DA responds to OJ's appeal to state Supreme Court

[September 12, 2009]  LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A Las Vegas prosecutor said Friday that O.J. Simpson was fairly convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping, responding to the football legend's appeal in a sports memorabilia case.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger filed a brief with the state's high court challenging Simpson's appeal of his conviction on 12 charges related to a confrontation with dealers of sport mementos in a Las Vegas casino hotel room.

Simpson was convicted in October and sentenced in December to nine to 33 years in state prison. He is housed at a medium-security prison in Lovelock, about 90 miles east of Reno.

The NFL Hall of Famer who had been acquitted in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, in Los Angeles, has maintained he was trying to retrieve personal items that had been stolen from him and didn't know guns were involved when led the armed escapade with golfing buddies.

The 62-year-old's lawyers want him exonerated of all charges and have cited judicial misconduct, insufficient evidence, a lack of racial diversity on the jury and errors in sentencing and jury instructions in arguing that he should be set free.

Roger outlined eight reasons to uphold the conviction in a 46-page brief, arguing among other things that the court didn't remove two black women from the jury pool because of their race. The jury didn't include any black members.

Neither Roger nor Simpson attorney Yale Galanter immediately responded to messages seeking comment from The Associated Press late Friday.

In the document, Roger said the women were removed, in part, because prosecutors believed they wouldn't convict Simpson despite the state's evidence because of their religious convictions.

One of the women was a pastor in her church, and prosecutors worried that she might be forgiving by nature and able to influence other jurors.

"Prosecutors feared that a minister, whom many believe possesses a higher moral authority, could influence and sway jurors who might otherwise be inclined to convict and punish," the brief said. "Indeed, the state's apprehension ... had nothing to do with her racial background and everything to do with her ministerial position."

Another woman was removed from the jury pool because she made several Biblical references while being questioned by prosecutors and said her beliefs would make it hard to judge someone else's conduct. She said she would not send anybody to jail, Roger said in the brief.

In the brief, Roger also argues that Simpson's belief that he was retrieving his own property is not a defense against robbery and the court was not obligated to give instructions that would have misstated the law.

He also said Judge Jackie Glass properly stopped Simpson's lawyers from cross-examining a witness about things that didn't relate to the charges Simpson faced.

Roger also said in his filing that his attempt to show memorabilia dealer Alfred Beardsley's bias toward Simpson did not constitute prosecutorial misconduct. Beardsley was one of the peddlers whom Simpson confronted on Sept. 13, 2007, for selling mementoes of his career.

The district attorney's brief did not respond to the appeal of Clarence "C.J." Stewart, a 55-year-old friend of Simpson's who was convicted with him and is serving a 7 1/2- to 27-year sentence. Stewart's lawyers have argued that he should have been tried separately from Simpson.

Simpson and Stewart were tried together. Four other men who were with them took plea deals and received probation after testifying for the prosecution.

[Associated Press; By OSKAR GARCIA]

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