405 (O.J. Simpson leads L.A. police on a high-speed chase, 2013). Dubbed the "Crime of the Century," O.J. Simpson's trial was a media circus and was sensationalized for a number of reasons including Simpson's status as a celebrity, the mishandling of evidence, and the issue of race.
In 1995, O.J. Simpson, a popular sports player and public figure, was accused of the double homicide of Ron Goldman and his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. Within the following months, the trial became increasingly popular as the celebrity’s case deepened. Due to its popularity, the case revealed many aspects that shocked and confounded the public. Consequently, the issue of race arose within what was viewed as the most shocking component of the trial: the verdict. As the infamous O.J. Simpson verdict reached America, the reaction caused a polarizing effect on the racial view of Simpson between white and black communities.