O. J. Simpson

Orenthal James Simpson (born July 9, 1947 in San Francisco, California), publicly known by the initials O.J., and nicknamed The Juice, was a Hall of Fame former college and professional football player and film actor. Simpson is perhaps now most famous for allegedly killing his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994. He was acquitted in criminal court in 1995 after a lengthy and highly publicized trial.

Other related litigation

The civil and criminal trials of O.J. Simpson were not the only important legal cases that were spawned by the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman on June 12, 1994.

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• Gerald Chamales and his wife, Kathleen, bought a house next to O.J.'s just ten days before the murders of which he was accused. The media circus and hordes of curious tourists tormented them (and the rest of O.J.'s neighbors) for the next four years. Their subsequent legal battle with the IRS culminated in the rule that they could not apply the drop in their house's value as a casualty loss deduction on their income tax return, because it was only temporary.
• O.J.'s houseguest on the night of the murders, Brian "Kato" Kaelin, sued Globe Communications for $15 million after it ran a headline in one of its tabloid newspapers insinuating that Kaelin was the real murderer. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendant, but on appeal, Kaelin convinced the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that he had a valid claim for defamation. Kaelin settled his lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.
• A New Hampshire intellectual property attorney, William B. Ritchie, challenged the validity of O.J.'s trademarks under a federal statute that bars immoral, deceptive, or scandalous subject matter. Ritchie argued that because of the whole sequence of events from 1994 through 1997, O.J.'s very name had become immoral and scandalous and thus could not be protected as a trademark. Ritchie convinced the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that he had standing to challenge O.J.'s trademarks under the Lanham Act. O.J. has since abandoned his trademarks.