By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black news venues (www.clevelandurbannews.com) Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by phone at 216-659-0473
LAS VEGAS, Nevada-Legendary former pro football player O.J. Simpson (pictured) testified this week against the lawyer that got him a prejudicial nine to 33 year prison sentence nearly five years ago on kidnapping and armed robbery charges, hoping to get a new trial.
Simpson, 65, took the stand in a Nevada courtroom on Wednesday after not doing so by his former attorney's advice during his trial in 2008 and said that Miami attorney Yale Galanter knew that he did not know that two companions had guns in a 2007 confrontation with memorabilia dealers that he says were scamming him. He testified that Galanter advised him to "go get his stuff" and that the attorney did not tell him of a plea deal.
And Simpson, who is Black, reminded a prejudicial public that 33 years in the slammer is a bit much since he did not have a gun and "nobody got hurt."
Galanter contradicted much of Simpson's allegations during his testimony Thursday afternoon but could not produce anything in writing confirming that he told his client of a plea deal. As legal pundits predicted, he told the judge that Simpson got a raw deal but that Simpson allegedly knew guns would be involved.
Simpson's current attorneys have accused Galanter of ineffective assistance of counsel at trial, and on appeal, and argued that all he wanted was O.J.'s money in exchange for selling him out.
The Black community is divided on the issue, some admitting that O.J. is still a target by the White establishment for beating criminal charges in 1995 that he murdered ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, both White. Other Blacks say that even after standing behind him in that case, O.J. continued to run around with White women and thumbed his nose at being Black.
Simpson won his celebrated capital murder case, one handed down by a majority Black jury that divided America along racial lines, with the late Johnny Cochran as his lawyer and a legal team subsequently dubbed "the dream team."
The brilliant Cochran, famous for winning record breaking excessive force and police brutality lawsuits against Las Angeles police, died of of a brain tumor in 2005.
