The highly publicized trial in South Africa of Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympics star sprinter acquitted this week of murder but convicted of culpable homicide, often has been likened to the case of O.J. Simpson, the former American football star found not guilty in 1995 of stabbing to death his former wife and her friend in an upscale section of Los Angeles.
Both Pistorius and Simpson were accused of killing attractive women, and their respective trials became long-running televised spectacles.
What’s more, news reports from Pretoria, where Pistorius, 27, was tried for the fatal shooting of his 29-year-old girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, went so far as to call the proceedings the “trial of the century” — the hyperbolic term often applied to the Simpson trial, which stretched from late January to early October 1995.
While the two cases offer some similarities, the differences between them are striking — and more pronounced and revealing than surface parallels.
A notable difference lies in the respective outcomes. Pistorius was acquitted of murder, the most serious charge against him, but found guilty of the equivalent of manslaughter — that he acted with negligence in firing the shots that killed Steenkamp at his home early on Valentine’s Day 2013. Pistorius faces sentencing next month.
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