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 representing Simpson, known as the “Dream Team,” included F. Lee Bailey, Robert Blasier, Shawn Chapman Holley, Robert Shapiro, and Alan Dershowitz; Johnnie Cochran later became the defense team’s lead attorney.
Who were OJ Simpson's lawyers?
Their friendship lasted decades, even though Robert’s divorce from Kris in 1991 reportedly distanced him from O.J.’s social circle. At a surprise party for Robert’s 50th birthday in February ...
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.
F. Lee Bailey, the flamboyant defense lawyer best known for his key role in O.J.
“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, ...
Robert Leslie Shapiro (born September 2, 1942) is an American lawyer. He is best known for being the short-term defense lawyer of Erik Menendez in 1990, and a member of the "Dream Team" of O. J....Robert Shapiro (lawyer)Robert ShapiroShapiro in an ad for LegalZoomBornRobert Leslie Shapiro September 2, 1942 Plainfield, New Jersey, U.S.4 more rows
Johnnie Cochran, the lead defense attorney of the so-called “Dream Team,” earned up to $5 million from helping to win Simpson's acquittal on double murder charges and went on to defend other high-profile defendants until he died of a brain tumor in 2005.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
William Hodgman, born 12-14-52, is director of the Bureau of Central Operations, which includes the Special Trials Division. He joined the District Attorney's Office in 1978 and has prosecuted about 130 trials, including 40 murder cases. He helped win the 1992 conviction of Charles Keating for securities fraud.
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.
The two lead prosecutors were Deputy District Attorneys Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden. Clark was designated as the lead prosecutor and Darden became Clark's co-counsel. Prosecutors Hank Goldberg and William Hodgman, who have successfully prosecuted high-profile cases in the past, assisted Clark and Darden. Two prosecutors who were DNA experts, Rockne Harmon and George "Woody" Clarke, were brought in to present the DNA evidence in the case and were assisted by Prosecutor Lisa Kahn.
J. Simpson was tried and acquitted for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald "Ron" Goldman.
Bailey suggested that he then planted the glove in order to frame Simpson, with the motive either being racism or a desire to become the hero in a high-profile case. Scheck also suggested that Fuhrman broke into Simpson's Bronco and used the glove like a paint brush to plant blood onto and inside the Bronco.
In a walk around the premises to inspect what may have caused the thumps, Fuhrman discovered a blood-stained right-hand glove, which was determined to be the mate of the left-hand glo ve found next to the body of Goldman. This evidence was determined to be probable cause to issue an arrest warrant for Simpson.
Fears grew that race riots, similar to the riots in 1992, would erupt across Los Angeles and the rest of the country if Simpson were convicted of the murders. As a result, all Los Angeles police officers were put on 12-hour shifts. The police arranged for more than 100 police officers on horseback to surround the Los Angeles County courthouse on the day the verdict was announced, in case of rioting by the crowd. President Bill Clinton was briefed on security measures if rioting were to occur nationwide.
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.
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.
Following the Simpson circus, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, he of the famous phrase “If it doesn’t 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.
But since the trial he has been busy, founding the websites LegalZoom.com, an online document preparation service, and ShoeDazzle, the shoe rental site helmed by none other than Kim Kardashian. He is also a partner in the firm Glaser Weil Fink Jacobs Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLP.
Clark is working on the third installment in her book series, “Guilt By Ambition,” and there is talk of turning the novels into a television series.
After losing the Simpson case, Clark resigned from the L.A. District Attorney's office.
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.".
However, the blow that removed Shapiro from his lead status was when Cochran won Simpson's favor by visiting him in jail — something Shapiro preferred not to do with any of his clients. Once Cochran took over as lead counsel, Shapiro was vocally critical and attempted to distance himself from his team's chosen strategies. He would later tell Barbara Walters that "not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck."
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.
Judge Jackie Glass sentenced Stewart, the only Simpson cohort who did not negotiate a plea deal, to 15 years in, eligible for parole after 7 and a 1/2 years. The conviction was later overturned because the verdict was tainted by Simpson's fame, and Stewart was released after a plea deal with time served.
Bail was later set at $125,000. On October 3, 2008—exactly 13 years after he was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman —Simpson was found guilty of all 12 charges.
Prosecutors and defense counsels disagree on at least three questions, and Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass schedule arguments on the June 20 hearing on pretrial motions.
Bruce Fromong, another memorabilia dealer and a friend of Simpson 's, met with Beardsley and Riccio in room 1203 at the Palace Station, a room Riccio had rented. Beardsley had contacted Fromong about a client hoping to buy a large amount of O. J. Simpson memorabilia; Fromong was unaware the client was Simpson.
An audio tape recorded by Riccio, which was later sold to TMZ.com, was central to the trial and conviction. FBI audio examiner Kenneth Marr testified that he was not able to determine whether or not the files were altered. He said he found areas of over-recording on the device that he said "might" mean the audio files had been manipulated. Alfred Beardsley stated that he told District Attorney David Roger and another official that the audio had been doctored. "There's a whole section (missing) … and I talked to you directly about that".
On September 15, one of the accomplices, Walter Alexander, was arrested and charged with two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, one count of conspiracy to commit robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of burglary with a deadly weapon.
Alfred Beardsley, a memorabilia dealer, contacted Tom Riccio, another memorabilia dealer, regarding a trove of O. J. Simpson items Beardsley had in Las Vegas. Riccio then informed Simpson of the items.
The People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson was a criminal trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court in which former National Football League (NFL) player, broadcaster and actor O. J. Simpson was tried and acquitted for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The pair were stabbed to death outside Brown's condominium in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on the night of June 12, 1994. The t…
After learning that Brown was the female victim, LAPD commander Keith Bushey ordered detectives Tom Lange, Philip Vannatter, Ron Phillips, and Mark Fuhrman to notify Simpson of her death and to escort him to the police station to pick up the former couple's children, who were asleep in Brown's condominium at the time of the murders. The detectives buzzed the intercom …
On June 20, Simpson was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to both murders and was held without bail. The following day, a grand jury was called to determine whether to indict him for the two murders but was dismissed on June 23, as a result of excessive media coverage that could have influenced its neutrality. Instead, authorities held a probable cause hearing to determine whether to bring Simpson to trial. California Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell ruled on July …