Like so many other key people in the O.J. Simpson trial, lawyer Robert Shapiro, who successfully defended Simpson, eventually wrote a book about the case—The Search for Justice: A Defense Attorney’s Brief on the O.J. Simpson Case.
Johnnie Cochran, OJ Simpson’s lawyer, was able to win an acquittal for his client by making the mid-nineties trial about race, not a double murder. To do so, he manipulated the media, according to Christopher Darden, one of the prosecutors charged with trying Simpson.
Writers Dominick Dunne, Joe McGinniss and Joseph Bosco also had full-time seats in the courtroom. On June 27, 1994, Time published a cover story, "An American Tragedy", with a photo of Simpson on the cover.
Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case. New York: Touchstone Books. ISBN 978-0-684-83264-7. Felman, Shoshana (2002).
Robert Shapiro As defense chair, Shapiro was called the "architect" of the Simpson defense for building the high-profile legal team that would later be dubbed the "Dream Team." Shapiro led the defense team through much of the trial before Johnnie Cochran took over as the lead chair.
O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. In the two decades since the trial, several members of the Dream Team have passed away, while other key lawyers have left the legal profession entirely. Some, like Alan Dershowitz, remain fixtures in the political scene. Simpson himself later did jail time for armed robbery.
“He took money that was rightfully going to the government and that would have benefited his client.” The government produced a damning paper trail: Bailey had agreed that any fee he took would first be approved by the presiding judge, and early on he agreed to share a fee of $3 million, split among himself, Shapiro, ...
Simpson's lead defense attorney, Robert Baker, whom I always thought of as a class act in what has become an unclassy trade, shocked me utterly with the cruelty of his remark about Ron Goldman, who had fought with Simpson for his life and—as Dan Petrocelli pointed out in his eloquent closing argument—had died trying to ...
Last October, NBC News reported that Ito had presided over 500 cases since the Simpson trial before retiring in January 2015. He had few post-retirement plans aside from learning to play the guitar. The article also noted that Ito had recently celebrated his 34th wedding anniversary and resides in Pasadena, California.
Robert George Kardashian (February 22, 1944 – September 30, 2003) was an American attorney and businessman. He gained recognition as O. J. Simpson's friend and defense attorney during Simpson's 1995 murder trial.
Ultimately, Shapiro settled the case for $450,000 (nearly twice the amount he said he was paid to represent the client in the first place), without admitting any wrongdoing.
Bailey was disbarred in Florida in 2001 for his handling of stock owned by a drug dealer client. His reciprocal disbarment in Massachusetts followed shortly afterward. In 2014, Maine's Supreme Judicial Court turned down Bailey's quest to obtain a law license in that state.
It was during the Simpson case that the two men severed their friendship, with Mr. Shapiro accusing Mr. Bailey of trying to enhance his own role in the case by planting stories denigrating Mr. Shapiro's legal abilities and his loyalty to their client.
That judgment came down in 1997 after Simpson was acquitted in a criminal court of their murders. According to a Nevada court filing from Fred Goldman in February, Simpson has paid close to $133,000 of the settlement but still owes the family more than $50 million.
A civil court jury found O.J. Simpson liable for the deaths even though he was cleared in “The Trial of the Century.” The civil jury awarded $33.5 million in damages to the victims' families. That judgment was renewed in court in 2015 and extended through 2025.
OJ Simpson reportedly receives money from pensions through the Screen Actors Guild and the NFL. Simpson receives an estimated $25,000 monthly payout from the NFL pension.
The O.J. Simpson trial was the criminal trial in which former gridiron football star O.J. Simpson was tried for the 1994 murder of his ex-wife Nico...
The attorneys representing O.J. Simpson included F. Lee Bailey, Robert Blasier, Shawn Chapman Holley, Robert Shapiro, and Alan Dershowitz. Johnnie...
On October 2, 1995, the jury for the O.J. Simpson trial began deliberating, and its members reached a verdict in less than four hours. Judge Lance...
After O.J. Simpson's 1995 trial, which was a criminal case, the victims’ families sued Simpson for wrongful death. The civil trial began in October...
F Lee Bailey at the OJ Simpson murder trial in 1995. Bailey was the most valuable member of his defense team, Simpson said. Photograph: Reed Saxon/AP. F Lee Bailey, the celebrity attorney who defended OJ Simpson, Patricia Hearst and the alleged Boston Strangler, but whose legal career halted when he was disbarred in two states, has died, ...
Bailey also defended Patty Hearst and Sam Sheppard but his legal career was halted when he was disbarred in two states. F Lee Bailey at the OJ Simpson murder trial in 1995. Bailey was the most valuable member of his defense team, Simpson said. Photograph: Reed Saxon/AP.
At trial, Bailey claimed she was coerced into participating because she feared for her life. She was still convicted. Hearst called Bailey an “ineffective counsel” who reduced the trial to “a mockery, a farce, and a sham”, in a declaration she signed with a motion to reduce her sentence.
Despite doubts thrown on DeSalvo’s claim, Bailey always maintained that DeSalvo was the strangler. Throughout his career, Bailey antagonized authorities with his sometimes abrasive style and his quest for publicity.
Bailey helped win an acquittal at a second trial. Bailey also defended Albert DeSalvo, the man who claimed responsibility for the Boston Strangler murders between 1962 and 1964. DeSalvo confessed to the slayings, but was never tried or convicted, and later recanted.
Bailey made his name as the attorney for Sheppard, an Ohio osteopath convicted in 1954 of murdering his wife. Sheppard spent more than a decade behind bars before the supreme court ruled in a landmark 1966 decision that “massive, pervasive, prejudicial publicity” had violated his rights.
Bailey, an avid pilot, bestselling author and television show host, was a member of the legal “dream team” that defended Simpson, the NFL star acquitted on charges that he killed his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, in 1995. Bailey was the most valuable member of the team, Simpson said in a 1996 story in ...
Johnnie Cochran, OJ Simpson’s lawyer, was able to win an acquittal for his client by making the mid-nineties trial about race, not a double murder. To do so, he manipulated the media, according to Christopher Darden, one of the prosecutors charged with trying Simpson. “Cochran used the media to change the conversation as effectively as Donald Trump ...
Darden dropped a few other intriguing tidbits in is AMA: The eight-month Simpson trial took a physical toll on him: He said he lost 2o lbs, two teeth and had four root canal surgeries before it was over. He thought Cochran’s famous line—”if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit”— was “a kids rhyme for idiots.”.
Their strategy was to make the case about the racism of the Los Angeles police department, which they accused of framing Simpson for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, his ex-wife and her friend, Ronald Goldman. Cochran turned the trial’s focus on Mark Fuhrman, a detective investigating the case, and, explosively, his use of the n-word (paywall).
To the millennial people, Robert Kardashian is now famous as the father of celebrities and global heartthrobs Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian. But the 90’s saw him as a celebrity on his own right. He began his career in the late 1960s as a lawyer.
It was around 1973 that he met O.J. Simpson, a football star of that time, and developed a friendship. The friendship soon turned into a professional relationship, with the two setting up a music video company and a frozen yogurt shop and hiring criminal defense attorney.
Following Simpson’s acquittal, the relationship between the two once-close friends soured. In 1996, Robert Kardashian mentioned to ABC News that he was suspicious of the innocence of Simpson. He clearly said that he had doubts with the blood evidence.
He helped prosecute Catherine Thompson, convicted of killing her husband for his insurance money and sentenced to death in 1992. Goldberg also prosecuted Jose Guerra for the murder of as registered nurse who was attacked in her home. Goldberg is a graduate of UCLA and the Loyola Law School.
Bailey has been involved in numerous high-profile cases. He defended Albert De Salvo, the Boston Strangler, and worked on an unsuccessful defense of Patricia Hearst. He was successful in overturning the conviction of Sam Sheppard, a Cleveland doctor accused of murdering his wife.
He has taken more than 19 homicide cases to jury since becoming a Los Angeles County prosecutor in 1980. Darden became a deputy district attorney in 1981 and completed a six-and-a-half year assignment with the Special Investigations Division before joining the prosecution team.
As a deputy district attorney, he has prosecuted about 30 felony trials including eight murder trials.
She successfully prosecuted the first DNA evidentiary jury trial in California. She received her law degree from Southwestern University School of Law and is a graduate of the University of Southern California. Cheri Lewis, born 8-8-52, is assisting in the research and preparation of prosecution motions and pleadings.
Barry Scheck, born 9-19-49, is a law professor and director of clinical education at the Cardoza Law School in New York City. He is a graduate of Yale University and the University of California, Boalt Hall School of Law.
Alan Dershowitz, born 9-1-38, a Harvard Law School professor and author, won a reversal of the conviction of Claus Von Bulow, who was charged with trying to murder his socialite wife.
On the prosecution side, Marcia Clark served as lead counsel, supported by Christopher Darden. Lasting close to a year, the trial and the events surrounding it were considered the most publicized events the world had ever seen. To many, it became a media circus full of colorful characters, opportunists and courtroom dysfunction ...
As the prosecution's witness, Dennis Fung — the LAPD criminologist who collected evidence at the murder scene — ended up spending the longest time testifying on the stand. For nine days, Fung recalled how he collected samples of blood, albeit admittedly overlooking some important areas where blood drops were identified and not always using gloves.
After prosecutor Darden made the mistake of demanding Simpson try on the ill-fitted bloody gloves, Cochran uttered the famous phrase: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.".
Due to Kaelin's shiftiness on the stand , prosecutor Clark turned against him and treated him as a hostile witness. Regardless, Kaelin — with his thick tufts of blond hair and surfer dude ways — gained considerable popularity in the media as a likable and comedic character of the trial.
Reportedly, one juror wholly dismissed Park's testimony because he was unable to recall the number of cars parked at the Rockingham mansion.
Aspiring actor and houseguest of Simpson, Brian "Kato" Kaelin was a star witness for the prosecution. Present at Simpson 's Rockingham mansion at the time of the murders, Kaelin claimed that he ate dinner with Simpson that night but could not account for the star athlete's whereabouts between the hours of 9:36 p.m. and 11 p.m. (the prosecution theorized that Simpson murdered his ex-wife and Goldman between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.).
Although Darden floundered at the start of the trial and was purportedly intimidated by Cochran, he gained momentum as events progressed. However, he made a consequential mistake when he demanded that Simpson try on the infamous bloody gloves, which ended up being too small for the accused's hands.
LAPD criminalist and hair fiber expert Susan Brockbank testified on June 27, 1995, and FBI Special Agent and fiber expert Doug Deedrick testified on June 29, 1995, to the following findings:
In 1996, Cochran wrote and published a book about the trial. It was titled Journey to Justice, and described his involvement in the case. That same year, Shapiro also published a book about the trial called The Search for Justice. He criticized Bailey as a "loose cannon" and Cochran for bringing race into the trial. In contrast to Cochran 's book, Shapiro said that he does not believe that Simpson was framed by the LAPD, but considered the verdict correct due to reasonable doubt. In a subsequent interview with Barbara Walters, Shapiro, who is Jewish, claimed that he was particularly offended by Cochran for comparing Fuhrman's words to the Holocaust, and vowed that he would never again work with Bailey or Cochran, but would still maintain a working relationship with Scheck.
From an original jury pool of 40 percent white, 28 percent black, 17 percent Hispanic, and 15 percent Asian, the final jury for the trial had ten women and two men, of whom nine were black, two white and one Hispanic. The jury was sequestered for 265 days, the most in American history.
District Attorney Gil Garcetti elected to file charges in downtown Los Angeles, as opposed to Santa Monica, in which jurisdiction the crimes took place. The Los Angeles Superior Court then decided to hold the trial in Downtown Los Angeles instead of Santa Monica due to safety issues at the Santa Monica Court house.
J. Simpson was tried and acquitted for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald "Ron" Goldman.
The defense team's reasonable doubt theory was summarized as "compromised, contaminated, corrupted" in opening statements. They argued that the DNA evidence against Simpson was "compromised" by the mishandling of criminalists Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola during the collection phase of evidence gathering, and that 100% of the "real killer (s)" DNA had vanished from the evidence samples. The evidence was then "contaminated" in the LAPD crime lab by criminalist Collin Yamauchi, and Simpson's DNA from his reference vial was transferred to all but three exhibits. The remaining three exhibits were planted by the police and thus "corrupted" by police fraud. The defense also questioned the timeline, claiming the murders happened around 11:00pm that night.
While some key members of the trial—including Simpson's prone-to-theatrics "Dream Team" defense attorney Johnnie Cochran and fellow lawyer/Simpson family friend Robert Kardashian —have since passed away, others have spent the last 20 years rehashing the events of the trial of the century. Besides being fictionalized in FX's new hit series, ...
Like so many other key people in the O.J. Simpson trial, lawyer Robert Shapiro, who successfully defended Simpson, eventually wrote a book about the case— The Search for Justice: A Defense Attorney’s Brief on the O.J. Simpson Case.
Though Cowlings always maintained that he was helping Simpson turn himself in, not flee, he was arrested for aiding a fugitive but never charged due to lack of evidence. In 1997, records show that Cowlings filed for bankruptcy.
But Fuhrman has found much success since the conclusion of the trial; in 1997 he wrote Murder in Brentwood, a bestselling book about the trial, which he followed up with several more popular true crime novels covering everything from the JFK assassination to the death of Terri Schiavo.
Brown, too—along with her late father, Lou—set up a foundation in her sister’s name to educate and raise awareness about domestic abuse.
For more than eight months, the jury—and more than 100 million interested members of the television-viewing public—watched as dozens of witnesses, experts, and legal pros were paraded in front of the cameras, and turned into instant celebrities.
In 1997, Clark co-authored Without a Doubt, a book about the Simpson trial, with Teresa Carpenter. She has since written four novels (with a new one coming out in May) and often appears on television as a legal expert in high-profile cases.