In 1985 Simpson had married Nicole Brown, who he\u2019d met in 1977 when she was an 18-year-old waitress. The couple divorced in 1992.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div> <\/section>
This first half of the 1990s was a period of heightened racial tension in the US. Was that a factor in this story?<\/h3>\n
It\u2019s vital to understand the city that formed the backdrop to these events: Los Angeles. In the mid-1990s, its African-American and white communities lived largely separately. \u2028This was partly a result of race, but also class and wealth: African-American people tended to have lower incomes, and tended to be unable to buy in white areas. The city really experienced segregation, even though it wasn\u2019t legally codified.<\/p>\n
The LA police department was renowned for its racism and brutality, too. In 1991, for instance, its officers had been caught on camera viciously beating an African-American man named Rodney King, but were acquitted. That verdict had sparked severe outbreaks of violence around the city, and serve as a vivid illustration of the extent to which LA was a tinderbox during the 1990s. In some ways, it reflected wider trends in the US, but in a particularly heightened way.<\/p>\n On the night of 12 June 1994, Nicole Brown was found stabbed to death alongside her friend Ron Goldman outside her LA home.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Yes, I do. We have a tendency to focus on the celebrity angle, rather than the fact Brown had suffered domestic abuse across a long period, and had confided to friends several times that she feared her husband was going to kill her. In many respects, the case exemplifies the long history of wealth and fame protecting men from the consequences of their actions, particularly when they commit violence against women.<\/p>\n Police who arrived at Simpson\u2019s home to inform him of Brown\u2019s death found blood on the door and a blood-stained glove, and issued an arrest warrant. On 17 June, Simpson was due to hand himself into police, but instead embarked on a low- \u2028speed police chase through LA. Footage was broadcast live around the world.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> It was a new type of coverage, particularly at this kind of scale [it\u2019s estimated that more than 95 million people tuned in]. The story was perfect for live rolling-news coverage, because the chase went on so long [approximately two hours] and happened so slowly. That meant that word of mouth about the coverage spread, and it was even rumoured that President Clinton was watching. In a way, the chase is a precursor of the kind of memeable moments that we now see so often on social media: you can imagine TikTok or Facebook blowing up with people watching this kind of thing. So, in a sense, it prefigures today\u2019s media-saturated cultural landscape.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s worth saying that the coverage itself is extraordinary, showing people \u2028lining the street and cheering from bridges. Simpson\u2019s celebrity meant that people were invested in his story and keen to find out what would happen next \u2013 and, of course, some people thought that Simpson had been accused of a crime he hadn\u2019t committed.<\/p>\n Polling from the time suggests that the majority of white observers believed Simpson to be guilty, while the majority of African-American observers believed him not to be guilty. But I think part of the reason for the latter of those two trends is that black communities had an instinctive understanding that the police department in Los Angeles \u2013 and, indeed, other police departments in the US \u2013 was brutally racist.<\/p>\n There was a sense, in some communities, that Simpson was a victim in the same way many other African-American people had been. I think that belief, and that distrust of the police, is where the division actually lay, although it was presented at the time as being simply a racial division. I also think there was a lot more subtlety and variation within African-American responses to the case than has sometimes been suggested.<\/p>\n Simpson\u2019s trial began in January 1995, and lasted more than eight months. His defence, known as \u2018the dream team\u2019, included prominent African-American attorney Johnnie Cochran.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Cochran had made his name in cases taking the LAPD to task, including one in which \u2028a member of [black power group] the Black Panther Party had been framed for a murder he didn\u2019t commit \u2013 and, indeed, couldn\u2019t have done, because he wasn\u2019t even in Los Angeles at the time.<\/p>\n Cochran became a celebrity lawyer around this time, in part because of the Simpson case, but to reduce him to merely a \u2018celebrity\u2019 undercuts the fact that he was very skilful defence attorney. He knew the case inside out, and knew how to win people over and persuade juries. In some respects, he became something of a lightning rod for media coverage during the course ofthe Simpson trial.<\/p>\n One of the case\u2019s most important strands focused on a pair of bloodstained leather gloves that Simpson was alleged to have been wearing at the time of the murders.<\/p>\n The trial hinged on the moment that a prosecuting attorney was goaded by the defence to get Simpson to try on one of these gloves. By that point in proceedings, they had been frozen and defrosted twice to preserve them as evidence \u2013 and, of course, the leather had shrunk during that process. In any case, Simpson couldn\u2019t get the glove to fit, which led to Cochran\u2019s famous quip to the jury: \u201cIf it doesn\u2019t fit, you must acquit.\u201d And, despite the wealth of other evidence that was presented throughout the case, it was those gloves that stuck in jurors\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s another dimension to this, too. One of the key prosecution witnesses was Mark Fuhrman, a detective with the LAPD. During the trial, it became clear that Fuhrman had very often used racial epithets, and had boasted of tampering with evidence in previous cases. Even though there was no evidence that he had done so in this case, the fact that he was on the stand having to admit to using racist language, and that he\u2019d had to take the Fifth Amendment [protecting him from having to testify if that testimony might be self-incriminating] on a couple of occasions, meant that he was seen as being a fundamentally untrustworthy witness.<\/p>\n Simpson was controversially acquitted by the jury on both counts of murder on 3 October 1995.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> There was joy within the African-American population, because the verdict seemed to prove that a black man could achieve the kind of justice that it was felt had long been the sole preserve of white people. It seemed to some commentators that, because of his wealth and fame, Simpson had been able to subvert a legal system that had historically been geared towards white communities. Some people also felt that the result proved that Los Angeles\u2019 police department was fundamentally untrustworthy.<\/p>\nDo you think Nicole Brown\u2019s story gets overlooked?<\/h3>\n
![\"OJ](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2024\/04\/GettyImages-115358157-CMYK-61f2510-e1713882263342.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413\" "\\"OJ")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>How new a phenomenon was the rolling-news coverage of the pursuit?<\/h3>\n
![\"Television](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2024\/04\/GettyImages-1221630947-CMYK-15f9bcc-e1713882373429.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413\" "\\"OJ")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>Did levels of support for Simpson vary between white and black communities?<\/h3>\n
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How important a figure was Cochran?<\/h3>\n
A key point of contention in the trial was the extent to which the evidence could be trusted. Why was that so important?<\/h3>\n
What was the response to the verdict?<\/h3>\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2024\/04\/GettyImages-539887152-CMYK-a8b6de6-e1713882443877.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Celebrating")
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