Friday, January 24, 2020

The O.J. Simpson Murder Trial (Conclusion)



Aftermath
In the February 1998 issue of Esquire, Simpson was quoted as saying, "Let's say I committed this crime ... Even if I did this, it would have to have been because I loved her very much, right?"
In April 1998, Simpson did an interview with talk show host Ruby Wax. In an apparent joke, Simpson shows up at her hotel room claiming to have a surprise for her, and suddenly waved a banana about his head, as if it were a knife, and pretended to stab Wax with it. The footage soon made its way onto U.S. TV networks, causing outrage.
As of April 2001, Los Angeles Police Department homicide Detective Vic Pietrantoni was assigned to the Simpson-Goldman case.
Civil trial
In 1996, Fred Goldman and Sharon Rufo, the parents of Ron Goldman, filed a suit against Simpson for wrongful death, while Brown's estate, represented by her father Lou Brown, and brought suit against Simpson in a "survivor suit." The trial took place over four months in Santa Monica and, by judge's order, was not televised. The Goldman family was represented by Daniel Petrocelli, with Simpson represented by Bob Baker.  Attorneys for both sides were given high marks by observing lawyers. Simpson's defense in the trial was estimated to cost $1 million and was paid for by an insurance policy on his company, Orenthal Enterprises.
Fuhrman was not called to testify, and Simpson was subpoenaed to testify on his own behalf.  In addition, photographer E.J. Flammer claimed to have found a photograph he had taken of Simpson at a Buffalo Bills-Miami Dolphins game in 1993 that appeared to show him wearing a pair of the Bruno Magli shoes, later published in the National Enquirer. Simpson's defense team claimed that the photograph was doctored, but other pre-1994 photos appearing to show Simpson wearing Bruno Magli shoes were later discovered and published.  These photos were not known about until late in the criminal trial and not during the "big shoe debate".  Simpson had previously denied ever wearing such shoes.
The jury in the trial awarded Brown and Simpson's children, Sydney and Justin (Brown's only children), $12.6 million from their father as recipients of their mother's estate.  The victims' families were awarded $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages, thereby finding Simpson "responsible" for the respective murders.  In 2008, a Los Angeles superior court approved the plaintiffs' renewal application on the court judgment against Simpson.
Four years after the trial, at an auction to pay some of the money in the compensation order, Bob Enyart, a conservative Christian radio host, paid $16,000 for some of Simpson's memorabilia, including his Hall of Fame induction certificate, two jerseys, and two trophies he was given for charity work. Enyart took the items outside the courthouse where the auction was held, burned the certificate and jerseys, and smashed the trophies with a sledgehammer.
If I Did It
In November 2006, ReganBooks announced a book ghostwritten by Pablo Fenjves based on interviews with Simpson titled If I Did It; an account which the publisher said was a hypothetical confession. The book's release was planned to coincide with a Fox special featuring Simpson. "This is a historic case, and I consider this his confession," publisher Judith Regan told the Associated Press.  On November 20, News Corporation, parent company of ReganBooks and Fox, canceled both the book and the TV interview due to a high level of public criticism. CEO Rupert Murdoch, speaking at a press conference, stated: "I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project."
Later, the Goldman family was awarded rights to the book to satisfy part of the judgment against Simpson. The title of the book was changed to If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer. On the front cover of the book, the title was stylized with the word "If" to appear much smaller than those of "I Did It", and placed inside the "I", so unless looked at very closely, the title of the book reads "I Did It: Confessions of the Killer".
On March 11, 2018, Fox broadcast Simpson's previously unaired interview with Regan, which was part of the book deal in a special titled O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession?  In the decade-old interview, which was supposed to air with the release of the book by ReganBooks, Simpson gave a very detailed hypothesis on how the murders would have been committed if he had been involved, initially using phrases like "I would" and "I'd think", but later moved to using first person phrasing with sentences like "I remember I grabbed the knife", "I don't remember except I'm standing there", "I don't recall", and "I must have", and involving a supposed accomplice named "Charlie". Due to the change in phrasing, these comments were interpreted by many as being a form of confession, which stirred strong reactions in print media and the internet.
Later developments
As a result of a 2007 incident in Las Vegas, Nevada, regarding an attempt to steal materials Simpson claimed were stolen from him, Simpson was convicted in 2008 of multiple felonies including use of a deadly weapon to commit kidnapping, burglary and armed robbery, and sentenced to a minimum nine years to a maximum 33 years in prison. His attempts to appeal the sentence were unsuccessful and he was detained at Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nevada.  During his 2013 parole hearing, Simpson was granted parole on all counts except weapons-related and the two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. After a July 20, 2017, Nevada parole board hearing voting unanimously 4–0, Simpson was granted parole after a minimum nine-year sentence on the remaining counts for the Vegas robbery with Sunday, October 1, 2017, to be his release date from prison on parole. According to Nevada law if he continues his good behavior, Simpson will have his 33-year sentence reduced by 50% to make September 29, 2022, the end of his sentence. Upon release, Simpson intends to reside near his family in Miami, Florida, where he moved in 2000. Florida is one of the few U.S. states that protect one's homes and pensions from seizures for such debts as those awarded following the civil trial. Goldman's father and sister, Fred and Kim, did not appear before the board, but stated that they had received about 1% of the $33.5 million that Simpson owes from the wrongful death suit.
Simpson has participated in two high-profile interviews regarding the case – one in 1996 with Ross Becker, which outlines Simpson's side of the story, as well as a guided tour of his estate, where evidence used in the trial was found. The second took place in 2004, on the tenth anniversary of the murders, with Katie Couric for NBC speaking to Simpson. He had worked for that network as a sports commentator.
In May 2008, Mike Gilbert, a former agent and friend of Simpson, released his book How I Helped O.J. Get Away with Murder, which details Simpson confessing to the killings to Gilbert.  Gilbert states that Simpson had smoked marijuana and taken a sleeping pill and was drinking beer when he confided at his Brentwood home weeks after his trial what happened the night of the murders. Simpson said, "If she hadn't opened that door with a knife in her hand ... she'd still be alive." This, Gilbert said, confirmed his belief that Simpson had confessed.
In March 2016, the LAPD announced a knife had been found in 1998 buried at Simpson's estate, when the buildings were razed. A construction worker had given the knife to a police officer, who, believing the case had been closed, did not submit it as evidence at the time. Forensic tests demonstrated that the knife was not related to the murder.
The presence of Kardashian on Simpson's legal team, combined with the press coverage of the trial, was the catalyst for the ongoing popularity of the Kardashian family.  While Kardashian's ex-wife Kris Jenner was already married to former Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner at the time of the trial, Kardashian's family was mostly out of the public eye before the trial, only becoming famous due to the trial.
Other theories
The murders continue to be the subject of research and speculation.  For example, Detective William Dear conducted a lengthy investigation. His evidence and conclusions, among those of other experts (e.g., Dr. Henry Lee) who have reviewed the crime, trial, and evidence, were addressed in the BBC documentary O.J.: The True Untold Story (2000). The documentary produced by Malcolm Brinkworth, claims that the police and prosecution had contaminated or planted evidence pointing to Simpson as the killer, and ignored exculpatory evidence. Furthermore, it asserts that the state too hastily eliminated other possible suspects, including Simpson's elder son Jason, and individuals linked to the illegal drug trade, in which Brown, Goldman and Resnick allegedly participated.
Alternative theories of the murders, supposedly shared by Simpson, have suggested they were related to the Los Angeles drug trade, and that Michael Nigg, a friend and co-worker of Goldman, was murdered as well. Simpson himself has stated in numerous interviews that he believes the two had been killed over their involvement in drug dealing in the area, and that other murders at the time were carried out for the same reason. Brown, Simpson believed, had been planning to open a restaurant using proceeds from cocaine sales. Mezzaluna was reportedly a nexus for drug trafficking in Brentwood.
Brett Cantor, part-owner of the Dragonfly nightclub in Hollywood, was found stabbed to death in his nearby home on July 30, 1993; no suspects have ever been identified.  The case gained renewed attention a year later when Simpson's defense team successfully petitioned the court trying him for the murders of Brown and Goldman for access to the case file, on the grounds that the way in which all three were stabbed suggested the same killer. Since Goldman had worked for Cantor as a waiter, and Nicole was a regular at Dragonfly, some books about the case have raised the possibility that the three killings may also have resulted from involvement in drug trafficking.

Michael Nigg, an aspiring actor and waiter at a Los Angeles restaurant, was shot and killed during an attempted robbery on September 8, 1995, while withdrawing money from an ATM.  Three suspects were arrested a month later but released due to a lack of evidence and the case remains unsolved. Since Nigg was a friend of Ronald Goldman, with whom he had worked, and seemed to live quite well for someone in his position, some reports have suggested that he was involved in drug trafficking. Nigg's murder has been used to support theories that the murders of Goldman and O.J. Simpson's ex-wife Nicole the year before were drug-related as well.
In 2012, several links between the killings and convicted murderer Glen Edward Rogers were alleged in the documentary film My Brother the Serial Killer, which was broadcast on Investigation Discovery (ID). Clay Rogers, Glen's brother, recounts Glen saying how he had met Brown and was "going to take her down" a few days before the murders happened in 1994. When the murder case was under process, Van Nuys ADA Lea D'Argostino came to know about a written statement from Glen revealing he had met Brown. The information was forwarded to Simpson's prosecutors, but was ignored. Much later, in his years-long correspondence with criminal profiler Anthony Meolis, Glen also wrote about and created paintings pointing towards his involvement with the murders. During a personal prison meeting between the two, Glen said he was hired by Simpson to break into Brown's house and steal some expensive jewelry, and that Simpson had told him: "you may have to kill the bitch". In a filmed interview, Glen's brother Clay asserts that his brother confessed his involvement.  Rogers' family stated that he had informed them that he had been working for Nicole in 1994 and that he had made verbal threats about her to them. Rogers would later speak to a criminal profiler about the Goldman–Simpson murders, providing details about the crime and remarking that he had been hired by O. J. Simpson to steal a pair of earrings and potentially murder Nicole.
Best -selling author and journalist Stephen Singular was approached about the O.J. Simpson case from an anonymous source within the LAPD.  Singular acquired the attention of this source through his book Talked to Death: The Life and Murder of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio talk show host who was murdered by a white supremacist, Neo-Nazi group called The Order.
According to the source, Mark Fuhrman used a broken piece of fence to pick up one of the bloody gloves found at the Bundy crime scene and place it in a blue evidence bag.   Afterwards, Fuhrman and another detective made an undocumented trip to OJ Simpson's Rockingham estate in the early morning, where Fuhrman removed the glove from the plastic bag and placed it in an alley to the side of the Rockingham estate.  A blue plastic bag was later recovered from the Rockingham estate and a broken piece of fence was recovered from the Bundy crime scene, both were entered into evidence.

Singular was also told by the source that Fuhrman had some sort of relationship with Nicole Brown Simpson, and an internal affairs investigation conducted by the LAPD later revealed Fuhrman was overheard bragging to other officers about being initiate with Brown and describing her breast augmentation.
The source also revealed that Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) would be found in some of the blood evidence if tested and that lab technicians had mishandled Simpson’s blood samples.  Singular relayed all of this information to the defense team and was in communication with them for a couple of months.  He went on to write and publish a book detailing his experience, Legacy of Deception: An Investigation of Mark Fuhrman and Racism in the LAPD.
Reaction from individuals involved
Such theories have been refuted by Clark, Brown's sister Tanya, and Fred Goldman who said, "I believe [O.J.] did it, and he did it alone".
The families of Brown and Goldman expressed anger at the premise of My Brother the Serial Killer, with both families dismissing the claims by the Rogers family.  Kim Goldman accused ID of irresponsibility, stating that no one had informed her of Glen Rogers' claims that he had been involved in her brother's death.
ID's president, Henry Schlieff, replied that the documentary's intention was not to prove Rogers had committed the crimes, but to "give viewers new facts and let them make up their own minds", and that he believed Simpson was guilty of the murders.  Schlieff also commented that the movie did not point out any inconsistencies with the claims or evidence against Rogers because "ID viewers are savvy enough to root them out on their own."
According to O.J.: Made in America director Ezra Edelman, no plausible alternative theory has emerged.
In popular culture
Media adaptations
In 1995, Fox premiered the TV movie The O. J. Simpson Story. The movie followed some of the more tawdry events in the relationship between Simpson and Brown, up to and including his arrest for Brown's murder. Simpson is portrayed by Bobby Hosea.
 In 2000, 20th Century Fox produced American Tragedy, starring Ving Rhames as Cochran, Christopher Plummer as Bailey, Ron Silver as Shapiro, and Raymond Forchion as Simpson.
BBC TV's documentary, O.J. Simpson: The Untold Story (2000), produced by Malcolm Brinkworth, "reveals that clues that some believe pointed away from Simpson as the killer were dismissed or ignored and highlights two other leads which could shed new light on the case."
In 2006, Robert Horgan made a short film, Reenactment of the Century, depicting a reenactment of the killings, starring Gerald Rush as Simpson, Sandra Olson as Brown, and Russ Russo as Goldman.
In 2014, ID premiered the documentary OJ: Trial of the Century, which begins on the day of the murders, ends on the reading of the verdict, and comprises actual media footage of events and reactions as they unfolded.
In February 2016, FX premiered the anthology series American Crime Story. The self-contained first season, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story was adapted from the book The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson (1997), by Jeffrey Toobin, who had also served as a legal analyst for the New Yorker on the trial. The cast included Sarah Paulson as Clark, Courtney B. Vance as Cochran, John Travolta as Shapiro, David Schwimmer as Kardashian, Sterling K. Brown as Darden, and Cuba Gooding Jr. as Simpson.  It received critical acclaim and several Emmy Awards.
In April 2016, ID premiered O.J. Simpson Trial: The Real Story, which entirely comprises archival news footage of the murder case, the Bronco chase, the trial, the verdict, and reactions.
In June 2016, ESPN premiered O.J.: Made in America, a five-part, eight-hour documentary by Ezra Edelman on the trial. The documentary received widespread acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Joshua Newton's upcoming film Nicole & O.J., centers around the tumultuous relationship between Simpson and Brown and the circumstances surrounding the murders of Brown and Goldman. It will also argue Simpson's innocence. Boris Kodjoe stars as O. J. Simpson.
TV
Episodes of sitcoms, such as The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ("Reynolds vs. Reynolds: The Cereal Defense") and Seinfeld ("The Big Salad", "The Caddy"), have mocked the case, or more specifically, Simpson himself.
Music
R&B group H-Town dedicated their album Ladies Edition, Woman's World (1997) to Brown, to help victims of domestic violence.
Rapper Eminem referenced the murders in his 1999 song "Role Model", saying, "Me and Marcus Allen went over to see Nicole, When we heard a knock at the door, must have been Ron Gold. Jumped behind the door, put the orgy on hold, Killed them both and smeared blood in a white Bronco (We Did It)".
The 2002 song "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", by American punk-pop band Good Charlotte includes the lyrics, "You know if you're famous you can kill your wife? There's no such thing as 25 to life, as long as you got the cash to pay for Cochran", in reference to the "Not Guilty" verdict which, many believe, wouldn't have been the case if Simpson hadn't appointed Cochran as his lead attorney.
Rapper Jay Z also referenced the trial in a song named "The Story of O.J" which revolves around the case and the influence of systemic racism on the trial.
Hip hop artist Magneto Dayo released a 2013 "diss track" song titled "OJ Simpson" in which he insults his ex-girlfriend/artist V-Nasty, by referencing the Simpson murder case. The song's lyrics were also added to the Houston Press' list of "The 15 Most Messed-Up O.J. Simpson Lyrics".
Video games
The video game Duke Nukem 3D has several allusions to the OJ trial, including a television playing the Bronco chase.
Exhibits
The suit Simpson wore when he was acquitted on October 3, 1995, was donated by Simpson's former agent Mike Gilbert to the Newseum in 2010. The Newseum has multiple trial-related items in their collection, including press passes, newspapers and the mute button that Superior Court Judge Lance Ito used when he wanted to shut off the live microphone in court so lawyers could talk privately during the trial. The museum's acquisition of the suit ended the legal battle between Gilbert and Fred Goldman, both of whom claimed the right to the clothing.
The Bronco from the famous police chase was on display at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, as of late 2016.
In 2017 Adam Papagan curated a pop-up museum showcasing artifacts and ephemera from the trial at Coagula Curatorial gallery in Los Angeles.

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