i think the lapd tried to railroad robert blake and convict him even though they didnt have any real physical evidence linking to him to the crime as this relative of the victim says: "you really need physical evidence to win a case like that." sure robert blake had a motive to kill the woman, and robert blake may have even murdered the woman but i dont think the lapd should have arrested him for those two reasons unless they had physical evidence proving that he did the murder. it seems like the lapd did the same thing to oj simpson. yes oj had a motive and a reason to kill his wife but beyond that it didnt seem the lapd had any real evidence to arrest him with. also in that case it seemed like the lapd planted the glove and rigged the blood evidence. Original Article Lawyer wants to 'wipe smile off' Blake's face Reuters Mar. 18, 2005 12:00 AM LOS ANGELES - A day after actor Robert Blake celebrated his acquittal on charges of murdering his wife, a lawyer for the victim's family said he would "wipe that smile off his face" in a civil case. Blake, 71, held a jubilant news conference after being found not guilty on Wednesday in the May 2001 shooting death of his estranged wife of six months, Bonny Lee Bakley, 44. The star of the 1970s television detective show Baretta was also acquitted of soliciting a former stuntman to murder Bakley, and the jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of finding him not guilty of asking a second stuntman to kill her. But the verdicts did not end Blake's legal saga. He is also the subject of a wrongful-death civil lawsuit brought by Bakley's family. It was held over until the conclusion of the three-month criminal trial. "I'm going to wipe that smile off his face," Eric Dubin, lawyer for Bakley's family, told CNN on Thursday. Dubin said the family felt Bakley, portrayed in court as a star-struck grifter who ran a mail-order sex business, had been murdered twice: "once in the car and once on the stand." Bakley's adult daughter, Holly Gawron, expressed little bitterness over the outcome, telling the NBC Today show that "you really need physical evidence to win a case like that." "Plenty of people were telling me not to expect anything, and from the beginning, I know he (Blake) was telling people that he was going to get away with it. So I've always had my doubts that he would be convicted," Gawron said. Blake, who shook with emotion when the verdict was read, said after the trial that he planned to "go out and do a little cowboying" and celebrate his freedom with a road trip.