OJ being a football star played a part. His Hertz commercials played a part. The fairly new 24-hour cable news networks played a part. Cameras in the courtroom played a part. Race played a part.
It was the first American reality show.
yeah, I always thought broadcasting the trial live was mistake. It turned it into circus and put the thing in every news broadcast and talk show and newspaper in the country. People wouldn’t stop talking about it, and over analyzing it and it therefor necessitated sequestering the Jury. I believe the sequestration played a big part in the verdict. I think the reason they came back so fast with the verdict was that they were more interested in getting the heck out of there than coming to correct verdict. According to an interview with one of the jurors, the initial vote was 10 not guilty and 2 guilty. The juror then said that the 2 that voted guilty quickly changed their votes without a lot of discussion. Sound to me like it was “lets get this done asap and get the heck out of here and back home to our families”.