O.J. Simpson met Nicole Brown successful 1977 and divorced his archetypal wife, Marguerite, successful 1979. He married Nicole connected Feb. 2, 1985; their girl Sydney was calved 8 months later, and son Justin was calved successful 1988.

"You guys ne'er bash anything," Nicole told constabulary erstwhile they arrived astatine the Simpson location astatine 360 N. Rockingham Ave. successful L.A.'s posh Brentwood neighborhood, responding to a home maltreatment telephone successful the the aboriginal greeting hours of Jan. 1, 1989, according to reports astir that night. "You ne'er bash anything. You travel out. You've been present 8 times. And you ne'er bash thing astir him."

Simpson insisted helium didn't bushed Nicole, lone pushed her retired of bed. Then, told helium needed to spell with the officers to the constabulary station, helium drove disconnected instead. A fewer days later, Nicole went to the presumption and said she didn't truly privation them to proceed with a prosecution, but she consented to out-of-court mediation.

On May 24, 1989, Simpson was sentenced to 24 months of probation, ordered to execute 120 hours of assemblage work and wage fines totaling $470, and was told to be counseling doubly a week (he was allowed to bash it by phone) aft pleading nary contention to misdemeanor home violence.

Nicole yet moved retired with Justin and Sydney and filed for divorcement successful February 1992. They settled that October, with O.J. agreeing to wage her a lump sum of $433,750, positive $10,000 a period successful kid support, and she retained the rubric of a rental property. She yet bought a condo astatine 875 S. Bundy Drive successful Brentwood and moved determination successful January 1994.

All the while, Simpson was alternately threatening her and trying to get backmost together. According to prosecutors and witnesses, O.J. had stood extracurricular and looked done her model on multiple occasions, including 1 clip erstwhile she was having sex with a boyfriend. Per Jeffrey Toobin's 1996 book The Run of His Life, successful a diary introduction from June 3, 1994, Nicole detailed a caller menace from Simpson: "'You bent up connected maine past nite, you're gonna wage for this bitch...You deliberation you tin bash immoderate f--king happening you want, you've got it comming [sic]..." and truthful on.

She called a battered women's structure successful Santa Monica connected June 7, 1994, to lament that her ex was stalking her. Five days aboriginal she was dead.

Tinted Window

TIME came nether occurrence for darkening O.J's complexion erstwhile the work ran his mug changeable connected the screen successful June 1994, with critics arguing it was cheaply playing up the Black-male-murder-suspect space and pointing retired that Newsweek had tally the photograph without altering the color.

Managing exertion James R. Gaines relayed successful a connection posted connected an AOL connection committee (remember AOL Time Warner?) that "no radical accusation was intended, by TIME or by the artist"—but that yes, the photograph fixed retired by the LAPD had specifically been handed to an creator to crook into screen creation for the story, which would see interpreting it arsenic helium saw fit.

"It seems to maine you could reason that it's racist to accidental that blacker is much sinister," Gaines said, "but beryllium that arsenic it may: To the grade that this caused discourtesy to anyone, I evidently regret it."

Dozens of books person been written astir this case, including O.J.'s inexplicable 2007 tome If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer, but his archetypal publication to the canon was I Want to Tell You, which came retired connected Jan. 7, 1995, erstwhile the proceedings was hardly underway.

The book purportedly comprised the defendant's answers to the thousands of letters he'd received since going to jail, an effort to get up of the representation the prosecution planned to overgarment of a vicious abuser who had yet made bully connected each his threats. It sold much than 650,000 copies.

Twenty-one years earlier the O.J. saga got the slick, Emmy-winning attraction successful The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story and Ezra Edelman won an Oscar for the epic documentary O.J.: Made successful America, The O.J. Simpson Story, starring Bobby Hosea and Jessica Tuck, which was mainly astir O.J. and Nicole's volatile relationship, was rushed to Fox. 

The New York Times called it "not a movie the defence squad would privation the assemblage to see" and an accidental counterbalance to O.J.'s "self-serving" book.

Fox made a constituent of not airing the TV movie until the assemblage had been sequestered.

An over-confident Marcia Clark didn't enactment Jill Shively, who told a expansive assemblage that she saw O.J., successful his achromatic Bronco, speeding down Bundy shortly aft 10:45 on the nighttime of the murders, connected the basal during the trial. Moreover, Clark instructed the expansive assemblage to disregard Shively's testimony, saying she couldn't successful bully conscience person them see accusation she didn't person afloat religion in.

Clark was really pissed that Shively had sat down with Hard Copy earlier she was owed to springiness testimony, and the authoritative figured she had plentifulness of different witnesses and grounds to nail O.J. with. Who needed 1 much connecting him to the determination successful a clip framework that acceptable the crime?

O.J. bombed a prevarication detector trial defence lawyer Robert Shapiro arranged for him to take, registering a minus-24, according to The Run of His Life. Polygraph results aren't admissible successful court, but tin play a relation successful directing the people of an investigation—and successful helping defence attorneys find the champion strategy.

Alan Dershowitz, who chiefly advised the defence squad from crossed the state portion teaching astatine Harvard, told the New York Daily News successful 2016, erstwhile FX's The People v. O.J. Simpson had everybody talking, that the information the polygraph trial results went nationalist suggested determination whitethorn person been a usurpation of attorney-client privilege.

"There were lone 4 successful the satellite who knew astir the lie-detector test," Dershowitz said. "I was not 1 of them. The 4 radical were [Robert] Kardashian, who died, Bob Shapiro, O.J. Simpson and the antheral who conducted the lie-detector test."

However, possibly determination were more.

Defense squad subordinate F. Lee Bailey, nary large instrumentality of Shapiro past oregon now, told Huffington Post's Highline successful 2019 astir his co-counsel, "He f--ked up the lawsuit connected time 1 by giving O.J. a polygraph trial that was wholly impossible. You ne'er springiness those nether the circumstances, and helium called maine instantly saying, 'What bash I bash next?' And I said, 'Well, archetypal you halt being an a--hole. You telephone earlier you springiness the polygraph test, for Christ's sake!' I saw the charts earlier helium tore them up, and they were thing but junk." (Shapiro did not remark connected Bailey's remarks.)

After starring constabulary connected a 50-mile pursuit that traversed aggregate L.A. freeways, O.J. successful the backseat and Cowlings down the instrumentality of the erstwhile shot star's achromatic Ford Bronco, O.J. surrendered astatine his location and was taken into custody connected June 17, 1994. He remained jailed without bail for the duration of the trial. The clip helium spent connected termination ticker outgo taxpayers $81,000, aft which the terms of incarceration averaged retired to $55.69 a day. 

According to the L.A. County auditor's office, the lawsuit outgo the metropolis astir $800,000 a month.

Though immoderate drew much attraction than others and fractional of them didn't talk successful court, determination were astatine slightest 10 lawyers who worked connected O.J.'s case: civilian rights activistic Johnnie Cochran; Robert Shapiro; F. Lee Bailey; DNA experts and founders of The Innocence Project Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld; Cochran's associates Carl Douglas and Shawn Holley; O.J.'s longtime person Robert Kardashian; Gerald Uelmen, past the dean of Santa Clara University's instrumentality school; and Alan Dershowitz.

Kardashian died of esophageal crab successful 2003, and Cochran died of encephalon crab successful 2005. Shapiro steered his signifier into civilian litigation aft the proceedings and co-founded Legal Zoom; helium started the Brent Shapiro Foundation for cause maltreatment consciousness aft his lad died of an overdose successful 2005. Douglas and Holley are inactive practicing proceedings attorneys who person represented a slew of personage clients.

Uelmen was appointed enforcement manager of the California Commission connected the Fair Administration of Justice successful 2006. Scheck and Neufeld thatch astatine Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law. Bailey, aboriginal disbarred successful the states of Florida and Massachusetts, died successful 2021. Dershowitz retired from teaching successful 2013 and made caller headlines arsenic a erstwhile lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein and arsenic an outspoken professional of the probe into whether President Donald Trump colluded with Russia (which he insisted was not a defence of Trump but a defence of owed process and civilian liberties).

Brian "Kato" Kaelin, an aspiring histrion who was staying successful O.J's impermanent house, initially moved into Nicole's impermanent location successful January 1993, a period aft gathering her successful Aspen. He planned connected moving into the Bundy condo to assistance instrumentality attraction of the kids, he testified, but moved onto O.J.'s spot alternatively due to the fact that helium didn't privation Kaelin hanging astir his ex-wife truthful much.

Kaelin testified that, connected June 12, O.J. returned from girl Sydney's creation recital and told him that Nicole was preventing him from spending clip with Sydney, and helium complained that the formal Nicole wore that nighttime was excessively tight. He and O.J. went to McDonald's and got backmost astatine astir 9:40 p.m., Kaelin remembered. 

Then, astatine astir 10:45 p.m., helium heard 3 large thumps against his wall. Kaelin went extracurricular but didn't spot thing different than a limo waiting. The driver, Allan Park, testified that helium saw O.J. spell into the location astatine 10:55 p.m.

O.J. came retired astatine 11 p.m. and Kaelin helped him load his luggage into the limo, but for a backpack O.J. insisted connected putting successful the trunk himself, Kaelin testified. Park drove O.J. to LAX, wherever helium had an 11:45 p.m. formation to Chicago. (He returned to L.A. connected a 12:10 p.m. formation the adjacent day.)

"I had a vigor amusement and determination would beryllium changeless decease threats to me," Kaelin later said connected OWN's Where Are They Now? "There'd beryllium faxes [saying] 'Kato should beryllium killed.'

Talking to Barbara Walters successful 2015, Kaelin concluded astir his aged friend, "In my opinion, yes, I deliberation he's guilty."

Kato Kaelin was close capable to the household that Justin and Sydney Simpson named their canine Kato—and it was Kato the Akita's frantic barks that drew a neighbor, who was retired walking his dog, toward Nicole's location astatine astir 10:15 p.m. Not knowing who the Akita belonged to, the neighbour took it location with him, figuring helium and his woman could support it for the nighttime earlier searching for his owner.

But Kato seemed truthful nervous, the mates took him extracurricular and the canine led them backmost to Nicole's house, wherever they saw that connected the way conscionable down the gross determination was a pistillate lying successful a excavation of blood.

If the Shoe Fits

Italian shoemaker Bruno Magli got immoderate escaped publicity erstwhile a bloody people astatine the execution country was matched to a size-12 Bruno Magli Lorenzo boot.

O.J. denied owning a brace and said aboriginal successful a deposition for the civilian proceedings that he'd ne'er deterioration "those disfigured ass shoes," but photos were dug up overmuch aboriginal showing him wearing the marque connected 2 abstracted occasions.

"He was precise nice," Sam Poser, an subordinate purchaser astatine Bloomingdale's for men's shoes who testified astir showing a brace of Lorenzos to O.J. but couldn't retrieve if the shot prima really bought them, told Footwear News successful 2016. "He bought a clump of dress-casual stuff—he wanted thing that was comfortable. But I remembered what helium didn't bargain much truthful than I remembered selling him that peculiar shoe... Eventually, aft the [criminal] proceedings was over, they recovered the photograph of O.J. wearing the Bruno Magli footwear astatine a Bills game. In the civilian case, which I was deposed for, they stipulated that helium was so wearing those shoes. Had they recovered that photograph anterior to the transgression trial, that could person been a game-changer."

Defense lawyer Carl Douglas aboriginal told Dateline that his squad switched up immoderate of the decor successful O.J.'s Rockingham Avenue location earlier the assemblage toured it to marque it look arsenic if the tarnished shot leader was much successful interaction with his taste roots than helium truly was. Out went a half-naked representation of woman Paula Barbieri, successful came African creation and a photograph of O.J's mother.

Deputy District Attorney Cheri Lewis had argued that it would beryllium inappropriate for jurors to spot sentimental tokens successful O.J.'s home, specified arsenic photos of him with his kids oregon his trophy country afloat of memorabilia from his glory days playing for USC and the Buffalo Bills. Especially, Lewis stressed, since Nicole's condo had been stripped of furniture, mementos and thing other that made it idiosyncratic and warm, a spot she had lived with her children.

The circuit of the Bundy transgression country included O.J.'s location to assistance the assemblage get a consciousness of the region betwixt the 2 locations and whether oregon not O.J. could person killed Nicole and Goldman, past person returned to his spot successful clip to get successful a car with limo operator Allan Park and drawback his 11:45 p.m. formation to Chicago. 

Dershowitz made immoderate appearances successful tribunal but chiefly served arsenic a subordinate of O.J.'s defence squad from afar portion engaged with his time job, teaching astatine Harvard Law School. During the trial, helium simultaneously watched CNN and Court TV, which was televising each of it, and would fax his chap attorneys memos successful existent clip that they could work close determination successful the courtroom.

''This is the archetypal proceedings of the 21st period successful immoderate respects,'' helium told the Christian Science Monitor successful February 1995. ''Having a lawyer extracurricular the courtroom monitoring the lawsuit who has speedy entree to probe is the question of the future. I deliberation much large instrumentality firms with analyzable litigation are going to determination to this model."

Judge Lance Ito considered pulling the plug connected the cameras televising the proceedings (he prevented them from broadcasting the gory transgression country photos), but the defence was connected the broadside of the nationalist having the close to spot the full communicative play retired and, arsenic galore remember, the proceedings turned into must-see TV.

At the aforesaid time, Ito was precise conscious (and concerned) astir his ain press, and helium delighted successful the personage attraction helium got, specified arsenic successful the signifier of The Tonight Show With Jay Leno's recurring spot featuring the "Dancing Itos."

"He had thought it was large and loved it and wanted each of america to spot it successful chambers," Peter Neufeld aboriginal told TIME. "You whitethorn find that amusing connected a idiosyncratic level, but I tin guarantee you that connected a nonrecreational level it is truthful unacceptable, for a justice who is presiding implicit a execution wherever 2 radical mislaid their lives successful the astir gruesome and horrible fashion, and wherever a 3rd idiosyncratic has his beingness connected the line, to bring the lawyers into chambers to amusement them comic revues."

Chris Darden tried to reason that the assemblage shouldn't beryllium allowed to perceive the signaling of Mark Fuhrman utilizing the n-word due to the fact that it would upset the Black jurors (who made up a bulk connected the panel) excessively overmuch and truthful beryllium prejudicial against Fuhrman. 

"If you let Mr. Cochran to usage this connection and play the contention card," helium said, "the absorption and absorption of the lawsuit changes: it is simply a contention lawsuit now."

Johnnie Cochran wasn't having it.

"I americium ashamed that Mr. Darden would let himself to go an apologist for this man," the seasoned activistic and litigator said, among different things, successful castigating opposing counsel. After which, Cochran hugged O.J. and near for a funeral.

"First of all, I had told Darden not to instrumentality Fuhrman," Cochran recalled to TIME successful 2001. "But I was truly disappointed with him. He came into the judge's enclosure with a transcript of Andrew Hacker's book, Two Nations. He gives Ito 1 of these things. I can't judge he's doing this. And basically, he's saying, if you let these jurors to perceive the connection it's the astir vile connection successful the dictionary; it'll crook this proceedings into whether these jurors judge that the brothers connected the thoroughfare deliberation 'the man' is getting a just trial. My archetypal absorption was to accidental to Darden, 'N---er,  please...'"

"I was truthful furious with him," the lawyer continued. "I felt it was an insult to each Black people. When I got up and spoke, that was not scripted. That was conscionable from my heart."

The infamous extra-large leather gloves, 1 recovered astatine the transgression scene, the different down O.J.'s house, made for a matching acceptable and were similar a brace Nicole had bought for her then-husband successful 1990 astatine Bloomingdale's. Only 200 pairs were sold successful the full state that year.

A hint of Goldman's DNA was connected the mitt recovered astatine Rockingham and fibers connected that mitt matched carpeting successful O.J.'s Bronco. Traces of O.J's, Nicole's and Goldman's humor were each recovered successful the Bronco. Also, a sock with drops of some O.J.'s and Nicole's humor connected it was recovered successful his bedroom.

O.J. said helium indispensable person near his humor down astatine Bundy immoderate clip erstwhile helium was implicit determination playing with his kids. The communicative of however and erstwhile helium chopped his digit kept changing, astatine archetypal saying it happened successful Chicago, but past helium said it happened successful L.A. and helium reopened the chopped successful Chicago. 

When O.J. tried connected the gloves successful court, astatine Darden's insistence and overmuch to Clark's dismay and the defense's amusement, helium raised his hands and declared, "They don't fit."

"If it doesn't fit, you indispensable acquit," Cochran said successful what became possibly the astir quoted—everyone tin retrieve a rhyme—statement of the full trial. One, incidentally, that Gerald Uelmen suggested, though Cochran's transportation was key.

"But what I was truly proposing was that it would supply a bully taxable for the full argument," Uelmen told TIME, "because truthful overmuch of the different circumstantial grounds didn't acceptable into the prosecution's scenario." 

It ended up providing 1 of the astir memorable moments of the full proceedings and a existent coup for the defense, but successful a pretrial proceeding O.J.'s lawyers initially tried to get the mitt recovered astatine Rockingham thrown out, citing unwarranted hunt and seizure, a usurpation of O.J.'s Fourth Amendment rights.

"I thought we presented a precise compelling lawsuit that the mitt should person been suppressed," Uelmen said connected Frontline successful 2005. "And the ironic happening is that if the justice had granted that question and thrown retired the glove, I deliberation the effect successful the O.J. lawsuit would person been different. Mark Fuhrman would person been retired of the case. They had a beauteous compelling lawsuit without the glove. The mitt benignant of opened the doorway to each of the questions astir Mark Fuhrman's credibility and his racism. And erstwhile helium past became specified an important witnesser successful the trial, that past opened the doorway to each of the problems that Mark Fuhrman created for their case.

"So ironically, if the justice had followed the law, and I deliberation the instrumentality truly required her to suppress that evidence..."

Ultimately, helium said, "I thought we presented a precise compelling lawsuit of tenable doubt, and we had a large jury."

While Marcia Clark, a portion of the L.A. County District Attorney's Office's peculiar trials portion since 1989, was trying to prosecute O.J. for murder, she was besides perpetually enactment connected the defensive. Her benignant was criticized, truthful she got a caller hairdo and was criticized for that. Her ex-husband sued her for superior custody of their 2 sons during the trial, alleging she was moving excessively overmuch to decently instrumentality attraction of them. The National Enquirer published aged topless photos of her taken connected a abrogation with her then-husband. Even a imaginable juror, a woman, erstwhile asked if determination was thing she mightiness clasp against the prosecution, told Clark, "I deliberation your skirts are excessively short, however astir that?"

She was dismissed. But not earlier Judge Ito cracked, "I was wondering erstwhile idiosyncratic was going to notation that."

But the families of the victims she was trying to get justness for had the utmost assurance successful her, astatine slightest heading into the trial.

"She seems ever to beryllium acrophobic with our family, however we're doing, and astatine the aforesaid clip there's ne'er a uncertainty successful my caput she's moving 25 hours a day, 10 days a week, connected this case," Fred Goldman, Ron's father, told the New York Times. "On a standard of 1 to 100, she easy gets 110."

Nicole's sister Denise Brown told The New Yorker, "I deliberation Marcia is wonderful, a terrific woman, and I deliberation my full household volition vouch for that one."

Aside from suggesting that detectives tried to framework O.J., the defence projected the mentation that the murders were drug-related, committed by dealers who came to the location looking for Nicole's person and—up until the time earlier the murders—house impermanent Faye Resnick, an interior decorator who later became a acquainted look on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Resnick co-wrote a mates of books stemming from the case, starting with Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted, which came retired successful 1994, close successful the mediate of assemblage selection. Thanks to each the salacious details she included astir Nicole's purported enactment life, Resnick became only a questionably adjuvant witnesser for the prosecution, contempt her steadfast content that O.J. had battered Nicole done the people of their narration and yet killed her. 

Shattered: In the Eye of the Storm, astir however the proceedings affected Resnick, came retired successful 1996.

Bob Shapiro brought F. Lee Bailey connected committee for his extended execution proceedings experience, of which Shapiro—a transgression defence lawyer much inclined to chopped deals—had none. Bailey was champion known for defending Albert DeSalvo, who aboriginal confessed to being the "Boston Strangler" serial killer, connected battle charges and heiress Patty Hearst erstwhile she went connected proceedings for helping her kidnappers rob a bank. (Both convictions.)

Some of Bailey's cardinal moments during the O.J. proceedings included him goading Darden into having O.J. effort connected the gloves successful tribunal and his cross-examination of Fuhrman.

After O.J. was acquitted, Bailey said connected CNN that Shapiro initially wanted O.J. to plead blameworthy to manslaughter—a complaint Shapiro denied, though it was wide reported that conversations about a imaginable plea were held astatine his office.

"We tried to occurrence Shapiro for being an a--hole," Bailey told Huffington Post's Highline successful 2019. "O.J. told him, 'You're benched,' and Bob said, Fine. I'm going retired to springiness the nationalist my sentiment of your guilt.' O.J. knew that would beryllium devastating earlier the trial, truthful we kept Bob aboard."

Bailey was aboriginal disbarred successful Florida and Massachusetts and acceptable up a consulting steadfast successful Maine, but wasn't capable to acquire a licence to signifier law. 

He told the ABA Journal in 2014 helium believed his enactment connected the lawsuit "hurt successful Florida, Massachusetts and successful Maine. There has been a beardown question of judicial resentment against maine for my relation successful the O.J. Simpson trial."

Under cross-examination by Bailey, Fuhrman denied having ever having utilized the n-word, a connection that was handily proved untrue by the defense, which had a signaling of him utilizing the epithet successful conversations helium had with an aspiring screenwriter. Without the assemblage present, the detective past asserted his Fifth Amendment close not to incriminate himself erstwhile asked whether helium had planted oregon manufactured grounds successful the O.J. case.

In a memorandum obtained by the New York Times, Dershowitz had puzzled implicit wherefore the prosecution felt the request to person Fuhrman testify, since helium had lone spotted the mitt astatine O.J.'s and pointed it retired to chap detectives. He wasn't the 1 who physically removed it from the country and checked it into evidence, truthful helium wasn't portion of the concatenation of custody.

Before the proceedings concluded, Fuhrman, a 20-year seasoned of the LAPD, had retired. He pleaded nary contention to perjury successful 1996 and successful 1997 helium released Murder successful Brentwood, astir the O.J. case, the archetypal successful a fig of books he's since written astir existent crime, media and the justness system. He moved to Idaho and became a regular impermanent connected Fox News 

Throughout, Fuhrman has maintained that helium went by the publication successful the O.J. lawsuit and the grounds proved his guilt. He told the New York Post successful 2016, "There volition beryllium different O.J., and what we person learned is that governmental correctness and stupidity trump justice."

Over the people of the trial, 10 retired of the 27 radical seated—12 jurors and 15 alternates—were dismissed for assorted reasons. Only 4 of the archetypal main jurors were near to determine the verdict.

Lionel Cryer was primitively selected arsenic an alternate but ended up ascending to the main panel. "I was not excited," helium told E! News successful 2017. "I looked astir astatine each the radical I was going to beryllium making this determination with and I thought, this is going to beryllium rather a ride." 

In the end, 10 women and 2 men recovered O.J. not guilty. Nine of the jurors were Black, 2 achromatic and 1 Hispanic.

"Sometimes, I crook astir and I look astatine the Goldmans, and if you could spot the wounded and suffering connected their faces," Chris Darden told the Los Angeles Times during the trial. "Sometimes, I spot them, and they're smiling, but erstwhile they are successful the courtroom, sometimes they are dying inside... The victims conscionable support mounting up. The Goldmans are victims. The Browns are victims. The Simpsons are victims. Sydney and Justin Simpson are victims. We're victims due to the fact that the grief and the symptom and the suffering are dispersed astir equally."

In 1 of the justness system's quirkier quirks, contempt being recovered not blameworthy of execution O.J. was recovered liable for Ron and Nicole's deaths successful a civilian proceedings and was ordered to wage $33.5 cardinal to the Goldman and Brown families. 

Which he has not done.