to the attorney's presentation. Congressmen canceled press conferences, with one telling reporters, "Not only would you not be here, but I wouldn't be here, either". Acquittal and aftermath African American LAPD Police Chief Willie Williams indicated that he had no plans to reopen the investigation, saying of the acquittals, "It doesn't mean there's another murderer". The LAPD also declined to reexamine the evidence with modern methods because Simpson can not be tried for the same crime again under the Fifth Amendment. Legislative changes The strong public reaction to Brown's letters and statements describing her abuse spurred passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, which Clark and Douglas referred to as the "O.J. rule". After the trial, researchers reported increased reporting, arrests, and harsher sentences for those convicted of domestic violence. Analysis of polling data After the verdict, polling showed that 75% of White Americans thought Simpson was guilty while 70% of African Americans thought he was innocent. An NBC poll taken 10 years later in 2004 reported similar results with 87% of whites believing Simpson was guilty compared to only 27% of African Americans believing so. In 2016, 20 years after the verdict, polling showed the gap had narrowed with a majority of both now believing he was guilty: 83% of white Americans and 57% of black Americans. Political impact and civil rights Scholarly consensus is that the trial damaged race relations in America and point to polling which shows that belief in Simpson's guilt depended on the race of the individual and not on the evidence against him. Analysis of the "racial gap" in polling shows that it did not cross the political spectrum. Conservatives regardless of race or gender thought Simpson was guilty. Where the gap emerged was among liberals – with black liberals believing Simpson was innocent while white liberals thought he was guilty. African American Stanford University Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford wrote that this made the verdict a wedge issue that divided liberals along racial lines as white liberals felt the verdict was a racially motivated jury nullification and resented the images of African Americans celebrating the verdict. Opponents of civil rights seized upon the situation and rebranded themselves as advocating "race neutrality", instead of "separate but equal", which appealed to white liberals now due to the verdict and is credited with why voters in California passed proposition 209 in 1996 that ended