While some key members of the trialâincluding Simpson's prone-to-theatrics "Dream Team" defense attorney Johnnie Cochran and fellow lawyer/Simpson family friend Robert Kardashian âhave since passed away, others have spent the last 20 years rehashing the events of the trial of the century.
The trial of celebrity and football legend OJ Simpson lawyers in the mid-90s was a big media affair. After the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, Simpsonâs ex-wife, and her friend Ron Goldman, Simpson arranged a strong legal team to back him up and ensure his acquittal. What About OJ Simpson lawyers?
During the trial, which lasted more than eight months, some 150 witnesses testified, though Simpson did not take the stand. Many cable television networks devoted long stretches of time to speculation about the case and to public opinion of it.
The trial began on January 24, 1995, with Lance Ito as the presiding judge. The Los Angeles district attorneyâs office, led by Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden, emphasized the domestic violence that had occurred prior to and after the Simpsonsâ 1992 divorce as a motive for the murders.
The magazine reported that on the day of his collapse, "he grew agitated as O.J.'s lawyers revealed plans to call 14 new witnesses â a decision they had failed to share with prosecutors."
Famed attorney F. Lee Bailey, who defended O.J. Simpson, dies at age 87. F. Lee Bailey, the flamboyant defense lawyer best known for his key role in O.J. Simpson's "Dream Team," has died, a longtime colleague said Thursday.
The attorneys representing O.J. Simpson included F. Lee Bailey, Robert Blasier, Shawn Chapman Holley, Robert Shapiro, and Alan Dershowitz. Johnnie Cochran later became the defense team's lead attorney. The attorneys were known as the âDream Team."
Gordon Clarkm. 1980â1995Gabriel Horowitzm. 1976â1980Marcia Clark/Husband
Darden married TV executive Marcia Carter on August 31, 1997. Together they have five children. Although rumors persisted of a sexual relationship between Marcia Clark and Darden, both have denied such a relationship existed.
Robert George Kardashian (February 22, 1944 â 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.
Of the defense "Dream Team" of Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, Robert Shapiro and F. Lee Bailey, only two are still alive. Kardashian, sire of the notorious reality TV family, died of esophageal cancer in 2003 at the age of 59.
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.
When the case ended, Darden became a college professor before starting his own law firm. He is now 65 and still practicing law.
Marcia Clark, the trial's lead prosecutor, resigned from the Los Angeles District Attorney's office after the case and left the practice of law.
In the latest episode of FX's âThe People v O.J. Simpson,â Chris Darden (played by Sterling K. Brown) and Marcia Clark (Sarah Paulson) finally lose it over what a mess the trial has become.
OJ Simpson prosecutor Chris Darden was fired following his loss in 1995's so-called âTrial of the Centuryâ â he just didn't know it for about a year. âI left the day of the verdict,â Darden told âReasonable Doubtâ hosts Adam Carolla and Mark Geragos during a podcast recorded on Monday.
Simpson: Did O.J. Simpson prosecutors Darden and Marcia Clark actually have romantic relationship, as seen in the multiple Emmy-winning FX series? âWe were more than friends,â Darden recently told ET. âWe were inseparable back then.â
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 victimsâ families sued Simpson for wrongful death. The civil trial began in October...
In the episode, Simpson attorney Johnny Cochran is delivering his opening statement to the jury, when he begins listing the names of witnesses he hasnât shared with prosecutors. Thatâs a legal nuh-uh. Hodgman is shocked, flustered and overwhelmed.
Charles Manson and his cult-like "Family" terrified Los Angeles in 1969 with a series of murders, including that of Roman Polanski 's pregnant wife, Sharon Ta te. Ramirez terrorized the L.A. area for over a year in the 1980s with a series of home invasion murders that became known as "The Night Stalker" killings.
In one of the most dramatic moments of the fifth episode of âThe People v. O.J. Simpson,â prosecutor Bill Hodgman becomes extremely flustered during an argument with the defense team, collapses, and is taken from the courtroom in a stretcher.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried in 1950 for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Charles Manson and his cult-like "Family" terrified Los Angeles in 1969 with a series of murders, including that of Roman Polanski 's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate. âSchmigadoon!â.
Leopold and Loeb. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb killed a teenage boy in Chicago in the 1924 to prove they were capable of committing the perfect murder. They were later arrested and imprisoned -- proving that they weren't. German Federal Archives.
Yes, later that day: Jan. 25, 1995. While Hodgman and Marcia Clark briefed their boss on what had happened in court that day, Hodgman, 41, felt a strange feeling in his chest, and was taken by ambulance to the California Medical Center.
In truth, Toobinâs book tells us, Hodgman made it out of the courtroom that day â but only after someone commented to Simpson attorney, Robert Sha piro, âYou know, Bill doesnât look too good.â. Shapiro quipped back: âYeah, tomorrow theyâre going to take him out on a stretcher.â. Little did he know.
Following the Simpson circus, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, he of the famous phrase âIf it doesnât fit you must acquit," went on to represent Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, winning him an $8.75 million settlement in his police brutality case against New York City.
Cochran died in 2005 from a brain tumor. Combs, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Stevie Wonder, Magic Johnson and Simpson himself attended the funeral. Robert Shapiro, who has gone on to represent celebs like Lindsay Lohan and Eva Longoria, doesnât like to talk about how the Simpson trial changed his life.
To the millennial people, Robert Kardashian is now famous as the father of celebrities and global heartthrobs Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian. But the 90âs 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 Simpsonâs 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.
As a deputy district attorney, he has prosecuted about 30 felony trials including eight murder trials.
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.
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.
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.
Marcia Clark, the trialâs lead prosecutor, resigned from the Los Angeles District Attorney's office after the case and left the practice of law. Her memoir of the trial, Without A Doubt, fetched a $4 million advance. Clark, now 67, has gone on to write a series of crime novels and has also appeared as a television commentator about high profile trials.
After the trial, Cochran continued to practice law and appear as a TV commentator. He died of brain cancer in 2005 at age 68.
After his own son Brent died from a drug overdose in 2005, he founded the Brent Shapiro Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to raise drug awareness and also a rehabilitation facility. He is now 78.
Getty Images. Resnick was one of Nicole Brown Simpson's closest friends, who gained notoriety for her cocaine addiction. She checked into a rehab facility three days before Nicole was murdered, and infamously published a salacious tell-all book with a National Enquirer columnist during the trial.
Judge Lance Ito's decision to allow television coverage of the trial was controversial, and in many ways, changed the nature of criminal trials. It was also revealed that Ito's wife, Margaret York, had been detective Mark Fuhrman's superior officer in the past, but Ito did not recuse himself from the case. Ito remained a judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court until his retirement in 2015. Now 70, he has kept a low profile since the trial, and has never publicly discussed it or given interviews.
During the trial, Scheck was the unknown lawyer who introduced the still-new science of DNA to jurors. He made headlines for dismantling the police handling of evidence, ultimately wounding the strength of the prosecutionâs forensic evidence. He and fellow Simpson lawyer Peter Neufeld co-founded The Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence to exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners. The project has helped overturn over 300 convictions. Scheck, now 71, also teaches at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
He and fellow Simpson lawyer Peter Neufeld co-founded The Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence to exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners. The project has helped overturn over 300 convictions. Scheck, now 71, also teaches at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
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.
While some key members of the trialâincluding Simpson's prone-to-theatrics "Dream Team" defense attorney Johnnie Cochran and fellow lawyer/Simpson family friend Robert Kardashian âhave 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, ...
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, tooâalong with her late father, Louâset up a foundation in her sisterâs name to educate and raise awareness about domestic abuse.
For more than eight months, the juryâand more than 100 million interested members of the television-viewing publicâwatched as dozens of witnesses, experts, and legal pros were paraded in front of the cameras, and turned into instant celebrities.
This led to Johnnie Cochran âs famous declaration: âIf the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.â. Shortly after the end of the trial, Darden left the district attorneyâs office and was appointed as an associate professor of law at L.A.âs Southwestern University School of Law.
Simpson gets charged for the murders of Brown and Goldman. Fans on the side of the freeway cheering O.J. Simpson on during the Bronco chase. Photo: Vinnie Zuffante/Archive Photos/Getty Images. Although he originally promised to surrender to authorities, Simpson flees and becomes a fugitive.
June 16, 1994: Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman's funerals. O.J. Simpson and his children at Nicole Brown Simpson's funeral. Photo: The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images. Simpson and his two children attend Brown's funeral. A funeral is also held for Goldman.
June 12, 1994: Nicole Simpson Brown and Ron Goldman are murdered. 6:30 pm: After attending her daughter's dance recital, Brown has dinner with friends and family at the Brentwood restaurant Mezzaluna, where Goldman works as a waiter. Brown's mother accidentally leaves her eyeglasses at the restaurant and Goldman volunteers to stop by Brown's house ...
The jury hears old taped recordings of Fuhrman making multiple racial slurs, (which he had denied ever having done during his cross-examination), and also bragging about his enforcement of police brutality.