Thirteen years to the day he was acquitted of a double homicide in Los Angeles, a jury began deliberations in the case against O.J. Simpson on armed robbery and 11 other charges in Las Vegas. After poring over evidence for 13 hours, the jury on Saturday pronounced the 61-year-old former football star guilty on all counts.

Unlike the bread and circuses that attended his murder trial, this proceeding was tame; O.J. Simpson is no longer a cultural flash point.

In 1995, there was no escaping the passionate debate about his case and the mischief it generated across the racial divide. At that time, O.J. Simpson was a glamorous defendant accused of murdering his ex-wife and her friend in a jealous rage.

His trial put race and justice at the center of daily conversation. Americans were addicted to the drama because it was a whodunit that said as much about O.J. as it did about society.

This time around, nobody cared that he was accused of robbing memorabilia dealers in a Vegas hotel. The public just wanted him to go away.

Now that he's a convicted felon, he'll probably be sentenced to prison for the rest of his life. Questions could have been raised about why the black defendant was put before an all-white jury. But, given the solid case against him, a black jury would have found him just as guilty. The evidence wasn't as murky as it was 13 years ago.

Although O.J. was acquitted of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, the young man's family is delighted that Simpson is finally headed to prison. For the rest of us, it's just another sad spectacle on which we can finally turn the page.