O.J. Simpson a mediocre criminal who committed a stupid crime

It wasn't the "Crime of the Century." It wasn't even the trial of the week at the Regional Justice Center.

But when a jury late Friday night returned resounding guilty verdicts in the armed robbery and kidnapping trial of fallen sports idol O.J. Simpson and his snake-bitten sidekick, Clarence "C.J." Stewart, the defendants appeared anything but surprised.

Devastated, perhaps. Reeling at the possibility of being slammed with life sentences, almost certainly. But not surprised.

Did Simpson's slumped shoulders and tragicomic frown betray a man whose life's dark debts had finally come due? Could Simpson feel all the bad Karma swirl around him 13 years to the day since he was acquitted of butchering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman?

I'd like to think so.

Defense attorneys and courthouse wags might protest that this Not So Great Case of the Stolen Memorabilia only resulted in criminal charges because of Simpson's blood-stained notoriety. Others will shrug at the uncanny lay down of the state's key witnesses, former Simpson acolytes who cut deals with District Attorney David Roger to avoid the likelihood of lengthy prison stretches.

But the fact is the actions taken by Simpson and Stewart warranted felony charges and criminal convictions. Any reasonable person who listened to the recorded showdown in the Palace Station hotel room on Sept. 13, 2007, had enough evidence to reach that conclusion. The government's flawed but numerous cooperating witnesses fleshed out the argument.

Rumors to the contrary, there's plenty of room in our justice system to prosecute a gaggle of thugs who got caught intimidating and robbing people. And despite Nevada's overcrowded prison problem, there's enough cell space for them, too.

The real question is not whether Simpson would have been charged had he not been so notorious, but whether the DA's office would have been inclined to cut him a deal to avoid burdening the taxpayer with a trial. Four of Simpson's co-defendants turned on him for a reason; they had hard facts against them, and they didn't want to go to prison for what amounted to crude intimidation and felonious acts of sycophancy.

Appeals in this case are certain. It's unlikely the 61-year-old Simpson, who has denied the undeniable for more than a decade and lived a life of privilege since his Heisman Trophy days at the University of Southern California, will suddenly experience an epiphany and start taking responsibility for his actions. He had fierce advocates in defense attorneys Yale Galanter and Gabriel Grasso, but that's unlikely to pop the lock on the penitentiary door any time soon.

"The facts in the case are the facts," Galanter told a handful of reporters outside the courthouse. "There are no smoking guns or hidden agendas. I think the jurors just saw it differently than Gabe and I saw it."

Perhaps that's because the jurors weren't getting paid a pile of money to pretend damning tape recordings didn't tell a simple truth of intimidation.

"From the beginning my biggest concern ... was whether or not jurors would be able to separate their very strong feelings about Mr. Simpson and judge him, you know, fairly, equally, and honestly," Galanter said.

In light of the hotel room recording alone, Galanter's lament rings hollow. And jurors didn't have to warmly embrace the prosecution's snitch witnesses, who were about as persuasive as you'd expect them to be after having traded their freedom for their testimony. But even when they downplayed the incident at the Palace Station, it wasn't their legal opinion that was being sought.

It's not Simpson but Stewart who has the best argument for appeal. District Judge Jackie Glass easily could have -- and in my opinion should have -- severed his trial from Simpson's to ensure Stewart wasn't stained by The Juice's notoriety.

That's not to say he would have walked out of the courthouse a free man: Stewart, too, was captured on tape menacing the sports memorabilia dealers.

Perhaps if Stewart wins a new trial he will receive the deal he should have begged for a year ago.

Some will scoff at the Simpson trial and ridicule its importance to society, but you don't have to look far in a Nevada prison to find a mediocre criminal convicted of committing a stupid crime.

After all these years, that's what O.J. Simpson has become.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.