BONUS - 8 Days of. O.J. - "THE AFTERMATH: What O.J. Wrought - How One Verdict Changed Everything"

0:03 Caalerogus Shark Media. This is Reed Carter. Saturday, October fourth, twenty twenty five, the bonus episode of Eight Days of OJ. Yesterday marked thirty years since the verdict that changed everything. Thirty years since OJ Simpson walked free after murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Thirty years since America learned that celebrity justice works differently than regular justice. But October third, nineteen ninety five wasn't the end of the story. It was the beginning, the beginning of a new era where celebrities accused of serious crimes had a playbook to follow, the beginning of true crime as entertainment, the beginning of the understanding that fame plus money plus the right lawyer's equals immunity from consequences. Today, we examine what happened after the cameras stopped rolling, happened to OJ Simpson in the nearly thirty years between his acquittal and his death, what happened to everyone else whose lives were changed by those four hours of jury deliberation. Most importantly, we examine what OJ's acquittal wrought on American justice, how it created the template every celebrity defendant has studied since how it taught famous people that you don't need to be innocent to be acquitted. You just need to be famous enough, and rich enough and smart enough to hire the right lawyers.

1:29 I'm read Carter. This is the bonus episode of Eight Days of OJ. Welcome to thirty years of living with the consequences of the most wrong verdict in American legal history. October third, nineteen ninety five, ten oh one am Pacific time, One minute after the verdict that shocked the world, the courtroom is chaos. OJ's family is celebrating, His lawyers are embracing the dream team has pulled off the impossible, freeing a guilty client through superior storytelling and jury manipulation. But outside the courthouse, America is processing what just happened in very different ways. The split screen that defined the verdict.

2:12 Reaction is burned into our national memory. Black Americans celebrating in the streets, in offices, in schools, dancing, cheering, applauding what they see as justice finally being served to a black man by a corrupt system. White Americans sitting in stunned silence, unable to process how overwhelming evidence of guilt could be ignored so completely, unable to understand how DNA evidence and blood evidence and timeline evidence could be explained away by contamination theories and police misconduct claims. Both reactions were understandable. Black Americans had watched the LAPD abuse their community for decades. They'd seen innocent people framed guilty, cops protected, and a justice system that worked differently depending on your skin color and bank account. Ojay's equips felt like payback for generations of injustice. White Americans had watched eight months of evidence that proved Ojay's guilt beyond any reasonable doubt.

3:09 They'd seen science and facts and proof get ignored in favor of conspiracy theories and racial politics. Ojay's acquittal felt like the system had broken down completely. But what nobody understood on October third, nineteen ninety five was that this verdict would create a template, a blueprint for how celebrities could escape consequences in America, a playbook that would be studied and copied and refined by every famous defendant who followed. The immediate aftermath was surreal. Los Angeles had been preparing for riots if Ojy was convicted. Police were on high alert, The National Guard was ready. Everyone expected the kind of violence that had followed the Rodney King verdict in nineteen ninety two. Instead, there was celebration. Black Americans weren't rioting.

3:58 They were rejoicing. The verdict they'd hoped for had actually happened. The system had worked in their favor for once, even if it meant a guilty man went free. But the riots that didn't happen revealed something important about October third, nineteen ninety five. This wasn't really about O. J. Simpson's guilt or innocence. This was about decades of racial injustice finding expression through one celebrity trial. This was about communities that had been failed by the system finally seeing it fail someone else. The problem was that the someone else was actually guilty. The system didn't fail O J. Simpson. It failed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The injustice wasn't Ojay's prosecution, it was his acquittal. Within hours of the verdict, Ojy was back at his Rockingham mansion, free to play golf, sign autographs, and live the life of a celebrity who'd beaten the system. He promised to dedicate his life to finding the real killers of Nicole and Ron. Instead, he dedicated his life to golf courses, nightclubs, and pretending he was the victim in this story. The real killers, of course, were never found because O. J. Simpson was the real killer, but he'd convinced twelve jurors and millions of Americans that racist cops had framed him for murders he didn't commit, so he had to maintain that fiction, even though everyone who looked at the evidence objectively knew it was a lie. The Dream Team's victory lap was immediate and extensive. Johnny Cochrane became the most famous defense

5:30 attorney in America. He was invited to speak at law schools, write books, and take on high profile clients who wanted their own version of the race card defense. But the Dream Team also began fracturing almost immediately. Robert Shapiro distanced himself from Cochrane's racial appeals, saying he was embarrassed by the way race had dominated the trial. F Lee Bailey and Alan Dershowitz started feuding over credit for the victory. Barry Scheck tried to maintain his scientific credibility while acknowledging his role in helping a murderer escape justice. Even in victory, the dream team couldn't stay together because, deep down, I think they all knew what they'd really accomplished. They hadn't freed an innocent man, they'd freed a guilty one. They hadn't served justice, they'd perverted it. They hadn't won through superior legal analysis. They'd won through superior manipulation of racial tensions and jury prejudices. But October third, nineteen ninety five also began the civil case, and in civil court, with different rules and different standards and a different jury, the same evidence would tell a very different story. The civil trial February nineteen ninety seven, eighteen months after Ojy's criminal acquittal, the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman got their second chance at justice, the civil trial for wrongful death, where the burden of proof was lower and the defendant couldn't hide behind the Fifth Amendment. This time, Ojay had

7:01 to testify. He couldn't sit silently at the defense table while his lawyers performed for the cameras. He had to answer questions under oath about his whereabouts, his actions, his relationship with Nicole, and his role in the murders, and he was terrible, evasive, defensive contradictory. He claimed he'd never owned Bruno Magley's shoes, despite being photographed wearing them. He insisted he'd never hit Nicole despite evidence of repeated domestic violence. He maintained his innocence despite being unable to explain how his blood got to the crime scene. The civil jury looked at the same evidence the criminal jury had seen and reached the obvious conclusion. February fifth, nineteen ninety seven, O. J.

7:45 Simpson was found liable for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The jury awarded thirty three point five million dollars in damages. This verdict was the justice that should have been delivered in nineteen ninety five. The recognition that OJ Simpson was responsible for two brutal murders, the acknowledgment that the victim's families deserved accountability even if they couldn't get criminal conviction. But civil liability isn't criminal justice. Money damages aren't prison sentences. The civil verdict proved what everyone already knew. OJ killed Nicole and ron but it couldn't undo the travesty of October third, nineteen ninety five.

8:26 OJ spent years avoiding payment of the civil judgment. He moved to Florida, where his pension and homestead were protected from creditors. He hid assets, claimed poverty, and did everything possible to avoid compensating the families whose lives he'd destroyed. Even when he was finally held accountable in civil court, OJ found ways to avoid the consequences. He proved that being rich and famous means having options that regular people don't have. Even after being found liable for murder, the key player's fates. The OJ trial changed everyone it touched, and not always for the better. Let me walk you through what happened to each of the major players in the trial of the century. Marcia Clark, the prosecutor who should have convicted the most obvious murderer in American history, never recovered professionally. She resigned from the DA's office in nineteen ninety seven, wrote a book about the trial, and largely retreated from public life. She'd spent eight months presenting overwhelming evidence of guilt and watched it get ignored by a jury that cared more about police racism than murder evidence.

9:34 Clark had been criticized for everything during the trial, her hair, her clothes, her courtroom demeanor. The media treated her more like a fashion model than a prosecutor. She'd prosecuted the most important case of her career while being judged on her appearance rather than her arguments. But Clark's real tragedy was that she'd been right about everything. O. Jay was guilty. The evidence proved it, the DNA reliable, the timeline was accurate, the blood evidence was devastating. She'd presented the most conclusive murder case in legal history and lost because the jury didn't want to convict. Christopher Darden never recovered either. He'd been brought onto the prosecution team to provide racial balance against Johnny Cochrane, and he'd made the single worst prosecutorial decision in American legal history, asking OJ to try on the gloves. Darden left the DA's office in nineteen ninety six, tried private practice, taught law school, and spent decades knowing that his mistake had helped a murderer escape justice. He'd handed OJ Simpson his acquittal with those gloves and no amount of explaining about leather shrinkage or latex interference could undo that catastrophe. But I think Darden's real failure wasn't the glove demonstration. It was taking the case personally. He saw Cochrane's racial appeals as attax on his own credibility as a black pro prosecutor. He led a motion override judgment and emotion is how you lose cases you should win.

11:06 Johnny Cochran became the most famous defense attorney in America after the trial. He capitalized on his OJ victory to build a practice representing celebrities and other high profile defendants. He turned if it doesn't fit, you must acquit into the most famous phrase in legal history. But Cochrane's victory came with a cost. He'd won by exploiting racial tensions and police misconduct rather than proving his client's innocence. He'd sent a guilty man home to freedom and created a template for future celebrity defendants to follow. Cochrane died in two thousand and five of brain cancer, ten years after his greatest legal victory. He never acknowledged that OJ was actually guilty, but I think he knew deep down. I think they all knew. Judge Lance Edo became a punchline after the trial. His inability to control his courtroom, his obsession with television cameras, his emotional breakdown over Mark Furman's comments about his wife. All of it made him a symbol of judicial incompetence. It overturned to obscurity after the trial, serving out his career on the Los Angeles Superior Court bench while avoiding high profile cases. He'd presided over the most watched trial in American history and proved that fame doesn't equal competence. The trial turned Itto into a celebrity judge, but it also revealed that he cared more about being a celebrity than being a judge. His courtroom became a television studio, and justice suffered for the ratings. Kato'calin somehow

12:36 turned being a useless witness into a thirty year career in entertainment. He parlayed his fifteen minutes of fame into reality TV appearances, talk show segments, and celebrity endorsements. He became famous for being famous, the ultimate beneficiary of the trial's transformation into entertainment. But Kato's real legacy is cowardice. He could have been the witness who convicted o j. Simpson. He heard the thumps on his wall the night of the murders. He saw oj acting suspiciously. He knew things that could have delivered justice for Nicole and Ron. Instead, he chose comfort over conscience. He protected his free housing and celebrity lifestyle rather than telling the truth about what he'd witnessed. He became rich and famous, while Nicole and Ron stayed dead. Mark Furman's post trial story is the most complicated. His racist language and perjury had destroyed the prosecution's case and handed Ojay his acquittal. He pleaded no contest to perjury charges in nineteen ninety six and received probation.

13:38 But Furman also wrote books about other unsolved cases and became a television crime analyst. He tried to rehabilitate his reputation by solving cold cases and helping other victims' families find justice. Furman was a racist cop who lied under oath and helped a murderer escape justice. But he was also the detective who correctly ident oj Simpson as the killer of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Both things can be true even if only one of them mattered to the jury. Barry Sheck returned to his work with the Innocence Project, using DNA evidence to free people who'd been wrongly convicted. The irony is palpable. The lawyer who'd helped a guilty man escape justice by attacking DNA evidence spent the rest of his career using DNA evidence to free innocent people. Sheck had used his scientific knowledge to create doubt about reliable evidence in the OJ case, but he also used that same knowledge to prove the innocence of hundreds of people who'd been wrongly convicted. He was both part of the problem and part of the solution.

14:43 F Lee Bailey and Alan Dershowitz continued their legal careers but never achieved another victory as significant as OJ's acquittal. They'd been part of the greatest legal performance in American history, but they'd also been part of the greatest perversion of justice. Robert Shapiro Disas distanced himself from the racial aspects of the defense and continued representing celebrities in trouble. He'd been the architect of the dream Team, but he was uncomfortable with how racial the trial had become. All of them had been changed by the trial, all of them had played roles in freeing a double murderer. Some embraced that legacy, others tried to escape it, but none of them could undo what they'd accomplished. On October third, nineteen ninety five, we'll be right back with Ojy's eventual downfall in Las Vegas, his death from cancer in twenty twenty four, and how his acquittal created the playbook every celebrity defendant has used since.

15:50 Welcome back to the bonus episode of Eight Days of OJ. I'm Red Carter, and we're examining thirty years of consequences from the verdict that changed American justice. OJ Simpson spent twelve years as a freeman after his acquittal, living the life of a celebrity who'd beaten the system. He played golf, signed autographs, and maintained his innocence while never actually looking for the real killers he'd promised to find. But OJ's freedom ended on September thirteenth, two thousand and seven, in Las Vegas, a robbery at the Palace Station hotel and casino, where OJ and several accomplices stole sports memorabilia at gunpoint.

16:30 OJ claimed he was just recovering his own property, but the law didn't care about his rationalization. October third, two thousand and eight, exactly thirteen years after his acquittal, OJ was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping. The irony was perfect. The man who'd escaped justice for double murder was finally going to prison for stealing his own memorabilia. December fifth, two thousand and eight, OJ was sentenced to thirty three years in prison, with possibility of parole after nine years. The same justice system that had failed Nicole and Ron finally caught up with their killer, even if it was for different crimes. OJ spent nine years in Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada. Nine years of learning that celebrity status doesn't matter when you're wearing prison uniforms. Nine years of discovering that fame doesn't protect you from the reality of incarceration.

17:22 He was granted parole in twenty seventeen and lived his final years in relative obscurity. The man who'd once been the most famous person in America was reduced to occasional sightings on golf courses and in restaurants. The celebrity who'd commanded the world's attention for over a year had become a footnote. OJ Simpson died on April tenth, twenty twenty four, at age seventy six from prostate cancer. He'd lived almost thirty years, longer than the people he murdered. He'd enjoyed nearly three decades of freedom that Nicole and Ron would never have. He'd died a free man while they'd died victims. His death sparked renewed interest in the trial, but it also marked the end of an era. The last major figure from the trial of the century was gone, but the template he'd created lived on. Because OJ Simpson didn't just get away with murder. He taught every celebrity after him how to do it too. Robert Blake studied the OJ playbook when he was accused of murdering his wife in two thousand and one. Blame the police, investigation, question the evidence collection, create alternative theories about other possible killers, make it about anything except the defendant's obvious guilt. Blake was acquitted in two thousand and five despite overwhelming evidence that he'd orchestrated his wife's murder. The OJ template worked again.

18:46 Confuse the jury, blame the cops, make the victims disappear. Phil Spector used the same strategy when he was accused of murdering actress Lana Clarkson in two thousand and three. His first trial ended in a hung jury. His second trial resulted in conviction, but only after years of legal maneuvering that followed the OJ model of attacking the investigation rather than proving innocence. Casey Anthony followed the template perfectly when she was accused of murdering her daughter Cayley in two thousand and eight. Her lawyers didn't prove she was innocent, they created enough doubt about the prosecution's case to generate an acquittal that shocked America. Anthony walked free in twenty eleven despite evidence that she'd killed her own child. The jury focused on prosecutorial mistakes rather than defendant's guilt. The OJ template worked again. Even defendants who were eventually convicted learned from OJ's playbook. Michael Jackson's two thousand and five child molestation trial featured attacks on prosecution witnesses and alternative theories about motives for false accusations. Jackson was acquitted, though he died before facing additional charges. Harvey Weinstein's defense team tried the U s Ojay approach in his sexual assault trials, attacking the credibility of witnesses and questioning the prosecution's evidence.

20:07 Unlike OJ, Weinstein was convicted, but the strategy was familiar to anyone who'd watched the trial of the century. The template OJ created wasn't fool proof, but it was effective enough to give celebrities hope that fame could overcome evidence, that the right lawyers could create reasonable doubt even when guilt was obvious. That money and celebrity status provided options that regular defendants didn't have. But the OJ trial also created our modern obsession with true crime as entertainment. Court TV's wall to wall coverage of the trial proved that Americans would watch legal proceedings like sporting events. The trial became must see television, and every sensational case since has tried to recapture that lightning in a bottle. The oj trial created the expectation that major criminal cases should be entertainment as much as justice, that courtrooms should be television studios, and trials should be performances, that legal proceedings should generate ratings rather than just verdicts. Nancy Grace built her career analyzing high profile cases for television audiences hungry for more OJ style drama. HLN, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC all discovered that crime coverage generates ratings and advertising revenue. The Menendez Brothers, Scott Peterson, Jody Arius, Amanda Knox, all of them became household names because of media coverage that treated

21:38 their trials like entertainment. All of them benefited or suffered from public attention that had nothing to do with the evidence against them. But the most lasting impact of October third, nineteen ninety five was the lesson it taught about American justice. That wealth matters more than evidence, that celebrity status creates reasonable doubt, that the right lawyers can make murder look like persecution. OJ Simpson proved that some people are too famous to face consequences for their crimes, that fame plus money equals immunity from justice, That celebrity defendants get different treatment than regular people accused of the same crimes. Thirty years later, we're still living with that lesson. Every time a celebrity faces serious charges, we remember OJ Simpson. Every time wealth and status seem to matter more than evidence, we think about October third, nineteen ninety five, the day America learned that justice isn't blind, it's starstruck. That concludes our bonus episode and our complete examination of eight days of OJ. Thirty years after the verdict that changed everything, we can see clearly what October third, nineteen ninety five really wrought on American justice. OJ Simpson didn't just escape justice for double murder. He created the blueprint every celebrity defendant has studied since. He proved that fame plus money plus the right lawyers equals immunity from consequences. He showed

23:10 that reasonable doubt doesn't have to be reasonable to be effective. But the most tragic legacy of the OJ trial isn't what it taught celebrities about escaping justice. It's what it taught Americans about the justice system itself. That evidence doesn't matter if you can't trust who collected it, That proof doesn't matter if you can create better stories. That truth doesn't matter if you can manipulate the right narrative. October third, nineteen ninety five wasn't just the day OJ Simpson walked free. It was the day America stopped believing that the justice system works the same for everyone. I'm read Carter. This has been eight days of OJ, the complete story of how celebrity justice works in America and how regular justice fails when celebrities are involved. Nicole Brown, Simpson and Ronald Goldman are still dead. O. J. Simpson still got away with murder, and the system still fails. When celebrity meets justice in an American courtroom, remember their names, remember their lives, Remember that they deserved better than what the trial of the century gave them. October third, nineteen ninety five, The day America learned that some people are too famous to face consequences for murder. The day justice died while the world watched. The day America stopped believing in justice and started understanding that it's for sale.