Note to O.J.: Call the Dream Team

LEAVE IT to O.J. Simpson. In the mid-1990s, his trial for the murder of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman provided millions of Americans with an eye-opening education in the workings of the American criminal justice system.

We learned about the crucial importance of choosing a jury in a racially charged case, about the probative value of DNA evidence, and about the phenomenon of jury nullification, where the jury acquits notwithstanding the strength of the government's case.

We also discovered that it is possible to be acquitted in a criminal case for murder and subsequently lose a civil verdict for wrongful death, owing to the lower burden of proof required in the latter. And, perhaps most of all, we came to understand the extraordinary advantage it is to have a high-priced "Dream Team" of criminal defense lawyers on one's side.

Now, O.J. is back, and his latest case may provide us with another lesson in criminal law.

Yesterday, in Las Vegas, Simpson was arrested and charged with six felony counts in connection with an alleged hotel room robbery.

Two sports memorabilia dealers told police that Simpson and five men burst into their room at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino, several of them brandishing guns, and seized various mementos, including many items autographed by Simpson.

Since the allegations surfaced at the end of last week, Simpson has repeatedly asserted his innocence. Simpson has maintained that no guns were used and that he had been conducting a "sting operation" to recover property that, he says, had been stolen from him years earlier by a former sports agent. According to Simpson, "[Y]ou've got to understand, this ain't somebody going to steal somebody's drugs or something like that. This is somebody going to get his private [belongings] back. That's it. That's not robbery."

Simpson may indeed have a good argument. Under well-settled law, one who takes the property of another in the honest, even if mistaken, belief that it is his own has a valid defense to charges of theft and robbery. In such a case, the defendant asserts that he was acting under a "claim of right." He argues that, because he believed that the property belonged to him, he lacked the intent necessary to steal. As to how the defendant can prove his claim that he had such a belief, one of the factors is the openness of the taking. The more overt the circumstances of the taking, the more likely the court will believe that it was done in good faith.

Thus, if the property Simpson sought to take from the Palace Station Hotel room really was property that belonged to him, or even if he merely believed that it was, he would have a valid defense to charges of theft.

Such an argument would be bolstered by the fact that the taking was apparently done in an overt manner.

Unfortunately for Simpson, this defense would not necessarily get him entirely out of hot water. Just because one has a right to recover from another property that he believes to be his own does not mean that he has a right to use force or violence to effect such recovery. In this case, it has been alleged that at least several of Simpson's companions were armed. While using a gun to recover property to which one has a rightful claim ordinarily does not constitute theft or robbery, it does constitute armed assault. That is, the law allows those who have property taken from them to use "self-help" to recover such property, but it does not allow violent means to effect such self help.

The fact that Simpson was not himself carrying a gun should not matter. If it could be proved that he was working in concert with others who he knew were carrying guns, their actions could be ascribed to him under principles of accomplice and conspiracy liability.

In short, it looks like O.J. is once again in serious legal jeopardy, though perhaps for a different crime than it may at first appear. He could surely use some top flight legal talent. O.J.'s lead lawyer in the murder trial, Johnnie Cochran, has since died. For O.J.'s sake, one can only hope that he still has the names of some of the other Dream Team lawyers on his speed dial.

Stuart Green is a professor of law at Louisiana State University and author of "Lying, Cheating, and Stealing: A Moral Theory of White Collar Crime."