Kendall Coffey

Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney who headed the largest federal prosecutors' office in America, is the founding member of and a partner at Coffey Burlington, PL. Following his service as a U.S. attorney, he was closely involved with the Elian Gonzalez case and the 2000 presidential election recount. A leading media commentator on high-profile cases, he has appeared on the “Today Show,” “Larry King Live,” “Good Morning America,” “Anderson Cooper 360,” “CNN Headline News,” as well as hundreds of other nationally televised programs.<br><br>For more information please visit <a href="http://www.kendallcoffey.com">http://www.kendallcoffey.com</a> and <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/crimemagazi0b-20/detail/1616142103">Amazon.com </a>

The O.J. Simpson Trial

May 9, 2011

An excerpt from the book Spinning the Law: Trying Cases in the Court of Public Opinion by Kendall Coffey.

by Kendall Coffey

The White Bronco

People love a good car chase. Or at least television news producers think we do. That's why we're treated to endless coverage of the police pursuing one felon or another on the streets – or, more likely, highways – of some major city, most often Los Angeles or Miami. In fact, Bob Tur, the "dean of LA's media helicopter journalists," pioneered the form. By June 17, 1994, he had already broadcast 128 freeway pursuits for KCBS. But no one had ever seen anything like what unfolded in the late afternoon and early evening hours of that day when a white Ford Bronco containing O.J. Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings led a phalanx of 25 police cars on a bizarre low speed chase on the freeways of Southern California.1

Simpson, who was wanted for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, was either trying to escape justice or suicidal, or both; during the chase, he was holding a gun to his head, as Cowlings told police by cell phone. At first, Tur had exclusive footage of the Bronco's progress, but soon his helicopter was joined by six others. When the highway passed through black neighborhoods, people lined the overpasses, cheering, "Go, O.J.!" By the time the pursuit ended safely back in the driveway of Simpson's Brentwood mansion, where the former NFL great surrendered meekly to police, some 95 million Americans had watched all or part of the chase. Networks carried live coverage. NBC even broke into its telecast of Game Five of the NBA Finals.2 It was, in some ways, a fitting media beginning of what became known as "the trial of the century."