Murder trial of O. J. Simpson

On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were found stabbed to death outside Brown's condominium at 875 South Bundy Drive in Los Angeles. Brown had married O. J. Simpson, a former NFL player and actor, in 1985; their marriage included documented incidents of domestic violence, and the two had divorced. Simpson was charged with both murders on June 17, 1994. When he failed to surrender to police at the agreed time, he fled in a white Ford Bronco driven by a friend, leading to a widely televised low-speed police pursuit before he surrendered at his Brentwood home.

Simpson was arraigned on June 20, 1994, and pleaded not guilty. A grand jury proceeding was dismissed on June 23 due to concerns about pretrial publicity, and a probable-cause hearing was held instead; on July 7, Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell found sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. At a second arraignment on July 22, Simpson again pleaded not guilty.

The trial, held before Judge Lance Ito in downtown Los Angeles, ran from January 24 to October 3, 1995, and was extensively televised. The prosecution team, led by Deputy District Attorneys Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden (with William Hodgman and others), presented a case built substantially on DNA evidence — including 108 exhibits and 61 blood drops — along with hair, fiber, and shoeprint analysis linking Simpson to both crime scenes and his vehicle. Prosecutors also presented evidence of a history of domestic violence, including a 1989 incident for which Simpson pleaded no contest to one count of domestic violence, though the domestic-violence portion of the case was dropped in June 1995.

Simpson's defense, led initially by Robert Shapiro and later by Johnnie Cochran and known in media coverage as the "Dream Team," argued that the DNA evidence had been mishandled and potentially contaminated or planted by police, citing collection errors by criminalists Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola and alleging misconduct connected to detectives including Mark Fuhrman. The defense also contested the prosecution's timeline for the killings and called witnesses to challenge Simpson's physical capability to commit the murders.

On October 3, 1995, the jury — composed mostly of Black jurors — returned not-guilty verdicts on both counts. Commentators have attributed the verdict in part to distrust of the Los Angeles Police Department among Black Angelenos, rooted in prior incidents including the beating of Rodney King. Public reaction to the verdict divided sharply along racial lines, a divide the media termed the "racial gap," though later polling suggested that division narrowed over time.

Following the criminal trial, Ron Goldman's father brought a civil wrongful-death suit against Simpson. In 1997, a civil jury unanimously found Simpson liable for the deaths of Goldman and Brown and awarded the Goldman family damages totaling $34 million, of which they have reportedly received only a small portion as of 2024.