On October 3, 1995, former football star O. J. Simpson was acquitted of the brutal 1994 double murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson's criminal trial was a sensational media event of unprecedented proportions. At 252 days, it was the longest trial ever held in California, and courtroom television cameras captured the carnival-like atmosphere of the proceedings. The prosecution's ''mountain of evidence'' was systemically called into doubt by Simpson's team of expensive attorneys, who made the dramatic case that their client was framed by unscrupulous and racist police officers. The jurors' reasonable doubt grew when the defense spent weeks attacking damning DNA evidence, arguing in overly technical terms that delays and other anomalies in the gathering of evidence called the findings into question. Critics of the trial accused Judge Lance Ito of losing control of his courtroom. In polls, a majority of African Americans believed...