The 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, which ended in his being acquitted in the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her companion, Ron Goldman, will always carry the legacy of the "deep racial divisions in America," Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said on Newsmax Thursday.
The so-called "Trial of the Century" also leaves a legacy of the failure of many Americans to understand the role and necessity of lawyers who are hired to represent highly controversial defendants, Dershowitz, who served on Simpson's "Dream Team" as an appeals counsel, told Newsmax's "Newsline."
"People criticize me for being his lawyer, just like they criticized me for being Donald Trump's lawyer, O.J. Simpson's lawyer, or Claus von Bulow's lawyer," said Dershowitz. "Would you ever want to be in a country where people weren't represented? I do half my cases pro bono. I represent poor people. But I also represent people like O.J. Simpson."
Simpson, who died of cancer Wednesday at the age of 76, also leaves a mixed legacy, said Dershowitz.
"Obviously, he'll always be remembered for his football prowess and [his] lines in movies and advertising, but the legacy in the end will be the case," said Dershowitz. "People who think he's guilty are not going to shed tears on his death, and people who think he's innocent will."
Dershowitz noted that the case continues to show the "tremendous racial divisions" in the United States.
"People would come up to me in the airport and throw their arms around me and thank me for defending Simpson," he said. "Inevitably, they were African American. Other people would spit at me and curse me; and, inevitably, they were white."
Many Black people wanted Simpson to be acquitted as "they thought it was payback for all the people who have been falsely convicted, but many white people wanted to see him convicted."
He also said that many of Simpson's later problems, including the loss of a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit filed by the Goldman family and his prison stint after an armed robbery conviction, came after his insistence on staying in the public eye.
"Claus von Bulow, after he was acquitted, my advice to him was to go away, just never be in the public," said Dershowitz. "O.J. Simpson didn't accept that advice. He went on television that night, called into the Larry King show, and continued to be on television. And I think that contributed maybe to the decision of the Nevada authorities to prosecute him [for robbery]."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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