Apart from agreeing with what everyone else has said, my history with OJ is one step removed. My second cousin grew up and was close with the Kardashians and hence knew OJ and his kids and was part of that household ironically enough! That part of my family was sincerely shocked back then much like the Kardashians as they couldn't and didn't want to believe it. Natural I guess. My history is that during the trial I was graduating college and decided to do it via a night summer class to finish. SO, guess what I did all day - watched this trial. I was still considering law school and quite frankly OJ's trial team were some of my heroes at the time, I loved F. Lee Bailey and Alan Dershowitz so honestly it was fascinating spectacle.
That said, IMO, the defense team was brilliant start to finish, and Johnnie Cochran gave some of the most legendary criminal court moves/speeches ever. As a prelaw student, I was fascinated and at times in awe, as a human being, I was disgusted and disappointed because he was guilty. That said, you had probably the worst Prosecution team ever put together, some of the worst Detectives ever known and they got their rear end handed to them day after day. I kind of always thought that at least one juror voted not guilty due to the horrible performance of the prosecution. Funnily enough, as time distances itself, Marcia Clark became and help paint herself as a victim of injustice. Horse crap, the only victims were the families of the slain, not Marcia Clark. To put it blunt, she sucked and she is the ultimate reason OJ was acquitted. Period and end.
Anyhow, IMO, he was a football great, did a lot of good things, but in the end, whether it was a crime of passion, jealousy or just heinous, he killed two innocent people, and no one was to blame but himself. He ruined everything in the course of a New York minute. I personally believe that he had anger and lost emotional control and he committed murder. I also think he was very close to confessing it until Robert Kardashian (his friend and lawyer) did what a good attorney does and told him to "shut up". Then they assembled a team and that team looked at the investigation (botched that is) as well as the other side of incompetent attorneys and convinced him they could get a Not Guilty verdict and they did.
Final word - while watching that full trial day after day, I can tell you that there was no shock in my body when they said Not Guilty. As wrong a verdict as it was (time has proven that out), it was the verdict. It proves the old adage that you can get away with murder if you can afford the right attorney!
Tom