Race has always been a significant issue in the United States and particularly in the criminal justice system. In the United States, racial tension is often seen as that between whites and blacks, even though this is not the case. African-Americans see the system as favoring whites while trying to keep them at the bottom of the ladder. While white people claim that the criminal justice system is colorblind, black people clearly do not think that way; Whites underestimate racial division in the criminal justice system (Bikel, 2005). The high-profile case of OJ Simpson is well known for being a case more about race than murder. In the 1999 Gallup poll, 74 percent of respondents said OJ “probably” or “definitely” committed murder. A black man on trial for allegedly killing two white people, his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman, was let free not because the jury thought he was innocent, but because they were fighting against the system that has so long oppressed black people, mainly black people. men. This article aims to show that OJ owes his “not guilty” verdict to his race and not to his innocence. Immediately after Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were found dead on June 12, 1994, outside Brown's California home, OJ Simpson was a suspect (Linder, 2000). He was a retired football player then living a short distance from Brown's home. Given that this was a black man accused of murdering two white people, racial tensions were already brewing. The importance of race in this case was reflected upon before the trial began, particularly as it related to the jury. The prosecution had decided to conduct jury selection in downtown Los Angeles, even though the crime took place in Santa Monica. Having a trial in Los Angeles meant having a jury made up largely of minorities who...... middle of paper......justices from the corrupt criminal justice system. Because of the publicity of the case, it was easy to use OJ as an informant for all of America, showing the inequalities on which American society is built. Works Cited Bikel, O. (2005). The Olympic verdict. PBS. Accessed December 3, 2013. From: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oj/view/.Gallup. (1995). Opinion polls on the OJ Simpson trial. UMKC School of Law. Accessed December 3, 2013. From: Linder, D. (2000). The Trial of Orenthal James Simpson. UMKC School of Law. Retrieved December 3, 2013 from: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Simpson/Simpsonaccount.htm.Jones, TL (2007). The OJ Simpson murder trial. TruTV. Retrieved December 3, 2013 from: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/simpson/index_1.html.