O.J. Simpson will be eligible for parole next year after being convicted in 2008 of armed robbery charges in Las Vegas, and now a famous doctor is giving some credence to claims his defense attorney made during that trial that Simpson suffers from brain damage from his time as an NFL player in the 1970s.
Dr. Bennet Omalu of Concussion fame is the man who first discovered the prevalence of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in football players, and he told People that he thinks Simpson fits the bill of someone who suffers from the disease.
“I would bet my medical license that he has CTE,” Omalu said in the exclusive. “Given his profile, I think it’s not an irresponsible conclusion to suspect he has CTE.”
One reason Omalu believes Simpson could have been susceptible to CTE, besides the fact that he was an NFL player during a time before the NFL had a clear plan in place for dealing with concussed players, is that Simpson actually has a rather large head. That would mean the impact of a hit would be greater for him than someone with a normal-sized skull.
“If you have a bigger head, that means your head is heavier,” Omalu says. “That means the momentum of your impact would be bigger. It’s basic physics.”
However, even if Simpson was found to have CTE, former federal prosecutor Stanley L. Friedman told People that it would not affect whether he is guilty of a crime (such as, murdering one’s ex-wife), but it would possibly affect the sentence that is given out.
“It might affect his punishment, but not his culpability,” explains Friedman. “If someone has diminished capacity, he can still be responsible for the crime. It’s more an argument in mitigation in terms of a sentence.”
If Simpson does indeed have CTE, it would — at the very least — change his public perception and shed even more light on the effects of CTE on players. The only issue is, doctors will not be able to find out for sure if Simpson is one of the shocking number of NFL players who suffer from the disease until he passes away, because testing can only be done by studying the brain tissue after death.
(People)
