The Simpson : The Murder Suspect For The Homicide Of Nicole Simpson

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.

The ESPN series “O.J.: Made in America” is a documentary of the notable rise and fall of Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson, which captivated the nation and is still discussed today [over 20 years later]. Simpson’s life story and infamous 1994 double-homicide acquittal is paralleled with race relations, and the criminal justice system in Los Angeles in the decades leading up to the “trial of the century”. The main objective of the documentary does not seem determine whether Simpson is ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’, but rather to consider the effect of racial issues in the U.S. criminal justice system that how they played into the trial. While the documentary primary leads to, and surrounds the infamous trial, it also illustrates the concepts and ideals of the country that both made and destroyed him.

O.J. Simpson, born Orenthal James Simpson, was an exceptional football running back from 1969-1980. After retirement from football, Simpson became a sports newscaster, as well as continued as a “B” rate actor. Although he was a black man, he was accepted due to his accumulated wealth, as an elite white man. He married a beautiful white woman with flowing blonde hair, Nicole Brown. He had two children with Brown-Simpson and appeared to be living happily in Brentwood, California. Simpson was accused of domestic battery multiple times by his wife, which ultimately led to the dissolution of their marriage. On June 13, 2004 Brown-Simpson, as well as a male acquaintance, was found murdered outside of her home in Brentwood. Suddenly, the cameras were trained on Simpson, not for a feat in the game of football, not for a sports analysis, and not for an orange juice or car rental commercial; rather he is the main suspect in the death of Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman, both of whom are white. In this paper I will argue, that O.J. Simpson’s socio-economic status afforded him, or his legal team, the opportunity to change the color of his skin when it benefitted him.

As a crime scene investigator, there are duties that have to be met and a job that has to get done. Part of this job includes putting together reliable evidence, and making a list of suspects. As an investigator my job as of right now, is to find evidence to use against Orenthal James Simpson in the prosecution of the murder of his wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. On June 12, 1994, around 10:15 P.M., Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were brutally murdered at her house on 875 S. Bundy in Brentwood, California (Linder).

OJ’s driver the night of the murder, Allan Park, testified to picking up Mr. Simpson, who as he entered the limo, carried a small black bag and would not let it be touched (4). OJ Simpson had left L.A. at 11:45 p.m., and was aboard a plane on his way to Chicago (1). When Simpson was alerted of his ex-wife’s homicide, he did not ask any questions; later in the trial, he testified that he smashed a glass, resulting in cutting his left hand (2). Prosecuting attorneys explained the injury differently to the jury by hinting that Simpson could’ve hurt himself committing the crime

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.

During the tumultuous 1990s, there were many racial incidents, most famously the Rodney King incident. After the assault of African American Rodney King, an all white jury acquitted several white police officers of assaulting King (Kelly, 1). This led to the criminal justice system to be questioned if it “...was being fair to all individuals regardless of race or socio-economic status.” (Kelly, 1) When the Simpson trial started to form, Simpson’s “Dream Team” did everything they could in order to win the case, even if that meant exploiting the racial inequalities prominent at the time. According to author Carl E. Enomoto, “(Marcia) Clark further believed that the defense did everything possible to eliminate those potential jurors who were not black and who were educated. After all was said and done, the jury consisted of six black females, two black males, two Hispanics, one half Native-American male, and one white female (and twelve alternates).” (Enomoto, 147) This explains why the Mark Fuhrman tapes

“ It didn't create racial tension; rather, it revealed the fault lines of bigotry and bias that trace beneath our common lives together”(Dyson). This quote means that it forced some Americans to see that they had an intolerance towards other races; which is something most Americans tend to not realize. Some believe that if O.J would have been white and Nicole would have been African American it would not have been as dramatic of a case as it was. O.J was not perceived as a black man, he had received “honorary white status”(Dyson). Due to his personality, he was accepted everywhere he went and he fit in very well. O.J was not like any of the other African American athletes that came before him. Those athletes had to fight hard and be rebellious to be accepted in sports such as Mohammed Ali. He was accepted right from the beginning due to his personality and his athletic ability. After being convicted, he lost all his white status and he was “re-blackened”. It revealed to black and white America that we see things very different from one

The numerous ups, downs, and controversies surrounding the life of former star football player OJ Simpson have led to a strangely divided collective memory of the man. The term collective memory refers to a shared pool of information held in the memories of a group from aggregated individual recollections. The story of OJ Simpson’s life is both sad and puzzling after overcoming adversity to become one of the best football players of all time and a public figure beloved by many Simpson would go on to put himself in a worse situation than ever before.

Simpson, it shouldn’t be neglected to note that O.J. Simpson was an extremely well liked celebrity prior to this. He was well liked among both black people and white people and before he was charged with murder he was never really thought of as a black man and was just thought about as a loveable former football player and pitchman, he was viewed to be “raceless”. O.J. Simpson never said controversial things and made sure to project himself as a good role model that stays out of trouble. He was a walking rags-to-riches story, growing up in poverty to become successful in everything that he tried from football to acting; a type of story that particularly resonates with Americans of all backgrounds. He was in movies with white people, lived among them in the primarily white community of Brentwood and even married a white woman.

the effect of the racial nature of the case on the jury and it is quite astounding. Somewhere around 78% of people believed that the racial issues of the time had either determined the verdict or was consider by the jury in the O.J. Simpson case (Greene). This is so unfortunate that people believe that race, even after all of our progress, was a determining factor in declaring Simpson innocent and the media was at the forefront constantly pumping stories about the Simpson case being one of race rather than one of circumstantial evidence. The constant media scrutiny and perversion of case details allowed for the facts and circumstantial evidence to be put

This article takes the coverage of the Duke lacrosse case over the year that it received attention in the news and analyzes different aspects. It distinguishes between news reporting and news commentary and between national and local coverage. During the case there was news outlets reporting on the case and would not describe the defendants as guilty or criminals but as student athletes that were involved in a tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations. The article states that there is no credible data that suggests that young wealthy white defendants are subjected to unfair coverage of the pretrial compared to black defendants when they are accused of a crime. Evidence shows that media coverage puts black defendants at a disadvantage because of all the negative associations that have been established my main stream media that can ruin their chances of being proved innocence because in the eyes of the people they are already guilty caused by the media

Evidence collected included blood at the scene and hairs found on a cap at the scene and on Goldman’s shirt. Both

and Nicole. This prompted police to request a blood sample from Simpson, which he complied and gave them. As police closed in on Simpson and attempted an arrest, Simpson fled and led a highly televised chase (State of California vs Orenthal James Simpson, 1995).

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.