O.J. Simpson's parole hearing Thursday in Nevada had "everything to do with the murder trial in California," Alan Dershowitz, one of his attorneys, told Newsmax TV.
"If O.J. Simpson hadn't been acquitted of murder in California, he never would have gotten a 33-year sentence," Dershowitz, the Harvard Law School professor emeritus, told "Newsmax Now" host Bill Tucker.
"He would have gotten at most a three-year sentence. He would have been paroled earlier."
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The Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners freed Simpson, 70, after more than eight years in prison, allowing him to walk out of the Lovelock Correctional Center as early as Oct. 1.
In 2008, he received a nine-to-33-year sentence for a bungled armed robbery attempt at a Las Vegas hotel the year before to get the sports memorabilia and other mementos he claimed had been stolen from him.
Dershowitz was part of Simpson's "dream team" of lawyers that represented him in the 1994 slayings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
He was acquitted after a bloody glove found at the scene did not fit — and the jury's decision fueled vicious debate over racism in law enforcement, celebrity justice, and cameras in the courtroom.
"The 900-pound gorilla in the room has always been O.J. Simpson's acquittal in California," Dershowitz told Tucker.
"Under our rule of law, you can't take into account an acquittal in determining whether or not a person stays in jail," he explained. "That would be double jeopardy, punishment twice after he's been acquitted.
"You can't put him on trial again once he's been acquitted.
"If you could find a federal crime that he committed at the time, you could put him on trial in the federal books.
"Double jeopardy doesn't apply across jurisdictional lines," the civil-rights attorney said. "But you can't put him on trial in California for a murder for which he has already been acquitted."
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