BURBANK, Calif. — Robert Blake may be too broke to pay for another civil trial, but at age 72 his legacy is at stake, and the actor does not care to be remembered as another O.J. Simpson, his attorney told a judge Friday.

"He was denied a fair jury; he was denied a fair trial," Blake's attorney Gerald Schwartzbach argued Friday during a hearing on whether Blake's $30 million liability verdict should be overturned. "This is a man who, as a result of a tainted jury in this case, is being compared to O.J. Simpson ... We're talking about this man's legacy."

"We want a new trial," Schwartzbach pleaded. "It's not about the money — he has no money — it's about the integrity of the system."

Outside court, the attorney representing the children of Blake's late wife Bonny Lee Bakley had other ideas about the actor's legacy.

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"The fact that Robert Blake wants a do-over doesn't mean that he's entitled to one," attorney Eric Dubin said. "The fact that Mr. Blake is not happy about his legacy is something Mr. Blake should have thought of before he killed his wife."

The tough-talking star of the 1970s "Baretta" series, escaped a possible sentence of life in prison in March 2005 when jurors in his criminal trial acquitted him of the murder of his wife, 44-year-old Bonny Lee Bakley.

Eight months later, a civil jury found the actor liable for her wrongful death and ordered Blake to pay $30 million to Bakley's four children.

Since then, Schwartzbach, who represented Blake in the criminal proceeding, joined forces with Peter Ezzell, Blake's civil attorney.

They argued Friday that the civil jury — which voted 10-2 for liability after eight days of deliberations — engaged in egregious misconduct, ranging from a juror not revealing she had a daughter in prison on a murder conviction, to another juror admitting in an interview that he had watched Court TV, to another remarking during deliberations that the Bible supported a liable verdict.

"Your honor, this verdict unfortunately is significantly tainted," Schwartzbach said.

Superior Court Judge David Schacter, who suffered a stroke shortly after the verdict was reached in Blake's civil case and returned to the bench just last week, has until 5 p.m. Monday to render his decision and meet the 60-day order deadline.

A bouquet of Mylar balloons hovered behind the judge, just below the Seal of the Great State of California emblem, and hand-painted "Welcome Back Judge" signs still hung on the back wall of the gallery.

Blake wore a blue pinstripe three-piece suit and a grim expression to court Friday.

He avoided contact with the press, even as a surly crew of camera operators bumped into each other to follow the actor's every move outside the courthouse.

Blake told a reporter last month that he spends his days as a "stable boy," exercising horses at a friend's Malibu ranch. He said that he lives in a small apartment and gets by on Social Security and his Screen Actor's Guild pension.

Blake filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February and claims he owes numerous creditors, as well as $1.6 million in taxes.

Ezell argued that the $30 million verdict was "shocking," and pointed to jurors' post-verdict press statements that they were sending "a message of deterrence."

A male juror who voted against the liability verdict told Blake's private investigators, according to their motion, that some jurors wanted to send a message about their disgust over the verdicts in the O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson trials.

The panel was told to find a figure only on compensatory damages, no punitive damages, and no damages for grief or sorrow.

The loss of love, companionship, advice and other intangible comforts Bakley may have given her children, Ezzell argued, was worth about $1.85 million at best, a figure he deemed "even far too much money."

"What about love?" Judge Schacter asked.

Ezzell pointed to the fact that Bakley exposed her children to her at-home mail-order porn business and were allegedly present when she was arrested for identify fraud as factors that made the depth of her love questionable.

The judge may decide to simply lower the award, rather than declare a mistrial.

Schwartzbach made a lengthy and thoughtful argument for a mistrial, while Dubin spoke in generalities and chose to let his written motion speak for itself.

For instance, Schwartzbach argued that the jurors talked about the case during cigarette breaks, despite the judge's admonitions, and that one juror pre-decided Blake was guilty because the actor left his wife alone in the car where she was shot to death in May 2001.

Dubin called their break-time discussions "small talk" that had no prejudicial effect on the final verdict and pointed to juror declarations claiming the chats were "brief and harmless."

"Although I did not vote with the majority, I do believe it was both a fair trial and a fair verdict," juror Olivia Valdiva said in a written statement presented by Dubin.

"My belief in the bible did not prejudice either side in this case, or prevent me from being a fair juror or the fairness of our verdict," juror Eloy Mendoza wrote in his statement.

"I never told juror Olivia Valdiva that I watched Court TV when I went home for a lunch break," juror David Hernandez said in his declaration. "I did not watch Court TV, or any media coverage. There was an occasion when I walked by my TV and the news was showing a clip of the jury bus at Vitello's, but I did not watch or listen to the report."

Blake's attorneys argued in a motion filed Thursday that the juror declarations were rife with inadmissible statements of opinion and hearsay, are not relevant to the law, and lacked evidentiary value.

Bakley was shot to death in May 2001 as she waited in the passenger seat of Blake's black Dodge Stealth on a residential street in Studio City. The couple had just finished dinner at Vitello's Italian restaurant, a regular haunt for the "Baretta" star.

Investigators had no direct evidence — no prints, serial numbers or significant gunshot residue — that linked Blake to the murder weapon.

The couple's daughter Rosie, now 5, lives with Blake's adult daughter Delinah.