Donald Trump, O.J. Simpson and the Real Trial of the Century

O.J. Simpson, who died this week aged 76, was given nothing yet won the world. Everything O.J touched turned to gold. The only thing that could alter O.J. Simpson’s trajectory was himself.

At the peak of his fame, he was not only arguably the greatest running back in NFL history but a media and advertising star at a level that was beyond comprehension.

But the football hero made himself a villain. He may have been on the downside of his arc of fame when he was accused of two murders, but his star wattage had only dimmed a little.

Donald J. Trump, instead, was given everything, almost lost it several times, found himself on TV for another burst of fame, and won a presidency.

But now he finds himself in a courtroom in New York, just like O.J. did in Los Angeles. Their similarities and differences—at least in a before the law—will face the ultimate test in the next few weeks.

I was wrapping up law school in 1995 during the Simpson-mania-fueled emergence of CourtTV and I watched every second. The glove may or may not have fit, but surely there was no way a jury would acquit.

But, of course, they did, allowing “The Juice” to hurdle over justice as he used jump over linebackers on the football fields of the University of Southern California and for the Buffalo Bills of the NFL.

Later, when O.J.’s fall from grace was close to complete, he was found civilly liable for the death of Nicole Brown Simpson and of Ron Goldman.

But the civil suit was both an anticlimax and an afterthought, failing to capture our imagination in any way. The criminal trial was the trial of the century, some legal and media hypercreation we imagined would be impossible to ever eclipse.

And maybe we were right. But in this week of a very different eclipse, we need to consider that over the next few weeks we might be proven wrong.

The most recent former president of the United States is facing not one, not two, but 88 felony charges in a cornucopia of cases.

On Monday, the first criminal trial in history of an American president will begin in a New York courtroom. If that foundation isn’t spicy enough for you, the subject matter is, as we are all well aware, about hush money payments allegedly paid by former President Donald Trump to a very intelligent, capable, and brave person who happens to have achieved more than passing fame in the world of adult entertainment.

Unlike O.J. Simpson’s, Trump’s criminal trial won’t be televised. If this actually is the trial of this century, we’re going to have to use our imaginations to piece it together, and in the age of social media and endless entertainment on demand and we’ve become awful at that.

I’m not sure we can fully digest the gravity of the trial of this century. While the O.J. Simpson trial was about a sports and media star, the Trump trial is about a former president of the United States who is in jeopardy in two federal districts and two state courts.

That there is a possibility that Trump could go to prison is story enough; that the most recent presidential polls still have him in the lead in his reelection bid undeniably takes this to the next-level.

The American jury system is built on the concept of a jury of one’s peers. Yet O.J. Simpson had no peer, and nor does Donald J. Trump.

There is a strong argument to be made that in deep and foundational ways, their only peers may have been each other. Two men who not only, in the parlance of our times, shared an unparalleled vibe among their base of admirers, but also commanded the kind of attention and admiration that few could even dream of.

“To say that juries are unpredictable would be a massive understatement,” Roger V. Archibald, Esq., a Brooklyn criminal defense lawyer, said. “In high-profile cases, the normal challenges of jury selection become exponentially more difficult. In celebrity cases, we need to factor in jurors’ predisposition to have opinions of the defendant. None of this is easy.”

The level of difficulty gets tested next week when they try to empanel a jury in New York. This group of people will then be charged with listening to evidence that will lead them to render a verdict that might not only end in this case being considered the trial of the century but could alter the trajectory of the next presidential election and even American democracy.

That’s tough stuff.

What’s even tougher is that the only way we’ll be able to follow this in real-time is through sense impressions from reporters who scurry out of the courtroom to relate what they saw, processed, and believed, to other journalists who will then attempt to convey this to us. This is the polar opposite of a script from a reality show, an area in which the former president turned current defendant excelled.

O.J. Simpson was given nothing and won the imagination of a nation.

Everything Donald J. Trump touched was gold, until he found ways to tarnish it.

The only thing that could alter Donald J. Trump’s trajectory was himself. At least that’s what a jury is going to be charged with deciding in a few short days.

A Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer, Aron Solomon, JD, is the chief strategy officer forAmplify. He has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, and was elected to Fastcase 50, recognizing the top 50 legal innovators in the world. Aron has been featured in Newsweek, Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, CBS News, CNBC, USA Today, ESPN, Abogados, Today’s Esquire, TechCrunch, The Hill, BuzzFeed, Venture Beat, The Independent, Fortune China, Yahoo!, ABA Journal,Law.com,The Boston Globe, and many other leading publications across the globe.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.