OJ Simpson murder trial: How the dramatic court case unfolded
Former American footballer and actor OJ Simpson, who has died of cancer, will be remembered most for his role at the centre of the “trial of the century”.
Accused of double murder, his case captured the attention of the US until it came to a dramatic end in late 1995.
Here’s a look back at how that trial unfolded.
12 June 1994
Simpson‘s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson was found dead in front of her home in Los Angeles with her friend Ronald Goldman, who was a waiter at a restaurant where she had just dined.
The pair had been stabbed to death outside her home in the neighbourhood of Brentwood.
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OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown. Pic:MediaPunch/AP
17 June 1994
After the bodies were found, suspicion quickly fell on Simpson, who had been married to Nicole for seven years until their divorce became final on 15 October 1992, little more than 18 months before her death.
Simpson had been ordered by prosecutors to surrender, but on this day, carrying a passport and a disguise, he instead fled, with friend and former team-mate Al Cowlings in a white Ford Bronco.
OJ Simpson trailed by Los Angeles police on 17 June 1994. Pic: AP
The vehicle was soon spotted on a California freeway and pursued by police in a car chase that was televised live across the country and watched by an estimated 95 million viewers.
Cowlings, in a phone call to police, said Simpson was lying in the back seat of the car holding a gun to his own head. After eventually driving to his Brentwood home he was persuaded to surrender.
24 January 1995
The murder trial, dubbed the “trial of the century” by the media, began.
Prosecutors argued OJ Simpson had killed Nicole and Ron in a jealous rage, and they presented extensive blood, hair and fibre tests linking him to the murders.
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The defence countered that the celebrity defendant was framed by racist white police.
15 June 1995
Perhaps the defining moment of the trial came on a Thursday in June, when the prosecution committed what a defence lawyer would later describe as the “greatest legal blunder of the 20th century”.
OJ Simpson grasps a marker while wearing the leather gloves prosecutors say he wore on the night of the murder. Pic: Reuters
On this day, a prosecutor asked him to put on a pair of gloves believed to have been worn by the killer.
The gloves appeared to be too small, as OJ Simpson struggled to put on the gloves in a highly theatrical demonstration and indicated to the jury they did not fit.
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This led defence lawyer Johnnie Cochran to famously state in his closing argument: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
3 October 1995
The trial came to an end with two words – not guilty.
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OJ Simpson, who maintained from the outset he was “absolutely 100% not guilty”, waved at the jurors and mouthed the words “thank you”.
On the grass outside the university library, it is as though it never happened.
The tents have been removed. The pavements have been sprayed. The graffiti removed.
Order and control have been restored. The protest has been silenced. For now at least.
A few streets away, at the university police station, an officer calls the names of the students arrested the night before.
On the steps in front of him, the bedraggled are waiting.
Pic: Reuters
Police clash with pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the UCLA campus early on Thursday morning. Pic: AP
Students, charged and released with a date in court, are here now to collect their belongings. They’re missing bags, belts, shoes, all lost in the chaos of the night before.
From the very heart of the protest encampment, our cameras had captured the chaos.
Officers moving in. Tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse. Stun grenades to disorientate.
Police detain a demonstrator, as they clear out the protest encampment in UCLA.
Pic: Reuters
They were scenes which have stirred an already fevered debate about Israel and Gaza, yes, but about much more too. About America, about policing, and about free speech too.
President Biden said yesterday: “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations – none of this is a peaceful protest.”
‘Wrong’ say the protesters. Their movement, they say, is the very essence of protest; of civil disobedience which is threaded through US college campus history.
Law enforcement official moves a tent at the protest encampment in support of Palestinians at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Signs of the days-long protest on campus being gradually cleared.
They reject any notion that they are threatening or violent. Yet the deeply divisive history of the Israel-Palestine conflict ensures that the beholder will so often be offended by the actions of the other side.
It was the students perceived antisemitism through their pro-Palestinian slogans which had drawn a group of pro-Israel protesters to the encampment earlier in the week.
The chaos of that night was reflected in a statement by the university’s student radio station which has been covering every twist.
This embrace turned out to be a thread of history
“Counter protestors used bear mace, professional-grade fireworks and clubs to brutalize hundreds of our peers, UCLA turned a blind eye. Police were not called until hours into the onslaught and stood aside for over an hour as counter-protestors enacted racial, physical and chemical violence,” the statement from the UCLA Radio Managerial team said.
Watching the clear-up after the nighttime police sweep of the protesters I spotted two people embracing. A young man and an older woman.
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Professor recalls violent arrest at protest
It turned out to be a thread of history. One was a student who’d been arrested the night before.
The other was a student from a past time. Diane Salinger had been at New York’s Columbia University in 1968, at protests which now form a key chapter in American history.
Diane Salinger had been at New York’s Columbia University in 1968, at protests which now form a key chapter in American history
“I’m so proud of these people here. I’m so proud,” she told me.
“You know the civil unrest of the students back in ’68 and it continued for several years, it actually changed the course of the Vietnam War and hopefully this is going to do the same thing.”
But then, back at the police station, a conversation that hints at the wider challenges for America.
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‘Tom’ is a protester who wanted to remain anonymous – a graduate who feels politically deserted in his own country. For him, no government is better than any on offer.
‘Tom’ is a protester who wanted to remain anonymous – a graduate who feels politically deserted in his own country.
“The problem with our system is that we can’t rely on the police, we can’t rely on the military to keep us safe.
“When we need to make our voices heard, we need to make them heard, and the only way to do that without being repressed is by keeping each other safe and I think that last night and the last few months have really exemplified that,” he told me.
These protests are about more than Gaza. They are aligning a spectrum of dissent.
A scuba dive boat captain has been jailed for four years for criminal negligence over a fire that killed 34 people.
Captain Jerry Boylan was also sentenced to three years supervised release by a federal judge in Los Angeles, California.
The blaze on the vessel named Conception in September 2019 was the deadliest maritime disaster in recent American history.
Boylan was found guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer last year.
Captain Jerry Boylan. Pic: AP
The charge is a pre-Civil War statute, known colloquially as seaman’s manslaughter, and was designed to hold steamboat captains and crew responsible for maritime disasters.
In a sentencing memo, lawyers for Boylan – who is appealing – wrote: “While the loss of life here is staggering, there can be no dispute that Mr Boylan did not intend for anyone to die.
“Indeed, Mr Boylan lives with significant grief, remorse, and trauma as a result of the deaths of his passengers and crew.”
The Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles south of Santa Barbara, when it caught fire before dawn on the final day of a three-day voyage, sinking less than 30 metres from the shore.
Thirty-three passengers and a crew member died, trapped below deck.
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The victims included an environmental scientist, a Singaporean data scientist and a family of three sisters, their father and his wife.
Boylan jumped overboard, and four crew members who followed suit also survived.
The burned hull of the dive boat. Pic: AP
Boylan initially faced 34 counts of seaman’s manslaughter, meaning he could have faced a total of 340 years behind bars.
His lawyers argued the deaths were the result of a single incident and not separate crimes, so prosecutors instead charged Boylan with only one count.
While the criminal case has concluded, there are several ongoing lawsuits.
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