IT'S ON --- NEVADA SUPREME COURT SAYS NO

Court won’t delay OJ trial


By BRENDAN RILEY Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 08/28/2008 03:17:03 PM PDT

CARSON CITY, Nev.—A request from O.J. Simpson’s last remaining co-defendant to delay the Sept. 8 start of the pair’s armed robbery and kidnapping trial was rejected Thursday by a divided Nevada Supreme Court panel.The high court’s 2-1 order went against Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, with Justices Bill Maupin and Ron Parraguirre refusing to stay the upcoming trial, which is expected to take at least five weeks, and also refusing to consider Stewart’s petition for a separate trial.

Justice Michael Cherry dissented, saying he would have granted the stay and called for an answer from prosecutors to the petition for separate trials.

The brief majority order said justices “are not satisfied that this court’s intervention by way of extraordinary writ is warranted at this time.”

Stewart’s attorney, Robert Lucherini, appealed to the Supreme Court after Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass refused to halt proceedings. The lower court judge had delayed the start of the trial once in April, and had vowed not to postpone it again.

Lucherini argued it will be impossible for Stewart to get a fair trial sitting next to Simpson, an NFL Hall of Fame player, actor and advertising pitchman who was acquitted in 1995 in Los Angeles of criminal charges that he murdered his ex-wife and her friend.

Simpson and Stewart are the last two remaining defendants in the case that stems from a Sept. 13, 2007, confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers at a casino hotel room in Las Vegas.

Each man faces 12 charges, including felony kidnapping, armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. A kidnapping conviction carries the possibility of life in prison with the possibility of parole, and a robbery conviction would mean mandatory prison time.

Four former co-defendants who accompanied Simpson and Stewart accepted plea deals and agreed to testify against Simpson about the ill-fated meeting with the two collectibles dealers, Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, and Tom Riccio, another dealer who arranged the meeting.

Simpson maintains he went to the hotel room to retrieve items stolen that had been from him, that he didn’t ask anyone to bring guns and didn’t know anyone in the room was armed.