Justice for O.J. Simpson

O.J. Simpson is the former football star and movie actor who was acquitted of murder in a criminal trial 13 years ago in the Los Angeles slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

They were hacked to death with a knife.

Though found "not guilty" at his criminal trial, Simpson, a knife collector, was found liable for the killings in a civil case and later wrote a book titled "If I Did It."

It would be fruitless to pretend such a larger-than-life figure could be brought to trial on other charges -- even in as celebrity-jaded a town as Las Vegas -- without many saying, "Oh yeah, that's the guy who got away with murder."

But justice does not require amnesia. Justice merely requires that prosecutors, judges and jurors do their best to deal only with the facts at hand, the current charges.

O.J. Simpson was brought to trial in Las Vegas this year on charges that he orchestrated and participated in an armed robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers, Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong, at the palace Station hotel in 2007.

Simpson's attorneys portrayed him as a man who simply sought to recover game balls, plaques and other heirlooms stolen from him a decade ago.

His Las Vegas jury rejected those arguments, however, convicting Simpson, 61, and co-defendant Clarence "C.J." Stewart, 54, on all counts two months ago.

Before sentencing on Friday, Judge Glass heard an emotional statement from Simpson, whose voice quavered as he protested that he did not realize his actions amounted to crimes. Judge Glass then imposed a sentence that will keep the former football star behind bars between seven and 33 years.

"I'm not here to try and cause any retribution or any payback for anything else," the judge told the packed courtroom. But the robbery "was actually a very violent event."

The law does not consider ownership an exonerating circumstance -- a justification -- for armed robbery.

Simpson plans to appeal his convictions.

Let that play out as it may. The question for Las Vegans is whether such a "celebrity" faced the same justice before the law as would some anonymous "John Doe" -- whether O.J. Simpson received neither harsher nor more lenient justice than would O.J. Jones.

The defendant's wealth and notoriety guaranteed one thing -- that his case wasn't shuffled off to be handled in "cattle call" fashion by some overworked public defender and assistant prosecutor who might have been more likely to "cut a deal."

If anything, that means the justice system -- all ideals aside -- probably went to a lot more trouble to make sure this man received appropriate justice before the law.

It's not vindictive to be proud of a justice system which seeks a reasonable balance between firmness and accountability on the one hand, compassion on the other. Yes, in this case justice was firm. But 61-year-old men do not "accidentally" organize armed robberies.

And no man is above the law.