FILE PHOTO: Defendant O.J. Simpson reacts after the court clerk announces that Simpson was found not guilty of the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman, as defense attorneys F. Lee Bailey and Johnnie Cochran, Jr. look on in a Los Angeles courtroom, October 3, 1995. - REUTERSPIX: O.J.
All that changed after Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman were found fatally slashed in a bloody scene outside her Los Angeles home on June 12, 1994. The trial transfixed America. In the White House, President Bill Clinton left the Oval Office and watched the verdict on his secretary's TV. Many Black Americans celebrated his acquittal, seeing Simpson as the victim of bigoted police. Many white Americans were appalled by his exoneration.Simpson's legal team included prominent criminal defense lawyers Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz and F. Lee Bailey, who often out-maneuvered the prosecution.
After his acquittal, Simpson said that “I will pursue as my primary goal in life the killer or killers who slayed Nicole and Mr. Goldman... They are out there somewhere... I would not, could not and did not kill anyone.” On Oct. 3, 2008, exactly 13 years after his acquittal in the murder trial, he was convicted by a Las Vegas jury on charges including kidnapping and armed robbery. These stemmed from a 2007 incident at a casino hotel in which Simpson and five men, at least two carrying guns, stole sports memorabilia worth thousands of dollars from two dealers.