OJ Simpson`s kidnapping and robbery trial began overnight with a Las Vegas prosecutor asking jurors to render "the true verdict" against the one-time football star who was famously acquitted of murder more than a decade ago.
OJ Simpson is charged along with Clarence Stewart of robbing a pair of sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint, but Clark County Deputy District Attorney Christopher Owens told the jury during his opening statement that the case had its roots in the aftermath of the so-called "Trial of the Century".
And Mr Owens appeared to invoke that sensational 1990s trial and its controversial verdict when he asked the jury to find Simpson, 61, and Mr Stewart, 54, guilty of a dozen charges that could send them to prison for life.
"Ladies and gentlemen you are the jurors in this case and the final story is going to be told by you," Mr Owens said during his remarks to the panel of nine women and three men.
"You will be able to write that final chapter, the chapter of arrogance and hypocrisy and that will be the true verdict. The verdict you can feel good about," the prosecutor said.
But defence attorney Yale Galanter began his opening statement by taking umbrage at that suggestion, reminding the jury that they could not be influenced by Simpson`s 1990s infamy in reaching a verdict in the current case.
Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass has told jurors to put the Los Angeles murder trial out of their minds.
"This case, as Judge Glass has instructed you so many times I have lost count, is not about what occurred in California," Mr Galanter said.
"This is not a smear campaign against Mr. Simpson, nor should it be," he said. "This is not about writing a book and writing a last chapter about Mr Simpson and his life nor should it be. And Mr Owens knows that."
Prosecutors said Simpson and five other men stormed into a room at the Palace Station hotel and casino in September 2007 and took thousands of dollars in sports memorabilia from dealers Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong at gunpoint.
Defence lawyers argue that Simpson went to the hotel only to retrieve his own stolen belongings and that the former star running back turned Hollywood actor and TV pitchman didn`t know that his cohorts were carrying guns.
Four of Simpson`s original co-defendants have agreed to plead guilty in the case and testify against him.
Simpson`s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman were stabbed and slashed to death on June 12, 1994 and his year-long murder trial transfixed much of the world. A Los Angeles jury cleared Simpson of the charges.
A civil court jury later found Simpson responsible for the deaths and ordered him to pay $US33.5 million in damages to the victims` families, a judgment that remains largely unpaid.
Mr Owens said during his opening remarks that much of the memorabilia taken during Simpson`s raid on Mr Beardsley and Mr Fromong should have been seized to help settle those damages.
He said Simpson had long nursed a grudge over his missing belongings and against former friends whom he believed were selling them off.
