Wow...I lived all this in real time.
The murder of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman happened just a couple years after the L.A. riots, and the trial lasted over 8 months. Jim Rome in particular was all over the trial. I can distinctly remember the verdict coming down, and then, barely 15 months later, the civil suit was decided against OJ.
When I was clerking during the summer between my 2nd and 3rd years of law school, I found out that the firm where I was working had represented the Goldman family, and one of the more interesting lunch presentations given to us during that summer was by Dan Petrocelli, the lead trial counsel. He walked us through his strategy, making it clear that the ability to depose OJ (which obviously didn't exist in the criminal case), coupled with OJ's arrogance, was the key to the victory (Petrocelli wrote a book about the case, and we all got autographed copies). When I started working at the firm after law school, I pulled up some of the documents on our system. A lawyer down the hall from me had OJ's golf clubs sitting in his office (I can't remember why). Eventually, responsibility for trying to collect on the judgment was transferred to a different firm. It was frustrating because OJ's NFL pension couldn't be touched, and he was able to use that money to buy a home in Florida which, because Florida is a haven for deadbeats, also couldn't be touched. California's post-judgment interest rate is 10% per year, so the judgment doubled every 10 years, so it's probably around $200 million at this point (the most significant recovery was from the sale of OJ's Heisman trophy). Hopefully, some decent $$ will come from his estate.
Topic: Celebrity death thread (Read 24014 times)
