OJ Simpson in Court: Seeks Re-Trial in Las Vegas Burglary to Avoid Life in Prison
O.J. Simpson will return to a Las Vegas court Monday in hopes of seeking a retrial for an armed robbery and kidnapping.
The former Hall of Fame football player, who is now serving a 33-year sentence for armed robbery and kidnapping, will argue in court on Monday that he was so poorly represented during the 2008 trial that his conviction should be overturned. Simpson was accused of entering the Palace Station hotel-casino in 2007 and stealing memorabilia at gunpoint. He later argued that he was only trying to reclaim items that already belong to him.
Simpson became a worldwide name the first time he went on trial in 1995 for the murder of his ex-wife and her friend. Categorized as the "trial of the century," the trial was resolved in a "not guilty" verdict, which surprised many. The Vegas trial was less known.
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After his run-ins with the law, however, some have commented that any trial concerning O.J. Simpson is likely to cause public interest.
"Nothing is the same when O.J. is involved," Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson, who observed Simpson's Los Angeles trial, told Fox news. "An O.J. case is never like any other case."
Simpson, 65, has already spent the past four years in prison; he must serve an additional nine years before he can qualify for parole. If the new trial fails to result in an overturn, Simpson will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. Due to the previous 1995 controversy, though, some lawyers have argued that Simpson will likely never get a fair trial.
"I don't think O.J. Simpson could ever get a fair trial, period, based on his reputation from California," John Momot, a lawyer nearing 40 years of criminal defense in Las Vegas, told the Associated Press. "But based on these allegations, if you took Joe Jones from the street and put him in the same situation, I think it would be possible he'd get a new trial."
