Parole Board Got Something Very Wrong About OJ

New York Times reports they were unaware of his 1989 battery conviction
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 12, 2017 7:00 AM CDT
Parole Board Got Something Very Wrong About OJ
In this July 20 photo, O.J. Simpson enters his parole hearing at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nev.   (Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, Pool, File)

OJ Simpson will be a free man in October thanks to the decision of a Nevada parole board. But the New York Times reports on a jarring oversight that perhaps could have changed board members' thinking. During the hearing, members stated that Simpson had no criminal convictions. Not true. He was, of course, acquitted in his famous murder trial, but prior to that, in 1989, he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery of wife Nicole Brown Simpson. The problem is, that court result for some reason never made it into a giant FBI database, known as the National Crime Information Center, upon which parole board officials around the country base their decisions.

Nevada officials recently re-checked the NCIC after an inquiry from the Times and still came up empty. "This most recent report also makes no mention of the 1989 California court record," says a state parole board official. Would it have made a difference? Tough to say. Board members won't comment, and Simpson, now 70, had no behavioral blemishes on his prison record. And, no, the oversight isn't cause to have the decision reviewed. CNN has more details on the 1989 assault, after which Nicole Brown Simpson told police she feared Simpson was going to kill her. (The famous white Ford Bronco in Simpson's police chase can be yours, for a price.)

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