On October 3rd 1996 retired American football player Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson was acquitted of murder.

O.J. had been charged with the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. The pair had been murdered in June of the previous year. The trial itself started in November 1994, and lasted eight months. It was one of the most widely documented and televised criminal trials in history, and could also be probably be used as a case study as to how not to prosecute a murder.

Although O.J. was acquitted in the criminal trial, he later lost a civil case that effectively found him guilty of the murder, resulting in $40 million in damages being awarded to the families of the deceased. One of the items was the rights to the book by Simpson entitled "If I Did It" which told how, if he had committed the murders, he would have done it. This was published by the families with the "I Did It" clearly visible and the "If" part of the title almost unseen.

Image: Gerald Johnson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons