Public baying for blood in O.J. Simpson case

Even to a nation so accustomed to witnessing fallen celebrities going off the rails, images of O.J. Simpson being marched from a Las Vegas hotel in handcuffs and hauled into court wearing a prison jumpsuit and shackles made for the finest in 'train-wreck TV'.

Twelve years after the football star-turned-actor was acquitted of murder in what became known as the 'trial of the century', that Simpson, 60, may now be jailed for a violent crime is appealing to the public's lust for revenge.

'Not this time O.J.', smirked one banner held aloft by a member of the public outside the Las Vegas courthouse where Simpson appeared on Wednesday to face multiple charges including robbery with a deadly weapon, burglary with a firearm and first-degree kidnapping.

'It was like watching the bully who terrorised you in high school and got away it get his comeuppance,' gloated the sports website Deadspin.

'They might actually nail him this time,' enthused retired Los Angeles district attorney Marcia Clark, who led the failed prosecution of Simpson in 1995 and has re-emerged as a commentator on the case for celebrity gossip television show, Entertainment Tonight.

Questions have been raised, however, as to whether Simpson's alleged misdeeds inside the Palace Station Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where he is accused of taking part in an armed raid involving US$80,000 worth of sports memorabilia on September 13, would have resulted in such serious criminal charges were he not already such a figure of public revulsion.