Court rules Wolfson’s office can handle O.J.’s appeal
Prosecutors who handled O.J. Simpson's conviction on armed robbery and kidnapping charges in Las Vegas can defend against the former football star's latest bid for release from prison, the Nevada Supreme Court decided Thursday.
The ruling by the state high court in Carson City will affect the names of the players in upcoming court arguments about whether Simpson should get a new trial on allegations that defense attorneys mishandled his trial in 2008.
The court denied an effort by Simpson's appeals lawyer, Patricia Palm, to disqualify the Clark County district attorney's office from handling the appeal because the current district attorney, Steve Wolfson, is married to the District Court judge who handled Simpson's trial.
The high court decision upholds a decision by District Judge Kathleen Delaney earlier this year. She ruled that Wolfson didn't stand to benefit from the outcome of the appeal.
Palm said Thursday she had not yet seen the ruling but was disappointed.
Wolfson was a defense lawyer who became district attorney this year. He never represented Simpson, but he has long been married to former District Judge Jackie Glass, whose rulings in the case are being questioned in Simpson's new bid for freedom.
Glass resigned from the bench in May 2011 to star in a short-lived syndicated television show called "Swift Justice With Jackie Glass." She now handles private mediation cases in Las Vegas. She declined comment Thursday.
Simpson, now 65, was convicted in 2008 in Las Vegas of heading a caper involving five other men, a middleman and two sports memorabilia dealers crammed into a casino hotel room. Two of the men with Simpson brought guns.
Simpson was sentenced in December 2008 to nine to 33 years in state prison.
The NFL Hall of Fame member and former TV and movie actor never testified at trial. His lawyers said he wanted to retrieve family photos and personal mementoes stolen from him after his 1995 acquittal in the Los Angeles killings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
