The O. J. Simpson Trial 1995

Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson (born 1947) is a retired American football player, actor, spokesman, and convicted felon. He originally attained fame in sports as a running back at the collegiate and professional levels, and was the first NFL (National Football League) player.

In 1989, Simpson pleaded no contest to a domestic violence charge and was separated from his wife Nicole Brown, to whom he was paying child support. On June 12, 1994 Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman were found dead outside Brown's condominium. Simpson was charged with their murders. The pursuit, arrest, and trial were among the most widely publicized in American history. The trial, often characterized as "the trial of the century". Even foreign leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Boris Yeltsin eagerly gossiped about the trial. When Yeltsin stepped off his plane to meet President Clinton, the first question he asked was, "Do you think O. J. did it?" The trial culminated on October 3, 1995 in a jury verdict of not guilty for the two murders. The verdict was seen live on TV by more than half of the U.S. population, making it one of the most watched events in American TV history. Immediate reaction to the verdict was notable for its division along racial lines: polls showed that most African-Americans felt that justice had been served by the "not guilty" verdict, while most white Americans did not. O. J. Simpson's defense counsel included Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey.

(b) Read the text about selection of the Jury for O. J. Simpson murder case and describe this procedure to your classmates in English: