O. J. Simpson: a Biography

O. J. Simpson is a retired American football player, broadcaster, and actor.Simpson played college football for the USC Trojans for the University of Southern California (USC), where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. He then played professionally in the National Football League (NFL) as a running back for 11 seasons, with the Buffalo Bills from 1969 to 1977 and with the San Francisco 49ers from 1978 to 1979. Simpson was the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a...
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O. J. Simpson is a retired American football player, broadcaster, and actor.Simpson played college football for the USC Trojans for the University of Southern California (USC), where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. He then played professionally in the National Football League (NFL) as a running back for 11 seasons, with the Buffalo Bills from 1969 to 1977 and with the San Francisco 49ers from 1978 to 1979. Simpson was the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season, a mark he set in 1973. While six other players have passed the 2,000-rush yard mark, he stands alone as the only player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a 14-game season; the NFL changed to a 16-game season in 1978. He holds the record for the single season yards-per-game average, which stands at 143.1. Simpson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. After retiring from professional football, he had a career as a football broadcaster and actor.In 1995, Simpson was acquitted of the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman after a lengthy and internationally publicized criminal trial, the People v. Simpson. In 1997, a civil court awarded a $33.5 million judgment against Simpson for their wrongful deaths. In September 2007, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, and charged with numerous felonies, including armed robbery and kidnapping. In 2008, he was convicted and sentenced to 33 years' imprisonment, with a minimum of nine years without parole. He is serving his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nevada.The O. J. Simpson murder case (officially the People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson) was a criminal trial held at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, in which former National Football League star and actor O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder for the June 12, 1994, deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and waiter Ronald Lyle Goldman. The trial spanned from the jury's swearing-in on November 9, 1994, to opening statements on January 24, 1995, to a verdict on October 3, 1995, when Simpson was acquitted. The case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history.Simpson hired a high-profile defense team, initially led by Robert Shapiro and subsequently led by Johnnie Cochran, and that also included F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Kardashian, Shawn Holley, Carl E. Douglas and Gerald Uelmen, with two more attorneys specializing in DNA evidence: Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. Los Angeles County believed it had a strong prosecution case, but Cochran was able to persuade the jurors that there was reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence (a relatively new form of evidence in trials at the time) - including that the blood-sample evidence had allegedly been mishandled by lab scientists and technicians - and about the circumstances surrounding other court exhibits. Cochran and the defense team also alleged other misconduct by the Los Angeles Police Department. Simpson's celebrity and the lengthy televised trial riveted national attention on the so-called "trial of the century". By the end of the criminal trial, national surveys showed dramatic differences in the assessment of Simpson's guilt or innocence between black and white Americans.oj simpson book, oj simpson, oj simpson trial, oj simpson biography, oj simpson vs the people