At least one member of the panel, Brenda Moran, a 44-year-old black computer technician, talked briefly outside her home.

"I think we did the right thing -- in fact, I know we did," said Ms. Moran. When she was asked why the verdict was reached so quickly, in less than four hours on Monday, she said, "We were there for nine months. We didn't need another nine months to decide."

But the Los Angeles County District Attorney, Gil Garcetti, said, "Apparently, this decision was based on emotion that overlapped reason."

The jurors sat through 126 witnesses, were presented with 1,105 pieces of evidence, 45,000 pages of transcripts, and heard closing arguments that evoked Adolf Hitler, conscience and history. They were told by the defense that if gloves found at the murder scene and at Mr. Simpson's home "do not fit -- you must acquit." They were urged by the prosecution to follow a trail of blood from the murder scene to Mr. Simpson's house.

Each day, the jurors had been told by Judge Ito not to form an opinion about the case and not to discuss the case among themselves. But in the end, their deliberations were so brief that many lawyers thought their minds had been made up long ago.

The "mountain of evidence," cited by the prosecution, may never have been climbed once the jury was given the case.

"Jurors vote with their heart and use their minds to support it," said Sonya Hamlin, a New York-based jury consultant and author of "What Makes Juries Listen." She said research showed that juries tended to make up their minds early in the trial, "and then use the rest of the trial to support how they feel."