O.J. Simpson In Court Monday To Argue For New Trial

O.J. Simpson wants another day in court, and he’ll get it starting Monday, when he will testify in a five-day hearing in the Clark County District Court. In what has been described as a “Hail Mary” bid for his freedom, the 65-year-old convict will ask Judge Linda Marie Bell to grant him a new trial for his part in a 2007 hotel room robbery at Palace Station Casino in Las Vegas, NV.

Bell has agreed to hear 19 motions from the Simpson defense team, now headed by Patricia Palm, mostly arguing that Simpson’s former attorney Yale Galanter provided inadequate or even dangerous representation.

O.J. Simpson didn’t testify in court in his own defense during the 2008 trial but he now claims that Yale Galanter advised him that it was legal to approach the sports memorabilia dealers to take back his own belongings. He even claimed that he had dinner with Galanter before the heist and was again told that he was within his rights.

Unfortunately for Simpson, a chilling audio of the visit to the Palace Station hotel room — complete with Simpson’s yelling and f-bombs– convinced a jury and much of the rest of America that Simpson was guilty of a violent armed robbery. If he just came to pick up his own stolen property, why the guns and goons?

In addition to accusing Galanter of giving bad advice before the crime, Simpson will also argue that his former lawyer completely botched a possible plea deal. The rejected offer would have allowed Simpson to serve only two years for the crime.

After his conviction for robbery and kidnapping, O.J. Simpson was sentenced to nine to 33 years and won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 70.

While most motions to overturn a jury trial on the grounds of having a bad lawyer don’t succeed, ESPN’s Lester Munson suggested that the argument had a better chance of working than another Simpson try in April 2012.

Then he planned to argue that the concussions he’d suffered as a football player had affected his judgment, somehow making him not responsible for his actions. A 2012 sworn court statement from Simpson said he’d suffered repeated blows to the head during his 15 years as a college and then a professional football player.

His legal team ultimately dropped that idea, and the new O.J. Simpson court filings go on the attack against Yale Galanter.

[1990s O.J. Simpson photo by Gerald Johnson via Wikimedia Commons]