O.J. Simpson Wins Parole, Claiming He Has Led a ‘Conflict-Free Life’
“A lot of people lost confidence in the criminal justice system when he was acquitted of the murders,
and I think a lot of people saw the Nevada case as payback justice, kind of a rough justice,” said Laurie L. Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
He has tumbled in the public eye from revered football hero and actor, to reviled wife abuser and murder defendant, to indebted and hapless convicted robber, but O. J. Simpson went before a Nevada parole board on Thursday flashing his usual self-assurance, telling the board
that he was “a good guy” and asserting, implausibly, “I basically have spent a conflict-free life.”
Whether or not the four board members believed him, they voted unanimously to grant him parole when he first becomes eligible
on Oct. 1, after nine years in state prison on charges stemming from a 2007 armed robbery in a Las Vegas hotel room.
Before a mostly black jury, Mr. Simpson’s defense team played to
that mistrust, highlighting racist comments made by Mark Fuhrman, one of the detectives investigating the murders, to argue that Mr. Simpson had been framed.
Even though looking at the facts, we knew he was guilty.”
He said the trial did at least wake some white people up to the vastly different perceptions black people have about the justice system,
but he expressed dismay that the issue seems no better today.
“Obviously, there was a 10,000-pound elephant in that room,” Mr. Simpson’s lawyer, Malcolm Lavergne, said after the parole hearing.
