Source

• Born: 9 July 1947
• Birthplace: San Francisco, California
• Best Known As: The NFL Hall of Famer charged with murder in 1994

Name at birth: Orenthal James Simpson

Former football star O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in 1995 after one of the most sensational trials of the 20th century. Nicknamed "The Juice" during his playing years, Simpson won the Heisman Trophy in 1968 as a running back for USC. Simpson starred professionally for the Buffalo Bills and then the San Francisco 49ers until his retirement in 1979. Handsome and charismatic, Simpson then found work as a sports announcer and sometime actor, and he was a familiar face on television as the spokesman for Hertz rental cars. On 12 June 1994, Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson was found brutally murdered at her home along with an acquaintance, Ronald Goldman. Suspicion immediately fell on Simpson, and he was arrested a few days later after fleeing his house in a car driven by his friend Al Cowlings. (His capture came after a strange low-speed chase by police on LA freeways, broadcast on live TV from helicopter cameras, with Simpson and Cowlings in a white Ford Bronco.) The resulting murder trial (also televised live) lasted nine months and made household names of peripheral characters ranging from Simpson houseguest Kato Kaelin to defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran to Judge Lance Ito. Simpson was acquitted of two counts of murder on 3 October 1995. (However, in 1997 he was held liable in civil court for both deaths.) No one else has ever been charged with the deaths of Nicole Simpson or Ron Goldman.

The publisher ReganBooks announced in 2006 that it would publish a book by Simpson titled If I Did It. According to a press release, the book "hypothetically describes how the murders would have been committed." The book was due to be published late in 2006, follwed by a Fox Television special, but a public outcry caused both the book and TV show to be cancelled. A court ruling later awarded the book's rights to the Goldman family, and they published it in 2007 with the title If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.

Simpson was arrested and jailed on 16 September 2007 after he and other men entered a room at the Palace Station Hotel in Las Vegas, apparently in an attempt to seize Simpson-realted sports memorabilia. He and three accomplices were charged with robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, coercion, first-degree kidnapping, burglary and conspiracy... Simpson and Nicole Brown were married in 1985; she filed for divorce 1992... O.J. Simpson played hapless Detective Nordberg in the cop movie spoof The Naked Gun (1988) and two sequels... Simpsons's case has often been compared to that of former Baretta star Robert Blake, who was charged but later cleared in the killing of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley... The Simpson trial spawned the phrase "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" -- the statement made by Johnny Cochran to the jury after Simpson struggled in court to put on a bloody glove left at the murder scene... Simpson's nickname of "The Juice" was a play on the initials O.J.

• Born: Jul 09, 1947 in San Francisco, California
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '70s-'90s
• Major Genres: Comedy, Drama
• Career Highlights: The Naked Gun, The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear, Capricorn One
• First Major Screen Credit: Killer Force (1975)

Biography

African-American sports personality O.J. Simpson was forced as a child to wear leg braces because of a severe case of rickets. That he mended well is evidenced by his athletic record: U.S.C. football star, 1968 Heisman Trophy winner, a record-setting 2000 yards gained during the 1973 season with the Buffalo Bills, and installment in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. Like many pro footballers, O.J. had yearnings to act, but swore that he'd remain an athlete until his team made it to the Super Bowl. The team didn't, but O.J. did -- act, that is -- and quite well, in such TV projects as Roots and such films as The Towering Inferno (1974) and the riotous Naked Gun trilogy. He also showed up from time to time in the announcing booth on ABC's Monday Night Football and was the "high-flying" star of a series of Hertz Rent-a-Car TV ads. In the spring of 1994, Simpson, who'd previously starred in several failed television pilots like Cocaine and Blue Eyes, had just completed several episodes of the syndicated TV series Frogmen, when he was arrested and accused of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. After a long and highly publicized trial, Simpson was found not guilty in October of 1995. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult Buy this Movie	No Place to Hide Buy this Movie	C.I.A.: Code Name Alexa Buy this Movie	The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear Buy this Movie
The Naked Gun Buy this Movie	Back to the Beach Buy this Movie	Disposable Heroes: The Blood, Guts and Tears Side of Football Buy this Movie	Hambone and Hillie Buy this Movie

Show More Movies Show Fewer Movies

football player; sports commentator

Personal Information

Born Orenthal James Simpson, July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, California; one of four children of Jimmy Simpson (custodian and cook) and Eunice Simpson (hospital orderly); married Marguerite Thomas, 1967; divorced, 1979; children: Arnelle (son), Jason, Aaren (son; d. 1979); married Nicole Brown, 1982; divorced, 1992; children: Sydney (daughter), Justin.
Education: City College of San Francisco, 1965-1967; University of Southern California, B.S., sociology, 1969.

Career

Buffalo Bills, halfback, 1969-1977; San Francisco 49ers, halfback, 1977-1978; actor in several movies, including The Towering Inferno (1974), The Klansman (1974), Killer Force (1975), Cassandra Crossing (1976), Capricorn I (1977), Firepower (1978), Hambone and Hilly (1983), The Naked Gun (1989), The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (1991); ABC-TV Sports, 1969-1977; commentator, Monday Night Football, 1983-86; Rose Bowl commentator, 1979, 1980; Summer Olympics commentator, 1976; NBC- TV Sports, 1978-82; NFL Live, co-host, 1989-1994; starred in several TV commercials.

Life's Work

O. J. Simpson came out of the projects of San Francisco in the 1960s to establish a stellar college football record, first at San Francisco's City College and then at the University of Southern California (USC) where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. The following year the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL) selected him with the first draft pick. As a running back for the Bills from 1969 to 1977, Simpson had a glorious career, shattering all previous records for most yards gained in a season, most games in a season with 100 yards or more, and most rushing attempts in a season. He established a concurrent acting career beginning in 1974 with a role in the film, The Towering Inferno. His congenial celebrity also brought him work in television commercials--most visibly as a spokesperson for Hertz--and as a color commentator on Monday Night Football.

The way in which the public viewed Simpson changed dramatically in 1994 when he was arrested and tried in Los Angeles for the murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. The jury acquitted him in 1995 after a highly-publicized year-long trial that became known as the "Trial of the Century." Following his acquittal in the criminal trial, the Brown and Goldman families filed a wrongful-death civil suit against Simpson. This time the jury found Simpson responsible for the deaths and awarded the victims' families $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Although Simpson's attorneys claimed that he had incurred more than $12 million in debt, the plaintiffs still believed he could make sufficient earnings to provide the reparations despite his new notoriety.

Born July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, Orenthal James Simpson was one of Jimmy and Eunice Simpson's four children. Needless to say, his childhood on Connecticut Street in the Potrero Hill section of San Francisco--one of the city's black ghettos--proved to be less than idyllic. Biographer Dick Belsky noted in The Juice: Football's Superstar, O. J. Simpson that as a baby Simpson suffered from a calcium deficiency. As a result, he had to wear leg braces for several years. Simpson's father, a bank custodian and cook, left Eunice to rear the four children on her own when Simpson was only five. On a lighter note, Simpson hated his name, Orenthal, which had been suggested to his mother by an aunt, so he took to calling himself "O. J." As a result his friends began calling him "Orange Juice," a practice that may have led to his pro football nickname "The Juice." In Belsky's book, Simpson maintained that the name resulted from his high energy level, from being "juiced up." Steven V. Roberts's U.S. News & World Report article supported that theory by stating that as a youth Simpson "joined gangs, stole hubcaps, picked fights, crashed dances, shot craps, snubbed school." According to Roberts, Simpson told biographer Bill Libby, "I had a lot of hatred and defiance in me. I could easily have come to a bad end if I hadn't gotten a break."

Roberts identified three significant factors that helped Simpson turn his life around. His mother's steady and determined presence provided a secure home base even though the pain of his father's abandonment lingered. She worked many long, hard hours as a hospital orderly to support the family. Willie Mays, the famous outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, gave the young Simpson a much needed shot of confidence in his teenage years. When Simpson was 15 and in jail following a gang fight, the supervisor of the local recreation center arranged for him to spend a day with the local sports legend. Roberts quoted Simpson as saying, "To have that hero pay attention to me, it made me feel that I must be special, too. He made me realize that we all have it in ourselves to be heroes." High school football occupied Simpson's time productively and the coaching staff at Galileo High worked hard at developing his remarkable athletic abilities while changing his bad attitude.

Simpson became a star football player at Galileo, winning All-City honors his senior year. Simpson's grades, however, failed to meet admission requirements for four-year schools, so he attended junior college in San Francisco. At City College he amassed one of the most outstanding records in the history of junior college football. In only two seasons Simpson scored 54 touchdowns and gained 2,445 yards rushing. Given this impressive performance, several major universities recruited him seriously. Simpson chose the University of Southern California, a school steeped in football tradition. He majored in sociology. In 1967 and 1968 he led the Trojans to two Rose Bowl berths, scored 35 touchdowns, and gained 3,295 yards rushing in 22 games. In his final season he set a college record for yardage gained, 1,709. Sportswriter Pete Axthelm commented in Newsweek that "O. J.... has done more than his share.... [H]e has led the Trojans, inspired them, and, when necessary, carried them."

Simpson had been a serious contender for college football's highest honor--the Heisman Trophy--in his first year at USC. In fact, he finished second in the voting to University of California-Los Angeles quarterback Gary Beban. In 1968, he won the trophy. Belsky wrote that Simpson "was generally acclaimed . . . [as] the finest and most explosive running back to come out of college football in a decade. Some thought he might be the most prized collegian in football history." Belsky also noted the irony that, "Under the rules of the draft, the NFL team that finishes the season with the worst record chooses first in the collegiate draft. O. J. Simpson would go to the worst team in pro football." The worst team turned out to be the Buffalo Bills, so Simpson headed for New York. Sport magazine named Simpson its Man of the Year in February of 1969, thereby marking the first time in the 22-year history of the award that it had gone to a college player.

In Buffalo Simpson soon cemented his reputation for elusive speed on the field. In 1973, a few short years into his professional career, he set several records that would remain on the books for decades. Early in the season he had set two records: one for 250 yards rushing in a single game, against the New England Patriots, and the other for carrying the ball 39 times against the Kansas City Chiefs. On December 16, in the last game of the regular season, the Bills played the New York Jets, and Simpson broke more records. In the first quarter, he surpassed the legendary Jim Brown's single-season rushing record of 1,863 yards, a record that had stood since 1962. Simpson finished the day and the season with 2,003 yards. Ron Fimrite wrote in a 1973 Sports Illustrated article that Simpson "finished the season with 332 attempts [also an NFL record], an average of nearly 24 a game. He had gained 200 yards for the second game in succession and for the third time in a season, both records, and he enabled the . . . Bills to become the game's first 3,000-yard rushing team, replacing . . . [the] Miami Dolphins as the NFL's all-time top rushers." Fimrite further observed, "What is perhaps most remarkable about Simpson's record spree is that it was made possible by two games played on fields of such Siberian frigidity that they were fit only for evading wolves."

Simpson played for Buffalo until 1977, had one uneventful season with the San Francisco 49ers, and then retired in 1979. Simpson had established a second career as an actor beginning in 1974. He did several commercials, most notably for Hertz. As Steven Roberts observed in 1994, "Today, almost 20 years later, the image of O. J. sprinting from an airplane to his Hertz rental car is still embedded in the popular culture." He appeared in several movies, including The Towering Inferno, Capricorn I, Firepower, and the Naked Gun series. Although Simpson had high hopes for his acting career, it stalled around the end of the 1970s.

To the sporting world, however, Simpson might be known best as a football and Olympics commentator for ABC-TV and NBC-TV from 1969 through the 1980s. He provided color commentary for ABC from 1969 to 1977 and for NBC from 1978 to 1982. In 1983 he rejoined ABC as a member of the highly-rated Monday Night Football production, but that position only lasted until 1986. After a short hiatus from working televised football games, Simpson became a co-host for NBC's NFL Live beginning in 1989.

Simpson's personal life also encountered some troubles. His wife, Marguerite Thomas, whom he had known in high school and married in 1967, divorced him in 1979. In their 12 years of marriage they produced three children: Arnelle, Jason, and Aaren. Shortly after the divorce, 23-month-old Aaren died in a tragic swimming pool accident. Simpson met his second wife, Nicole Brown, when she was 18. They eventually married in 1982 and had two children, Sydney and Justin. The marriage was a stormy one, with police often being called to their home to settle domestic altercations. In 1989 Simpson pled no contest to charges of spousal battery. The couple divorced in 1992. In June of 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and a friend, Ronald Goldman, were brutally murdered in front of her home in Brentwood, California.

Suspicion immediately fell on Simpson. As police arrived to arrest him at the home of a friend, Simpson eluded them, leading authorities on a 60-mile, slow-speed chase with friend Al Cowlings behind the wheel. Alexander Cockburn described the scene in New Statesman & Society by saying, "A carnival atmosphere prevailed along the freeways as Simpson, Cowlings and their police cortege swept by. Signs proclaimed 'Go, Juice, Go' and onlookers outside the house proclaimed sympathy and love." Simpson eventually surrendered that evening. He and his lawyers endured a year-long courtroom media spectacle that dominated the news and provided endless fodder for talk shows and tabloids. The predominately African American jury acquitted Simpson of the murder charges in 1995. The verdict prompted many to speculate on whether the decision was racially motivated and sparked much disagreement along racial lines over the question of his guilt.

Following the criminal trial, the families of Brown and Goldman sued Simpson in civil court. This time a predominately white jury decided that Simpson was liable for their deaths, a finding that intensified the discussions about racial division. Writer Ellis Cose debunked several popular opinions generated by the outcomes of the two Simpson trials. He noted in Newsweek, "In reality, neither the trials nor the verdicts tore the races apart. The breaches the trials brought to light existed long before the murders in Brentwood." He added that, "It would be ridiculously naive to say that race was not a factor in either trial. It is equally simplistic, however, to see it as the only factor, and to conclude, on that basis, that some monumental racial chess game was at stake."

The civil trial jury determined in 1997 that Simpson had to pay $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages for the deaths of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Although lawyers for Simpson claimed that his "Dream Team" of defense attorneys in the criminal trial had drained his once-considerable assets, the plaintiffs did not agree. They argued that Simpson's name--despite its disrepute--could raise the money on ventures such as autographed trading cards, speeches, and possible book deals. Meanwhile, the civil court judge ordered Simpson to turn over several items of value, including his Heisman Trophy. When authorities arrived to seize the property, the Heisman could not be found. A 1997 article in the Riverside, California, Press- Enterprise noted that Simpson was "resigned to a future clouded by public disdain and financial ruin, but he is buoyed by loyal friends and the challenge of raising two children."

Awards

Junior College Football All American, 1965-66; National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) All American, 1967-68; world record 440 yard relay team, 1967; Heisman Trophy, 1968; United Press International and Associated Press College Athlete of the Year, 1968; Sport magazine's Man of the Year Award, 1969; voted College Player of the Decade, 1972; NFL Most Valuable Player, 1975; AFC Most Valuable Player, 1972, 1973, 1975; NFL Pro Bowl, 1972, 1974-1976; named NFL Player of the Decade, 1979; inducted to College Football Hall of Fame, 1983; third leading rusher in NFL history; inducted to Pro Football Hall of Fame, 1985.

Further Reading

Books

• Belsky, Dick, The Juice: Football's Superstar, O. J. Simpson, Henry Z. Walck, Inc., 1977.

Periodicals

• Jet, February 24, 1997.
• New Statesman & Society, July 1, 1994.
• Newsweek, January 13, 1969; February 17, 1997.
• Orange County Register (CA), March 28, 1997.
• People Weekly, July 4, 1994.
• Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA), March 28, 1997; March 29, 1997; June 8, 1997.
• Sport, February 1969.
• Sports Illustrated, June 27, 1994 (reprint of 1973 article).
• U.S. News & World Report, June 27, 1994.

— Ellen Dennis French

For more information on Orenthal James Simpson, visit Britannica.com.

(Orenthal James Simpson), 1947–, American football player, b. San Francisco. As a running back for the Univ. of Southern California, he won the Heisman Trophy as the best college player of 1968. The “Juice” played with the Buffalo Bills (1969–77) and San Francisco 49ers (1978–79) and rushed for 11,236 yards during his professional career. Simpson set season records (now broken) for most yards gained (2,003; 1973) and most touchdowns (23; 1975). He later became a sportscaster and actor.

In 1994 he was charged with the brutal murder of his ex-wife and her friend, but he was acquitted in 1995 after a media-saturated trial that highlighted racial tensions and divisions in American society. In 1997 a civil jury levied a huge wrongful-death award against him in a suit brought by the victims' families. Simpson was again the center of controversy in 2006 when it was revealed that a book by him, entitled If I Did It, which its publisher, Judith Regan, said she considered his confession, was to be published, and a television interview timed to coincide with the book's publication was to be aired. Public outcry led Rupert Murdoch, whose companies were to publish the book and broadcast the interview, to order the cancellation of both. In 2007 Simpson was charged with several felonies in connection with his alleged participation in an armed robbery in a Las Vegas involving sports memorabilia that he contended had been stolen from him.

This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

The criminal and civil trials of Orenthal James ("O. J.") Simpson, a former football star, actor, and television personality, regarding the murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman, a local restaurant waiter, were two of the most controversial and highly publicized proceedings in U.S. legal history. The lengthy criminal trial, which ended in Simpson's acquittal for the two murders in October 1995, was nationally televised. In the civil trial, in which the estates of the two murder victims sued Simpson for damages for the victims' wrongful deaths, a jury in February 1997 awarded the heirs of the victims a total of $33.5 million. In both proceedings, but especially in the criminal trial, the issue of race played a dominant role. Simpson, an African American, was portrayed by his attorneys as another victim of the racist beliefs and behavior of members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).

In the early hours of June 13, 1994, the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found lying in a pool of blood outside Nicole Simpson's Brentwood, California, condominium. Both victims had been brutally stabbed to death on the evening of June 12, but there were no eyewitnesses. After the slayings, Nicole Simpson's dog was found wandering around the upscale neighborhood with bloody paws.

Simpson voluntarily gave an interview to LAPD detectives the day after the murder. Five days after the murders, LAPD charged Simpson with the deaths, citing a trail of evidence they said linked the celebrity to the crime scene, including a bloody glove found outside the condominium that allegedly matched one found at Simpson's estate. On the day Simpson was to surrender to police, he and a friend, Al C. Cowlings, disappeared. Simpson left behind a note professing his love for Nicole, claiming his innocence, and implying that he would commit suicide. Police traced calls from Simpson's cellular phone, locating him in a vehicle traveling on a Los Angeles freeway. The ensuing slow-speed chase, which was nationally televised from helicopter cameras, ended back at Simpson's Brentwood home, where he was arrested.

Simpson's criminal trial began on January 25, 1995. He had assembled a team of lawyers that included Robert L. Shapiro, Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., a leading Los Angeles defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, a nationally known criminal defense attorney, Alan M. Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor, Gerald F. Uelman, the dean of Stanford University Law School, and Barry Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld, New York attorneys skilled in handling DNA evidence. The group of prosecutors from the Los Angeles county attorney's office was led by Marcia R. Clark and Christopher A. Darden. Presiding at the trial was Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito.

In its opening statements the prosecution argued that Simpson's history of domestic violence against Nicole Brown Simpson showed a link to her murder. His pattern of abuse and his need to control his former wife culminated, according to Clark, in her murder, "the final and ultimate act of control." Goldman was murdered, continued Clark, because he got in the way, arriving at the Brentwood condominium to return a pair of misplaced eyeglasses at the same time that Simpson was attacking Nicole Brown Simpson.

The defense team, which Cochran dominated, asserted that the LAPD fabricated the physical evidence and that Simpson had been on his way to a golf outing in Chicago when the crimes were committed.

The prosecution presented the testimony of neighbors in the vicinity of the murder scene and of a limousine driver who arrived early at Simpson's home that night to establish that Simpson had time to commit the murders and return home shortly after the driver arrived. It also introduced the "bloody glove" found behind Simpson's guest house, a glove that matched one found at the crime scene. The prosecution called DNA experts to testify that blood found at the crime scene matched Simpson's blood and that blood from both of the victims was found in Simpson's vehicle and on socks found in his bedroom. In addition, a bloody shoe print found at the crime scene appeared to match an expensive brand of shoes that Simpson had owned, but which could not be found.

The defense team aggressively challenged almost every prosecution witness but leveled its harshest attacks on the credibility of the LAPD. Scheck attacked the way the blood and fiber evidence was collected and suggested that the police had used blood from a sample given by the defendant to concoct false evidence. Scheck and Neufeld also challenged the credibility of the prosecution's DNA experts, subjecting the jury to weeks of highly technical discussion of DNA analysis.

The defense also argued that the police had rushed to judgment that Simpson was the prime suspect. Cochran and Bailey cross-examined the police officers who had gone to Simpson's home early on the morning after the murders. These officers had not sought a search warrant but went into the residence based on the belief that Simpson himself might have been the target of the murderer. The defense challenged this justification and attempted to show that one of the officers, Mark Fuhrman, was a racist who planted the bloody glove that morning. Events in the trial confirmed that Fuhrman had lied under oath when he said he had not said the word "nigger" in the past ten years. As the prosecution case proceeded, the defense used every opportunity to demonstrate to the predominantly African American jury that the police had engaged in a conspiracy to frame Simpson.

The dramatic point of the trial was the prosecution's request that Simpson try on the bloody gloves. Simpson, wearing thin plastic gloves, strained to pull on the leather gloves and announced that they were too small and did not fit. This proved to be a damaging incident for the prosecution. In his closing argument, Cochran repeatedly stated, "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit."

In October 1995, after 266 days of trial, the jury found Simpson not guilty of the murders. Cochran, in his closing argument, had implored the jury to acquit Simpson and send a message to the LAPD and white America that African Americans should not be the victims of a racist police and justice system. According to opinion polls, his argument sounded a strong chord in African Americans, because a majority of them believed that Simpson was innocent. Polls also showed that, in contrast, most whites believed that Simpson was guilty.

Despite the acquittal, Simpson had to defend himself in a civil lawsuit filed by the parents of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. In contrast to the criminal trial, the civil case was not televised, thereby reducing the intensity of the press coverage. In addition, the plaintiffs had the opportunity to depose many witnesses before trial, including Simpson, who did not testify at the criminal trial.

The plaintiffs' lead attorney, Daniel M. Petrocelli, fiercely examined Simpson at the deposition and again at the trial, pointing out the inconsistencies in his various accounts. Petrocelli mocked Simpson's contention that he had never beaten Nicole Brown Simpson, despite police reports, photographs, and testimony of other witnesses. The most crucial piece of evidence became the bloody shoe print at the crime scene. At his deposition Simpson said he had never owned a pair of the "ugly-assed shoes" that had made the shoe print. Simpson repeated this claim at trial, but Petrocelli produced thirty-one photographs of Simpson at public events showing that he had indeed worn the exact model of shoes prior to the murders. Finally Petrocelli argued that Simpson committed the murders because he could not control his temper: when Nicole Brown Simpson rejected him for good in the spring of 1994, he erupted in the same uncontrollable rage that had caused him to lash out at her in the past, only this time he used a knife.

In February 1997 the jury awarded the plaintiffs $8.5 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages. The jury awarded the punitive damages based on an expert's testimony that Simpson could earn $25 million over the rest of his life by trading on his notoriety with book deals, movie contracts, speaking tours, and memorabilia sales. The jury did not want Simpson to profit from the crimes. Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki, who had conducted the trial, upheld the damages award. Simpson announced that he planned to appeal the case.

The plaintiffs obtained a court order permitting the seizure of many of Simpson's assets to pay the multimillion-dollar judgment. Simpson, who had regained custody of his two children that he had with Nicole Brown Simpson, claimed he was near financial insolvency. Nevertheless, the plaintiffs' attorneys returned to court numerous times in 1997 seeking disclosure of Simpson's assets, contending that he was attempting to hide them.

See: cameras in court; DNA evidence.

Quotes:

"NFL owners should quit worrying about silly things like players celebrating in the end zone. They should give them something to really celebrate. Get rid of the artificial surfaces."

"The fear of losing is what makes competitors so great. Show me a gracious loser and I'll show you a permanent loser."

"The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, that's the day you start to the top."