WI: OJ Simpson Convicted of Double Murder in 1995

What if OJ Simpson is convicted of the double murders of his ex-wife and also Ronald Goldman? Are their riots, where does he go to prison, and how it affects popular culture?

I think in part he would be convicted in October 1995, sentenced to a double life term in a California prison in November, and be currently serving time there without parol. Other than that I don't know.
 
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Considering O.J. was looking at two counts or first-degree murder and was in extraordinarily angry fashion convicted in the court of public opinion, the odds of him getting anything but the death penalty are pretty much zero. If he'd been convicted in October 1995, he'd have been sentenced to death sometime in 1996, and bearing in mind all of the appeals processes that his lawyers would have gone through, he would have been on Death Row for quite a while. If the conviction does not get overturned (quite likely owing to the case's holes) he'd have probably been executed sometime after 2010.

Riots? Not likely, but it does shoot the LAPD's attempts in the 1990s and 2000s to improve its image among African-Americans completely to hell. It doesn't change popular culture much because he pretty much disappeared from public life after the trial, and the view of black Americans towards a lot of police forces is as poor as it gets. I can't see that much change, really.
 
Considering O.J. was looking at two counts or first-degree murder and was in extraordinarily angry fashion convicted in the court of public opinion, the odds of him getting anything but the death penalty are pretty much zero.


Shortly before jury selection began, the prosecution honorably forfeited one advantage it might have had as the case proceeded: Garcetti's office announced it would not seek the death penalty.

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from the Run of His Life, The People V. O.J.Simpson by Jeffrey Tobin. Chapter 10. Group Therapy and page 188 in my copy of the book which is the UK Penguin Random House paperback but there may be other editions and bindings in the states.

So that rather rules out the death penalty.

Also worth noting that when public opinion split along largely racial lines on the case at the time.
 
Considering O.J. was looking at two counts or first-degree murder and was in extraordinarily angry fashion convicted in the court of public opinion, the odds of him getting anything but the death penalty are pretty much zero. If he'd been convicted in October 1995, he'd have been sentenced to death sometime in 1996, and bearing in mind all of the appeals processes that his lawyers would have gone through, he would have been on Death Row for quite a while. If the conviction does not get overturned (quite likely owing to the case's holes) he'd have probably been executed sometime after 2010.

Riots? Not likely, but it does shoot the LAPD's attempts in the 1990s and 2000s to improve its image among African-Americans completely to hell. It doesn't change popular culture much because he pretty much disappeared from public life after the trial, and the view of black Americans towards a lot of police forces is as poor as it gets. I can't see that much change, really.

DA Garcetti was not seeking the death penalty. And you have to actively seek it in California. So Simpson gets sentenced to LWOP in Centinela. Basically he spends the rest of his life isolated from gen-pop in an unbearably hot cell in the middle of the desert.

It might inflame public opinion, though, in that there might be a perception that rich defendants get life in prison while poor defendants get a date with the executioner.
 
If O J was convicted that means there was a competent prosecution. With the heavy media focus on the trail, OJ's flight and suicide not as well as the fact that he was arrested with a passport, a disguise and $ 8000 would be well known. So there would be no riots,
 
Riots? Not likely, but it does shoot the LAPD's attempts in the 1990s and 2000s to improve its image among African-Americans completely to hell. It doesn't change popular culture much because he pretty much disappeared from public life after the trial, and the view of black Americans towards a lot of police forces is as poor as it gets. I can't see that much change, really.

I disagree. Racial tensions were festering in the early Nineties and the Simpson trial embodied all of it. It divided America right down the racial line, and that relationship became very tense, uncomfortable, and the dialogue was rather vitriolic. That situation is ripe to burst.
 
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I disagree. Racial tensions were festering in the early Nineties and the Simpson trial embodied all of it. It divided America right down the racial line, and that relationship became very tense, uncomfortable, and the dialogue was rather vitriolic. That situation is ripe to burst.

I've always believe that at least semi-consciously the prosecution threw the case to save LA.
 
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