Simpson Liable in Slayings : Compensatory Damages Put at $8.5 Million

Sixteen months after a criminal jury acquitted O.J. Simpson of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, a civil jury Tuesday found the former football star financially liable for both deaths.

The six man, six-woman jury deliberated for three days before returning their verdicts, which awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages to Goldman’s family.

The verdicts were greeted by a brief, shocked outburst in the Santa Monica courtroom of Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki, who instantly demanded silence. Unlike the criminal trial, the jury did not have to render a unanimous verdict, although it did. All 12 jurors voted in favor of the plaintiffs on their first ballot.

The same panel now must determine whether to award punitive damages to the plaintiffs. That phase of the trial begins Thursday.

In the hours preceding the announcement, which was communicated from a courthouse window via hand-held signs to television cameras posted outside the courthouse, crowds of the obsessed and merely curious gathered behind police cordons outside the beachfront courthouse. Tourists snapped photos. Street musicians played. Some spectators brought their babies to the event. Others stood around talking into their cellular phones.

The jury announced that it had reached a decision at 4 p.m., but it took several hours for all the parties to gather at the Santa Monica Courthouse for the reading of the verdicts.

While the judge waited for everyone to arrive, crowds gathered behind police cordons outside the beachfront courthouse. “I was coming home from work and I turned the radio on . . . and they said the verdict was in,” said onlooker Mildred Slaughter. “I wanted to be a part of history. It is history.”

History or not, the civil case was at least the second act in one of the most sensational legal dramas in recent memory. Simpson’s criminal trial, which ended in his acquittal in 1995, aired daily on live television and demolished the ratings of other daytime programs.

The civil trial provided a more subdued sequel after Fujisaki refused to allow television cameras into his courtroom. But it covered much of the same territory, and the plaintiffs’ attorneys managed to present evidence that had eluded prosecutors in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Outside the courthouse, supporters of both sides traded insults, as they--along with the nation--awaited the arrival of Juditha and Lou Brown, the slain Nicole Brown Simpson’s parents; of Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman; and of Simpson.

Appropriately enough in a case in which television often seemed a third party to the proceedings, some local stations carried simultaneous, split-screen coverage of the preparations for the Simpson verdict alongside the live broadcast of President Clinton’s State of the Union address.

At least one local station dropped the president entirely, sticking instead with live coverage of the participants to the courthouse.

The footage lent a surreal symmetry to an affair that burst fully onto the public consciousness with the live television footage of Simpson’s now-famous low-speed chase before his arrest in June 1994.

The defendant made the trek from his nearby Brentwood estate in a dark sport utility vehicle flanked by lines of police officers on motorcycles. Simpson entered the courthouse waving in response to the cheers of well-wishers gathered outside.

Dozens of officers formed a barricade around Fred and Patty Goldman and Goldman’s daughter, Kim, as the family made their way on foot from a hotel across the street to the courthouse.

The attorneys for both sides had kept vigil nearby throughout the third day of deliberations by a jury, predominantly white, that had been forced to begin its discussions anew after the dismissal of one of their colleagues Friday.

The plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Daniel M. Petrocelli, said the wait was “painful--very painful,” and not only because Petrocelli was nursing a case of the flu.

Simpson’s lead counsel, Robert C. Baker, was not available for comment.

At its heart, the civil trial came down to one question: Was O.J. Simpson responsible for the deaths of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman on June 12, 1994?

The jury in Simpson’s criminal trial acquitted him of the murders of both victims. The civil trial was a separate proceeding to determine whether the Heisman Trophy winner could be held financially liable for the two deaths.

The families of the victims chose to pursue the civil action because it was the only form of redress open to them. The constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy dictates that acquittal in a criminal trial precludes any additional prosecution by the state.

The latest verdict encompassed three lawsuits, all wrapped in the peculiar legal jargon of the code of civil procedure.

The first lawsuit, filed by Goldman’s parents, Fred Goldman and Sharon Rufo, accused Simpson of wrongfully causing their son’s death, and asked for compensation for their loss.

The other two were so-called “survivorship claims,” filed by the respective estates of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. Technically, those claims accused Simpson of battery--of harming the two victims without their consent--and asked the jury to compensate the victims’ legal heirs for material damages incurred in the assault.

Since the jury decided to award such damages, the trial’s second phase will begin Thursday. Jurors will determine whether Simpson should be assessed additional punitive damages, designed to punish him financially for his conduct.