DEREK CHAUVIN AND OJ SIMPSON: The similarities in public interest influences on the court verdicts.

The same societal pressure that has resulted in the conviction of Derek Chauvin, is the very one that resulted in the release of a guilty black man in the same country 26 years ago. This was about the same exact time that Bill Clinton was on trial for digging and more, the world’s most (in)famous intern, Monica Lewinsky.

This is what happened. In October 3, 1995 OJ Simpson, a NFL player was acquitted of all charges in the double murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, at Nicole Brown Simpson’s house. The two had recently separated and were living apart from each other after several incidences of well-documented domestic violence by him against her. 

Despite blood evidence pointing to OJ Simpson and no other suspect as the murderer, he was found not guilty.

Blood and hair of the two victims were found outside and inside of OJ’s car and on the walkway back at his own house. His own blood was also found at the crime scene, as were bloody sole marks of the exact size of shoes that OJ wore. Nonetheless, he was found not guilty. He also had fresh cuts on his hands the cause of which he could not satisfactorily explain. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman’s throats had been slit with a sharp object, most likely a knife.

The defense argued that the police had contaminated the crime scene with blood that was drawn from OJ to aid in investigations. At that time, DNA technology had only recently been considered admissible as evidence in court. There was a damaging photograph of a police officer at the crime scene, with the said blood sample. They also had on record, the voice of one of the police officers on trial, admitting to planting evidence in a lot of previous other cases where black people were the suspects. In the voice recordings he used a lot of racial slurs in reference to black people.

In the end, the star-studded defense team assembled by the high profile lawyer Robert Shapiro, that included OJ’s best friend at the time, Robert Kardashian (Yes, it is what you’re thinking. He was their father) and led by the civil rights activist and black celebrity lawyer Johnie Cochran, argued that OJ Simpson was the innocent victim of systemic police and American societal racism.

There was immense pressure to have a no guilty verdict, mostly by black Americans who felt that the framing of their own had gone too far. This public interest, combined with OJ Simpson’s  immense popularity and flaws within (even outright incompetence by) the U.S police and judicial system, got him off the hook of a crime he has never admitted guilt to, to date.

In the words of his wife, as recorded in her diary, “One day this man will kill me and the world will not believe that he did, because he is OJ Simpson.”

Eventually, though, he was found to be liable in the “wrongful deaths” of the two victims, by a civil court, seeing as by the rules of that country, he could not be tried a second time for the same crime.

Basically he did it but walked away free and only paid some money.

Kind regards,
Anna Grace