OJ Simpson, football star turned celebrity murder defendant, dead at 76

OJ Simpson - acquitted in 1995 of murdering his former wife - died on April 10 after a battle with cancer, his family said on social media.

Nicknamed"The Juice", Simpson was one of the best and most popular athletes of the late 1960s and 1970s. He overcame childhood infirmity to become an electrifying running back at the University of Southern California and won the Heisman Trophy as college football's top player. After a record-setting career in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

What ensued was one of the most notorious trials in 20th century America and a media circus. It had everything: a rich celebrity defendant; a Black man accused of killing his white former wife out of jealousy; a woman slain after divorcing a man who had beaten her; a"dream team" of pricy and charismatic defence lawyers; and a huge gaffe by prosecutors.

Prosecutors committed a memorable blunder when they directed Simpson to try on a pair of blood-stained gloves found at the murder scene, confident they would fit perfectly and show he was the killer. "A predominantly African-American jury was more susceptible to claims of police incompetence and corruption and more willing to impose a higher burden of proof than normally required for proof beyond a reasonable doubt," Arenella said.

Simpson's"dream team" did not represent him in the civil trial in which the burden of proof was lower than in a criminal trial - a"preponderance of the evidence" rather than"beyond a reasonable doubt." New evidence also hurt Simpson, including photographs of him wearing the type of shoes that had left bloody footprints at the murder scene.

In 2008, OJ Simpson was convicted by a Las Vegas jury on charges including kidnapping and armed robbery. PHOTO: REUTERS

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OJ Simpson, Acquitted in 1995 Murder Trial, Dies at 76OJ Simpson, the American football star and actor who was acquitted in a sensational 1995 trial of murdering his former wife but was found to be responsible for her death in a civil lawsuit and was later imprisoned for armed robbery and kidnapping, has died at the age of 76 after a battle with cancer.
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