What Former Nevada Parole Board Officials Say About O.J. Simpson’s Fate

Parole board commissioners will decide Thursday whether or not the nation’s most infamous inmate, O.J. Simpson, will walk out of prison or not.

NBC News reports that Simpson, who was convicted and imprisoned for armed robbery in Las Vegas nearly a decade ago, will have a live televised parole hearing in which he asks for freedom. He has served nine years of a 33-year-long sentence, and was already granted parole on some of the charges against him in 2013.

The former football star, now 70, was infamously acquitted in 1995 in the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. He was reportedly found liable for the killings in a 1997 civil keys.

Here’s what former Nevada parole board chairs said about O.J.’s chances.

“That’s really the beauty of the system: It’s the same for everyone,” Dorla Salling, who served as chair of the parole board from 2000-2009, told NBC News. “It doesn’t matter what your name is.”

“I don’t think they’re going to be swayed by something that was put out in a media context. They’re looking at a particular crime for which he was incarcerated in Nevada,” said Patton, who served as chair in 1997 and 1998. “I don’t think TV documentaries or shows — I would be very surprised if that played a role in anybody’s thinking.”

Here’s what Thomas Patton, another former chair of the parole board, had to say:

“I don’t think they’re going to be swayed by something that was put out in a media context. They’re looking at a particular crime for which he was incarcerated in Nevada,” said Patton, who served as chair in 1997 and 1998. “I don’t think TV documentaries or shows — I would be very surprised if that played a role in anybody’s thinking.”