Thanks to the hugely popular FX series American Crime Story: The People V. O.J. Simpson, the so-called trial of the century has been at the forefront of pop culture for the past nine weeks. But FX isn’t the only outlet to revisit the Simpson trial. ESPN has a seven and a half hour docuseries called O.J.: Made in America that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and will air in June. But while the FX series has made Simpson’s guilt a matter of fact and the ESPN documentary chose not to take a stand, a third series produced by Martin Sheen declares a different take in its title. Hard Evidence: O.J. Is Innocent will air on the cable channel Investigation Discovery, with Sheen narrating.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hard Evidence is based on “more than two decades of dogged legwork by Texas private investigator William C. Dear, whose book, O.J. Is Innocent and I Can Prove It, presents ‘never-before seen evidence’ and a compelling alternative theory in a case most people have long thought resolved.” Sheen met Dear through his son, Charlie, who had invited the investigator out to Los Angeles years ago to speak about his work.
Investigation Discovery president Henry Schleiff—who won a highly competitive bid to land the series on his channel—says he, too, once believed Simpson was guilty. “Like most others I had always believed that the evidence showed that [O.J.] did it,” Schleiff says, “I went into this with a tremendous amount of doubt and cynicism, but this is so amazingly convincing that when you do connect the dots and look at the new evidence, it made me accept the fact that O.J. is innocent.”
Sheen and Dear have even higher hopes for the series. Sheen asks, “What if the real killer were still at large? And finally, what if a grand jury convened to reconsider the case based on new evidence?” While Dear says, “I’m hoping that when we do this series, the evidence should be more than enough to get a grand jury indictment.”
Dear and Sheen are no doubt drawing inspiration from other true-crime pop culture phenomenons like NPR’s Serial (which resulted in a retrial for Adnan Syed) and HBO’s The Jinx (which led to the arrest of Robert Durst).
No matter the outcome, this is a far cry from ESPN’s approach, where filmmaker Ezra Edelman said, “The one thing I don’t want people to dwell on is guilt or innocence, which is incidental.” And despite the breadcrumbs in the FX series, American Crime Story creator Larry Karaszewski told Buzzfeed, “We didn’t see this as, ‘We’re going to retry O.J. Simpson.’ We’re going to show you how the case proceeded, and all the unusual things that happened, so that you will understand the verdict.” But if it Martin Sheen has his way, this documentary, which is set to premiere in 2017, will kick off the re-trial of the century.
