Transcript of statement by Judge Jackie Glass at O.J. Simpson sentencing

Earlier in this case, at a bail hearing, I asked — said — to Mr. Simpson I didn't know if he was arrogant or ignorant or both. And during the trial and through this proceeding, I got this answer, and it was both.

At the time — not after you've been locked up for 64 days at the time of this event — and at the time I saw you at the bail hearing, it was clear to the court that you believed you could do in Las Vegas what you couldn't do elsewhere. You could get your stuff back.

Now there's still questions about whose stuff it is. I think that's still in dispute. You thought it was yours. Your counsel said that over and over again to me during the trial, and now during the sentencing, as well as you. The tapes, however, in this case indicated to me when I listened that you didn't want all of those items to fall into the hands of the Goldmans. And you were heard on the tape making reference to them as the gold diggers. That was then, this is now.

So you put your group together and you went to the Palace Station to get those items back. And what you didn't know, and also you, Mr. Stewart, didn't know, was the planning was taped, the event was taped, phone calls were taped, conversations were taped. They had videotape of you going in and videotape of you going out, and the party afterwards were (cq) taped. Everything in the case was on tape.

And it's your own words, Mr. Simpson, your own words that can be heard throughout those events that have brought you here to this seat in my courtroom. 'Cause we heard it all. And what came out on the tapes said to me, and obviously to the jury, that the evidence in this case was overwhelming. It was overwhelming.

How often as a judge do I sit and listen to a trial and hear everything laid out for me to be able to hear? It's very rare.

Now, the event in question, in the room at the Palace Station where ... I went to that room, and it was a little bitty room, and there were a lot of you big guys in that little bitty room. And when I heard the tape, that was not a "Oh, just give me my stuff back, I want my stuff." That was, "Nobody leave the room."

That was actually a very violent event. And I don't care what Beardsley says now, or what Fromong says now. I know what Beardsley says immediately afterwards when he called the police. We heard that too. And that was a violent event. Guns were brought. Gun — at least one gun was drawn. The potential for harm to occur in that room was tremendous. And I don't know — I don't know how fortunate you consider yourself to be at this moment — but really, truly, if the gun had gone off and bullets started flying, not only could one in the room have been hurt, but some poor tourists walking down the hallway or worker at that hotel could have been hurt. That is why we have rules in the state of Nevada that say you can't take back your own property by force, anybody else's property by force. You can't do it. There's no self-help. You cannot do it. But you did.

Now, I hear Mr. Galanter. He says Mr. Simpson was just stupid, he didn't really mean to do anything wrong. That is not really evidenced by what transpired here. When you take a gun with you and you take men with you to show in a show of force, that's not just a hey, give me my stuff back. That's something else. And that's what went on here. And that's why we are all here because this is not behavior that we can just say, oops, it's OK, no problem, don't worry. No harm, no foul.

Then after the event, all of a sudden the realization hits and there are phone calls made. There was no gun, there was no gun, there was no gun. Mr. Simpson made those phone calls. There was no gun. Well, why in the heck would he be calling anybody to say there was no gun? Except the fact that he realized there was a gun, and oops, I might be in some trouble. And then at the party, at the party, the laughter, the joking, Did you see the look on his face? Ha-ha-ha. Isn't this funny? You knew what was going on there. You knew.

And Mr. Stewart, you got caught up in something. I'm not sure how much you knew, but clearly Mr. Simpson knew.

I actually am surprised that I heard from you, Mr. Simpson. I believed there wasn't going to be a statement from you, and I was going to be concerned about your lack of responsibility for this action. And it's kind of a fine line in what you said to me. I hear what you said and what Mr. Galanter said, which is I didn't intend to do anything wrong, so I must not have done something wrong, so there was no criminal intent, it was just all stupidity. I have to tell you now, it was much more than stupidity. And it's rare that I have somebody talking to me at a sentencing about mens rea (legal term for "guilty mind") and criminal intent. It doesn't matter. You went to the room, and you took guns — meaning you and the group. You used force. You took property, whether it was yours or somebody else's. And in this state, that amounts to robbery, with use of a deadly weapon. Whether it's you having the gun, or Mr. McClinton having the gun, or Mr. Alexander having the gun.

And when I first started this trial and I talked to the jury when we had the whole panel in, I stated to the group that if this was — if they were here because they wanted to punish Mr. Simpson for what happened previously, then this was not the case for them. And I meant that. As the judge in this case, I'm not here to sentence Mr. Simpson for what has happened in his life previously in the criminal justice system. As a judge who presides in this courtroom every day and over trials — hundreds of trials during the six years I have been here, I have great respect for the criminal justice system. I am part of it. And as a judge who has taken jury verdicts for years, I respect the verdicts of my juries. I have to respect what happened in the case 13 years ago with Mr. Simpson. The jury decided. There are many people that disagreed with that verdict, but that doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that the state brought charges, a trial was conducted, and evidence was heard, testimony received, the jury deliberated. They reached a verdict. And I have to respect that verdict as well. There is nothing more that's going to happen here, other than a sentence for you, Mr. Stewart, and a sentence for you, Mr. Simpson, based on the evidence that occurred in this case. I'm not here to try and cause any retribution or any payback for anything else. I want that to be perfectly clear to everybody. Because if I did, then I wouldn't be doing my job as a judge who presides over a courtroom in this jurisdiction.

OK. The problem is that I can't ignore that the behavior at the time on September 13th was reckless. It disregarded the law, the law was broken, force was used, guns were used — or at least a gun was used — there was another gun there. The potential for harm was great. You're fortunate nothing happened. Property was stolen. The jury convicted you, and now I'll sentence you.

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Feel free to rot in jail, Orenthal James. It couldn't have happened to a more deserving individual.