Did OJ Do It? The Evidence, the Acquittal, and the Civil Verdict

Did O.J. Simpson do it? A criminal jury said the prosecution had not proven it beyond a reasonable doubt and acquitted him in October 1995. A civil jury, working under a lower standard, found him liable for the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman and ordered him to pay $33.5 million.¹ The physical evidence, the DNA, and a long history of domestic abuse pointed at Simpson; the defense’s success came from attacking how the Los Angeles Police Department collected and handled that evidence, and from discrediting one of its lead detectives. Simpson died on April 10, 2024, at 76, never convicted of the murders.² By 2015, 76 percent of American adults surveyed said they believed he committed the murders.³

What the Evidence Showed

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were stabbed to death outside her townhouse on South Bundy Drive in Los Angeles on the night of June 12, 1994. What the LAPD collected over the following hours and days built a dense forensic case against her ex-husband.

Blood drops next to shoe prints at the Bundy scene matched Simpson’s blood type, shared by roughly 0.5 percent of the population.⁴ DNA analysis narrowed the odds much further. Blood taken from the rear gate at Bundy matched Simpson’s DNA profile, and prosecution expert Dr. Bruce Weir testified that the probability of an unrelated person matching that profile was one in 57 billion.⁵ Blood on socks recovered from Simpson’s bedroom matched Nicole Brown Simpson’s DNA.⁶ A leather glove found on Simpson’s Rockingham estate carried a mixture of DNA consistent with Simpson and one or both victims, and blood consistent with Simpson turned up in his Ford Bronco, his driveway, and his foyer.⁷

The gloves themselves told a story. The left-hand glove, an Aris Light size extra-large, was recovered at the Bundy crime scene; its right-hand match was found on Simpson’s property. Nicole Brown Simpson had bought a pair of the same gloves at Bloomingdale’s in 1990, and photographs showed Simpson wearing that style from 1990 through June 1994.⁴

Trace evidence added more links. Cotton fibers consistent with the carpet in Simpson’s Bronco appeared on the Rockingham glove and on a knit cap found at the murder scene. Hairs consistent with Simpson’s were on the cap and on Ron Goldman’s shirt. Shoe prints at Bundy came from size 12 Bruno Magli shoes; Simpson wore a size 12, and a bloody impression on the Bronco carpet was consistent with the same shoe.⁴ Photographs later surfaced showing Simpson in Bruno Maglis; the images were used against him in the civil trial.

Simpson also had fresh cuts on his left hand the day after the killings. The blood trail leaving the Bundy scene ran to the left of the shoe prints, consistent with a wounded left hand.⁴

The timeline hemmed him in further. The prosecution placed the murders between roughly 10:15 and 10:40 p.m. Around 10:40 to 10:52 p.m., Brian “Kato” Kaelin, a houseguest on Simpson’s property, heard three loud thumps on the wall outside his room. Shortly after, limousine driver Allan Park, waiting at Simpson’s front gate, saw a person about six feet tall and 200 pounds crossing the driveway toward the house. Within seconds Simpson answered the intercom and said he had overslept.⁸ The prosecution argued the thumps were Simpson bumping the wall as he returned and shed evidence along the side of the house, where the second glove was later found.

The History of Abuse

Prosecutors built motive on a documented pattern. In 1984, Simpson smashed the windshield of Nicole Brown Simpson’s car with a baseball bat.⁹ On New Year’s Day 1989, police arriving at the Simpson home found Nicole in bushes with a cut lip, a black eye, a swollen cheek, and a handprint on her neck. She told officers she had called police eight times before about abuse.¹⁰ Simpson pleaded no contest to spousal battery and received 120 hours of community service, two years’ probation, and a $700 fine.

In October 1993, Nicole called 911 to report that her ex-husband had broken into her home. On the recording she told the dispatcher, “It’s O.J. Simpson. I think you know his record.”¹⁰ She told friends she felt Simpson was stalking her, and Simpson admitted watching her through a window while she was with another man.⁹ Her diary recorded verbal abuse during her pregnancies. Written testimony from friends and family about the abuse was submitted at trial.

How the Defense Created Reasonable Doubt

Simpson’s team, led by Johnnie Cochran and known in the press as the Dream Team, did not have to prove him innocent. It had to give the jury a reason to doubt, and it went after the evidence itself, the officers who collected it, and the credibility of the investigation.

The Crime Lab Under Attack

Barry Scheck ran the forensic case for the defense with what he called a “garbage in, garbage out” argument. He did not challenge the science of DNA. He challenged how the LAPD had handled the samples. Over an eight-day cross-examination of criminologist Dennis Fung, Scheck used photographs to show that blood on the rear gate at Bundy was not visible the day after the murders but was collected three weeks later, asking, “Where is it, Mr. Fung?”⁷ Legal observers rated it one of the most effective cross-examinations in modern trial history.¹¹

Scheck also established that LAPD criminalist Collin Yamauchi had spilled Simpson’s reference blood onto his own gloves and then handled other evidence without changing them. Yamauchi conceded the blood had “soaked through the paper.”⁷ Wet blood samples had been stored in plastic bags in a warm truck for hours. Collectors failed to change gloves between samples. The lab had a documented history of contamination.¹²

A discrepancy in Simpson’s own blood vial gave the defense a planting theory. Nurse Thano Peratis testified he drew about eight milliliters, but lab records showed only 6.5 milliliters received. The missing blood, the defense suggested, could have been used to salt the evidence. Defense expert Dr. Fredric Reiders testified that EDTA, a preservative used in blood collection tubes, appeared in the sock and rear-gate stains at levels too high for living human blood, suggesting the samples came from lab tubes.⁷ The prosecution’s rebuttal came from FBI CTU Chief Roger Martz, who used mass spectrometry and concluded EDTA was not present at levels indicating a preserved source. A later Department of Justice Inspector General review found Martz had not committed perjury but was poorly prepared, kept deficient records, and had erased the raw digital data from his tests.⁶

Mark Fuhrman

Detective Mark Fuhrman had found the bloody right-hand glove on Simpson’s property. On the stand he testified he had not used racial slurs in the past decade. The defense then produced tape recordings of him using racist language. Defense attorney Carl Douglas called him a “lying, perjuring, genocidal racist.”¹³ Fuhrman went from the prosecution’s star witness to what one account called a “disastrous liability.” After the verdict, Fuhrman pleaded no contest to perjury and was placed on probation.¹⁴ In closing arguments, Cochran called Fuhrman and co-lead investigator Philip Vannatter the “twin devils of deception,” alleging Vannatter had lied about his reasons for visiting Simpson’s estate and had carried a vial of Simpson’s blood to the property instead of booking it directly into evidence.

The Glove

On June 15, 1995, prosecutor Christopher Darden asked Simpson to try on the blood-stained gloves in front of the jury. Simpson appeared to struggle, holding up his hands to show the tight fit. Cochran built his closing argument around the moment: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”¹⁵

A week later, Darden had Simpson try on a brand-new, unworn pair of the same brand and size from the manufacturer. Simpson put them on without much trouble, though glove expert Richard Rubin described the fit as “a little on the snug side.” UCLA law professor Peter Arenella noted the second demonstration used different gloves and that Rubin’s own measurements confirmed the original crime-scene gloves were shorter, which “undercuts the prosecution’s argument that Simpson was acting.”¹⁶ Years later, former Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti said he had learned Simpson had been taking arthritis medication that, if stopped, would cause his hands to swell.¹⁷ Darden himself never conceded the demonstration was a disaster, saying of Simpson, “He’s a better actor than I thought he was.”¹⁸ Juror Yolanda Crawford later said she was stunned by the decision: “When he asked O.J. to try on the glove, I looked at him like he was crazy.”¹⁹

The Acquittal

On October 3, 1995, after less than four hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Simpson of both murders.²⁰ Crawford explained the speed by pointing to the evidentiary problems the defense had exposed: “The evidence that was shown that was given to us and we had to consider. And at that point, there was reasonable doubt and it was something that you cannot deny, and that’s why the verdict came so quick.” She said the 1991 Rodney King beating “had nothing to do with the verdict.”¹⁹

The Civil Verdict Reached the Opposite Conclusion

In February 1997, a Los Angeles Superior Court civil jury heard a case with the same underlying facts but a lower burden of proof: preponderance of the evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. That jury found Simpson liable for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman and ruled he had acted “willfully and wrongfully, with oppression and malice.”¹

The damages broke down as follows:

$8.5 million in compensatory damages to the Goldman family for the wrongful death of Ron Goldman.
$12.5 million in punitive damages to the Goldman family.
$12.5 million in punitive damages to the Brown family.

The total came to $33.5 million.¹ Simpson paid very little of it during his lifetime, largely living off pensions that were legally protected from collection. After his death in 2024, the estate’s executor accepted a $58 million claim (the original judgment plus accumulated interest) from the Goldman family, though the estate’s total assets were estimated at only $500,000 to $1 million.²¹

What Simpson Himself Wrote

In 2006, publisher Judith Regan announced a book by Simpson titled If I Did It, presented as a hypothetical account of how he would have committed the murders. Simpson was paid $3.5 million for the project.²² After the public backlash, News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch called the project “ill-considered,” HarperCollins canceled publication, and Regan was fired.²³

The Goldman family pursued the book rights through bankruptcy court. A judge determined that the rights had been held by a shell company managed by Simpson’s daughter Arnelle to hide Simpson’s involvement, and ordered them sold. A federal bankruptcy judge awarded the rights to the Goldman family in 2007.²⁴ They republished it as If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, with the cover stylized so “If” was nearly invisible, and added commentary from the Goldman family and ghostwriter Pablo Fenjves. The book reached No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list.²⁵ In a chapter about the night of the murders, Simpson wrote, “I know what happened, but I can’t tell you how.”²³

Where Public Opinion Landed

In the days after the acquittal, a Gallup poll found 78 percent of Black Americans thought the verdict was right, while 49 percent of white Americans thought it was wrong.²⁶ Only 16 percent of Black respondents said they believed Simpson was guilty at that point, compared to 69 percent of white respondents.³ Many Black Americans understood the verdict less as a statement about Simpson’s innocence than as accountability for a police department with a documented history of racist misconduct.²⁷

The gap narrowed. By 2015, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found 57 percent of Black Americans believed Simpson was guilty, up from 16 percent in 1995. Among white Americans, the figure was 83 percent. Overall, 76 percent of adults said they believed he committed the murders.³ Simpson died on April 10, 2024, having never been convicted of the murders. Fred Goldman, Ron’s father, said: “It’s no great loss to the world. It’s a further reminder of Ron’s being gone.”²

1
Justia. Rufo v. Simpson
2
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3
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CBS4 Local. Juror in O.J. Simpson Murder Trial Speaks Out
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Britannica. O.J. Simpson Trial
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CNN. O.J. Simpson Estate Worth Goldman
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People. The Story of O.J. Simpson’s Book If I Did It
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People. The Story of O.J. Simpson’s Book If I Did It
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