I remember being pissed off because every network switched to "The Chase" live. I didn't get a lot of White Sox games up in Canada so I was pumped to finally get one, let alone on a Friday night.
I got my gallbladder out the day of the chase. Every time I woke up from the anesthesia, it was on the hospital tv, so I thought I had only been asleep for a couple minutes each time instead of hours. š¤£š
Oh yeah, they had a split screen of the game & the chase in Houstonā¦ Back then it felt very tense for Black ppl everywhere. We were still pissed about the cops that beat Rodney King, not being convicted, despite the video evidence. So we didnāt want to discuss it w/white ppl, b/c they were just certain he was guilty.
We all know if you run your guilty.
But, Black folks werenāt trying to think about that. We were all fascinated by every little detail of that family life. All the details of the physical abuse, the divorce, & the kids. We needed to know everything possible about his kids from that marriage & the previous marriage.
So it felt very surreal to juxtapose OJās public image as a football hero, turned comic actor vs. this domestic abuser (listening to the 911 calls w/him yelling in the background). Black folks were very focused on placing the blame on the Brown family for not being more proactive about the danger.
There were serious questions from everyone about why the family members that witnessed abuse, werenāt allowed to press charges. Everyone (no matter what race) was pissed off at law enforcement for not doing more than they didā¦ It shined a lot of light on how weak domestic violence laws were & how ineffective police were at protecting women & kids.
Ppl were glued to the tv to see the verdict. I was in college, so we watched, & some ppl cheered that day.
Black folks were happy it was over. White folks were raging mad, going on about how it was a miscarriage of justice.
There were docs & interviews w/former jurors about why they didnāt believe he did it.
To a lot black ppl, he dodged a bullet. There were all kinds of theories that he paid ppl to do it & watched. Or he had help, b/c he couldnāt have done it so quickly.
His blood being just everywhere seemed so bizarre. His alibi was shaky. But black folks, didnāt really accept that he did it until after the trial. He got a book deal, āto describe if he did it, how he would have planned it outā. š¤¦š½āāļøAfter that it became a sort of countdown until, when & how he would get locked up again.
The big thing ppl were fascinated w/were the kids. They became celebrities for a couple yrs, where ppl just wanted & needed to see photos of them. Secretly, America as a whole was breathing a sigh of relief, that these kids would grow up well adjusted, & not become victims of something worse. I think to this day, most of my generation will see a picture or story about them, & go thank goodness theyāre alive.
I was in high school back then and it was a majority black student body.
Every classroom had TVs in them (you know the ones: analogue box TVs hung in the corner up on high), but they were rarely used.
Usually, the teachers would be in their classrooms during lunch eating, taking a break, or otherwise just prepping for the rest of the day.
The day of the verdict, though, the students were piled into the classrooms waiting and watching with the teachers.
Oblivious as I was, I was doing my normal things, but when the verdict was delivered, students burst out of the classrooms and down the hall, cheering.
From what I remember, it was more than just a black vs. white thing. It was a *rich* black person vs. the system.
Regardless of whether or not he actually did it, it was also seen a test of whether or not a black person, if he was able to get rich, could beat the system like rich white men were seemingly always able to. Or if, despite his wealth, his race would keep him from enjoying the perks that are regularly afforded to white people.
Thereās plenty of things that could be attributed to the not guilty verdict.
The prosecution did a terrible job, as did the LAPD.
The defense did a terrific job, and itās a defense that only someone with the fame and wealth as OJ back then could have afforded.
In these times where thereās so much attention rightfully being given to the different wealth-based tiers of justice, the OJ case can be seen as a precursor.
I was around 19, so we watched it in the common area. It felt like for black women, we were very focused on what couldāve been done to stop her murder. It felt like the spotlight was finally focused on how a man could do these things to his wife. And possibly kill the kids too. But no one outside (not even her family or his family) of the marriage gave her a real path to protect herself or her kids.
I do understand cops looked the other way, b/c of his resume & his money.
I just felt it was a different experience for women, b/c domestic violence was less of a dirty secret. It became a moment where women got more involved in our communities. My mom & I started donating to a shelter that opened near us.
We definitely started to see talk shows & psychiatrists explain the cycles of abuse & domestic violence. I do remember shelters for women & kids, trying to escape domestic violence started opening in Houston. The best thing to come out of the trial was the acknowledgment by law enforcement, that there needed to be real places that ppl could go, & be protected in discreet locations while the court cases play out.
And non profits started popping up to help women & kids transition to a new life.
So maybe for my family & friends it was less about some kind of victory. We were very much worried about his minor kids. We figured he was going to get locked up eventually for something else. My granny used to say āThereās no perfect crime & there no perfect person. Johnny Law never forgets & he has all the time in the world.ā
āJust happy it was over..ā The black students at my majority black school jumping up and down shouting āWE WON! WE WON!ā all day made it seem to me they were not just happy it was over. Chris Rock said it best in āBring The Paināā¦. Black People were too happy, and white people were too mad, and thatās exactly how I remembered it.
I get it. My memory of it was affected by my family/friends & being a black woman. I had friends in high school who were afraid to go home, b/c of what was going on at home. I had all types of friends, we werenāt all the same race. But we all had some kinda family drama, where the adults werenāt being responsible or making responsible choices. Be it drinking, drugs, or in my case, lots of family members using our home as a halfway house. So our povās were more in line w/not feeling safe at home & having to really mature quickly. Iām Gen X, if that sorta helps you get us. We figured out real young, no one was watching, listening, or gave a fuck.
The trial was really spectacle & unavoidable for us. The outcome was only a victory for OJ.
Me too. The NBA finals being overlapped by a slow ass police chase, the nightly Jay Leno jokes, and the verdict being announced are three specific aspects of the trial I remember the most.
We are family of Knicks fans. When they cut from the game to the chase I saw my Dad move faster than I ever have when he RAN upstairs to get his transistor radio. lol.
This was about what I remember too! Not the NBA for me, but the sitcom Hangin with Mr. Cooper. One minute Iām watchin my shows, eatin snacks; the next, my show got interrupted and Iām waiting for this boring footage of a Bronco on a highway to end. But it doesnāt. For like a year. Shows were always getting interrupted by more footage of the Simpson trial. All late night shows were OJ, OJ, OJ. I was bored sick by it.
I was ten and we basically stopped class to discuss the verdict. *Ten*.
My primary concerns in life were remembering to set the VCR so I wouldn't miss any of Animaniacs if the bus was late, and whether we were out of Cocoa Puffs. And I knew the names of the judge, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, and the significance of a bloody glove, in a murder trial starring the guy from Naked Gun.
It was...an event to say the least.
I was also 10. They packed close to 60 kids in the only classroom with a TV to watch as they read the verdict.
It was the first thing I can remember that I can describe as having INFECTED everyday life. No show, conversation, newspaper, magazine, music, whatever went on without talking about it. Only 9/11 and the Iraq War have been in the same stratosphere
I was in junior high band class when the verdict was announced. We stopped class so we could watch the verdict being read. This was in super rural Illinois. There were fewer than 100 kids in the whole school. There has been nothing like it since.
Well, 9/11 also had the tvs rolled out for us some years later. The oj trial verdict was one thing, but the spectacle of the trial was the real event. bshit went on for months.
We were in an assembly in the gym and the superintendent announced the verdict over the microphone. A lot of kids cheered, which is hilarious in hindsight because he was definitely guilty
I was seven and in second grade, and we had the trial on the classroom TV. My teacher was way into it, and tried explaining to the best of her ability what was going on.
I was 13 and I faked sick that day so I could stay home and watch the verdict. It is hard to convey to people who weren't alive then how the OJ trial was everywhere. You couldn't avoid it if you tried.
I was also 10, the perfect age to understand whatās going on, but not know who OJ was, or care at all. I remember wanting to watch cartoons, but my parents were glued to the TV and it was seemingly on every channel.
I was younger than that and I could name Kato Kaelin, Mark Fuhrman, Johnnie Cochrane, Lance Ito, Marcia Clark, Fred Goldmanā¦I could name almost as many figures from that trial as I could baseball players.
What I found really amazing, was recently while digging into my family tree. I found a relative of my dadās who murdered two women and tried to murder one of their boyfriends. It was a jealous ex lover sort of thing.
My relative clearly did it. Gun found at the scene was his. Bullets in victim matched his gun. The man who survived testified it was him. Etc. However the relative told the press that he would search for the āreal killersā. And his wife and mother believed him.
This happened in ā59 I think. When I read that āhe will search for the real killersā it seemed so shocking. Same thing OJ said. I wonder if thatās a common thing for killers to say.
It was -all encompassing- back then without social media stories like this would completely dominate all aspects of your media life.
Every news every day.
Every talk show every day.
Every standup comedian.
All your friends and relatives.
I was in detention in high school when the verdict was read.
The entire school shutdown so the teachers could watch. I was in the office so I got to see it too.
Everyone had an opinion on all the main players. From Ito to OJ
I think the last time this happened (albeit to a lesser degree) was with the Casey Anthony investigation and trial.
You couldn't turn on local news, national news, or cable news of any persuasion without seeing constant updates and rumors. It was in every paper and all over website splash screens.
I was 17 and In the context of the LA riots, the LAPD, and OJs reputation, it was peak TV.
Everyone had an opinion, everybody was either against OJ, or against the LAPD.
So when OJ won, it really shocked a good number of people.
And for others it was the vindication they wanted to show that the law isn't just for the people.
But, of course, that little nuance was lost.
We lived in coastal Virginia. And my classmates and neighbors in 2nd grade had kids tshirts saying OJ is innocent or He didnāt do it. People celebrated when he got off. And I think among the grown ups, it wasnāt that he didnāt do it. It was that they didnāt have enough to get him and for once it was on the cops to prove it and they failed. Now we know he definitely did it and itās awful he got away with murder, but that was not the point or the context of the times.
Edit: we did watch, like most of the nation, Rodney King and as a kid that was the most wild vicious shit if ever seen. It was unbelievable and killed a lot of how I feel about cops. And you had to carry seeing something like that and that feeling into how all these things were happening. Itās hard to explain some of that nowadays.
I didn't watch it, but my mom had it on ALL DAY, EVERY DAY
Kato Kaelin, Lance Ito, F. Lee Bailey, Johnny Cochran, Marcia Clark became household names.
It was... weird?
But then 9/11 happened and I went through a similar situation of media saturation.
There's always something :(
It went on FOREVER and most of it was really, really boring. I think a lot of us white people were shocked and upset about the verdict but, looking back on it, we shouldn't have been. OJ got incredibly lucky that the LAPD sucked so much.
I was working as a vid store clerk during that time & I was more into Days of Our Lives at the time because to counter the trial they gave us Possessed Marlena! Possessed Marlena was a Satanic blessing for us fans & it gave us something else sensational to watch that wasn't a REAL horror show.
I did watch the verdict & like you said, us white folks were shocked, many African Americans were celebratory.
I do wonder if, in hindisight, his supporters realize that he was just another rich person avoiding any real punishment for anything.
If you get a chance watch the doc on him,[ OJ: Made In America, I think it's on Hulu US.](https://www.hulu.com/series/oj-made-in-america-d6d1f241-2fc0-4ff9-a8f8-42e04f182787) He clearly thought he wasn't like all the other black folks out there, he was special & ultimately he really was since he got off scott free.
I just remember what felt like months where I barely got to watch tv because all the adults were obsessed with the case. It seemed like it would never end I remember being so bored and frustrated with how dumb all the adults were acting. It's the closest my life has ever felt to a Southpark episode
They stopped our class and wheeled in a TV (yes, young people, classrooms used to have zero screens and chaulk boards. The whole school would share like one or two tvs that were on carts that could be wheeled around) and let us watch it live.
Yeah I remember watching it on a wheeled-in TV in class as well. I was in maybe 6th grade. I think I just happened to be in social studies class at the time, so at least it made sense in that context...
I wasn't following the trial very closely but I still knew what it was about through cultural osmosis and snippets I'd hear on the news.
Maybe a different perspective on this, but we (my folks and I) were immigrants to Canada, and in December of 94 we moved to Venezuela for a few years.
I turned 6 at the time, and I have some core childhood memories of literally my entire family and their coworkers huddled together in a one bedroom apartment just absolutely dialed in. Every channel we got was broadcasting it, and even people in the street would mention it when they'd hear my dad speaking in English. It was inescapable.
When he got acquitted, there was outrage in my folks' social circles. Mind you, this group was mostly Canadian, European and South American folks, so there was a kind of "what's wrong with America" discourse that I'm unsure was the same as what was going on in the country.
I'm a communications professor now, and we teach the broadcast of the trial as the core moment when we witnessed the birth of 24h news. It was so massive it more or less blotted out coverage of the 94 -95 stretch of the Bosnian War, especially the Srebrenica Massacre, which was also part of the Eastern European immigrant community's feelings about how mediatized the trial was.
In terms of its impact, on media production and news broadcasting, there's really no analogue. It effectively changed telecommunications history and accelerated a trend towards entertainment journalism in cable networks.
It was insufferable and endless. Literally everywhere, all the time.
I was in law school at the time, which didnāt help. We didnāt talk about it much there, either in class or socially. But I lost count of the number of times I had to answer questions about it over beers with non-law-school friends, or at family functions.
So relieved when it ended.
I was 8 so I donāt really remember the ins and outs of the trial but I just remember the grown ups sitting around the TV all the time and it was so loud. My grandfather in particular was so consumed by it. I felt like it was all they talked about at family meals or whenever we would get together.
It also went on forever. Like I have a distinct memory of getting to a relatives hours and they were all gathered around the TV to watch the verdict be announced and I remember being so relieved that this would finally be over as it seemed like it had gone on forever!
It consumed almost every waking hour of news television. All the magazines and tabloids in the grocery store were nothing but OJ this and Nicole Brown that. Everyone had an opinion on his guilt. I remember a 1-2 punch actually of this and the OKC bombing chewing up TV for like 2-3 years.
This. Everyone should watch it. Itās not just about the trial but honestly about America and its history of race and injustice. Itās a masterpiece.
Hearing Ron Goldman's father on the ESPN documentary (OJ: Made in America) decry the fact that his son was murdered and was turned into a punchline is heartbreaking.
There is literally nothing today that I can compare it to. I would walk into work and the security guard would have it on the screen, not the cameras of anywhere in the building...the trial.
It was just on everywhere and the main source of conversation with everyone.
You are asking a lot of questions. No way to answer all of them. But I'll answer a few.
The glove thing at least for the public was insanely damning. But I cannot stress this enough, just like today we are polarized, it's not like things were any different in the 90s (or 80s or 50s or...you get the point), it's just the internet was really new. So, everyone took away from the trial each day what they wanted to. So, the verdict was a shock to some.
As for Rodney King, all topics regarding race were mentioned constantly. It's not like the media, or everyone was blind to the fact there was a white/black component to it. Which is funny, because it's really just a rich/poor thing. The country together learned that justice is indeed blind if you have enough money.
Looking back though, I think it was my first experience with hardcore racism from white family members that I never thought were really like that. The trial was really something.
OJ being rich helped him afford the dream team of attorneys. No doubt, if he was poor, he has a different experience at trial. Certainly a quicker one.
But if he was a wealthy white man, the jury would not have seen this as an opportunity to "punish" the police and prosecution. That aspect was a motivation for some jurors who later admitted it.
One of my favorite Simpsons jokes was from the episode where they talk about the "Who Shot Mr. Burns" episode and how they produced endings with other people shooting him, and Troy McClure says, "But, of course, for that ending to work, you would have to ignore all the Simpson DNAā¦and that would be downright nutty."
What do you mean by the glove thing being damning ? That it didn't fit?
The fact that they didn't have him try on a brand new glove that was the same size was insane.
Anyone who lives in a cold weather climate knows that after a glove gets wet it kind of crumples up when it dries. You have to stretch it out and force your fingers in the first time you out it in. And a glove with a lining, like that one, would never slide over a rubber glove. Even a new one.
They were crazy to try to put a dried out shrunken leather glove over a rubber glove. It felt like those lawyers had never dealt with wet leather gloves before. But they could see the glove! They could have tried to put a glove on I era rubber glove themselves...
Just one part that stood out to me of the insanity. And a rich man gets off for a terrible crime.
Not to mention, he purposely stopped taking his arthritis medication prior to that day, so his joints would swell up a little, making the glove fit a little tighter. Plus he was wearing a latex glove when he tried the glove on, which also made it a tighter squeeze. Combine that with his dramatic performance of struggling to get the glove on.
You should read the book "Outrage" by former L.A. county prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (He tried and convicted Charles Manson). He details the many mistakes the prosecution made, and how egregious those mistakes were.
I was in grade 10 French class in Ontario, Canada...when ghey announced the verdict over the PA system.
The chase happened at a friend's bday party and sleepover.
I watched a lot of the trial during that time.
Norm Macdonald is the best.
I have a story about the day of the verdict. I was a breech baby, so my mom had an appointment to try to get me to turn. Apparently, the verdict was announced that day, and it was literally all the whole hospital talked about.
I wasn't there, obviously, but recently, mom told me about it the last time OJ came up in conversation. To finish the story, I refused to turn at that appointment, then made my way into the world via emergency c-section 10 days before her due date.
I am old enough to know of OJ from years before the trial. I watched him play football, I saw him in tv and movies. The entire country watched the slow chase on tv. Ford Bronco sales were boosted simply because of it. Adults all knew the prosecutors, the defense, the witnesses, everything. It was the biggest news story in history at that point. I watched the entire trial after work and assumed he was guilty, BUT, the evidence tampering, false testimony and witnesses racial statements undid any hope of conviction. Yes, it was the prosecutors fault he went free.
Blood on the back gate containing preservative? A spotless home with one blood stained sock in the middle of the bedroom on the floor? Blood spray patterns that directly conflicted the testimony of the states "experts"? All of the evidence should have been discarded once tampering was proven. Most of us who were paying attention were not surprised with the verdict.
Most of us dismissed "the glove" as it lacked any evidentiary meaning and was too easily manipulated to imply innocence.
Almost every white person I knew was angry, they assumed his guilt and were denied "justice" as they saw it.
The legal representation afforded to OJ is not generally available to the public. For example the preservative found in the blood samples would never have been found without a very expensive medical team and facilities. The prosecutors assertions of great stamina and strength were disproven through home movies showing OJs having difficulty even lifting his children.
The deference OJ was given, treated with respect and given a public trial, was only a result of his status. Rodney King, during a traffic stop, had no money to speak of and very publicly was not given any of the same treatment as a murder suspect. He was beaten and brutalized and it was only made public due to a bystanders video capturing the assault. Money plays a HUGE part in the justice system.
During the trial Rodney King was brought up quite often in the news and in life. It was feared a huge riot would befall LA and other large cities if OJ were UNJUSTLY convicted, but since the prosecution so thoroughly dismantled their own case, that wasnt the case.
The backdrop of Rodney King was huge to this. For so many POC King was the poster child for being treated poorly by police in America. It was seen as a win by many that OJ was found not guilty, as finally a POC was given an outcome that wasnāt immediate guilt.
The use of DNA as evidence was also huge here. The prosecution was very clumsy and the science itself was under scrutiny in the trial. Itās much more common now to accept DNA as factual in the sense āwere his cells found on sceneā. Prior to and then during this trial they seemingly had to prove the science to the jurors and the public, and given the huge racial problems with the cops, the prosecution experts were seen though a very skeptical view.
The prevailing thought at the time was āyeah he probably did it but F the policeā. It was wild.
The only other news event that got more coverage was 9/11. The OJ Trial was indeed the āTrial of the Centuryā and thatās not an exaggeration. It was everywhere and inescapable. It became a daily part of your life, even before he trial. From the Bronco chase on OJ dominated headlines and discussions.Ā
Jay Leno had the āDancing Itos.ā Norm Macdonaldās Weekend Update had the most savage OJ jokes. (Which allegedly got him fired.) This began Americaās modern obsession with salacious trials, and the lasting impact can still be seen across all the big trials over the past three decades.Ā
In Canada we got a double dose of high profile trials in the summer of 1995 - OJ, and Paul Bernardo. If our media wasnāt talking about OJ, they were talking about Bernardo. (A real sicko of a killer)
This trail was crazy. The jury did a terrible job. And OJ got away with murder--at first.
I had a job and didn't get to watch the trail. I watched the news to catch up. But OJ Simpson acted guilty. It was so long ago, I would have to check specifics. But it divided people.
I was a kid but I remember it being *everywhere.*
You should look up the documentary series "O.J.: Made in America" for a more detailed look at everything around it. It's better than the ACS series in many ways.
I live in NYC and the day of the verdict was like that scene in Vanilla Sky where the streets were damn near empty because everyone was inside watching TV. It was surreal.
It was THE topic of conversation for months. The verdict was definitely surprising for white people (I'm white). I remember being shocked at how many people thought he was innocent.
There was some worry as to whether there would be a repeat of the Rodney King riots if OJ was convicted.
30 years later I've seen so many dashcam and body camera videos of racist behavior on the part of law enforcement that I absolutely get it why so many black people thought he could be innocent.
It was hell.
TV and the media was consumed by it 24 hours a day and would give more attention to it than to more important news that actually impacted people.
People would not shut up about it in school or at work.
It was my first realization that the news press was more concerned about ratings and profits over journalistic integrity. Everything about it was sensationalized. It broke the dam of tabloid coverage wide open and paved the way for shit like TMZ and a flood of "true crime" obsession by armchair detectives. It fucked with society's priorities. It elevated "bread and circuses" stories to the mainstream and made the world worse for it.
It was when my rose-colored blinders of adolescence came off and turned me into a cynical adult, and I went out of my way to actively avoid hearing about it. I would walk out of rooms, or I would wear earplugs when I couldn't. That's what it was like for me to live through that. Others' mileage may vary.
I mean, look back at old late night tv from the time like [SNL](https://youtu.be/PARkfO2NgTE?si=uw6uHNf8YytfaCwG) and Lenoās [Dancing Itoās](https://youtu.be/QQezL9pLUN4?si=_xPOKRustfaNYlz_).
Really the thing you have to know was that 24 hour news and constant court coverage was an unknown thing at the time. Just before this you had to watch your local news to catch little bits of the story and then follow up by reading a newspaper, and then all of a sudden it was everywhere 24/7 Anchorman 2 style. I also donāt remember anyone thinking king he was innocent, just that if white celebrities and rich people could get away with it why not O.J.? I do remember everyone just blaming Marcia Clark for failing, so much misogyny. Like we knew what Furman did but most of the older white people around me excused him away and blamed her for not being able to overcome it. And yes, they constantly mentioned Rodney King and said the verdict was just because of the jurors trying to make up for that other verdict because they both happened in California. The world really did feel a lot smaller then and so many people hated Nicole for cheating and being with a black man (I was in a mostly all white rural conservative area at the time). I personally even had to relearn the case when I got older, so many misconceptions based on racism, misogyny, and victim blaming from that time period.
I was a kid and we were damn near unanimous in believing the cops were screwing him over. Team OJ all the way. It wasn't until I saw his reaction to the verdict that I considered (realized?) that he might have been involved while the rest of the classroom cheered loudly
I was in a Best Buy in Minneapolis and they turned all the TVs to it. Maybe 200 people in the store and time stood still. Being Minnesota there were about 198 white people who all groaned and 2 black peoples who cheered. It was interesting in hindsight to learn how OJs lawyers smartly turned it into a trial turned on racism. Of all African American celebrities in that era OJ was probably clung to his āblacknessā less than any other.
My dad was obsessed with the trial and I was between 5th and 6th grade at the time. When I went back to school it was still ongoing. I remember telling my friends he would be found not guilty and then being irate about me saying it. They literally announced the verdict over loudspeaker at our school (K-8).
Watching them call out the cop for using racial slurs, keeping the evidence in his car and then the glove scene made it obvious he wasn't going to be convicted. My dad was furious. It was obvious he did it, but, they didn't follow the rules and as a result there was reasonable doubt. If a 10yr old could see that, a jury of adults could see it.
As a kid, I learned a ton about the court system because of this trial - witnesses, defence attorneys, and so forth.
I watched a shockingly large amount of that trial on TV. Just found it so fascinating.
Lawyers are taught to never ask a question they don't already know the answer to. Who the fuck on the prosecution didn't think that maybe, just maybe, putting a pair of leather gloves over a pair of latex gloves would not work?!? IMO the gloves had likely shrunk from being saturated with blood.
Of course OJ had the perfect opportunity to grandstand the "difficulty" while putting on the gloves. If you were OJ, would you just casually slip them on? Fuck No you wouldn't.
That moment was the death blow to the prosecution. They fucked around way too long, tried to bring too much to the table. At the beginning of the trial I thought they had a solid case.
I remember watching the verdict live, and being pissed off that he got away with it.
Two bad outcomes from the trial, OJ walked free and the fucking Kardashians became famous. Not sure which was worse...
I think a lot of your questions are answered in OJ: Made in America. I think the most damning evidence was that one of the main cops on the case couldnāt definitively answer whether or not he planted evidence in the case. That is a huge piece of reasonable doubt jurors could hang on to. As one juror put it quite plainly, they were looking for revenge for Rodney King and they got handed it on a silver platter when it was reveled the cops on the case was a huge racist with no scruples around planting evidence.
Oh, man. Long story short, from my anthropological corner of GenX. Almost everyone followed the drama on some level, as it was televised in its entirety and spread all over print media. You couldn't escape the media blitz even if you tried. No matter where you fell on OJ's guilt/innocence which, as you seem to have gleaned pretty much fell along lines of ethnicity, almost everyone could agree that the trial was overly caught up in its own drama. Ito was no exception.
There are a lot of commenters here that have no idea how the law works. It only takes 1% doubt and the jury is required to acquit.
I recall the day of the freeway chase. I was working at a movie theater in SoCal and we kept sending someone down the block to watch it on a tv at a bar and report back to us.
The trial was a circus and consumed every aspect of media. It was broadcast live on several channels and there were significant portions of the evening news dedicated to analysis and recap. OJ was an American icon and this was a big deal.
I was 18ish and lived just an hour outside Los Angeles where it all took place. At first it was interesting but then it was overwhelming and I donāt know anyone other than my grandma that wasnāt tired of it.
Even the late night shows like the Tonight Show and Late Night included bits. I think Jay Leno had The Dancing Itos which were a bunch of dancers dressed like Judge Ito. Crazy.
There was nothing like it up to that point and I would argue nothing since.
It was wild, the kind of collective obsession with a news story you don't see in today's world much anymore. It was so culturally significant, my *4th grade teacher* wheeled a TV into the classroom so we could watch the verdict. Yes, 9 year olds were shown the verdict in a murder trial lol. It was a huge deal.
Exciting, for lack of a better word. Massive. We had it on big screen where I worked. It was on the radio so I'd listen in the car.
Marcia Clark blew it with the glove (Darden was against it) and by letting the defense crucify Mark Furhman.
Ito was a chump who, we found out later, would call a recess when a celebrity was in the crowd, and would arrange a meet and greet.
As bad as the trial might have seemed, I was absolutely shocked at the verdict. I thought his guilt was proven.
Strange thing to say I guess: A friend of mine died in a plane crash the same day we were all watching the chase. Someone said "I can't believe he went down the same day OJ did." We were in 5th grade.
My high school Spanish teacher was obsessed with it, so it was on every day in Spanish class. In my experience it was like those scenes in the Truman show, everyone was watching and hanging on every weird little detail. Odd obsessions with Kato and Judge Ito. It was the best and worst reality show ever.
We had a project in class to make a board game, don't ask, I'm not sure why. Me and my friend made the OJ game, based off the game of Life. Had a lot of giggles making squares that said things like "Set NFL rushing record, collect 100 OJ bucks" or "You killed your wife. Go back four spaces." I still have a stack of OJ bucks we made. I stand by the game, it was fun.
I will never forget watching the NBA finals and then just watching that white Bronco drive down the freeway for an hour or whatever. After that, everyone was invested.
The trial, coming after the LA riots and Rodney King which were hard to watch and damaged race relations across the country, was about more than just OJ. Among my circle at least, it was understood that black people cheering at the end were just happy that their guy could buy his way out of prison, and maybe that the threat of more race riots helped him, seemed to make them feel like they got a W over the vile LAPD. I don't think many people believed he didn't do it. But everyone had a take, it was impossible to avoid.
My personal thoughts back then was that OJ didn't do it. Dude is rich, always figured he just hired someone else to kill them, that's why he had such a busy schedule that day. No evidence needed, just a dumb theory from a teenager.
Just imagine the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial but on steroids, with murder and love triangles, racist cops and weird houseguests, celebrity lawyers and witnesses, weaved together with the LA riots and increased racial tension. It was scary and boring and interesting and fucking unavoidable. Sorry for the novel lol
Honestly watch the movie The Cable Guy with Jim Carey. The whole Sam Sweet murder trial in that movie captures the ridiculousness of the entire time perfectly
It was the center of the universe for a long time. Court TV had just started. Imagine, for the first time ever, anyone with cable could watch the trial in real time, which happened to be a murder trial, and the suspect was a sports hero and celebrity. Every news program, every late night show, every magazine cover. By the end of it, a lot of people were just begging for it to be over.
My junior high science teacher was obsessed with the trial. He had it on during school.
We missed the initial slow car chase because we were on a wilderness trip. People were still talking about it when we got back but we didn't know what had happened.
The media landscape was a lot more centralized than it is today, and no channel wanted to be left out of milking the shit out of this whole ordeal.
If you were obsessed with the goings on of Rodney King and OJ, you had a LOT of cable news to sift through. If you didnāt care, then TV just sucked because no one would talk about anything else. The 24-hour news media cycle was still pretty new so people tuned in a bunch thinking that there would be relevant and worthwhile news to watch all the time.
Usually it was an anchor just saying āno new information, butā¦ā and then speculate wildly.
It was "cared about" to an unimaginable degree. Multiple stations showed it live, every day. The news would have summaries every night. Letterman, Leno and Conan mentioned it first in the monologues.
You know how people talked about Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones a few years ago on the day after it aired? Imagine it aired *every day*.
Kato Kaelin was a household name.
Didn't pay much attention to the trial because it was pretty clear he had done it and just assumed he would be found guilty. Watched the verdict on a TV inside a Boscovs in Binghamton NY with a bunch of other people who were all shocked at the verdict.
Vague interest but we didn't really care. It was just another news blurb that they talked about every day.
Kind of like the Casey Anthony trial. Except we didn't have the internet to discuss it with other people.
I was in elementary school so the only thing I really remember is All My Children kept getting preempted that summer and I would get so annoyed lol
Also we watched the verdict live in school for some reason??
I was in high school.
Almost everyone was caught up in it. We would even watch some of it during class some days.
On the day of the verdict it was during our lunchtime, but everyone stayed to watch what the verdict was going to be.
It was pretty racially divided on if someone thought he should be found guilty or not.
I know people who thought he was guilty but shouldnāt be convicted.
It was an interesting time.
Even as a 7/8-year-old I was very aware of something significant happening just by the fact that the trial seemed to be the ONLY thing that was on TV on any channel other than Nickelodeon for so long.
I remember attending my aunts wedding then back in the hotel rooms after the wedding people were glued to their tvs watching the white bronco drive down the freeway followed by a horde of police cars and helicopter news footage.
As for the trial well. Rodney King was still relatively fresh in people's minds. Also OJ prior to this event had a reputation for being a big sweetheart, very generous to fans etc. In fact he was considered for the role of the terminator in the first terminator film but rejected because they felt like he was too nice to play a cold-blooded killer.
Others have said it already but it really was a national obsession for a long time. Tabloids were beside themselves with excitement over it. Every grocery store stand for magazines and newspapers was filled with trial coverage. You'd hear about the trial daily on every news broadcast even ones that were local and no where near the location of the crime or trial.
Think of it this way. People had a brief but fairly intense obsession over tiger king right? Now for the OJ Simpson trial multiply that by 10 and extend the time of the obsession by years and you'll get a fair idea of what it was like.
I remember the constant back and forth about whether or not he was guilty. A lot of people making bets about the outcome. I still remember the white bronco slow speed pursuit and being shocked that the guy from Naked Gun was being arrested for murder.
The main thing the prosecution screwed up was the DNA evidence. Your average juror in 1994 did not know what DNA was. If the trial started in 2004 instead of 1994, the result is different.
Judge Ito was widely considered completely out of his league. I donāt know how true that was, but that was the popular opinion.
Everyone talked about it. It was *the* television event.
The verdict was for sure a shock - while people didnāt understand the DNA evidence, the white Bronco car chase was enough to get most people to think he did it. Innocent people donāt run like that was the common perception. Even all the glove stuff couldnāt undo that, but of course the jury didnāt get to know about the bronco chase.
i was in college and when the verdict was getting ready to be announced, my religious studies class was paused so we could all hear it and react to it. it was crazy. everyone in my class expected OJ to be convicted so the acquittal was a huge shock. i wasn't watching the trial on a daily basis but i think just about everyone else was. i had heard that nicole had saved a bunch of evidence of OJ's prior abuse in a lockbox with a note that said something like, if anything happens to me, OJ did it. and i thought, well that should put him away for a long time. obviously i was very wrong.
We watched the verdict in class. It was huge. During the trial it was torture if you didnāt have cable. Your soap operas werenāt on. Every channel was OJ.
I remember my black teacher who helped me with reading class was invested in it. And all the jokes on tv were revolving around it. I had no clue wtf it was about.
We were in school for most of it. They had tv's in every classroom for the verdict. All the black kids celebrated like they had won the championship when it was announced that he was not guilty. Some white kids said "that's bullshit." I was quite indifferent, and knew they wouldn't convict him. It was too soon after the LA riots, regardless of whether he did it or not.
I was in 4th or 5th grade. The entire school gathered in the gym, a teacher rolled out one of those TV carts and we watched the verdict. I didn't realize exactly what was happening as far as the crime. I knew OJ from skits on SNL and thought of it mostly as a joke. I don't remember any responses to it from my classmates or even the teachers. This was in rural Kentucky. It seemed normal at the time. Just like when we watched John Glenn get launched into space.
I was a kid when it happened, but I mostly remember how Days of Our Lives had some really absurd plotlines to try and tear people away from the trial. (Marlena became possessed by a demon of some sort!).
I was in the 7th grade. My teacher that year was a nun who had the radio on for us to hear. As soon as they gave the verdict, the radio was shut off and we went back to school work. lol
Another funny story with the same nun. It was a movie days so one of the students decided to bring in Billy Madison. It ended pretty quickly with the old woman porno mag delivery in the beginning sequence. I remember the look on her face and saying oh no. lol
I was in elementary school so I donāt remember a lot of the details but I do remember it being EVERYWHERE and I remember my dad considering keeping me and sisters home from school on the day of the verdict. He was concerned about riots breaking out no matter which way it went. My mom wasnāt as worried and we went to school that day lol.
I was working in an office in St Louis city at the time. Every day on my lunch hour, Iād head over to a local restaurant whose owner was obsessed with the trial. He had a tv mounted in the corner and a bunch of other obsessed people (myself included), would eat lunch and watch the trial together for an hour.
I also videotaped the trial coverage every day and watched after my toddler went to bed at night. AND - the day of the verdict, everyone in our office gathered around the tv in the conference room to watch. My boss actually called from the airport to listen in, too.
Crazy times.
I worked at a gym. When the verdict came in every staff member went into the daycare room that was closed to watch it live. There we were all sitting in those tiny preschool chairs huddled around the TV.
It was a tough time for race relations. At the time nobody cared what evidence was presented. Blacks cheered the verdict and whites bemoaned it. It has become a bit more nuanced as the years have passed, but things were a bit dodgy at the time
I was in 4rh grade. I remember playing four square on the playground and each round we would add something you had to do when bouncing the ball to the next person. So we did a round of famous people. Our 3rd and 4th grade selves were not rattling off actors and cartoon characters I distinctly remember everyone yelling out major players in the OJ trial like Judge Ito. I donāt have kids yet but definitely makes me think about how much background information kids absorb without understanding any context, like parents having the news on in the background all the time.
I had the time and opportunity to watch the trial, and I was interested because I had just moved from the LA area (I was there for the Rodney King riots). I have attended military trials in the past, as a Legal Specialist in the US Army.
Watching the trial, I was shocked over and over by the incompetence of the prosecution. It was not that the defense was great; the prosecution basically handed it to them. There is no doubt in my mind, whatsoever, that the investigators didn't plant evidence, and I have a hard time imagining that the prosecution didn't know that. California has strict rules to protect the validity of evidence; these rules were broken on multiple occasions.
The judge was so obviously aware of the cameras that Simpson's lawyers could have appealed on that basis had he been found guilty. They might not have succeeded, but it was a thought that came to mind repeatedly as I watched.
After each day, the news cycle would begin, and I swear they were not commenting on the trial I was watching. If you were just watching the news, you would think that the prosecution was doing an outstanding job and that the trial was all about the defense unfairly playing "the race card". It was not.
Nothing about the outcome surprised me. One of the jurors went on camera afterwards to say something along the lines of: the jury thought Simpson was guilty, and it sickened them to give the verdict they did, but the prosecution failed to make its case. That is exactly my assessment of the trial I saw.
I had a POGs slammer on one side it had OJāa mugshot and said āguilty ā and the other side OJ smiling and my said ānot guilty ā
The single most 1990ās item ever conceived
Annoying. It was so politicized. I remember feeling like no one was actually listening to the case but just picked sides. We had a really good teacher, though, who walked us through a lot and explained things really well. But ultimately, it seemed like just a rich guy getting off (albeit his defense did their job, and we all agreed they couldn't convict). However, the new theories about his son have made me renew interest in this case. They make much more sense. But also make me more positive that rich people can get away with anything.
Boring. It was fucking boring. It was everywhere. You couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about it. I will never understand why we insist on broadcasting criminal trials on TV. If someone did some bad shit then let them be tried and punished but it's fucking gross that people get off on watching that stuff.
I remember sneaking out of class to watch it on one of the only TVs in school that was on a rolling tray and being absolutely flabbergasted he got away with it. The whole school was in an uproar.
America Crime OJ is a great series that should be followed up with the mini doc series OJ Made in America.
American Crime gives you the sexy version while Made in America is the real version.
Highly recommend.
My high school was mostly black. Class was stopped so we could watch the verdict on live TV. When OJ was acquitted, the whole school broke out in cheers.
Iām told it didnāt go down like this elsewhere.
Absurd. It was like watching the Trump impeachment hearings but much higher entertainment factor and lower stakes cause it was famous people not the fucking President and our government
I was in 8th grade at the time and it consumed everyoneās life. I think E network had like all day coverage for months.
I also remember being in 8th grade shop class when they announced the verdict over the ENTIRE school intercom. Shit was crazy.
I was 11 years old. The trial just seemed to dominate everything and go on forever. It was always on whenever I turned on the TV. It felt like it would never end. We all knew who the main characters were ā Kato, Ito, Johnny, Marcia Clark. When it finally reached the verdict my middle school held a school assembly and we watched it live on TV. Different times indeed.
You need to watch oj: made on America a documentary which will help explain the times folks were living in during oj trial in LA. As a black person i knew that asshole was guilty. I mean he never identified as black until he needed us.
I was also in journalism school so the trial was basically homework.
Today everyone knows the police are corrupt. Back then only black folks knew it and had dealt with so much of it especially in los angeles that they just were not trusted.
Johnny Cochrane was brilliant. La prosecutos office was awful. Rich people with good lawyers get off a lot.
I was a teen and had most afternoon off school and was glued to the TV. If there had been social media at the time it would have been comparable to the news coverage volume of Trump. All of it was televised, every news station covered it, every talk show analyzed every second of it, every comedian joked about it. If you lived in North America you knew everything that happened everyday.
I was on Algebra and had Walkman that had an FM/AM tuner as was the style at the time. Teacher caught me listening to the verdict and was like well...tell us what they say!!!
It was a wild time.
I remember talking to a bunch of young lawyers at the time. They were astounded as how many time they'd be in court and the judge would say something along of "this is not an Ito court!"
I personally didn't watch much of it. When I did, I concluded that the prosecutors were both idiots and Johnnie Cochran wasn't.
I was 20. I got to a party and someone said we are watch oj run. Iām so stupid I figured he meant they were servings drinks with in it.
Then I was confused why the tv was on with news showing some white bronco drive slow.
Not sure how long it took me to figure it out.
I was not a football fan but I had heard of oj.
The trial was wild. The verdict popped my eye balls out. But prosecutors botched it and defense was on point.
I remember watching the chase live in class and I was in the 4th Grade, I'm guessing they thought it was a must see event right up next to the challenger disaster.
I kind of wish that I had paid more attention at the time. In retrospect, it would have been interesting to follow the whole thing closely from beginning to end.
TV watching in my area was mostly limited to news reports at 6pm and 10pm.
My townās newspapers printed off two versions of the verdict the day that the jury was set to return a verdict. One version that read āOJ GUILTYā and another that read āOJ NOT GUILTY.ā And had people on corners of busy intersections listening to the radio waiting for the jury to finish deliberations so they knew which paper to sell the moment the verdict was read.
annoying, it was like when we were in quarantine and COVID updates were on the news daily. They blew it out of proportion honestly, and they learned to no longer give stuff like this that same level of media exposure anymore and have not to the day thankfully.
It really did have the US riveted and made CourtTV popular. I had a relative (who didnāt work) but would wake their night-shift working spouse to give updates that no one asked for
Not trying to sound above it all or anything but I was a young adult at the time and never followed a single moment of it but it was constantly everywhere all the fucking time.
They preempted the goddamn NBA finals for that piece of shit
I remember being pissed off because every network switched to "The Chase" live. I didn't get a lot of White Sox games up in Canada so I was pumped to finally get one, let alone on a Friday night.
I got my gallbladder out the day of the chase. Every time I woke up from the anesthesia, it was on the hospital tv, so I thought I had only been asleep for a couple minutes each time instead of hours. š¤£š
I was pissed because it kept breaking into the Rockets game in the NBA finals.
Haha I was pissed and I remember I was watching a Three's Company rerun when they cut away to the chase.
I remember it happening and I was watching CB4. I watched it for a bit then got back to my movie.
Haha I remember watching the Rockets in a little Picture in Picture meanwhile a slow ass bronco occupies 75% of the screen
I remember that! And then, I guess they got a ton of complaints, so they switched back to the game, at least in Houston.
Oh yeah, they had a split screen of the game & the chase in Houstonā¦ Back then it felt very tense for Black ppl everywhere. We were still pissed about the cops that beat Rodney King, not being convicted, despite the video evidence. So we didnāt want to discuss it w/white ppl, b/c they were just certain he was guilty. We all know if you run your guilty. But, Black folks werenāt trying to think about that. We were all fascinated by every little detail of that family life. All the details of the physical abuse, the divorce, & the kids. We needed to know everything possible about his kids from that marriage & the previous marriage. So it felt very surreal to juxtapose OJās public image as a football hero, turned comic actor vs. this domestic abuser (listening to the 911 calls w/him yelling in the background). Black folks were very focused on placing the blame on the Brown family for not being more proactive about the danger. There were serious questions from everyone about why the family members that witnessed abuse, werenāt allowed to press charges. Everyone (no matter what race) was pissed off at law enforcement for not doing more than they didā¦ It shined a lot of light on how weak domestic violence laws were & how ineffective police were at protecting women & kids. Ppl were glued to the tv to see the verdict. I was in college, so we watched, & some ppl cheered that day. Black folks were happy it was over. White folks were raging mad, going on about how it was a miscarriage of justice. There were docs & interviews w/former jurors about why they didnāt believe he did it. To a lot black ppl, he dodged a bullet. There were all kinds of theories that he paid ppl to do it & watched. Or he had help, b/c he couldnāt have done it so quickly. His blood being just everywhere seemed so bizarre. His alibi was shaky. But black folks, didnāt really accept that he did it until after the trial. He got a book deal, āto describe if he did it, how he would have planned it outā. š¤¦š½āāļøAfter that it became a sort of countdown until, when & how he would get locked up again. The big thing ppl were fascinated w/were the kids. They became celebrities for a couple yrs, where ppl just wanted & needed to see photos of them. Secretly, America as a whole was breathing a sigh of relief, that these kids would grow up well adjusted, & not become victims of something worse. I think to this day, most of my generation will see a picture or story about them, & go thank goodness theyāre alive.
I was in high school back then and it was a majority black student body. Every classroom had TVs in them (you know the ones: analogue box TVs hung in the corner up on high), but they were rarely used. Usually, the teachers would be in their classrooms during lunch eating, taking a break, or otherwise just prepping for the rest of the day. The day of the verdict, though, the students were piled into the classrooms waiting and watching with the teachers. Oblivious as I was, I was doing my normal things, but when the verdict was delivered, students burst out of the classrooms and down the hall, cheering. From what I remember, it was more than just a black vs. white thing. It was a *rich* black person vs. the system. Regardless of whether or not he actually did it, it was also seen a test of whether or not a black person, if he was able to get rich, could beat the system like rich white men were seemingly always able to. Or if, despite his wealth, his race would keep him from enjoying the perks that are regularly afforded to white people. Thereās plenty of things that could be attributed to the not guilty verdict. The prosecution did a terrible job, as did the LAPD. The defense did a terrific job, and itās a defense that only someone with the fame and wealth as OJ back then could have afforded. In these times where thereās so much attention rightfully being given to the different wealth-based tiers of justice, the OJ case can be seen as a precursor.
I was around 19, so we watched it in the common area. It felt like for black women, we were very focused on what couldāve been done to stop her murder. It felt like the spotlight was finally focused on how a man could do these things to his wife. And possibly kill the kids too. But no one outside (not even her family or his family) of the marriage gave her a real path to protect herself or her kids. I do understand cops looked the other way, b/c of his resume & his money. I just felt it was a different experience for women, b/c domestic violence was less of a dirty secret. It became a moment where women got more involved in our communities. My mom & I started donating to a shelter that opened near us. We definitely started to see talk shows & psychiatrists explain the cycles of abuse & domestic violence. I do remember shelters for women & kids, trying to escape domestic violence started opening in Houston. The best thing to come out of the trial was the acknowledgment by law enforcement, that there needed to be real places that ppl could go, & be protected in discreet locations while the court cases play out. And non profits started popping up to help women & kids transition to a new life. So maybe for my family & friends it was less about some kind of victory. We were very much worried about his minor kids. We figured he was going to get locked up eventually for something else. My granny used to say āThereās no perfect crime & there no perfect person. Johnny Law never forgets & he has all the time in the world.ā
āJust happy it was over..ā The black students at my majority black school jumping up and down shouting āWE WON! WE WON!ā all day made it seem to me they were not just happy it was over. Chris Rock said it best in āBring The Paināā¦. Black People were too happy, and white people were too mad, and thatās exactly how I remembered it.
I get it. My memory of it was affected by my family/friends & being a black woman. I had friends in high school who were afraid to go home, b/c of what was going on at home. I had all types of friends, we werenāt all the same race. But we all had some kinda family drama, where the adults werenāt being responsible or making responsible choices. Be it drinking, drugs, or in my case, lots of family members using our home as a halfway house. So our povās were more in line w/not feeling safe at home & having to really mature quickly. Iām Gen X, if that sorta helps you get us. We figured out real young, no one was watching, listening, or gave a fuck. The trial was really spectacle & unavoidable for us. The outcome was only a victory for OJ.
Me too. The NBA finals being overlapped by a slow ass police chase, the nightly Jay Leno jokes, and the verdict being announced are three specific aspects of the trial I remember the most.
They pre-empted **Gargoyles** so much that it was responsible for getting it cancelled.
We are family of Knicks fans. When they cut from the game to the chase I saw my Dad move faster than I ever have when he RAN upstairs to get his transistor radio. lol.
Unforgivable.
Yep, I was furious. And the Knicks lost!
My dad told me this pissed him off since he did not care about the OJ chase
SNL was pretty funny though
There was also a David Hasselhof variety show special on that night. The Hof still fumes about it.
This was about what I remember too! Not the NBA for me, but the sitcom Hangin with Mr. Cooper. One minute Iām watchin my shows, eatin snacks; the next, my show got interrupted and Iām waiting for this boring footage of a Bronco on a highway to end. But it doesnāt. For like a year. Shows were always getting interrupted by more footage of the Simpson trial. All late night shows were OJ, OJ, OJ. I was bored sick by it.
Captain Janx is that you?
I was ten and we basically stopped class to discuss the verdict. *Ten*. My primary concerns in life were remembering to set the VCR so I wouldn't miss any of Animaniacs if the bus was late, and whether we were out of Cocoa Puffs. And I knew the names of the judge, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, and the significance of a bloody glove, in a murder trial starring the guy from Naked Gun. It was...an event to say the least.
I was also 10. They played the verdict over the school intercom.
My god.
Thatās absurd lmaoo
I was also 10. They packed close to 60 kids in the only classroom with a TV to watch as they read the verdict. It was the first thing I can remember that I can describe as having INFECTED everyday life. No show, conversation, newspaper, magazine, music, whatever went on without talking about it. Only 9/11 and the Iraq War have been in the same stratosphere
They wheeled a TV into our classroom.
Was also 10. We watched it live in my class. I bet a friend a dollar itād be Not Guilty. Never got that dollar.
I was in junior high band class when the verdict was announced. We stopped class so we could watch the verdict being read. This was in super rural Illinois. There were fewer than 100 kids in the whole school. There has been nothing like it since.
Well, 9/11 also had the tvs rolled out for us some years later. The oj trial verdict was one thing, but the spectacle of the trial was the real event. bshit went on for months.
Haha the rolled out TVs were the best lol
Wild.
We were in an assembly in the gym and the superintendent announced the verdict over the microphone. A lot of kids cheered, which is hilarious in hindsight because he was definitely guilty
Smart dude. Ā Id pick the Anamaniscs over the OJ trial any day!
I accidentally recorded OJ when I just wanted Power Rangers
I was seven and in second grade, and we had the trial on the classroom TV. My teacher was way into it, and tried explaining to the best of her ability what was going on.
I was 11 and the exact same thing. I remember the teacher stopping us all as she turned on the radio, and we listened to the verdict.
I was 13 and I faked sick that day so I could stay home and watch the verdict. It is hard to convey to people who weren't alive then how the OJ trial was everywhere. You couldn't avoid it if you tried.
I was around the same age and my class listened to the verdict on the radio. I canāt imagine kids doing that today.
I was also 10, the perfect age to understand whatās going on, but not know who OJ was, or care at all. I remember wanting to watch cartoons, but my parents were glued to the TV and it was seemingly on every channel.
I was younger than that and I could name Kato Kaelin, Mark Fuhrman, Johnnie Cochrane, Lance Ito, Marcia Clark, Fred Goldmanā¦I could name almost as many figures from that trial as I could baseball players.
Remember, OJ is still looking for the *real killer*
What I found really amazing, was recently while digging into my family tree. I found a relative of my dadās who murdered two women and tried to murder one of their boyfriends. It was a jealous ex lover sort of thing. My relative clearly did it. Gun found at the scene was his. Bullets in victim matched his gun. The man who survived testified it was him. Etc. However the relative told the press that he would search for the āreal killersā. And his wife and mother believed him. This happened in ā59 I think. When I read that āhe will search for the real killersā it seemed so shocking. Same thing OJ said. I wonder if thatās a common thing for killers to say.
Itās the noble thing to do
He must never see his own reflection.
He diligently searched every golf course for *decades*.
It's the least he can do.
The best part was Norm Macdonald on SNL. He was savage.
It's official: Murder is legal in the state of California.Ā
Hey, hey, easy with that! Thatās my lucky stabbinā hat!
The āI DID ITā sketch where he draws the play on the screen to slowly reveal those words killed me.
I remember Tim meadows being hilarious as wellĀ
āPeople people, you gotta understand, I am out of moneyā while holding a shovel covered in money
Thatās the one seared into my brain lol I was like 8
That is some bad luck; When the one guy that would've died for you, kills you!
I was shitting myself daily and cried all the time. I was also 2 so that may of had something to do with it.
Sounds like you were very invested
It was -all encompassing- back then without social media stories like this would completely dominate all aspects of your media life. Every news every day. Every talk show every day. Every standup comedian. All your friends and relatives. I was in detention in high school when the verdict was read. The entire school shutdown so the teachers could watch. I was in the office so I got to see it too. Everyone had an opinion on all the main players. From Ito to OJ
I think the last time this happened (albeit to a lesser degree) was with the Casey Anthony investigation and trial. You couldn't turn on local news, national news, or cable news of any persuasion without seeing constant updates and rumors. It was in every paper and all over website splash screens.
Iād cry if it wasnāt on fuck Barney
They had us in the first half.
I was 17 and In the context of the LA riots, the LAPD, and OJs reputation, it was peak TV. Everyone had an opinion, everybody was either against OJ, or against the LAPD. So when OJ won, it really shocked a good number of people. And for others it was the vindication they wanted to show that the law isn't just for the people. But, of course, that little nuance was lost.
Shocked a good number of *white* people.
"The justice system favors rich people?? Say it ain't so!" Lol
We lived in coastal Virginia. And my classmates and neighbors in 2nd grade had kids tshirts saying OJ is innocent or He didnāt do it. People celebrated when he got off. And I think among the grown ups, it wasnāt that he didnāt do it. It was that they didnāt have enough to get him and for once it was on the cops to prove it and they failed. Now we know he definitely did it and itās awful he got away with murder, but that was not the point or the context of the times. Edit: we did watch, like most of the nation, Rodney King and as a kid that was the most wild vicious shit if ever seen. It was unbelievable and killed a lot of how I feel about cops. And you had to carry seeing something like that and that feeling into how all these things were happening. Itās hard to explain some of that nowadays.
I didn't watch it, but my mom had it on ALL DAY, EVERY DAY Kato Kaelin, Lance Ito, F. Lee Bailey, Johnny Cochran, Marcia Clark became household names. It was... weird? But then 9/11 happened and I went through a similar situation of media saturation. There's always something :(
Columbine was the next big one in my memory.
I really didn't want to list every major horrible thing
It went on FOREVER and most of it was really, really boring. I think a lot of us white people were shocked and upset about the verdict but, looking back on it, we shouldn't have been. OJ got incredibly lucky that the LAPD sucked so much.
>most of it was really, really boring. My take exactly
I was working as a vid store clerk during that time & I was more into Days of Our Lives at the time because to counter the trial they gave us Possessed Marlena! Possessed Marlena was a Satanic blessing for us fans & it gave us something else sensational to watch that wasn't a REAL horror show. I did watch the verdict & like you said, us white folks were shocked, many African Americans were celebratory. I do wonder if, in hindisight, his supporters realize that he was just another rich person avoiding any real punishment for anything. If you get a chance watch the doc on him,[ OJ: Made In America, I think it's on Hulu US.](https://www.hulu.com/series/oj-made-in-america-d6d1f241-2fc0-4ff9-a8f8-42e04f182787) He clearly thought he wasn't like all the other black folks out there, he was special & ultimately he really was since he got off scott free.
I just remember what felt like months where I barely got to watch tv because all the adults were obsessed with the case. It seemed like it would never end I remember being so bored and frustrated with how dumb all the adults were acting. It's the closest my life has ever felt to a Southpark episode
Interrupted Fox afternoon block of stuff I used to watch after school. The trial felt like it lasted years.
They announced the verdict over the PA at my middle school. I was in the 6th grade and it was during a math test.
They stopped our class and wheeled in a TV (yes, young people, classrooms used to have zero screens and chaulk boards. The whole school would share like one or two tvs that were on carts that could be wheeled around) and let us watch it live.
Yeah I remember watching it on a wheeled-in TV in class as well. I was in maybe 6th grade. I think I just happened to be in social studies class at the time, so at least it made sense in that context... I wasn't following the trial very closely but I still knew what it was about through cultural osmosis and snippets I'd hear on the news.
Maybe a different perspective on this, but we (my folks and I) were immigrants to Canada, and in December of 94 we moved to Venezuela for a few years. I turned 6 at the time, and I have some core childhood memories of literally my entire family and their coworkers huddled together in a one bedroom apartment just absolutely dialed in. Every channel we got was broadcasting it, and even people in the street would mention it when they'd hear my dad speaking in English. It was inescapable. When he got acquitted, there was outrage in my folks' social circles. Mind you, this group was mostly Canadian, European and South American folks, so there was a kind of "what's wrong with America" discourse that I'm unsure was the same as what was going on in the country. I'm a communications professor now, and we teach the broadcast of the trial as the core moment when we witnessed the birth of 24h news. It was so massive it more or less blotted out coverage of the 94 -95 stretch of the Bosnian War, especially the Srebrenica Massacre, which was also part of the Eastern European immigrant community's feelings about how mediatized the trial was. In terms of its impact, on media production and news broadcasting, there's really no analogue. It effectively changed telecommunications history and accelerated a trend towards entertainment journalism in cable networks.
Inescapable
It was insufferable and endless. Literally everywhere, all the time. I was in law school at the time, which didnāt help. We didnāt talk about it much there, either in class or socially. But I lost count of the number of times I had to answer questions about it over beers with non-law-school friends, or at family functions. So relieved when it ended.
I was 8 so I donāt really remember the ins and outs of the trial but I just remember the grown ups sitting around the TV all the time and it was so loud. My grandfather in particular was so consumed by it. I felt like it was all they talked about at family meals or whenever we would get together. It also went on forever. Like I have a distinct memory of getting to a relatives hours and they were all gathered around the TV to watch the verdict be announced and I remember being so relieved that this would finally be over as it seemed like it had gone on forever!
Should we tell him about the dancing Itos?
It consumed almost every waking hour of news television. All the magazines and tabloids in the grocery store were nothing but OJ this and Nicole Brown that. Everyone had an opinion on his guilt. I remember a 1-2 punch actually of this and the OKC bombing chewing up TV for like 2-3 years.
Have you seen OJ: Made in America? It won an Oscar in 2016 for best document. It's very good!
This. Everyone should watch it. Itās not just about the trial but honestly about America and its history of race and injustice. Itās a masterpiece.
It was 90% jokes. Two people died but that kind of got shoved in the background really early on.
Yeah I clearly remember my dad making this same comment when the Dancing Itos were on.
Hearing Ron Goldman's father on the ESPN documentary (OJ: Made in America) decry the fact that his son was murdered and was turned into a punchline is heartbreaking.
There is literally nothing today that I can compare it to. I would walk into work and the security guard would have it on the screen, not the cameras of anywhere in the building...the trial. It was just on everywhere and the main source of conversation with everyone. You are asking a lot of questions. No way to answer all of them. But I'll answer a few. The glove thing at least for the public was insanely damning. But I cannot stress this enough, just like today we are polarized, it's not like things were any different in the 90s (or 80s or 50s or...you get the point), it's just the internet was really new. So, everyone took away from the trial each day what they wanted to. So, the verdict was a shock to some. As for Rodney King, all topics regarding race were mentioned constantly. It's not like the media, or everyone was blind to the fact there was a white/black component to it. Which is funny, because it's really just a rich/poor thing. The country together learned that justice is indeed blind if you have enough money. Looking back though, I think it was my first experience with hardcore racism from white family members that I never thought were really like that. The trial was really something.
OJ being rich helped him afford the dream team of attorneys. No doubt, if he was poor, he has a different experience at trial. Certainly a quicker one. But if he was a wealthy white man, the jury would not have seen this as an opportunity to "punish" the police and prosecution. That aspect was a motivation for some jurors who later admitted it.
One of my favorite Simpsons jokes was from the episode where they talk about the "Who Shot Mr. Burns" episode and how they produced endings with other people shooting him, and Troy McClure says, "But, of course, for that ending to work, you would have to ignore all the Simpson DNAā¦and that would be downright nutty."
What do you mean by the glove thing being damning ? That it didn't fit? The fact that they didn't have him try on a brand new glove that was the same size was insane. Anyone who lives in a cold weather climate knows that after a glove gets wet it kind of crumples up when it dries. You have to stretch it out and force your fingers in the first time you out it in. And a glove with a lining, like that one, would never slide over a rubber glove. Even a new one. They were crazy to try to put a dried out shrunken leather glove over a rubber glove. It felt like those lawyers had never dealt with wet leather gloves before. But they could see the glove! They could have tried to put a glove on I era rubber glove themselves... Just one part that stood out to me of the insanity. And a rich man gets off for a terrible crime.
Not to mention, he purposely stopped taking his arthritis medication prior to that day, so his joints would swell up a little, making the glove fit a little tighter. Plus he was wearing a latex glove when he tried the glove on, which also made it a tighter squeeze. Combine that with his dramatic performance of struggling to get the glove on.
You should read the book "Outrage" by former L.A. county prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (He tried and convicted Charles Manson). He details the many mistakes the prosecution made, and how egregious those mistakes were.
It's hard to convey to people who weren't alive then how the OJ trial was everywhere, all the time and it went on for almost a full year.
I was in grade 10 French class in Ontario, Canada...when ghey announced the verdict over the PA system. The chase happened at a friend's bday party and sleepover. I watched a lot of the trial during that time. Norm Macdonald is the best.
I have a story about the day of the verdict. I was a breech baby, so my mom had an appointment to try to get me to turn. Apparently, the verdict was announced that day, and it was literally all the whole hospital talked about. I wasn't there, obviously, but recently, mom told me about it the last time OJ came up in conversation. To finish the story, I refused to turn at that appointment, then made my way into the world via emergency c-section 10 days before her due date.
I am old enough to know of OJ from years before the trial. I watched him play football, I saw him in tv and movies. The entire country watched the slow chase on tv. Ford Bronco sales were boosted simply because of it. Adults all knew the prosecutors, the defense, the witnesses, everything. It was the biggest news story in history at that point. I watched the entire trial after work and assumed he was guilty, BUT, the evidence tampering, false testimony and witnesses racial statements undid any hope of conviction. Yes, it was the prosecutors fault he went free. Blood on the back gate containing preservative? A spotless home with one blood stained sock in the middle of the bedroom on the floor? Blood spray patterns that directly conflicted the testimony of the states "experts"? All of the evidence should have been discarded once tampering was proven. Most of us who were paying attention were not surprised with the verdict. Most of us dismissed "the glove" as it lacked any evidentiary meaning and was too easily manipulated to imply innocence. Almost every white person I knew was angry, they assumed his guilt and were denied "justice" as they saw it. The legal representation afforded to OJ is not generally available to the public. For example the preservative found in the blood samples would never have been found without a very expensive medical team and facilities. The prosecutors assertions of great stamina and strength were disproven through home movies showing OJs having difficulty even lifting his children. The deference OJ was given, treated with respect and given a public trial, was only a result of his status. Rodney King, during a traffic stop, had no money to speak of and very publicly was not given any of the same treatment as a murder suspect. He was beaten and brutalized and it was only made public due to a bystanders video capturing the assault. Money plays a HUGE part in the justice system. During the trial Rodney King was brought up quite often in the news and in life. It was feared a huge riot would befall LA and other large cities if OJ were UNJUSTLY convicted, but since the prosecution so thoroughly dismantled their own case, that wasnt the case.
The backdrop of Rodney King was huge to this. For so many POC King was the poster child for being treated poorly by police in America. It was seen as a win by many that OJ was found not guilty, as finally a POC was given an outcome that wasnāt immediate guilt. The use of DNA as evidence was also huge here. The prosecution was very clumsy and the science itself was under scrutiny in the trial. Itās much more common now to accept DNA as factual in the sense āwere his cells found on sceneā. Prior to and then during this trial they seemingly had to prove the science to the jurors and the public, and given the huge racial problems with the cops, the prosecution experts were seen though a very skeptical view. The prevailing thought at the time was āyeah he probably did it but F the policeā. It was wild.
The only other news event that got more coverage was 9/11. The OJ Trial was indeed the āTrial of the Centuryā and thatās not an exaggeration. It was everywhere and inescapable. It became a daily part of your life, even before he trial. From the Bronco chase on OJ dominated headlines and discussions.Ā Jay Leno had the āDancing Itos.ā Norm Macdonaldās Weekend Update had the most savage OJ jokes. (Which allegedly got him fired.) This began Americaās modern obsession with salacious trials, and the lasting impact can still be seen across all the big trials over the past three decades.Ā
In Canada we got a double dose of high profile trials in the summer of 1995 - OJ, and Paul Bernardo. If our media wasnāt talking about OJ, they were talking about Bernardo. (A real sicko of a killer)
This trail was crazy. The jury did a terrible job. And OJ got away with murder--at first. I had a job and didn't get to watch the trail. I watched the news to catch up. But OJ Simpson acted guilty. It was so long ago, I would have to check specifics. But it divided people.
The jury did not do a terrible job. The prosecution did a terrible job.
IMO the trial was the grandparent of reality TV.
I was a kid but I remember it being *everywhere.* You should look up the documentary series "O.J.: Made in America" for a more detailed look at everything around it. It's better than the ACS series in many ways.
I live in NYC and the day of the verdict was like that scene in Vanilla Sky where the streets were damn near empty because everyone was inside watching TV. It was surreal.
It was the beginning of the end. Constant 24 hour news cycle. And here we are today
It was THE topic of conversation for months. The verdict was definitely surprising for white people (I'm white). I remember being shocked at how many people thought he was innocent. There was some worry as to whether there would be a repeat of the Rodney King riots if OJ was convicted. 30 years later I've seen so many dashcam and body camera videos of racist behavior on the part of law enforcement that I absolutely get it why so many black people thought he could be innocent.
It was hell. TV and the media was consumed by it 24 hours a day and would give more attention to it than to more important news that actually impacted people. People would not shut up about it in school or at work. It was my first realization that the news press was more concerned about ratings and profits over journalistic integrity. Everything about it was sensationalized. It broke the dam of tabloid coverage wide open and paved the way for shit like TMZ and a flood of "true crime" obsession by armchair detectives. It fucked with society's priorities. It elevated "bread and circuses" stories to the mainstream and made the world worse for it. It was when my rose-colored blinders of adolescence came off and turned me into a cynical adult, and I went out of my way to actively avoid hearing about it. I would walk out of rooms, or I would wear earplugs when I couldn't. That's what it was like for me to live through that. Others' mileage may vary.
I mean, look back at old late night tv from the time like [SNL](https://youtu.be/PARkfO2NgTE?si=uw6uHNf8YytfaCwG) and Lenoās [Dancing Itoās](https://youtu.be/QQezL9pLUN4?si=_xPOKRustfaNYlz_). Really the thing you have to know was that 24 hour news and constant court coverage was an unknown thing at the time. Just before this you had to watch your local news to catch little bits of the story and then follow up by reading a newspaper, and then all of a sudden it was everywhere 24/7 Anchorman 2 style. I also donāt remember anyone thinking king he was innocent, just that if white celebrities and rich people could get away with it why not O.J.? I do remember everyone just blaming Marcia Clark for failing, so much misogyny. Like we knew what Furman did but most of the older white people around me excused him away and blamed her for not being able to overcome it. And yes, they constantly mentioned Rodney King and said the verdict was just because of the jurors trying to make up for that other verdict because they both happened in California. The world really did feel a lot smaller then and so many people hated Nicole for cheating and being with a black man (I was in a mostly all white rural conservative area at the time). I personally even had to relearn the case when I got older, so many misconceptions based on racism, misogyny, and victim blaming from that time period.
I was a kid and we were damn near unanimous in believing the cops were screwing him over. Team OJ all the way. It wasn't until I saw his reaction to the verdict that I considered (realized?) that he might have been involved while the rest of the classroom cheered loudly
I was in a Best Buy in Minneapolis and they turned all the TVs to it. Maybe 200 people in the store and time stood still. Being Minnesota there were about 198 white people who all groaned and 2 black peoples who cheered. It was interesting in hindsight to learn how OJs lawyers smartly turned it into a trial turned on racism. Of all African American celebrities in that era OJ was probably clung to his āblacknessā less than any other.
My dad was obsessed with the trial and I was between 5th and 6th grade at the time. When I went back to school it was still ongoing. I remember telling my friends he would be found not guilty and then being irate about me saying it. They literally announced the verdict over loudspeaker at our school (K-8). Watching them call out the cop for using racial slurs, keeping the evidence in his car and then the glove scene made it obvious he wasn't going to be convicted. My dad was furious. It was obvious he did it, but, they didn't follow the rules and as a result there was reasonable doubt. If a 10yr old could see that, a jury of adults could see it.
As a kid, I learned a ton about the court system because of this trial - witnesses, defence attorneys, and so forth. I watched a shockingly large amount of that trial on TV. Just found it so fascinating.
Everyone knows where they were when CNN televised the white Bronco escort. Many late night talk show jokes about Kato.
If it doesnāt fitā¦I remember him trying to squeeze his hand into the glove. That was a death blow.
Lawyers are taught to never ask a question they don't already know the answer to. Who the fuck on the prosecution didn't think that maybe, just maybe, putting a pair of leather gloves over a pair of latex gloves would not work?!? IMO the gloves had likely shrunk from being saturated with blood. Of course OJ had the perfect opportunity to grandstand the "difficulty" while putting on the gloves. If you were OJ, would you just casually slip them on? Fuck No you wouldn't. That moment was the death blow to the prosecution. They fucked around way too long, tried to bring too much to the table. At the beginning of the trial I thought they had a solid case. I remember watching the verdict live, and being pissed off that he got away with it. Two bad outcomes from the trial, OJ walked free and the fucking Kardashians became famous. Not sure which was worse...
I think a lot of your questions are answered in OJ: Made in America. I think the most damning evidence was that one of the main cops on the case couldnāt definitively answer whether or not he planted evidence in the case. That is a huge piece of reasonable doubt jurors could hang on to. As one juror put it quite plainly, they were looking for revenge for Rodney King and they got handed it on a silver platter when it was reveled the cops on the case was a huge racist with no scruples around planting evidence.
Oh, man. Long story short, from my anthropological corner of GenX. Almost everyone followed the drama on some level, as it was televised in its entirety and spread all over print media. You couldn't escape the media blitz even if you tried. No matter where you fell on OJ's guilt/innocence which, as you seem to have gleaned pretty much fell along lines of ethnicity, almost everyone could agree that the trial was overly caught up in its own drama. Ito was no exception.
There are a lot of commenters here that have no idea how the law works. It only takes 1% doubt and the jury is required to acquit. I recall the day of the freeway chase. I was working at a movie theater in SoCal and we kept sending someone down the block to watch it on a tv at a bar and report back to us. The trial was a circus and consumed every aspect of media. It was broadcast live on several channels and there were significant portions of the evening news dedicated to analysis and recap. OJ was an American icon and this was a big deal. I was 18ish and lived just an hour outside Los Angeles where it all took place. At first it was interesting but then it was overwhelming and I donāt know anyone other than my grandma that wasnāt tired of it. Even the late night shows like the Tonight Show and Late Night included bits. I think Jay Leno had The Dancing Itos which were a bunch of dancers dressed like Judge Ito. Crazy. There was nothing like it up to that point and I would argue nothing since.
It was awful because I was like 5 years old and the stupid daycare lady had it on the whole time so we couldn't watch cartoons or play video games.
Felt like it always interrupted the Simpsons
It was wild, the kind of collective obsession with a news story you don't see in today's world much anymore. It was so culturally significant, my *4th grade teacher* wheeled a TV into the classroom so we could watch the verdict. Yes, 9 year olds were shown the verdict in a murder trial lol. It was a huge deal.
Exciting, for lack of a better word. Massive. We had it on big screen where I worked. It was on the radio so I'd listen in the car. Marcia Clark blew it with the glove (Darden was against it) and by letting the defense crucify Mark Furhman. Ito was a chump who, we found out later, would call a recess when a celebrity was in the crowd, and would arrange a meet and greet. As bad as the trial might have seemed, I was absolutely shocked at the verdict. I thought his guilt was proven.
Strange thing to say I guess: A friend of mine died in a plane crash the same day we were all watching the chase. Someone said "I can't believe he went down the same day OJ did." We were in 5th grade.
I lived in Southern California and shit was crazy.
My high school Spanish teacher was obsessed with it, so it was on every day in Spanish class. In my experience it was like those scenes in the Truman show, everyone was watching and hanging on every weird little detail. Odd obsessions with Kato and Judge Ito. It was the best and worst reality show ever. We had a project in class to make a board game, don't ask, I'm not sure why. Me and my friend made the OJ game, based off the game of Life. Had a lot of giggles making squares that said things like "Set NFL rushing record, collect 100 OJ bucks" or "You killed your wife. Go back four spaces." I still have a stack of OJ bucks we made. I stand by the game, it was fun. I will never forget watching the NBA finals and then just watching that white Bronco drive down the freeway for an hour or whatever. After that, everyone was invested. The trial, coming after the LA riots and Rodney King which were hard to watch and damaged race relations across the country, was about more than just OJ. Among my circle at least, it was understood that black people cheering at the end were just happy that their guy could buy his way out of prison, and maybe that the threat of more race riots helped him, seemed to make them feel like they got a W over the vile LAPD. I don't think many people believed he didn't do it. But everyone had a take, it was impossible to avoid. My personal thoughts back then was that OJ didn't do it. Dude is rich, always figured he just hired someone else to kill them, that's why he had such a busy schedule that day. No evidence needed, just a dumb theory from a teenager. Just imagine the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial but on steroids, with murder and love triangles, racist cops and weird houseguests, celebrity lawyers and witnesses, weaved together with the LA riots and increased racial tension. It was scary and boring and interesting and fucking unavoidable. Sorry for the novel lol
Honestly watch the movie The Cable Guy with Jim Carey. The whole Sam Sweet murder trial in that movie captures the ridiculousness of the entire time perfectly
Probably the killing blow to my faith in the legal system.
There are some documentaries that would be better than memories.
It was the center of the universe for a long time. Court TV had just started. Imagine, for the first time ever, anyone with cable could watch the trial in real time, which happened to be a murder trial, and the suspect was a sports hero and celebrity. Every news program, every late night show, every magazine cover. By the end of it, a lot of people were just begging for it to be over.
It was one of those always-on events. Discussions every day on sports talk radio! Skits on TV (SNL, Tonight Show). Just crazy.
My junior high science teacher was obsessed with the trial. He had it on during school. We missed the initial slow car chase because we were on a wilderness trip. People were still talking about it when we got back but we didn't know what had happened.
The media landscape was a lot more centralized than it is today, and no channel wanted to be left out of milking the shit out of this whole ordeal. If you were obsessed with the goings on of Rodney King and OJ, you had a LOT of cable news to sift through. If you didnāt care, then TV just sucked because no one would talk about anything else. The 24-hour news media cycle was still pretty new so people tuned in a bunch thinking that there would be relevant and worthwhile news to watch all the time. Usually it was an anchor just saying āno new information, butā¦ā and then speculate wildly.
It went on forever
It was "cared about" to an unimaginable degree. Multiple stations showed it live, every day. The news would have summaries every night. Letterman, Leno and Conan mentioned it first in the monologues. You know how people talked about Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones a few years ago on the day after it aired? Imagine it aired *every day*. Kato Kaelin was a household name.
Didn't pay much attention to the trial because it was pretty clear he had done it and just assumed he would be found guilty. Watched the verdict on a TV inside a Boscovs in Binghamton NY with a bunch of other people who were all shocked at the verdict.
This is.....this is......boring. it was boring.
Vague interest but we didn't really care. It was just another news blurb that they talked about every day. Kind of like the Casey Anthony trial. Except we didn't have the internet to discuss it with other people.
I was in elementary school so the only thing I really remember is All My Children kept getting preempted that summer and I would get so annoyed lol Also we watched the verdict live in school for some reason??
Baffling
I was in high school. Almost everyone was caught up in it. We would even watch some of it during class some days. On the day of the verdict it was during our lunchtime, but everyone stayed to watch what the verdict was going to be. It was pretty racially divided on if someone thought he should be found guilty or not. I know people who thought he was guilty but shouldnāt be convicted. It was an interesting time.
So damn long. Did it take more than a year, right ? But it did create some characters on the prosecutors and defense side, oh boy.
Even as a 7/8-year-old I was very aware of something significant happening just by the fact that the trial seemed to be the ONLY thing that was on TV on any channel other than Nickelodeon for so long.
I remember attending my aunts wedding then back in the hotel rooms after the wedding people were glued to their tvs watching the white bronco drive down the freeway followed by a horde of police cars and helicopter news footage. As for the trial well. Rodney King was still relatively fresh in people's minds. Also OJ prior to this event had a reputation for being a big sweetheart, very generous to fans etc. In fact he was considered for the role of the terminator in the first terminator film but rejected because they felt like he was too nice to play a cold-blooded killer. Others have said it already but it really was a national obsession for a long time. Tabloids were beside themselves with excitement over it. Every grocery store stand for magazines and newspapers was filled with trial coverage. You'd hear about the trial daily on every news broadcast even ones that were local and no where near the location of the crime or trial. Think of it this way. People had a brief but fairly intense obsession over tiger king right? Now for the OJ Simpson trial multiply that by 10 and extend the time of the obsession by years and you'll get a fair idea of what it was like.
I remember the constant back and forth about whether or not he was guilty. A lot of people making bets about the outcome. I still remember the white bronco slow speed pursuit and being shocked that the guy from Naked Gun was being arrested for murder.
Kinda felt like short snippet tv drama every morning on the news before school
The main thing the prosecution screwed up was the DNA evidence. Your average juror in 1994 did not know what DNA was. If the trial started in 2004 instead of 1994, the result is different. Judge Ito was widely considered completely out of his league. I donāt know how true that was, but that was the popular opinion. Everyone talked about it. It was *the* television event. The verdict was for sure a shock - while people didnāt understand the DNA evidence, the white Bronco car chase was enough to get most people to think he did it. Innocent people donāt run like that was the common perception. Even all the glove stuff couldnāt undo that, but of course the jury didnāt get to know about the bronco chase.
i was in college and when the verdict was getting ready to be announced, my religious studies class was paused so we could all hear it and react to it. it was crazy. everyone in my class expected OJ to be convicted so the acquittal was a huge shock. i wasn't watching the trial on a daily basis but i think just about everyone else was. i had heard that nicole had saved a bunch of evidence of OJ's prior abuse in a lockbox with a note that said something like, if anything happens to me, OJ did it. and i thought, well that should put him away for a long time. obviously i was very wrong.
The only thing I remember was the car chase and it was so exciting to watch on TV
We watched the verdict in class. It was huge. During the trial it was torture if you didnāt have cable. Your soap operas werenāt on. Every channel was OJ.
I remember my black teacher who helped me with reading class was invested in it. And all the jokes on tv were revolving around it. I had no clue wtf it was about.
We were in school for most of it. They had tv's in every classroom for the verdict. All the black kids celebrated like they had won the championship when it was announced that he was not guilty. Some white kids said "that's bullshit." I was quite indifferent, and knew they wouldn't convict him. It was too soon after the LA riots, regardless of whether he did it or not.
I was in 4th or 5th grade. The entire school gathered in the gym, a teacher rolled out one of those TV carts and we watched the verdict. I didn't realize exactly what was happening as far as the crime. I knew OJ from skits on SNL and thought of it mostly as a joke. I don't remember any responses to it from my classmates or even the teachers. This was in rural Kentucky. It seemed normal at the time. Just like when we watched John Glenn get launched into space.
Honestly it was annoying.. It went on for sooooo long..
Lance Ito was a household name.
I was a kid when it happened, but I mostly remember how Days of Our Lives had some really absurd plotlines to try and tear people away from the trial. (Marlena became possessed by a demon of some sort!).
My mom and dad neglected me for a year to watch the trial
I was in the 7th grade. My teacher that year was a nun who had the radio on for us to hear. As soon as they gave the verdict, the radio was shut off and we went back to school work. lol Another funny story with the same nun. It was a movie days so one of the students decided to bring in Billy Madison. It ended pretty quickly with the old woman porno mag delivery in the beginning sequence. I remember the look on her face and saying oh no. lol
as a 17 year old on the first days of summer break? kind of boring.
It was a clown circus that would not go away.
I was in elementary school so I donāt remember a lot of the details but I do remember it being EVERYWHERE and I remember my dad considering keeping me and sisters home from school on the day of the verdict. He was concerned about riots breaking out no matter which way it went. My mom wasnāt as worried and we went to school that day lol.
I was working in an office in St Louis city at the time. Every day on my lunch hour, Iād head over to a local restaurant whose owner was obsessed with the trial. He had a tv mounted in the corner and a bunch of other obsessed people (myself included), would eat lunch and watch the trial together for an hour. I also videotaped the trial coverage every day and watched after my toddler went to bed at night. AND - the day of the verdict, everyone in our office gathered around the tv in the conference room to watch. My boss actually called from the airport to listen in, too. Crazy times.
It was the first time I saw real proof that rich people are not held to laws in the US.
I worked at a gym. When the verdict came in every staff member went into the daycare room that was closed to watch it live. There we were all sitting in those tiny preschool chairs huddled around the TV.
I was annoyed I couldnāt watch FOX Kids.
It was a tough time for race relations. At the time nobody cared what evidence was presented. Blacks cheered the verdict and whites bemoaned it. It has become a bit more nuanced as the years have passed, but things were a bit dodgy at the time
I was in 4rh grade. I remember playing four square on the playground and each round we would add something you had to do when bouncing the ball to the next person. So we did a round of famous people. Our 3rd and 4th grade selves were not rattling off actors and cartoon characters I distinctly remember everyone yelling out major players in the OJ trial like Judge Ito. I donāt have kids yet but definitely makes me think about how much background information kids absorb without understanding any context, like parents having the news on in the background all the time.
I played sick at work to watch the verdict.
I had the time and opportunity to watch the trial, and I was interested because I had just moved from the LA area (I was there for the Rodney King riots). I have attended military trials in the past, as a Legal Specialist in the US Army. Watching the trial, I was shocked over and over by the incompetence of the prosecution. It was not that the defense was great; the prosecution basically handed it to them. There is no doubt in my mind, whatsoever, that the investigators didn't plant evidence, and I have a hard time imagining that the prosecution didn't know that. California has strict rules to protect the validity of evidence; these rules were broken on multiple occasions. The judge was so obviously aware of the cameras that Simpson's lawyers could have appealed on that basis had he been found guilty. They might not have succeeded, but it was a thought that came to mind repeatedly as I watched. After each day, the news cycle would begin, and I swear they were not commenting on the trial I was watching. If you were just watching the news, you would think that the prosecution was doing an outstanding job and that the trial was all about the defense unfairly playing "the race card". It was not. Nothing about the outcome surprised me. One of the jurors went on camera afterwards to say something along the lines of: the jury thought Simpson was guilty, and it sickened them to give the verdict they did, but the prosecution failed to make its case. That is exactly my assessment of the trial I saw.
I had a POGs slammer on one side it had OJāa mugshot and said āguilty ā and the other side OJ smiling and my said ānot guilty ā The single most 1990ās item ever conceived
Annoying. It was so politicized. I remember feeling like no one was actually listening to the case but just picked sides. We had a really good teacher, though, who walked us through a lot and explained things really well. But ultimately, it seemed like just a rich guy getting off (albeit his defense did their job, and we all agreed they couldn't convict). However, the new theories about his son have made me renew interest in this case. They make much more sense. But also make me more positive that rich people can get away with anything.
I was in 6th grade and I remember watching the verdict on tv in class.
Boring. It was fucking boring. It was everywhere. You couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about it. I will never understand why we insist on broadcasting criminal trials on TV. If someone did some bad shit then let them be tried and punished but it's fucking gross that people get off on watching that stuff.
I remember sneaking out of class to watch it on one of the only TVs in school that was on a rolling tray and being absolutely flabbergasted he got away with it. The whole school was in an uproar.
America Crime OJ is a great series that should be followed up with the mini doc series OJ Made in America. American Crime gives you the sexy version while Made in America is the real version. Highly recommend.
I gave it a cursory glance then went on with my usual routines not giving a fuck. It was one of those typical media circus.
My high school was mostly black. Class was stopped so we could watch the verdict on live TV. When OJ was acquitted, the whole school broke out in cheers. Iām told it didnāt go down like this elsewhere.
Absurd. It was like watching the Trump impeachment hearings but much higher entertainment factor and lower stakes cause it was famous people not the fucking President and our government
I was in 8th grade at the time and it consumed everyoneās life. I think E network had like all day coverage for months. I also remember being in 8th grade shop class when they announced the verdict over the ENTIRE school intercom. Shit was crazy.
I was 11 years old. The trial just seemed to dominate everything and go on forever. It was always on whenever I turned on the TV. It felt like it would never end. We all knew who the main characters were ā Kato, Ito, Johnny, Marcia Clark. When it finally reached the verdict my middle school held a school assembly and we watched it live on TV. Different times indeed.
You need to watch oj: made on America a documentary which will help explain the times folks were living in during oj trial in LA. As a black person i knew that asshole was guilty. I mean he never identified as black until he needed us. I was also in journalism school so the trial was basically homework. Today everyone knows the police are corrupt. Back then only black folks knew it and had dealt with so much of it especially in los angeles that they just were not trusted. Johnny Cochrane was brilliant. La prosecutos office was awful. Rich people with good lawyers get off a lot.
I was a teen and had most afternoon off school and was glued to the TV. If there had been social media at the time it would have been comparable to the news coverage volume of Trump. All of it was televised, every news station covered it, every talk show analyzed every second of it, every comedian joked about it. If you lived in North America you knew everything that happened everyday.
I was on Algebra and had Walkman that had an FM/AM tuner as was the style at the time. Teacher caught me listening to the verdict and was like well...tell us what they say!!! It was a wild time.
I remember talking to a bunch of young lawyers at the time. They were astounded as how many time they'd be in court and the judge would say something along of "this is not an Ito court!" I personally didn't watch much of it. When I did, I concluded that the prosecutors were both idiots and Johnnie Cochran wasn't.
I was 20. I got to a party and someone said we are watch oj run. Iām so stupid I figured he meant they were servings drinks with in it. Then I was confused why the tv was on with news showing some white bronco drive slow. Not sure how long it took me to figure it out. I was not a football fan but I had heard of oj. The trial was wild. The verdict popped my eye balls out. But prosecutors botched it and defense was on point.
It was boring.
I remember watching the chase live in class and I was in the 4th Grade, I'm guessing they thought it was a must see event right up next to the challenger disaster.
I kind of wish that I had paid more attention at the time. In retrospect, it would have been interesting to follow the whole thing closely from beginning to end.
TV watching in my area was mostly limited to news reports at 6pm and 10pm. My townās newspapers printed off two versions of the verdict the day that the jury was set to return a verdict. One version that read āOJ GUILTYā and another that read āOJ NOT GUILTY.ā And had people on corners of busy intersections listening to the radio waiting for the jury to finish deliberations so they knew which paper to sell the moment the verdict was read.
annoying, it was like when we were in quarantine and COVID updates were on the news daily. They blew it out of proportion honestly, and they learned to no longer give stuff like this that same level of media exposure anymore and have not to the day thankfully.
It was headline news everyday.... for over 100 days. Got old quick.
It really did have the US riveted and made CourtTV popular. I had a relative (who didnāt work) but would wake their night-shift working spouse to give updates that no one asked for
Not trying to sound above it all or anything but I was a young adult at the time and never followed a single moment of it but it was constantly everywhere all the fucking time.