O.J. Simpson will head to a Las Vegas courtroom Monday in a bid to have his conviction on armed robbery and kidnapping charges thrown out on the grounds that he did not receive proper legal representation at his 2008 trial.
Simpson, serving 9 to 33 years in prison for his role in a bizarre hotel room robbery in which the former actor and football star argued he was trying to reclaim memorabilia that had been stolen form him, has filed what lawyers call a “Hail Mary motion” seeking freedom. Simpson argues his conviction should be set aside and a new trial ordered because of “ineffective counsel and conflict of interest.”
“Nothing is the same when O.J. is involved,” said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson, who observed Simpson’s Los Angeles trial. “An O.J. case is never like any other case.”
Simpson was famously acquitted on murder charges related to the death of his ex-wife and her friend in a 1995 trial that captivated the nation. When he was sentenced in 2008, Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass, referencing the murder trial, said that her penalty was not intended as “retribution or any payback for anything else.”
She made no mention of the two Las Vegas police detectives overheard in a taped conversation saying that if California authorities couldn’t “get” Simpson, those in Nevada would. The tape was played at the trial.
Simpson has filed 19 claims of ineffective counsel and attorney conflict of interest in the 2008 case. Simpson contends his trial attorney never told him about a plea bargain that had been offered by prosecutors. He also said in a sworn statement that the same attorney knew about the memorabilia sting before it happened, and “he advised me that I was within my legal rights.”
Read more: NBC news
