Iconic photos show the biggest moments from O.J. Simpson's 'trial of the century' (2024)

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Coverage of O.J. Simpson's murder trial kicked off with a car chase on June 17, 1994, that was broadcast on live TV.

Days after Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found dead, Simpson failed to turn himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department to be charged with first-degree murder. Instead, he evaded authorities in a car chase on the 405 freeway in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Simpson sat in the backseat of a white Ford Bronco, holding a gun to his head as Al Cowlings drove away from the police vehicles in pursuit.

News channels interrupted their programming to broadcast live coverage of the chase, which ended with Simpson's surrender at his home.

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Simpson's defense team was led by Johnnie Cochran, a prominent civil rights attorney.

Cochran developed a reputation for litigating high-profile cases related to police brutality.

In Simpson's trial, he argued that LAPD officer Mark Fuhrman planted evidence to frame Simpson for the murders, motivated by racism, CNN reported.

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Simpson's defense also included Robert Kardashian, a friend of Simpson's and the father of the famed Kardashian siblings.

Kardashian's wife, Kris Jenner, was also close friends with Nicole Brown Simpson.

The media dubbed Simpson's defense team of high-powered lawyers "The Dream Team."

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Marcia Clark served as lead prosecutor.

Clark's appearance, demeanor, and personal life, including an ongoing custody battle, were widely covered and criticized during the trial.

"That was the hell of the trial," Clark told Vogue in 2016. "There was no privacy. I was famous in a way that was kind of terrifying."

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The trial became a media circus with live TV broadcasts covering every moment.

The Simpson trial occurred in the early 90s — long before today's saturated and fractured digital media environment, Business Insider's Peter Kafka reported Thursday.

As a result, the event drove massive viewership figures on TV, with even pre-trial moments like the Bronco chase nabbing Super Bowl-sized ratings. All three major broadcast networks cut into their regularly scheduled programming to cover the chase, which nabbed 95 million viewers.

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In one of the most famous moments from the trial, Simpson appeared to struggle to put on a leather glove that was found bloodied at the crime scene.

A key piece of evidence in the trial was a pair of leather gloves that prosecutors alleged Simpson donned while committing the murders, and which were stained with the blood of the victims.

But when asked to try on the gloves in court, Simpson appeared to struggle, saying they were "too tight."

Prosecutors argued the gloves didn't fit because the blood had caused them to shrink, and because of the the rubber gloves underneath that Simpson was wearing to protect the evidence.

A 2016 documentary put forth another theory: that Simpson had stopped taking his arthritis medicine, which had caused his hands to swell.

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The prosecution provided a new pair of gloves, but the damage was done.

After the first demo proved dubious, prosecutors asked Simpson to try on a new pair of gloves in the same brand and size, which appeared to fit well.

Nevertheless, the gloves inspired a quip in Cochran's closing argument that became synonymous with the trial: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

In 2012, looking back at the case, one of Simpson's lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, said he couldn't imagine "anything stupider" than for prosecutors to have had Simpson try on the gloves. Prosecutor Christopher Darden responded at the time that the defense had "manipulated" the evidence.

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When the verdicts were announced, viewers across the US stopped to watch the trial's dramatic end.

With the proceedings airing gavel to gavel, viewership culminated on Oct. 3, 1995 with the reading of the verdicts after just four hours of deliberations.

Time reports that a staggering 150 million people tuned in for the "not guilty" verdicts, amounting to roughly 57% of the US population.

If you were alive at the time, chances are you remember where you were. Some students at the time recall watching the verdicts during school hours, with televisions being wheeled into lunch and classrooms.

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Goldman's family reacted in horror.

After the verdicts were delivered in a highly-charged courtroom, members of Goldman's family — including father Fred, stepmother Patti, and sister Kim — wept and comforted one another.

"This prosecution team didn't lose today," Fred Goldman said at a press conference, according to the Associated Press. "I deeply believe this country lost today. Justice was not served."

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Simpson's relatives celebrated.

The defense, on the other hand, celebrated the jury's decision with relief.

Simpson smiled and mouthed "thank you" to the jury, according to the AP, while Cochran slapped Simpson on the back. Simpson's children Arnelle and Jason embraced, while the AP reported that another Simpson family member told Cochran, "We did it!"

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The trial lives on in infamy.

After serving as a seminal event in the now-ubiquitous true crime genre and illuminating critical divisions around race in America, the "trial of the century" lives on in infamy over 30 years later.