OJ Simpson:
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

His was Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson, and his name alone once polarized America. Also known as the "Juice," the late, former NFL great was at the very center of an extremely gruesome double murder than tore the nation apart along racial lines in 1994, when his white ex-wife and her Jewish boyfriend were found brutally murdered, and the black former player's alibis seemed to fail under the weight of some very convenient and extremely damning evidence. Simpson proclaimed his innocence and assembled a legal "dream team" headed by the late Johnnie Cochran, one of the most highly regarded defense attorneys in America. In a sensational trial that lasted months, a largely minority-filled jury found him not guilty of killing Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, and O. J. Simpson walked out of a California courthouse a free man.

Over a decade later, Simpson granted an interview to the Fox network in which the former gridiron legend told a "hypothetical" tale of how he would commit the savage, bloody, and utterly horrific murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and waiter Ronald Goldman. With absolutely no fear of facing a criminal trial again, Simpson was free to engage in—ahem—murder fantasy during the interview, and it was sickening. If O. J. Simpson truly was guilty, then his words during that discussion could be a rare and frightening insight into the warped psyche of an arrogant murderer, with every syllable a blistering slap in the faces of the families of the victims. You can read the synopsis here.

If O. J. Simpson committed the brutal murders, then some believe he was not alone in doing so. Simpson was not the speeding pitchman who ran and jumped through airports at the time of the murders. In 1994, he was about 15 years past his playing days and 18 years past his prime. He was an older, slower, allegedly arthritic shell of the league-leading athlete he was from 1972 through 1976. Accordingly, doubt exists regarding his ability to catch and savagely assault the younger, fitter Mr. Goldman on his own. However, the presence of a younger murderer or multiple killers could've been enough to deny Brown and Goldman any chance of escape. Serial killer Glen Rogers, who was in his early 30s at the time, is suspected by some as the true assailant, but his guilt was never proven, nor was he ever charged. Convicted of other murders, Rogers currently sits on death row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida.

Regardless of the widespread suspicion of his client's guilt, Johnnie Cochran turned the proceedings around and put the police and evidence on trial, not O. J. Simpson. His team showed that the gloves famously didn't fit, that the blood from Simpson's cut left hand was not found inside the left glove, and that critical evidence against Simpson was found by a police officer known to be a bigot. It was all enough to sway the jury's opinion in O. J. Simpson's favor. 

In apparently eluding justice, Simpson joined a list of celebrities such as the late actor Robert Blake and the late author William S. Burroughs who managed to defeat the legal system in criminal proceedings. Incredibly, although Simpson and Blake were found liable in civil proceedings, the murders they are strongly suspected of committing are technically unsolved cases from a criminal standpoint. To address this, O. J. Simpson spent the years since the infamous murders "looking for the real killer," which was a curious promise considering he spent more time on Florida golf courses than he ever spent elsewhere in some nebulous pursuit of justice for the slain.

-TechRider