O.J. Simpson Murder Trial Lawyers, Witnesses: Where Are They Now?

Publish date: 2024-06-15

Trial of the Century

From the lawyers who defended him to the journalists who wrote about the case, we look back on 24 of the key players from the "Trial of the Century"

April 11, 2024

The O.J. Simpson trial, which spanned from 1994 to 1995, permanently altered the cultural landscape, ushering in the cable TV trend of round-the-clock trial coverage and irrevocably changing the media’s approach to true crime. It also briefly had the effect of making a bunch of Los Angeles-based lawyers and forensic experts some of the biggest celebrities in the world. Though names like Marcia Clark, Lance Ito, and F. Lee Bailey are infrequently mentioned today, back in 1995 they seemed to be everywhere, with the public eagerly consuming every piece of information they could about the trial’s players, both major and minor.

In light of Simpson’s death from cancer at the age of 76, we rounded up 24 of the most prominent figures of the trial, from defense attorneys and prosecutors to witnesses and family members, to assess where they are now and the impact the trial had on their lives.-E.J.D.

Alan Dershowitz
A lawyer and Harvard Law professor famed for taking on less-than-savory clients — and playing the proverbial Devil’s Advocate — Dershowitz, a lead lawyer in the O.J. Simpson case, has since represented televangelist Jim Bakkar, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Donald Trump (in his first impeachment trial), Jeffrey Epstein, and Harvey Weinstein. As of 2009, he’d won 13 out of 15 murder and attempted murder cases that crossed his desk. A Democrat who has shown support for the likes of Joe Biden, Dershowitz has nevertheless been supportive of Donald Trump in the face of his various foibles, calling his rally preceding the 2021 storming of the Capitol as “constitutionally protected” speech. Previously, the prolific writer penned The Case Against Impeaching Trump, a controversial tome that won him favor among right-wing commentators — and got him “shunned” on Martha’s Vineyard. -B.E.
Al Cowlings
A former NFL player, Cowlings gained a level of infamy when he helped Simpson flee the police in his White Bronco in 1994 — he and Simpson owned identical cars — a low-speed car chase that captured the attention of 95 million people. The car itself was purchased by Simpson’s old agent Mike Gilbert not long after the chase in an effort to keep it out of the hands of ghouls who wanted to reenact the incident for cash. Over the years, Cowlings has become a bit of recluse — at least compared to other folks associated with the case. In 2014, USA Today reported that former NFL teammate Charley Ferguson said Cowling was working for billionaire B. Wayne Hughes, founder of Public Storage — not long after, former tennis partner Joe Kolkowitz said Cowlings had retired. In 2016, Cowlings was portrayed by Malcolm-Jamal Warner in The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book by the same name.-B.E.
Robert Shapiro
Shapiro — who helped Simpson surrender — originally led the “Dream Team,” a cadre of lawyers who defended the football player. After ceding his position to Johnnie Cochran, though, he cast a critical eye on the trial, capturing its various ups and downs in 2016’s The Search for Justice: A Defense Attorney’s Brief on the O.J. Simpson Case. He went on to represent the likes of Eva Longoria, Rob Kardashian, and various other celebrities before founding LegalZoom (which helps clients create legal docs) and ShoeDazzle (a fashion subscription service he co-founded with Kim Kardashian in 2009), as well as penning an anti-drugs children’s book called Somo the Sober Monkey.-B.E.
F. Lee Bailey
During the trial, Bailey was perhaps most famous for his cross-examination of LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman, who had previously been accused of using the N-Word — as well as a showdown with prosecutor Marcia Clark in which she wryly questioned the size of his manhood. (When he tried to introduce the infamous glove into evidence, she quipped, “Size small. I guess it’s Mr. Bailey’s glove.”) Bailey was disbarred in 2001 in Florida and in 2002 in Massachusetts over his 1994 handling of a drug smuggler client’s $6 million in stock shares. Bailey ultimately failed to to regain his licenses and turned to consulting. He released the book The Truth about the O. J. Simpson Trial: By the Architect of the Defense in 2021. He died later that same year.-B.E.
Barry Scheck
In the context of the Simpson trial, Scheck is perhaps most famous for his controversial stance that the DNA collected during investigation was either rendered invalid by contamination or planted by the cops. But in the years since, he has gained another legacy, after founding the Innocence Project with fellow Simpson lawyer Peter Neufeld in 1992. That organization uses DNA evidence to exonerate those falsely accused of crimes, including John Restivo, Dennis Halstead, and John Kogut who spent 18 years in prison for the rape and murder of Theresa Fusco in 1985.-B.E.
Robert Kardashian
Simpson’s close friend, businessman Robert Kardashian, reactivated his legal license when the football player was arrested so that he could help defend Simpson. He also infamously housed Simpson in the days following Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman’s murders. Kardashian and Simpson later had a falling out due to the 1996 book American Tragedy, which Simpson claimed violated attorney-client privileges. Kardashian went on to speculate about Simpson’s innocence, telling ABC that same year, “I have doubts. The blood evidence is the biggest thorn in my side; that causes me the greatest problems. So I struggle with the blood evidence.” Although the lawyer died of cancer in 2003, his family has stayed in the public eye because of their entertainment and business ventures.-B.E.
Denise Brown
Denise Brown testified on behalf of her sister Nicole Simpson during the trial, later going on to become an advocate for people suffering from domestic abuse and to lobby for the Violence Against Women Act. In 2014, she wrote in a Time op-ed: “The tragedy of my sister’s murder brought a great big spotlight on domestic violence. It was something that my family and I knew nothing about. My education was born of such sorrow and loss, but it gave me the courage to work toward making sure that it didn’t happen to another family.” In 2016, she inked a deal with Peacock to develop her own true-crime series that would deal with cases where justice was not served, though the show has yet to premiere.-B.E.
Fred Goldman
Ron Goldman’s father, Fred, went on to take civil action against Simpson, filing a wrongful death lawsuit. In 1997, a jury ordered Simpson to pay the Goldman family $33.5 million in damages after he found Simpson liable for Goldman and Brown Simpson’s deaths. (Criminal trials require prosecutors to prove their case “beyond a reasonable doubt” while civil trials only require “a preponderance of evidence,” a much lower threshold.) Goldman went on to co-author 2017’s His Name Is Ron, which sought to highlight the man perhaps most often overlooked in this tragedy. Following O.J. Simpson’s death, the grieving father told Rolling Stone: “The only thing I have to say is that today is just a further reminder of how long we have missed my son, how long he’s been gone, and the only thing that is important today are the victims. That’s it. I have nothing else to say.”-B.E.
Paula Barbieri
Model/actress Paula Barbieri, who dated the former football player, split with Simpson not long before the murders via voicemail, later writing in 1997’s The Other Woman: My Years With O.J. Simpson that she was often scared of his temper. (Previously, she stood by Simpson throughout the trial and insisted that he was innocent.) Barbieri has been relatively off the radar in the years since, marrying a judge in 2000 and starting a family in Florida.-B.E.
Sydney Brooke Simpson
O.J. and Nicole’s eldest daughter has kept to herself over the years; she was eight at the time the murders. She went on to study sociology at Boston University, after which she moved to Florida to live near her brother, Justin, and pursue a career in real estate.-B.E.
Justin Ryan Simpson
The youngest child of O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson, Justin was just five years old at the time of the murders, and was sleeping in bed when his mother and Ron Goldman were killed. He graduated from Florida State University with a degree in entrepreneurship and small business operations in 2010, according to his LinkedIn. Starting in 2015, he worked as a real estate broker in St. Petersburg, Florida, but according to a Realtor.com profile he appears to have since relocated to Las Vegas. In February 2022, he posted on Instagram that he and his partner Alycia Browne were expecting a baby girl.-B.E.
Mark Fuhrman
The LAPD officer responsible for the discovery of the “bloody glove” at Simpson’s home, Fuhrman became a highly controversial figure in the trial when a 1985 tape surfaced of him boasting about mistreating Black people and casually using the n-word. The defense argued that Fuhrman had planted the glove out of racial animus, which Fuhrman denied. Fuhrman subsequently retired from the LAPD and was charged with perjury in 1996 after he testified that he had never used a racial slur, a conviction that was later expunged from his record. He became a true crime writer and commentator for Fox News.-E.J.D.
Kato Kaelin
At one point the most famous houseguest in America — he was living in the guesthouse on Simpson’s property at the time of the murders — Kaelin testified for the prosecution during the Simpson trial, suggesting there was a period of time during the murders where Simpson’s whereabouts were unaccounted for. Kaelin later cashed in on his celebrity by appearing in a number of low-budget films and reality TV shows, including 2018’s The Last Sharknado and 2019’s season of Celebrity Big Brother. He recently said on a podcast that his time on the latter show was difficult, as “the bathrooms clogged up a lot, and I had to do my morning poop.”-E.J.D.
Detective Tom Lange
Prior to serving as one of the lead investigators on the Simpson case, Lange had been involved in the investigations of a number of other high-profile murders, including the 1981 so-called “Wonderland Murders” implicating the porn star John Holmes. (Holmes, who died in 1989, was acquitted during the trial.) Lange retired from the LAPD in 1996 before coauthoring a book, called Evidence Dismissed, with co-lead detective Philip Vannatter about the Simpson case the following year. He continues to provide commentary about the case, most recently in the 2023 Reelz documentary O.J. Simpson: Blood, Lies, and Murder.-E.J.D.
Detective Philip Vannatter
One of the first detectives to arrive at the scene of the Simpson/Goldman homicide, Vannatter retired from the LAPD in 1995 after 28 years on the force, most famously having served in the investigation of the drugging and rape charges against director Roman Polanski in 1977. Following his retirement, Vannatter briefly served as a deputy sheriff in a small Indiana town where he resided on a farm before dying of complications from cancer in 2012, at the age of 70.-E.J.D.
Judge Lance Ito
The former district attorney famously presided over the Simpson case, making what some say was the disastrous decision to allow cameras into the courtroom to broadcast the trial. One of the few figures of the Simpson trial to decline most interviews after the verdict, Ito continued to serve as a judge, presiding over more than 500 trials before retiring in 2015. In 2023, he emerged from retirement to endorse former prosecutor Christopher Darden, who had worked with Ito at the L.A. District Attorney’s office prior to the trial, in his candidacy for L.A. County judge.-E.J.D.
Dr. Henry Lee
The famed forensic scientist, who specialized in blood spatter analysis, continued to work as an analyst on a number of high-profile cases, including the JonBenet Ramsey case, the Laci Peterson case, and the trial of Michael Peterson, the crime novelist convicted in 2003 of the murder of his wife Kathleen, as documented by the miniseries The Staircase. In 2007, a judge accused Lee of hiding evidence in Phil Spector’s murder trial; in 2023, a federal judge ruled that Lee had fabricated evidence in a 1989 murder trial, resulting in the convictions of two men that were later vacated in 2020. Lee denied the charges, saying in a 2023 statement he had “no motive nor reason to fabricate evidence.”-E.J.D.
Michael Baden
The forensic psychologist testified on behalf of the defense at the Simpson trial, attempting to undermine the prosecution’s theory that a single assailant had committed the murders by testifying that the autopsies of Goldman and Brown Simpson had been flawed. After the trial, Baden disowned parts of his testimony, saying he regretted testifying and that it had a deleterious impact on his career. Yet he has continued to remain in the limelight, serving as a frequent commentator on Fox News. Most recently, he made headlines with his claim that the autopsy of Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced billionaire who died in jail on trafficking charges in 2019, was more consistent with homicide than suicide, as authorities have asserted. -E.J.D.
Pablo Fenjves
The former National Enquirer reporter and neighbor of Nicole Brown Simpson famously testified for the prosecution during the Simpson trial, saying he heard her Akita bark around the time of the murders. He later went on to ghostwrite If I Did It, OJ Simpson’s (ostensibly) hypothetical account that was yanked by publishers in 2007 following public outcry. He continues to work as a ghostwriter, penning the memoirs of celebrities like Jose Canseco and coauthoring The Art of the Pimp, a 2015 memoir by the now-deceased brothel owner Dennis Hof.-E.J.D.
Marcia Clark
The lead prosecutor of the Simpson trial was excoriated by the press, with tabloids relentlessly mocking her hairstyle and even publishing topless photos of her without her consent. Exhausted from the attention after the trial, and hugely disappointed by their loss, Clark left her job in the prosecutor’s office and co-wrote a book about the case before launching a second career writing crime novels. She has frequently spoken about the effect the media scrutiny had on her mental health, telling Vogue in 2016 that the trial was “hell,” and has maintained her belief in Simpson’s guilt.-E.J.D.
Christopher Darden
The co-prosecutor, who famously had a flirtation with Clark during the trial, also left the attorney’s office after the case concluded, briefly joining the faculty of the Southwestern University School of Law before starting his own defense law practice, Darden & Associates. He has since represented a number of defendants in high-profile cases, including Eric Holder, who was accused of murdering rapper Nipsey Hussle, though Darden dropped out of the case after receiving death threats. He recently ran as a candidate for judge of Los Angeles County Superior Court, and though he received endorsements by two figures central in the O.J. trial — Judge Lance Ito and Kim Goldman — he lost the primary in March.-E.J.D.
Gil Garcetti
Garcetti served as the District Attorney for Los Angeles County for eight years, from 1992 to 2000, overseeing the prosecution of Simpson. Following his departure from the DA’s office in 2000, Garcetti shifted his attentions to art, publishing ten books of photography, including his latest, 2023’s Ribbon of Light, documenting the construction of Los Angeles’s 6th Street Viaduct. He also served as a consulting producer for the TNT series The Closer starring Kyra Sedgwick, which aired from 2005 to 2012. Garcetti’s son, Eric, also has his own political career, with the younger Garcetti serving as Los Angeles mayor from 2013 to 2022.-E.J.D.
Jeffrey Toobin
A Harvard Law School graduate and former lawyer, Toobin had been on staff at the New Yorker for a few years before he started covering the Simpson trial. His made waves with his dispatch from the trial, and went on to document his reporting in his 1997 book about the trial, The Run of His Life (which was later adapted into the Ryan Murphy-produced FX series American Crime Story). Toobin continued to write about the justice system for the New Yorker until November 2020, when he was fired for masturbating on-camera during a Zoom call (Toobin has maintained that he believed the camera was off at the time, and it was unintentional). In 2021, he returned to the media industry, serving as a legal commentator for CNN; though he left the network the following year, he has since returned as a guest on various shows.-E.J.D.
Johnnie Cochran, Jr.
Cochran was no stranger to celebrity clients in 1994 — he’d already defended Michael Jackson against molestation allegations and Tupac Shakur on weapons charges — but it was the Simpson case that catapulted him onto the national stage. After taking over from Robert Shapiro as lead defense attorney (and head of the Dream Team) the former L.A. prosecutor leaned into courtroom antics, crafting enduring phrases like “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” that lodged their way into the American psyche for decades. In the years following the trial, he made cameos on various sitcoms (including Martin, Family Matters, and JAG) and became an indelible pop-culture touchstone — see Seinfeld’s Jackie Chiles or the “Chewbacca Defense” on South Park. In 2004, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the following year succumbed to it at the age of 67. Cedars-Sinai Hospital later opened the Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Brain Tumor Center in his honor.-E.G.P.