#10 - Snoop Dog
Mentioned in his song “Murder Was The Case,” rapper Snoop Dogg was charged in connection with the 1993 murder of Phillip Woldermarian. The rival gang member was allegedly shot and killed by Snoop’s bodyguard McKinley Lee while Snoop drove the car. Much from the help of fellow OJ Simpson defender Johnnie Cochran, Snoop Dogg was acquitted of the murder under claims of self defense. Unlike Simpson, Snoop Dogg’s professional career didn’t suffer from the case as he went on to become one of the most well known rappers of all time.
# 9 - Robert Blake
In 2005 the American actor was tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley. She was shot in the head, following dinner at a restaurant with Blake.
He proclaimed his innocence, but when two stuntmen, Ronald ‘Duffy’ Hambleton and Gary McLarty testified against him, claiming Blake tried to hire them to kill his wife, further doubt was cast upon his story. He surprisingly walked free but on November 18th 2005 he was found liable for her wrongful death after Bakley’s three children filed a civil suit against him. He was ordered to pay $30 million.
# 8 - William Kennedy Smith
Doctor, activist and member of the Kennedy family, William Kennedy Smith was accused of rape in a highly publicized trial in 1991. After drinking with Senator Ted Kennedy at a Florida bar, the accuser stated that she went home with Smith and was raped. Smith claimed the act was consensual, a position that the jury agreed with when they acquitted him of the rape charges. His history however followed him as Smith was later named in two separate civil suits claiming sexual assault.
# 7 -Lorena Bobbitt
Lorena Bobbitt was charged with malicious wounding after chopping off the penis of her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, and throwing it out of a car window on a Virginia highway. Lorena argued at her trial that John Wayne had emotionally, physically and sexually abused her during their marriage, including raping her on the night of the incident in 1993. Though she was later found guilty of a separate assault, Lorena was acquitted of the amputation by reason of insanity. As for John Wayne, his penis was later found and reattached, allowing him to star in adult films.
# 6 - The Los Angeles Police Department
Bringing the term “police brutality” into our vocabulary, four members of the Los Angeles Police Department were charged with using excessive force back in March 1991. Following a high-speed chase, Rodney King, the African-American driver, was beaten excessively by the Los Angeles officers all while a bystander videotaped the incident. Each of the officers were acquitted of charges in a 1992 trial, leading to rioting and looting in Los Angeles for over three days in disgust of the verdict.
# 5 -R. Kelly
The rapper was facing 15-years in jail on child pornography but managed to walk completely free. He was accused of videotaping himself having sex with an under-age girl, his goddaughter. The tape was then sent to the Chicago Sun-Times who handed it over to the police.
Kelly insisted it was not him in the footage. The jury found him not guilty but some jurors later spoke to the press and admitted while they thought it was him, they were unsure as to the girl’s identity and were therefore unable to prove he was having sex with an underage girl.
# 4 -John Hinckley Jr.
The verdict of ‘not guilty’ by reason of insanity in the 1982 trial of John Hinckley Jr. for his attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan resulted in widespread dismay. Hinckley was obsessed with Jodie Foster and on March 30, 1981 he shot Reagan six times as he left a hotel in Washington, D.C in an effort to impress her.
He injured three other people and was charged with 13 offenses but dodged prison because of the controversial plea. He was institutionalized at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and remains there to this day.
# 3 - Casey Anthony
Described as “OJ number two,” the trial of Casey Anthony shocked and divided the United States when the Florida single mother was acquitted of murdering her two-year-old daughter Caylee Anthony in July 2011. Casey Anthony failed to report the child missing, lied to investigators and was seemingly unbothered during the months the child was missing. Despite evidence that Anthony’s trunk contained human decomposition and the fact that Anthony’s guilt had already been decided by the media, Anthony was found not guilty for the murder, only convicted of providing false information to law enforcement officers.
# 2 - Michael Jackson
Beginning in May 2002, Jackson allowed a documentary film crew, led by British TV personality Martin Bashir, to follow him around just about everywhere he went. Bashir’s film crew was with Jackson during the “baby-dangling incident” in Berlin. The program was broadcast in March 2003 as Living with Michael Jackson, and painted an extraordinarily unflattering portrait of the singer.
In a particularly controversial scene, Jackson was seen holding hands and discussing sleeping arrangements with a young boy.As soon as the documentary aired, the Santa Barbara county attorney’s office began a criminal investigation. Jackson was arrested in November 2003, and was charged with seven counts of child molestation and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent in relation to the 13 year old boy shown in the film.Jackson denied the allegations, saying the sleepovers were not sexual in nature. The People v. Jackson trial began on January 31, 2005, in Santa Maria, California, and lasted five months, until the end of May. On June 13, 2005, Jackson was acquitted on all counts. After the trial, in a highly publicized relocation he moved to the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain, as a guest of Sheikh Abdullah.
# 1 - O.J. Simpson
Accused of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, former National Football League player OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder in the “Trial of the Century” in 1995. Simpson was widely believed to be guilty, especially after leading police on a low-speed chase in his white Ford Bronco, but his dream team of attorneys convinced the jury that the evidence to convict the athlete and actor was insufficient. In 1997, Simpson was found financially liable for the deaths in a civil trial. 10 years later, Simpson released a controversial and allegedly hypothetical book titled “If I Did It.”
