Court TV  (LTV)September 28, 1995
Transcript #158 Segment 1

Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 158 - Part 1


FRED GRAHAM, Anchor:  Court TV now continues with its live coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial which today may see the completion of the summations for the defense.  Johnnie Cochran gave what was, by any measure, a very impressive performance yesterday.  Today could see Johnnie Cochran continue in just a few minutes, Barry Scheck then come on to argue the DNA and then Johnnie Cochran say the final words before the prosecution gets its final rebuttal.  There's a tradition here, of course, in Los Angeles of the Academy Awards where a person is judged by his or her peers as to his performance, and, indeed, that's happening across the country as lawyers chime in as to their evaluation of Johnnie Cochran's performance yesterday.  We have a Santa Monica lawyer to perform that role this morning.  Gigi Gordon, you're a defense lawyer.  Was it boffo?

GIGI GORDON:  It was stupendous.  I was cheering for Johnnie Cochran.  I was sitting on my couch watching this.  All of my juices were flowing.  My adrenaline was pumping, and I was with him all the way.  The last half hour the last hour of his closing argument was just magnificent.

FRED GRAHAM:  Now, what about it made it magnificent?

GIGI GORDON:  Well, I think what he did is he got to the core issue and the core theme of the defense, and it's really not just conspiracy, contamination and cover-up.  What it's really about is whether this jury trusts the messenger, and the messenger is everybody on that courtroom on the other side  the police, the prosecution, the people who are bringing you this evidence, even the scientists  and I think what Johnnie Cochran is saying is you can't trust them, and what he's doing is he's calling up historical images of Los Angeles and of the Civil Rights movement to tell them why they can't trust them and that there's a history of not of that they shouldn't trust them, and I think that's what it's really about, and I think that's what this case has been about from the beginning.

FRED GRAHAM:  Now, to what extent do you think all of this may have been preordained in the selection of the jury  that is the outcome here?

GIGI GORDON:  Well, I think Johnnie Cochran is preaching to people who he believes are already converted, and he thinks there's a fundamental bedrock of distrust in Los Angeles, and he's utilizing it in his argument, but I think there's nothing wrong with that, and I think that at some of the things that Johnnie Cochran said are simple facts.  The facts are about Rodney King   what they were  and I think you're gonna hear more about Rodney King before we're done.

FRED GRAHAM:  Judge Ito has taken his place, and we go live into the courtroom.

Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  [in progress] the Simpson matter.  Mr. Simpson is again present before the court with his counsel, Mr. Shapiro, Mr. Kardashian, Mr. Blasier, Mr. Neufeld, Mr. Scheck and Mr. Cochran.  The People are represented by Ms. Clark and Mr. Darden.  We are in argument.  Let's have it quiet in the courtroom, please.  All right, Deputy Trower [sp], let's have the jurors, please.

FRED GRAHAM:  Well, the remark we just got from Gigi Gordon about the police and distrust for the police  Doesn't this go back to a fundamental dichotomy in American society as to whether it's really wise policy and good law to punish, in effect, the public to release a potentially to release, potentially, a criminal, because the police have erred?

GIGI GORDON:  The question is, can you rely on people who you don't trust, to give you evidence that is trustworthy and that you can have a verdict which you respect

FRED GRAHAM:  Um, hmm

GIGI GORDON:  and rely on, and the answer is no, whether it's in this criminal trial or as Chris Darden says, save it for some other day.  This is the day, because we have no other process and no other method for punishing misconduct.

FRED GRAHAM:  You know, we see that now in being alleged against the FBI in the Ruby Ridge incident and the killing of that person out there in the mountain or people, really.  I think it's a sign of the times that this is a defense we're gonna see a lot of.

GIGI GORDON:  I don't know if it's a defense.  I mean, when you say it's a defense, it sounds like it's a trick or it's a ruse.   There's no way to tell what the evi whether the evidence is reliable unless you test it in a courtroom, and if the people who give it to you cannot be trusted, then what's the answer?  What's your verdict?

FRED GRAHAM:  Well, it does seem that you can bring to bear a little logical analysis of that evidence, such as the blood, the footprint, the hair, the fibers, the cap, the gloves, that can't could not have been planted or contaminated by the police.  Isn't there a little room for logic here?

GIGI GORDON:  Sure, there is.  Sure, there is, and the question is, does this evidence add up, and do we rely on the evidence, and Johnnie Cochran says I don't care how much evidence there is, because you can't trust it and because it was planted and because it was contaminated

FRED GRAHAM:  Of course he says that, and you say that.  You're a defense lawyer

GIGI GORDON:  Right

FRED GRAHAM:  But is it very wise for the public to accept that as sound policy and sound law?

GIGI GORDON:  Well, the public, and, in this case, the jury, has to decide.

FRED GRAHAM:  Well, the jury is in place.  We go live into the courtroom.

Judge LANCE ITO:  [in progress]  the final arguments.  Mr. Cochran, you may continue with your argument, sir.

JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney:  Thank you very kindly, Your Honor.  Good morning, Judge Ito.  Good morning, again, ladies and gentlemen.

JURY:  [in unison]  Good morning.

JOHNNIE COCHRAN:  Thank you.  [pause]  When we concluded last night, ladies and gentlemen, we had discussed a number of things, and I'm sure you have them very much in mind.  To summarize some of the things that we talked about and put it in perspective, we talked about a police department who, from the very beginning, was more interested in themselves and their image, and that carried through.  We talked about socks that appeared all of a sudden that weren't there, socks where evidence was planted on them  We talked about police officers who lie with impunity where the oath doesn't mean anything to them.  We talked about messengers, where you couldn't trust the message.  We talked about gloves that didn't fit, a knit cap that wouldn't make any difference, a prosecution scenario that is unelievable and unreasonable.  In short, we talked about reasonable doubt.  We talked about something that's made this country great  that you can be accused in this country of a crime, but that's just an accusation, and when you enter a not guilty plea  Since the beginning of the time of this country since the time of the Magna Carta, that sets the forces in motion, and you have a trial.  That's what this has been about.  That's why we love what we do  an opportunity to come before people from the community, the consciences of the community.  You are the consciences of this community.  You set the standards.  You tell us what's right and wrong.  You set the standards.  You use your common sense to do that.  Your verdict goes far beyond the doors of this courtroom.  As Mr. Darden said, the whole world is watching and waiting for your decision in this case.  That's not to put any pressure on you.  It's to tell you what's really happening out there.  So we talked about all of those things, hopefully in a logical way.  Hopefully, something I said made some sense to you.  Hopefully, as an advocate, you know my zeal.  You know the passion I feel for this.  We've all got time invested in this case, but it's just not about winning.  It's about what's right.  It's about a man's life at stake here, so in voire dire you promised to take the time that was necessary, and you have more than done that.  Remember, I asked you, though, that when you got down to the end of the case, when you'd kept all your promises about coming here every day and taking these notes and paying attention and, you know, listening to us drone on and on and on, that, pretty soon, it would be in your hands, and then you couldn't just rush through that, could you?  And we tried to make it a little more simple with regard to the issues, but you're still  You're gonna have 12 minds coming together  12 open minds, 12 unbiased minds  to come together on these issues, and you will give it, I'm sure, the importance to which it's entitled.  Please, don't compromise your principles or your consciences in rendering this decision.  Don't don't rush to judgment.  Don't compound what they've already done in this case.  Don't rush to judgment.  Have a judgment that is well thought out  one that you can believe in.  The morning after this verdict  I want you to place yourself the day after you render the verdict, when you get up and you look in the mirror and you're free.  You're no longer sequestered.  You'll probably look for each other, but, you know, you'll you'll be happy to be home again.  But what's important is  Look in that mirror and say, have I true to my oath?  Did I do the right thing?  Was I naive?  Was I timid, or was I courageous?  Did I believe in the Constitution?  Did I believe in justice?  Did I do my part for integrity and honesty?  That's the mission you're on in this journey toward justice.  And now  Yesterday, I touched briefly on some of Mr. Darden's argument, and we talked a little bit about the fact of his contention about motive.  We talked about his analogy about a fuse, and I referred to him as Dr. Darden, with regard to what he had to say, and I thought I just would summarize briefly this morning a response to what he had to say and what he tried to weave together.  As I said, he talked about an incident in 1985  an unfortunate incident between two people who were married.  There was no arrest; there was no physical violence.  The one incident in '89  the one he's not proud of, the one he wrote those letters about, the one he apologized for and said he was sorry, and there is no physical violence after that.  In the 1993 call  the 911 call  You listened to that entire tape, and they cut it off.  You'll remember that it's unfortunate when anyone has an argument, but you listen carefully to what Mr. Simpson is arguing about  what he's talking about and what the discussion is about.  Mr. Simpson mentions the children, and he says, you weren't worried about the children when you were doing so and so on the couch.  It's pretty graphic, but any man or woman would be upset over what he's talking about on that tape.  There was no physical violence.  There's no excuse for him kicking the back door, but by the end  You remember what Kato Kaelin and what the police officers said.  They resolved this matter.  It was an argument.  It was loud and racous, and they moved on.  There was no fuse after that, and this was during a time   You will recall, that in January of 1992, when they first agreed to separate.  You don't hear anything about a dispute.  When Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson moved out, there was not any question about a dispute.  When she got this divorce at the end of '92, there was no dispute.  They were both dating other people.  He's with Paula Barbieri that, like, whole year, and then you know it wasn't Mr. Simpson who pursued Mrs. Simpson.  It was her who wanted to get back with those kids.  You heard Arnelle Simpson, and then they agreed, but he put some provisos on that.  She couldn't move back in that house.  She still kept her own house.  Now, who is controlling whom?  Who is pursuing whom?  When he talks about things, there is no fuse.  They get back together.  They try to make it work.  It lasts for almost a year.  My learned friend has the dates all wrong.  It's around Mother's Day when they break up.  You remember?  There's testimony from Kato Kaelin about a pediatric AIDS affair where Paula Barbieri goes with O.J. Simpson.  It's the early part of May after Mother's Day after they break up with the kids Sidney and Justin.  Now, we know they'd been friends.  Even when they broke up, they were friends.  You know how you know that?  Remember the barber, Juanita Moore nice lady who came in here and talked about O.J. Simpson not having dandruff, not having treated hair.  She said she came to the house in the first part of May and there was Nicole there over at O.J. Simpson's house.  There's no fuse.  Then, they go on later that month.  They break up.  Even after being broken up, what does Arnelle tell you?  That when Nicole gets sick, none of these other people, who she may be seeing or whatever  It's O.J. taking her soup, trying to help out.  Now, you do that for your ex-wife or your ex-boyfriend or whatever  There's no fuse.  There's no strings attached to that.  He goes on with his life, 'cause now he's back with Paula, who he'd been with the year before, and he didn't and Ms. Clark tried to get Kato Kaelin to ask, didn't he take Paula someplace in the summer of '93 when she knew they were now back together, and Kato says, no, I don't think so, because they made this arrangement to date each other exclusively, and that's what happened, you see.  And so we get all the way back past May, into June, and there is no trigger.  There is no fuse.   There's nothing going on.  The only fuse the only trigger is in Mr. Darden's mind.  The evidence isn't there, and they spent all this time about motive.  There is none.  They were two people who divorced.  The case was settled.  They had their homes.   They moved on.  Christian Rykart tells you that night he's happier than he'd been for a long time, 'cause he'd gotten his life together and moved on, and, so, I just wanted you to put that in perspective.  And if that wasn't enough, you look at that video of June 12th in the photograph of him with his daughter, and you see whether or not this is a happy man who's just getting on with his life.  So, when he rhetorically asked the question, why didn't we call Lenore Walker, I say back to him, why didn't you call Lenore Walker.  She had something bad to say about O.J. Simpson.  It wasn't necessary.  It wasn't necessary.  It wasn't necessary.  As you know, we could be here forever, calling one witness after the other.  Sooner or later, you were going to revolt, and I wouldn't blame you.  Mr. Darden agrees we had to cut it off at some point.  So, I hope that when you look about this so-called board of abuse, and they have things about a divorce and things up there, you put this in perspective.  Absence of motive tends to establish innocence.  That's what the jury instruction says.  Evidence of other offenses are introduced for a very limited portion in this case.  And the bottom line is the positive things in this man's life.  The good days far outweigh the bad days, and, in your life, in all our lives, we just hope at the end, when we must ultimately meet our makers, that the good days have outweighed the bad days, and in this marriage, the lasting monuments and memorials to this marriage are these two beautiful children.  They had more good days than bad days.  By all of the evidence, these two people loved their children.  They may have gone separate ways, but they loved their children.  That's why he was back in town to go that recital  that recital where there's so many people where it's in this auditorium where Nicole Brown Simpson gets his tickets.  You know, that's why they're talking in the afternoon  to make arrangements  and she's the one who holds a seat for him.  This is what happened on that day.  This isn't about any argument.  This is a family thing.  [inaudible] and wants to make a big thing and says, well, he had to go out to dinner with Kato.  He had to catch a plane.  See the evidence for what it is.  Understand these things.  Put them in perspective.  And, so, you use your common sense.  There is no fuse with regard to that.  It's important for you to know that.  Take a look at that video when you're back there.  Take a look at all of the evidence.  In this case, Ms. Clark and her argument on several occasions said that Mr. Simpson was cut on his razer-sharp cell phone.  Well, it's not what the evidence is, is it?  It's not what was said.  I read you what Dr. Baden said about that, and so we can use these words, but let's let's hopefully be accurate as we try to say those things.  Now, let's go back to where we were when we broke last night.  We had started talking about the messengers in this case.  We talked briefly about Vannatter and about all of his big lies.  His lies become very important because he's the co-lead investigator in this case.  From the very beginning, he was lying to you, and it was interesting  You know, I thought about this last night after I left you.  Just about 10 days ago  a week or 10 days ago  Vannatter took that stand again, and you saw him.  You had a chance to again observe his demeanor, and you're smart.  You you know when somebody's lying and not telling you the truth.  I mean, I don't have to go into that.  You know, you don't need the jury instruction.  You've got this this reaction.  You've got your experiences in life, and you know somebody who's lying, but  You know, he said something really interesting.  It was really preposterous when you think about it.  He said, Mr. Shapiro, Mr. O.J. Simpson was no more a suspect than you were.  Now, who in here believed that?  Did he really think he's gonna come back in here, and we're gonna believe that that O.J. Simpson was no more a suspect than Robert Shapiro?  That's what he told you.  Big lies.  You can't trust him.  You can't believe anything that he says, because it goes to the core of this case.  When you're lying at the beginning, you'll be lying at the end.  The Book of Luke talks about that.  It talks about if you're untruthful in small things, you should be disbelieved in big things.  There's no question about that.  We've known that all along.  So this man, with his big lies  and then we have Fuhrman coming right on the heels, and the two of them need to be paired together, because they are twins of deception  Fuhrman and Vannatter  twins of deception who bring you a message that you cannot trust that you cannot trust.  Let's continue on where we left off, then, with



JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress]  who said some very interesting things in the course of his testimony.  And as we talked about Vannatter's big lies, we have Fuhrman's big lies.  Vannatter, the man who carried the blood, Fuhrman, the man who found the glove.  You recall [audio interruption]  well-phrased by Lee Bailey, ``Have you ever used this `N' word in ten years?'' Went right back to '85.  And he picked that '85 date, you know why, because of the Kathleen Bell letter, just like they knew about it.  Picked that date, knew he was lying, honed in on it.  Liars can be tricky and so he was, at that point, trying to pin it down for you.  Ten years.  '85 to '95, this was like in February of this year.  Says also that he never met Kathleen Bell, at this Marine Center.  Tells you that Rokahr, the photographer, took this photograph after 7:00 in the morning.  Remember that, go back through your notes.  And the reason he tells you that is that he wants that photograph of him pointing at the glove taken after he supposedly finds the glove at Rockingham.  Now you may not have caught that right at the beginning when this was happening.  Says he took the photograph at Rockingham after 7:00 a.m., after they returned from  Rockingham.  You know, they all go over to Bundy after 5:00 strike that, at Bundy they all go over to Rockingham at 5:00, from 5:00 to 7:00.  And so it becomes very, very important, as we look at this photograph in a few minutes. Rokahr then come here near the end of the case.  There's nobody called to refute him in rebuttal.  And says, these photographs on this contact sheet are all taken while it's dark.  He says he could tell the difference in a photograph taken an hour and a half before sunrise, 5:41, 5:42 and an hour and a half afterwards.  So then why then is this big liar in the crime scene with access to the glove and the hat.  Why is he down there pointing at this glove?  Why, he's walking in the blood in the blood and everything when he wants you to believe it's 7:00.  Now we know it's not 7:00, see that photograph up there, that is Mark Fuhrman pointing, you see the envelope?  Pointing under this neatly arranged cap and glove, supposedly just happened to fall right under that bush in that fashion.  That's what you're asked to believe.  There he is pointing at it.  Well now, let me tell you why this is important.  You recognize from it personification of evil.  When he's doing that he's trying to tell you this some important piece of evidence here.  And I just came back from Rockingham and this matched the glove found over there.  That's what he tells you.  But he's lying again.  He's lying, that's why he [unintelligible] this case, because he hadn't even been to Rockingham at that point and he's tracking in that blood at that blood at that point, and that becomes very important because you remember he slips up and says, `In the Bronco at some point,'  Did he get in that Bronco?  Did he put a bloody footprint in that Bronco?  Are his shoes size 12?  Talks about in the Bronco.  He talks about them, remember?  It was a question he was asked about gloves and Lee Bailey asked him about, he says well, he's talking about gloves and he says gloves and he says, them.  He never explained that.  He says them, them, does that mean two gloves?  He said, `I saw them.'  Is that two gloves?  Why would you say them?  He's intelligent enough to come and lie to you.  So, that picture, that photograph there.  That seals their doom.  That seals their doom.  This man who in '85, in his mind, started this.  This man who's asked to go over and help O.J. Simpson and notify him and take care of the kids.  This man, this perjury, this racist, this genocidal racist, this is the man.  And he says then, [unintelligible] he didn't plant the glove, but now we know about these photographs and when they were taken.  And you look, and you'll have that contact sheet and you'll see the photograph of Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson, and the last two on this roll taken at nighttime with the flash at 4:30 or so in the morning.  Why else is this important?  Because they're going to tell you, well, he didn't have an opportunity to get the glove or get access to anything.  Brought all these police officers in here including Lt. Spangler to say, well, you know, we were just watching Fuhrman the whole time.  First of all, you knew that was a lie at the beginning.  Why would anybody be necessarily watching him.  They're always covering for him anyway, but we knew that wasn't true because when Rokahr got there, shortly after 3:00, Rokahr goes to that back alley, and he sees Riske, who's back there then.  Remember, Rokahr sees Riske in the back alley.  Rokahr doesn't even see Fuhrman for like a half hour after he gets there, he says.  The all of a sudden Fuhrman shows up.  Where's he been?  What's he been doing?  Then Riske is out in the front of Bundy there, and Riske testifies about the taking of this photograph.  He wants to place the time later, but he says it's before the sun comes up.  Before daylight.  That has to be because we've stipulated to it before 5:41.  So, inadvertently he corroborates Rokahr.  But Rokahr knows because he took these photographs.  Why then, ladies and gentlemen, is he pointing at this glove, when he hasn't even been over there.  Why then would they try to tell you he doesn't have time at Bundy when he's by himself for this period of time.  He's not with any Spangler, he's walking around by himself.  Why then is he walking in that crime scene and why does he lie to you and said he didn't have access to the crime scene.  Now, these are the facts.  These are the facts. I haven't made them up, this is what you heard in this case.  This is what we've proven.  Some of it came in late, some of it came in early.  But our job here is to piece this together so that you can then see this.  So, when he refers to the gloves as them, that's never been cleared up for you, and it can't.  It's a Freudian slip.  When he talks about in the Bronco and there was a dispute, well did he really say that?  Remember the tape was played, the preliminary hearing, and his voice was heard saying, ``in the Bronco.''  You can see all these things.  He's strolling down to Rockingham, the big man, figuring a way to do this, to carry out this plan, this thought he has in his mind, since 1985, to make the big score.  And so Rokahr severely impeaches Fuhrman about these photographs.  And once again, these photographs speak a thousand words.  Concluding about Riske, he said on cross-examination the photograph pointing at the glove was taken at least 40 minutes before daylight.  The sun rose at 5:41, maybe a little bit late but it was before daylight.  And so we know that.  That' now clear.  Why did they then all try to cover for this man Fuhrman?  Why would this man, who is not only Los Angeles's worst nightmare, but America's worst nightmare.  Why would they all turn their heads and try to cover for him?  Why would you do that if you're sworn to uphold the law.  There is something about corruption.  There's something about a rotten apple that will ultimately infect the entire barrel.  Because if the others don't have the courage that we've asked you to have in this case, people sit sadly by.  We live in a society where many people are apathetic.  They don't want to get involved, and that's why all of us, to a person in this courtroom, have thanked you from the bottom of our hearts, because you know what?  you haven't been apathetic.  You're the ones who made a commitment, a commitment toward justice and it's a painful commitment, but you gotta see it through.  Your commitment, your courage, is much greater than these police officers.  This man could have been off the force long ago, if they'd done their job, but they didn't do their job.  People looked the other way.  People didn't have the courage.  One of the things that made this country so great is people's willingness to stand up and say, that's wrong, I'm not going to be part of it.  I'm not going to be part of the cover-up.  That's what I'm asking you to do.  Stop this cover-up.  Stop this cover-up.  If you don't stop it, then who?  You think the police department's going to stop it?  You think the DA's office is going to stop it?  Do you think we can stop it by ourselves.  It has to be stopped by you.  And you know they talked about Fuhrman.  They talked about him in derisive tones now.  And that's very fashionable now isn't it?  Everybody wants to beat up on Fuhrman.  The favorite whipping boy in America.  I'll tell you I don't take any delight in that, because you know before this trial started, you grow up in this country, you know there are Fuhrman's out there.  You learn early on in your life that you're not going to be naive.  That you love your country but you know it's not perfect, so you understand that, so it's no surprise to me.  But I don't take any pride in it.  But for some of you, you're finding out the other side of life.  You're finding out that's why this case is so instructive.  You're finding out about the other side of life.  That things aren't always as they seem. It's not just rhetoric, it's the actions of people.  It's the lack of courage, it's the lack of integrity at high places.  That's what we're talking about here.  Credibility doesn't attach to a title, or position, it attaches to the person.  So the person who may have a job where he makes $2.00 an hour can have more integrity than the highest person.  It's something from within.  It's in your heart.  It's what the Lord has put there, that's what we're talking about in this case.  And so why don't they speak out?  Why do they take him to their breast.  Compare how our prosecutors treat Fuhrman as opposed to Kato Kaelin.  Look at how they treated Mark Partridge as opposed to Kato Kaelin.  Look at how they embraced him and now they want to distance themselves.  These same people say, oh, he's not important.  But the Rokahr photograph puts the light of that.  He is very important.  And what becomes so important when we talk about these two twin demons of evil, Vannatter and Fuhrman, is the jury instruction, which you know about now.  And it says essentially that a witness willfully false I think Mr. Douglas is going to put that up for us.  That a witness willfully false in one material part of his or her testimony is to be distrusted in others.  You may reject the whole testimony of a witness who willfully has testified falsely to a material point, unless from all the evidence, you believe the probability of truth favors his or her testimony in other particulars.  Why is this instruction so important?  We got the bullet points up there.  First of all, both prosecutors have now agreed that we have convinced them, beyond a reasonable doubt by the way, there's a lying perjuring, genocidal racist and he's testified willfully false in this case on a number of scores.  That's what his big lies tell you.  And when you go back in the jury room, some of you may want to say, well gee, you know, boys will be boys, this is just like police talk.  This is the way they talk.  That's not acceptable.  As the consciences of this community, if you adopt that attitude, that's why we have this. Because nobody has had the courage to say it's wrong.  You are empowered to say we're not going to take that anymore.  I'm sure you'll do the right thing about that, so that what you then it seems we must do, is you have the authority.  You may reject the whole testimony, you can then wipe out everything that Fuhrman told you, including the glove and all the things that he recovered the glove.  That's why they're so worried.  That's why when people say, Fuhrman is not central, they're wearing blinders.  They've lost their objectivity.  They don't understand what they're talking about.  It's embarrassing for learned people to say that.  But they're entitled to their opinions, but we're going to speak the truth.  In a courtroom you are supposed to speak the truth.  A witness who walks through those doors, who raises his or her hand, swears to tell the truth.  You've heard lie, after lie, after lie, after lie.  That's been exposed and when a witness lies in a material part of his testimony, you can wipe out all of his testimony as a judge of the facts.  That's your decision again.  Nobody can tell you about that, unless you feel there's a greater probability of truth lies in something else they said.  Wipe it out.  This applies not only to Fuhrman, it applies to Phil Vannatter and then you see the trouble their case is in.  Because they lied to get in there to do these things.  When Vannatter carries that blood, they can't explain to you why he did that.  Because they were setting this man up.  And that glove, anybody among you think that glove was just sitting there, just placed there, moist and sticky, after six and a half hours.  The testimony is, it would be dried in three or four hours, according to McDonnell.   You're not naive, you understand.  There's no blood on anything else, there's no blood trail.  There's no hair and fiber.  And you get the ridiculous explanation that Mr. Simpson was running into an airconditioning on his own property.
[verbalization, off mic]
Judge LANCE ITO:  Anybody else?
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor:  And it may be that one of the jurors needed a comfort break as Judge Lance Ito calls it.  We heard Judge Ito say something.  I want to go back to our guest commentator, Gigi Gordon.  We're hearing the same theme, but if anything, if it's possible, more emphasis.
GIGI GORDON, Criminal Defense Attorney:  I think what Johnnie Cochran's saying to this jury is, if not you than who?  And if not here, than where?  And what he means is that there's something wrong in this case, and it's this jury's responsibility to punish the police.
FRED GRAHAM:  Interesting, we heard him speak directly, the first time I can remember, to the non-African Americans on the jury.  Two Anglos, one Hispanic.  He said, some of you are finding out for the first time about what he's saying, about the police implying that the African-Americans on the jury perhaps are already in his corner.
GIGI GORDON:  Well, I think Johnnie Cochran knows or feels that these jurors share a common understanding about certain things, and certain things don't need to be really said outright, because we all understand them.  I think he's trying to convert those people who he feels may not be on his side.
FRED GRAHAM:  Now, it's very interesting and I think very, very adroit, the way he is attempting to equalize the two detectives.  Fuhrman, of course, clearly lied on the stand and he's trying to equalize Philip Vannatter and say, they're of the same stature in line.  The evidence didn't seem to make that quite so, but he's certainly attempting to do that.
GIGI GORDON:  Well, the tail end of the case was an attempt to throw a lasso around Detective Vannatter and tie him in, so they could have twins of deception, because perhaps Johnnie felt that one liar in this case, and one perjurer, Mark Fuhrman, wasn't enough to carry the day.
Judge LANCE ITO:  All right, the record will reflect that we now have our jury panel.  Mr. Cochran.
FRED GRAHAM:  It appears that the comfort break well let's wait and see, I saw Christopher Darden move around and perhaps he's ready to resume.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN:  Witness is willfully false, one material part distrusted in others.  These two form basically the cornerstone of the prosecution's case.  Now, you know, people talk all the time.  Well, you know, you're being conspiratorial and whatever.  Gee, why would all these police officers set up O.J. Simpson?  Why would they do that?  I'll answer that question for you.  They believed he was guilty.  They wanted to win.  They didn't want to lose another big case.  That's why.  They believed he was guilty.  These actions rolls from what their belief was.  But they can't make that judgment.  The prosecutors can't make that judgment.  Nobody but you can make that judgment.  So, when they take the law into their own hands, they become worse than the people who break the law because they are the protectors of the law.  Who then polices the police?  You police the police.  You police them, but your verdict.  You're the ones who send the message.  Nobody else is going to do it in this society.  They don't have the courage.  Nobody has the courage.  If a bunch of people running around with no courage to do what is right.  Except individual citizens.  You're the ones in war.  You're the ones who are on the front line.  These people set policies, these people talk all this stuff.  You implement it.  You're the people.  You're what makes America so great.  Don't you forget it.  And so understand how this happened.  It's part of a culture of getting away with things.  It's part of culture looking the other way.  We determine the rules as we go along.  Nobody's going to question us.  We're the LAPD.  And so you take these two twins of deception and if, as you can, under this law, wipe out their  testimony, the prosecutors realize their case then is in serious trouble.  From Riske to Bushey.  They came together in this case cause they want to win.  But it's not about them winning, it's about justice being done.  They'll have other cases.  This is this man's one life that's entrusted, or will be soon, to you.  So when we talked about this evidence being compromised, contaminated and corrupted, some people didn't believe that.  Have we proved that?  Have we proved that it was compromised, contaminated, corrupted, and yes, even something more sinister.  I think we did.  But there's something else about this man Fuhrman that I have to say before I'm going to terminate this part of my opening argument and relinquish the floor to my learned colleague, Mr. Barry Scheck.  It's something that Fuhrman said and I'm going to ask Mr. Douglas and Mr. Harris to put up that Kathleen Bell letter.  You know it's one thing, and I daresay that most of you, when you heard Fuhrman say he hadn't used the `N' word, that you probably thought, well, he's lying.  We know that's not true.  That's just part of it and that's what the prosecutors want to just talk about, that part of it.  That's not the part that bothers us on the defense.  I live in America.  I understand, I know about slights every day of my life, but I want to tell you about what is troubling, what is frightening, what is chilling about that Kathleen Bell letter.  Let's see if we can see part of it.  And I think you will agree.  So I want to put the focus back where it belongs on this letter, and its application to this case.  You recall that God is good and He always bring you a way to see light when there's a lot of darkness around.  Just through chance, this lady had tried to reach Shapiro's office, couldn't reach it and in July of 1994 she sent this fax to my office and my good, loyal and wonderful staff got that letter to me early on.  And this is one you just couldn't pass up.  Get a lot of letters, but you couldn't pass this one up because she says some interesting things, she wasn't a fan of O.J. Simpson.   What does she say  I'm writing to you in regards to a story I saw on the news last night.  I thought it ridiculous that the Simpson defense team would even suggest that there might be racial motivation involved in the trial against Mr. Simpson.  Yes, there are a lot of people out there who thought that at that time.  And you know.  You can't faulty people for being naive.  But once they know if they continue to be naive, then you can fault them.  That's what it is and that's why this case is important.  Don't ever say again in this County, or in this country that you don't know that things like this exist.  Don't pretend to be naive anymore.  Don't turn your heads.  Stand up, show some integrity.  So, I then glanced up at the television.  I was quite shocked to see that Officer Fuhrman was a man that I had the misfortune of meeting.  You may have received a message from your answering service last night, that I called to say Mr. Fuhrman may be more of a racist than you could even imagine.  I doubt that, but  at any rate, it was something that got my attention.  Between 1985 and 1986 I worked as a real estate agent in Rodondo Beach [sp] for Century 21, Bob Maher [sp] realty.  Now out of business.  Now at the time, my office was located above a Marine recruiting center off of Pacific Coast highway.  On occasion I would stop in to say hello to the two Marines working there.  I saw Mr. Fuhrman there a couple of times.  I remember him distinctly because of his height and build.  You know he's tall.  While speaking to the men I learned that Mr. Fuhrman was a police officer in Westwood.  Isn't that interesting.  Just exactly the place where Laura McKinny met him?  And I don't know if he was telling the truth but he said he'd been on the special division of the Marines.  I don't know how the subject was raised.  But Officer Fuhrman said that when he sees a nigger, as he called it, driving with a white woman he would pull them over.  I asked, what if he didn't have a reason?  And he said that he would find one.  I looked at the two Marines to see if they knew he was joking.  But it became obvious to me that he was very serious.  Now, let me just stop at this point.  Let's back it up a minute, Mr. Harris.  Pull it back down please.  If he sees an African American with a white woman he would stop them.  If he didn't have a reason, he'd find one, or make up one.  This man will lie to set you up.  That's what he's saying there.  He will do anything to set you up because of the hatred he has in his heart.  A racist is somebody who has power over you, who can do something to you.  People could have views but keep them to themselves.  But when they have power over you, that's when racism becomes insidious.  That's what we're talking about here.  He has power.  A police officer in the street.  A patrol officer is the single most powerful figure in the criminal justice system.  He can take your life.  Unlike the Supreme Court, you don't have to go through all these appeals, he can do it right there and justify it and that's why, that's why this has to be rooted out in the LAPD and everyplace else.  He'd make up a reason because he made a judgment.  That's what happened in this case.  They made a judgment.  Everything else after that was going to point toward O.J. Simpson.  They didn't want to look at anybody else.  Mr. Darden asked, who did this crime?  That's their job as the police, we've been hampered, they turned down our offers for help.  But that's the prosecution's job.  The judge says we don't have that job, the law says that.  We'd love to help do that.  Who do you think want's to find these murders more than Mr. Simpson?  But that's not our job.  It's their job and when they don't talk to anybody else, when they rush to judgment in their obsession to win.  That's why this became a problem.  This man had the power to carry out his racist views.  That's what's so troubling.  Let's move on.  Making up a reason.  That's troubling, that's frightening, that's chilling, but if that wasn't enough, if that wasn't enough, the thing that really gets you is she goes on to say Officer Fuhrman went on to say that he would like nothing more than to see all niggers gathered together and killed.  He said something about burning them, or bombing them.  I was too shaken to remember the exact words he used.  However, I do remember that what he said was probably the most horrible thing I'd every heard someone say.  What frightened me even more was that he was a police officer, sworn to uphold the law.  And now we have it.  There was another man, not too long ago in the world, who had those same views, who wanted to burn people, who had racist views and ultimately had power over people in his country.  People didn't care, people said he's just crazy, he's just a half-baked painter.  They didn't do anything about it.  This man, this scourge became one of the worst people in the history of this world, Adolf Hitler.  Because people didn't care and didn't try to stop him.  He had the power over his racism and his anti-religion [unintelligible].  Nobody wanted to stop him and it end up in  World War II.  The conduct of this man, and so Fuhrman, Fuhrman wants to take all black people out and burn them or bomb them.  That's genocidal racism.  Is that ethnic purity?  What is that?  What is that?  We're paying this man's salary to espouse these views.  You think he only told Kathleen Bell?  Whom he just had met?  You think he talked to his partners about it?  You think his commanders knew about it?  You think everybody knew about it?  And turned their heads?  Nobody did anything about it.  Things happened for a reason in your life.  Maybe this is one of the reasons we're all gathered together here this day.  One year and two days after we met.  Maybe there's a reason for your purpose.  Maybe this is why you were selected.  There's something in your background and your character that helps you understand this is wrong.  Maybe you're the right people at the right time at the right time at the right place to say no more.  We're not going to have this.  This is wrong.  What they've done to our client is wrong.  This man, O.J. Simpson, is entitled to an acquittal.  You cannot believe these people.  You can't trust the message.  You can't trust the messengers.  It is frightening.  It is quite frightening and it is not enough for the prosecutors now to stop and say, oh let's just back off.  The point I was trying to make, they didn't understand.  That it's not just using the `N' word, forget that, we knew he was lying about that, forget that.  It's about the lengths to which he would go to get somebody, black and also white if they're associated with black.  It's pretty frightening, it's not just African Americans, it's white people who would associate or dein to go out with a black man or marry one.  You're free in America to love whomever you want.  So it infects all of us, doesn't it.  This one rotten apple and yet they cover for him.  And so, how do we do it?  And what do we do with regard to this man.  Well we called some witnesses and you recall these witnesses.  And before I talk about these witnesses just briefly, and I'm going to conclude my remarks with regard to them, I indicated to you that by the nature of this case, I'm going to pass the baton to Mr. Barry Scheck.  You've been great from the standpoint of listening and watching and I stayed longer than I planned to, but I hope you agree that some of these things were important.  And I'll get one more time to conclude with some concluding remarks after Mr. Scheck finishes.  The good news that Mr. Scheck and I will both hopefully finish the day and turn it back over to Ms. Clark so in a day or so you're going to get this case.  You won't have to hear lawyers talk anymore.  It'll be time to hear you talk.  Time to hear you speak out and I'll be happy, I'll relax tonight, knowing that soon it's going to be in your hands.  We're real comfortable about that, all of us, and you should know that.  So please give Mr. Scheck the attention to which you've given me and understand that all parts of this case are very important and it all ties together, 'cause it's all the evidence in this case went through that LAPD and that black hole over there, that cesspool of contamination and you listen to him about what he as to say in that regard.  Mr. Darden said that in a textbook fashion we had impeached Mr. Fuhrman, well we thank him for that.  We take no pride in that, but that's what did happen.  In addition to calling Kathleen Bell, where you saw her and she's not the kind of lady that, you know, looking at here, you'd probably remember her.  Unless, you know what would be very interesting.  You know he's lying about not knowing her, but this man used these words and these racial epithets so much, he probably can't remember who he said it to.  He tells everybody, whoever came in contact with him, on tape.  You imagine the gall about that?   That you would have these racist views and yet you would put it on tape.  Thank God he put it on tape.  And so, Kathleen Bell came in here and told you the same things in those letters.  You saw her, you observed her, you know she told us the truth.  They couldn't mess with her because now we had those tapes.  And then there was Natalie Singer.  Barely knew this man.  He was dating her roommate.  This man is an indiscriminate racist.  He talks so bad that she didn't want him back in the house.  What did he say to her, in her presence, the only good nigger is a dead nigger  now that you probably all have heard that expression some time in your background, or somewhere, or heard somebody say that, and that's tremendously offensive.  He says it in the presence of his partner's girlfriend, like they're going to go on a date.  And I hope that in homes throughout this country, people aren't acting like this.  This happened to come to light, but I'd be pretty frightened if I felt that the majority of people in this country acted like this behind closed doors, or whatever, because what you do in the dark, is going to come to the light, remember that  that's what this case is about, it came to the light, and just in time to get it to you.  So you saw her on the stand, you saw her graphically.  Talk about that, any doubt in anybody's mind

[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed.  However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]


Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 158 - Part 3

JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney:  Any doubt in anybody's mind he's telling you the truth?  Any one of you think she's not telling you the truth?  And then finally, we had Roderic Hodge and this series of witnesses, and Roderic Hodge  intelligent young man.  Understood something about his rights, too, because when, after this run-in with Fuhrman and his partner, when he's in the back of the police car, Fuhrman turns around and says to him words that I want you to remember in this case.  ``I told I'd get you, nigger.''  This is what he tells Roderic Hodge.  Why is that important?  Because in 1985, and he went on that one call, robbing the Mercedes.  That was this man's mindset, vis a vis O.J. Simpson  I'm going to get that guy, and in '89, when he wrote that report, indelibly impressed on his mind, and in '94.  He had his chance.  Still in west Los Angeles, he had his chance.  So Hodge is important, because you can espouse all these epithets and talk theoretically about your racism, but when it's directed toward a human being.  And I said to him, ``Mr. Hodge, tell this jury how that made you feel?''  He said, ``It made me feel angry and upset and frustrated.  It was dehumanizing'' in a free society, that this man, Fuhrman, does it with impunity.  And his partner sat there and heard it, and didn't report it.  There's something rotten about this kind of conduct.  It's gone on too long.  And so, that's why he's important, but the capper was finding those tapes.  Something that you could hear, lest there be any doubt in anybody's mind.  Laura McKinny came in here, and I can imagine the frustration of the prosecutors.  They've had the glove demonstration, they've seen all these other things go wrong, and now they've got to face these tapes, and they didn't know how to handle her.  Quite frankly, she was a reluctant witness  you know that.  Mr. Darden asked her those questions, where he became negative with her.  She's very smart; unlike some others, who didn't know how to handle it, ``Why are we having this negative conversation?  Why are you acting and treating me like this?  I didn't try to stop him about cover-ups and things.  Why are you asking me these questions.  I'm the one who's here on the subpoena.  Why are treating me like this?''  Now you know it's true because they've heard the tapes; why are you messin' with this lady?  You just get so wrapped in what you're doing, I guess.  Why are they messin' with this lady?.  We owe a debt of gratitude of this lady, that ultimatley and finally she came forward, and she tells us that this man, over the time of these interviews, uses the n-word 42 times, is what she says, in the so-called Fuhrman tapes.  And you, of course, had an opportunity to listen to this man espouse this evil, this personification of evil.  So I'm going to ask Mr. Harris to play exhibit 1368 one more time.  There was a transcript  this was not on tape.  The tape had been erased, where he said, ``We have no niggers where I grew up.''  These are two of 42, as you'll recall.  And then there was his actual voice.  This is the text for what he then says on the tape.
MARK FUHRMAN, from tape:  They don't do anything.  They go out and initiate contact with six-foot five niggers.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN:  Now, you heard that voice.  No question who's voice that is.  Mr. Darden concedes whose voice that is.  ``They don't do anything''  talking about women.  Doesn't like them any better than he likes African-Americans.  ``They don't go out and initiate contact with some six-foot, five-inch nigger who's been in prison, pumping weights.''  That's how he sees the world.  That's this man's cynical view of the world.  That this man who's out there, protecting and serving us.  That's Mark Fuhrman, and he's paired in this case with Philip Vannatter.  They're both beacons that you look at and look to as the messengers that you must look through and pass.  They're both people who've shown that they lie, will lie, did lie, on the stand, under oath.  And you know, one little parenthetical thing, how these people all try to stick together from the standpoint of law enforcement.  The FBI agent comes in here and he talks about when I bring out the fact that he says that Vannatter says they're not there to saves lives.  On cross-examination, he says, well he says, ``I think he was being sarcastic''  that Vannatter was being sarcastic, or maybe it was a joke.  But you know, when I listened to it, I thought about that  well, what's the joke?  What's the sarcasm?  Is it the Constitution?  This man's rights, to be safe and secure in his home?  Is that the joke, is that the sarcasm?  It's a sad state of affairs.  That's the lead detective I'm talking about.  These two twin devils of deception  think about them and keep them in mind.  Thank you for your attention during this first part of my argument.  I hope that during this phase of it, I have demonstrated to you that this really is a case about a rush to judgment, an obsession to win at all costs, a willingness to distort, twist, theorize in any fashion, to try to get you to vote guilty in this case where it is not warranted.  That these metaphors about an ocean of evidence or a mountain of evidence, it's little more than a tiny, tiny stream, if at all, that points equally toward innocence.  That any mountain has long ago been reduced to little more than a mole hill, under an avalanche of lies and complexity and conspiracy.  This is what we've shown you.  And so, as great as America is, we have not yet reached the point where there's equality and rights, or equality of opportunity.
     I started off talking to you a little bit about Frederick Douglass and what he said more than 100 years ago  for they are still the Mark Fuhrmans in this world and in this country who hate, and are yet embraced by people in power.  But, you and I, fighting for freedom and ideals, and for justice for all, must continue to fight to expose hate and genocidal racism and these tendencies.  We then become the guardians of the Constitution, as I told you yesterday, for if we, as the people, don't continue to hold a mirror up to the face of America and say, ``This is what you promised; this is what you delivered.''  If you don't speak out, if you don't stand up, if you don't do what's right, this kind of conduct will continue on forever.  And we'll never have an ideal society, one that lives out the true meaning of the creed of the Constitution, of life, liberty, and justice for all.  I'm going to take my seat, but I get one last time to address you, as I said before.
     This is a case about an innocent man, wrongfully accused.  You've seen him now for a year and two days.  You observed him in the good times and the bad times.  Soon, it'll be your turn.  You have the keys to his future.  You have the evidence by which you can acquit this man.  You have not only the patience, but the integrity and the courage to do the right thing.  We believe that you'll do the right thing, and the right thing is to find this man not guilty of both of these charges.  Thank you very, very much.  I appreciate your attention.  I think, Your Honor, we may need a brief break, because he has to be
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  All right, ladies and gentlemen, we'll take a 15-minute recess at this time.  Remember all my admonitions to you.  We'll see you back here in 15 minutes.  All right, we'll stand in recess.
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor:  And so Johnnie Cochran obviously wanting to let the jurors think about that a little bit before they hear the more arcane argument from Barry Scheck about blood DNA evidence, requests a little bit of an early break, and of course, you saw Judge Ito grant that.  It was a tour de force by Johnnie Cochran, in which, at his most soaring moment, he compared Mark Fuhrman, the detective, with Adolf Hitler.  He certainly said that he and his twin in deception, Detective Philip Vannatter, could have conspired to plant evidence against O.J. Simpson, if not for racist reasons, because they wanted to win the case once they got into it, and he said that for that reason, the jurors should consider the innocence O.J. Simpson and there was an implication that the jurors should send a message about this racism  no one else was dealing with it, he said.  No one else had the courage, and the implication was, send a message and acquit O.J. Simpson, because there is evidence here that you can find that he is not guilty, and under the circumstances, you should send that message.  We'll take a break.  We'll be back with more after this.


DAN ABRAMS, Reporter:  [in progress]  is because one of the jurors was crying and she walked out of the courtroom, went into the back and then came back in, but even after she returned, she was given tissues by the sheriff's deputy, she was consistently wiping her eyes throughout Johnnie Cochran's discussion of Mark Fuhrman.  This is an African-American woman, someone who, really, in the past has not shown much emotion, not someone who generally seems to react to much of the testimony, and so I was certainly surprised when she had to run out of that courtroom.
     Now, there was another point when Johnnie Cochran was talking about the phrase, when he said to this jury, ``You've probably heard, in the past, the phrase, `The only good N-word is a dead N-word,''' and you saw one of the jurors, a alternate man, an elderly African-American man, nodding when Johnnie Cochran was making this comment.  Johnnie Cochran had the attention of this jury like we've rarely seen in this case.  Everyone's eyes focused on Johnnie Cochran's eyes.  He had the complete attention of this jury, but he also had the attention of the Goldman family.  The Goldmans were furious as they came out of the courtroom and, in fact, we're expecting them to hold a press conference downstairs at any moment.  Fred Goldman was just fuming as we walked out.
     Something else from inside that courtroom, Fred, is that Detective Tom Lange, as you may have seen on camera, was sitting right next to Johnnie Cochran.  I mean, he is literally a foot from Johnnie Cochran as Johnnie Cochran was delivering his closing argument, and this must have been intentional after Johnnie Cochran attacked his partner yesterday.  They are now forcing Johnnie Cochran to, effectively, say this to Tom Lange's face, and today Johnnie Cochran went even further, calling Detective Vannatter and Detective Mark Fuhrman the ``twin evils of deception'' and really, really going after Vannatter in a way that we hadn't heard him go after it, and today he had to do it in front of his partner.
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor:  Was there It seemed to me that there was there were times, there, when Johnnie Cochran seemed to be speaking, really, to the non-African Americans on the jury.  Did it seem to be that he was addressing them, specifically, at times?
DAN ABRAMS:  Well, it certainly had a theme.  I mean, there was a theme in Johnnie Cochran's closing argument, at least the portion that we heard today, and that is that what we've seen in this case, the racism in this case, is simply unacceptable.  We heard Johnnie Cochran, at one point, say, ``He is entitled to an acquittal.''
FRED GRAHAM:  Dan, pardon me, Dan Dan, I'm sorry Pardon me, Dan Abrams, sorry to interrupt you, but that press conference is starting.  This is Fred Goldman, the father of Ron Goldman, one of the murder victims.
FRED GOLDMAN, Father of Ronald Goldman:  Nearly 40 minutes out of an hour we have seen a man who perhaps is the worst kind of racist, himself  someone who shoves racism in front of everything; someone who compares a person who speaks racist comments to Hitler, a person who murdered millions of people!  This man is the worst kind of human being imaginable.  He compares racism of its worst kind in this world to what's going on in this case.  He has suggested that racism is the foundation of the police department, of our justice system and only these jurors are capable of fixing everything that has been going on in history?!  This man is sick!  He is absolutely sick!
     He walks around for the past days screaming, if you would, in a silent way, that he has his life has been threatened, and who does he choose to walk with?  Guards from the Nation of Islam.  He's talkin' about racism, and he talks about hate?  Who does he connect himself with?  This man is a whore walking around amongst us, and he compares what Mark Fuhrman did to misery from the the beginnings of history.  This man ought to be ashamed of himself to walk amongst decent human beings.  This man is a disgrace to human beings!
     He is one of the most disgusting human beings I have ever had to listen to in my life!  He suggests that racism ought to be the most important thing that anyone of us ought to listen to in this court, that anyone of us in this nation should be listening to, and it's because of racism we should put aside all other thought, all other reason and set his murdering client free!  He's a sick man!  And he ought to be put away!  He's a disgusting human being!
FRED GRAHAM:  And, if ever there needed to be a illustration of the deep passions that have been stirred by the O.J. Simpson case, Fred Goldman, the father of Ron Goldman with a a virulent attack on defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, accusing him of the deepest kind of racism.  I must say, Gigi Gordon, it's it's almost frightening, the divisions that potentially can be exacerbated by this trial.
GIGI GORDON, Criminal Defense Attorney, Santa Monica:  I think that's absolutely right.  I think what Fred Goldman and the prosecution have been saying is, ``This case is about who did it.  This is not the time and this is not the place to rectify the wrongs of the past,'' and I think what Johnnie Cochran is saying, ``This is the time, this is the place, this is the only place.  If not you, then who?''  And, what you're seeing is the tension of both things coming against each other in this courtroom, on this day, at this time.
FRED GRAHAM:  Because implicit in what Johnnie Cochran is saying is that even if this man is guilty, set him free.
GIGI GORDON:  There's no question that Johnnie Cochran is saying that, and Fred Goldman is outraged by that.  He's outraged, of course, by the comparison with Hitler.  As a person who's Jewish, such analogies are very, very dangerous and offensive.
FRED GRAHAM:  We're going to take a break at this point.  We'll return after this.
[commercial break]
FRED GRAHAM:  Welcome back.  The emotions ran deep during the summation by Johnnie Cochran for the defense, but there was much more going on than just emotion.  There was important and perhaps very effective trial strategy going on.  One of the points that Johnnie Cochran was able to make over and over was that the prosecution, in the person of Marcia Clark, associated itself and herself, personally, with Mark Fuhrman, even after they had heard of Kathleen Bell and her allegations, and you can now see months ago that was a crucial turning point in the trial.
GIGI GORDON:  I think the chickens have come home to roost on that one, and what Johnnie Cochran is able to do, because of that, is to draw the prosecutors into his theme of conspiracy.  He's able to say, ``Not only can you not not trust the messengers from LAPD, but you can't trust Marcia Clark and you can't trust Chris Darden, because they knew.''
FRED GRAHAM:  You know, we need to go back in time, there, because in their defense, the thing that was going on there was people were elbowing themselves aside to try and get into the O.J. Simpson case.  Witnesses were coming forward, you'll recall.  People were coming forward saying they saw people lurking around the scene, and a lot of them were really flakes, and I think two things happened.  Against that background, they brushed her off, and I think the fact that they had lost their leader, that the the original lead counsel for the prosecution had been ill, had left, Marcia Clark was new at that point, and I don't think someone stepped forward and said, ``Wait a minute, check this out.''
GIGI GORDON:  You can choose to believe that Kathleen Bell was viewed as a wannabe, and that they didn't pay sufficient attention to her.  Then the question becomes, Fred, did people in LAPD, did people in the D.A.'s office, did the D.A.'s office, by virtue of having information from Fuhrman's stress disability package, know, and choose to ignore it?  It's not really Kathleen Bell that matters here.  What matters is the access to information that they had before they ever heard of Kathleen Bell, and I think that's when the mistake was made.
FRED GRAHAM:  Mmm-hmm.  I want to break away.  I want to go back to another matter of strategy here, but Dan Abrams is still standing by, and Dan, as I understand it, you have an insight or a comment with regard to the direction of Johnnie Cochran's summation.
DAN ABRAMS:  Well, Fred, we were discussing where Johnnie Cochran has been going with this, and today we've seen Johnnie Cochran move away from talking about the evidence and towards a more policy based argument, which is, as I was saying earlier, that he is almost entitled to an acquittal here, that everything that has happened here, that what the Los Angeles Police Department has done is so awful and so horrible that these jurors should not stand for it and, as a result, should acquit O.J. Simpson.  That is an argument entirely separate from an argument about what the evidence in this case shows.
     And so, now, the defense is going to call Barry Scheck back to talk about the evidence, to talk about why they can't rely on any of the physical evidence, and so you will see Johnnie Cochran likely come back at the end and make a sort of combined argument where he talks about both the policy based arguments and the arguments targeted directly towards the evidence.
FRED GRAHAM:  Dan, I want to ask you about an an aspect of the summation here by Johnnie Cochran, because you've been covering the prosecution.  He seems to be going out of his way to needle Chris Darden.  Now, I don't know whether that's just that he has an opportunity to do it or, does he think Chris Darden is going to come back in the final summation and he's trying to throw him off and, indeed, are we going to see Chris Darden again?
DAN ABRAMS:  We may see Chris Darden again.  That is a decision that, at least, as of last night had not been made definitively by the prosecution.  But you can be certain that if Chris Darden comes back, Johnnie Cochran certainly hopes he comes back with a major chip on his shoulder.  And we've seen Chris Darden, in the past, get very angry.  In fact, at the end of the prosecution's case, we saw Chris Darden in a press conference actually egging Johnnie Cochran on, saying, ``OK.  Come on, Johnnie, now it's your turn.  Put up or shut up.''  Well, we've heard Johnnie Cochran use that phrase on a number of occasions to say that the defense has put up.  Certainly, the defense is hoping that Chris Darden will come back angry, will not be well thought out, and I think that most people think Chris Darden did a nice job in his closing argument, previously, and Johnnie Cochran hopes that Chris Darden may lose that edge.
FRED GRAHAM:  Dan, can I ask you  do you need to get back, now, into the courtroom, because I'd like to have you stand by if you can, but I don't want you to get locked out.
DAN ABRAMS:  No, I'm not actually going back for this session.  Our partners we share a seat with are.
FRED GRAHAM:  All right, now, stay here for a minute, then.
     Gigi, you think that, from the prosecution's point of view, they need Chris Darden again.
GIGI GORDON:  I think they need Chris Darden and I think Chris Darden has to come back and reach for the jury's heart and reach for their mind in the same way that Chris Darden that that Johnnie Cochran just did, and I think only Chris Darden can appeal to them in the same kind of way and say, ``Look, it's not about the Constitution, it's about the conviction.  It's not about what's right, it's about who did it.''  And I think only Chris Darden can counterpoint to Johnnie Cochran because it's their jury, and I think everybody knows that.
FRED GRAHAM:  Dan Abrams, I have sensed that that there's some lack of coordination or perhaps some pulling and tugging within the prosecution camp as to who does get to deliver the summation.  It was not clear that Chris Darden was even going to appear in these arguments until rather late.  Do you know what's going on there?
DAN ABRAMS:  Well, I think that they have actually known for a while, now, exactly who was going to deliver the closing arguments.  I think they just were not telling the press and, in fact, one member of the prosecution team may have been intentionally misleading the press about whether or not Chris Darden was going to be delivering any of the closing argument.  But, now, I I truly believe that the prosecution has to make a decision about whether or not to have both Chris Darden and Marcia Clark back involved in this rebuttal closing argument.  That is something the prosecution will have to decide and, again, as I said, it is something as of yesterday that was not definitive.
FRED GRAHAM:  Dan, thank you very much.  We're going to take a commercial break here and we'll return with more after this.
[commercial break]


FRED GRAHAM, Anchor:  The 15-minute break that was announced by Judge Lance Ito has already been exceeded.  There was some talk about perhaps needing to reshuffle some graphics, some boards, some demonstrative evidence.  Perhaps that's going on; perhaps something else is going on.  We have seen that already a controversy has erupted over questions as to whether or not perhaps defense attorney Johnnie Cochran stepped over the line in some ways in his summation that he delivered right before the break.
     Gigi Gordon, a lawyer has, first, a obligation to his client.  Was this well within that?
GIGI GORDON, Criminal Defense Atty.:  His obligation to his client is to win.  I think it was within that obligation, although I think that it is inappropriate on either side to make appeals to the passions and prejudices of the jury to refer to matters outside of the courtroom and to exhort the jury in a way to ignore the facts.  Now, normally that would be objectionable but I think everybody knew this was coming and I think it's an appeal that if he stays within certain confines he can make.  But no one's going to object and the prosecution's certainly not going to object when Johnnie does this.  But what you're going to hear about is that Johnnie Cochran was a house on fire burning smoke and we're going to back to baby justice before this is all over.
FRED GRAHAM:  Now, in a way, you can't envy the position of Barry Scheck.  He now has to step forward and he's sort of the kindly professor at this point and he's going to talk about alleles and DNA and autorads or is he?  Does he really have to?
GIGI GORDON:  I don't think he has to and I don't think he should.  Because if you get into the science, if you get into the facts, it's not a good place for the defense to be.  All they need to say is you can't trust the evidence because you can't trust the keepers of the evidence and we don't know what all of this means when you get right down to it.  And if you try and explain what it means, it leads to one of those dead ends Marcia Clark was talking about. 
FRED GRAHAM:  Do you have any questions in your mind, in a general sense, about the strategy and wisdom of having such an effective advocate as Johnnie Cochran and have him turn this over to a specialist at this point?  Maybe an argument could be made that Johnnie Cochran can better deliver this point of view in layman's juror's terms and words than a Barry Scheck.
GIGI GORDON:  Well, maybe the idea is to show the jury that it is so complicated that only Barry Scheck can understand it and that Barry Scheck is our leader, Barry Scheck's the one who knows the most about it.  Barry Scheck's the one who understands it the best.  And listen to Barry because he'll show you the way.  And so maybe the idea is exactly backwards that it's so complicated that you can't understand it, but you trust Barry Scheck, you like Barry Scheck and so listen to what he has to say.
FRED GRAHAM:  Now, how much hazard do you think he has, Barry Scheck, in that his argument here to a certain extent is vulnerable to ridicule from Marcia Clark later?  She's already said ``Look.  You're going to hear an argument that DNA flies about in the air and then targets drops of blood and makes then appear to be O.J. Simpson's when really a Colombian hit man left those drops of blood.''  Inevitably he'll be vulnerable to some of that, won't he?
GIGI GORDON:  I think I think he will.  And that's why I don't really think it's Personally, I don't think it's necessary for Barry Scheck to do this at all.  I think Barry Scheck's a lawyer's lawyer.  I've never heard him argue so I don't know if he could follow behind Johnny Cochran in his themes.  And it's always difficult to go behind somebody who's a fabulous orator like Johnny Cochran.
FRED GRAHAM:  I'm told that everyone is in the courtroom now except Judge Lance Ito and we would expect to be there very soon.  I noticed last night Marcia Clark sitting, her hands folded, clearly wanting to project to the jury that ``I'm not worried.  I'm listening to Johnny Cochran, spellbinder, here and I'll deal with this later.''  Should she be taking notes?
GIGI GORDON:  Well, she doesn't really need to take notes because you remember they have transcripts which they get every night.  There's probably other people taking the notes for her.  I probably would do the same in her position on the theory that Johnny Cochran really hasn't said anything that's worthy of taking a note.  He hasn't talked about the evidence and so again, that's another piece of theater in this case, where it's quite deliberate.
FRED GRAHAM:  Judge Lance Ito is taking his place and we'll listen.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  All right.  Back on the record in the Simpson matter.  All parties are again present.  All right.  Mr. Scheck, do you have your exhibits organized?  You're ready to proceed?
BARRY SCHECK, Defense Atty.:  Yes.  Thank you, Your Honor. 
Judge LANCE ITO:  All right.  Deputy Trower [sp], let's have the jurors, please.
FRED GRAHAM:  As the jurors file in, we'll take a quick break and we'll return for a continuation of the summation after this.
[commercial break]
FRED GRAHAM:  Welcome back.  The jurors are still filing into the courtroom.  You may have heard Judge Lance Ito say to Barry Scheck, ``Do you have all of your boards and your demonstrative evidence in order?''  And he said ``Yes, we do.''  And that, perhaps, is a bit of a hint that there's one reason why this has taken a little longer than we expected was that that process may be quite a complicated one.  There's a lot to be said.  Gigi Gordon, I think he'd be well advised not to try to be eloquent.
GIGI GORDON:  You know, I think this is a get-in-and-get-out kind of thing and I don't know if Barry Scheck can or will do that.  We'll see. 
FRED GRAHAM:  All right.  Judge Lance Ito is speaking, indicating that the jury is in place.
Judge LANCE ITO:  address the DNA issues, or physical evidence issues.
BARRY SCHECK:  I would say. 
Judge LANCE ITO:  You may proceed.
BARRY SCHECK:  Thank you, Your Honor. 
     Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, good morning.  
JURY:  Good morning.
     Let me join with everybody in thanking you for your service.  I can the frustration, the loneliness, the sacrifice you've made in this sequestration is something that we understand or we're trying to understand.  As the judge has pointed out a number of times, my colleague, Mr. Neufeld, and I we're from New York City, from specifically we're from Brooklyn, and we've been out here quite unexpectedly for a lot of months and I remember when that detective from Chicago testified about having those keys that you stick in and out of the doors and little lights go on.  Every day, going in and out of those doors, again and again and again like Groundhog Day, everything repeating itself.  The monotony, the loneliness, the frustration.  We would we'd sit around and we'd talk sometimes in amazement at how you deal with this and how appreciative we are.  And well, it's just really an honor and a privilege to present this case to you and as lawyers that dealt with some of the forensic evidence in this case which was detailed and complicated, and I'm sure I speak for myself, Mr. Blasier, Mr. Neufeld, Mr. Clark for the prosecution, Mr. Goldberg that we had a job.  Our job was to make it simple to make it cogent without sacrificing any meaningful detail.  That's our job.  And I can't tell you how appreciative we are because you paid attention, you were patient.  You followed the evidence.  I know that; I watched it.  
     Now, you know, it's our job to make it simple, to make it cogent without sacrificing detail that was important.  And sometimes, we let you down.  I know that.  Some days when we were talking about some of this, it was hard and we came back to it again and I think both sides tried to clarify the issues as much as we could, but you never let us down.  Because those were long days but you were more than fair with us.  I know you followed and paid attention to this evidence.  So it is a privilege and honor to have presented that evidence to you.  And I must also say that standing before you right now is a terrifying responsibility.  It's a terrifying responsibility because we think the evidence shows that we represent an innocent man wrongly accused.  We represent we think the prosecution hasn't come close to meeting its burden of proof in this case beyond a reasonable doubt.  And we think that the integrity of this system I'm sorry.  What is this?

BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress]  The integrity of this system is at stake.  You cannot convict when the core of the prosecution's case is built on perjurious testimony of police officers, unreliable forensic evidence and manufactured evidence.  It is a cancer at the heart of this case and that's what this evidence shows when you go through it patiently, when you go through it carefully, when you go through it scientifically; logically, that's what the evidence shows.  And you cannot convict on that evidence.  There are many, many reasonable doubts buried right in the heart of the scientific evidence in this case and we have demonstrated them and we don't have to prove them, but the evidence shows it.  So, in the words of Dr. Lee, ``Something is wrong.''  Something is terribly wrong with the evidence in this case.  You cannot trust it.  It lacks integrity.  It cannot be a basis for a verdict of beyond a reasonable doubt.  
     There was a logo that we showed you in the opening statements that we've reproduced here on a board and you may recall it   to black hole.  As you recall, it shows the evidence from Bundy, the evidence from Rockingham and the Bronco, the evidence from Mr. Simpson itself passes through the Los Angeles Police Department, the messengers that Mr. Cochran was talking about, the lab, criminalists, coroners office and then it is tested by the FBI, the Department of Justice in Sylmar.  And if you recall in the opening statements we said contaminated, compromised and corrupted integrity of the evidence.  Now, the importance of this flow chart is point number one  and you heard Dr. Cotton, Gary Sims, Dr. Gerdes, all the forensic experts told you with respect certainly to DNA testing, all the testing  if it is contaminated, compromised or corrupted here it doesn't matter what the results are by these other testing agencies, because if it happens within that black hole of LAPD it doesn't matter how many times you test it.  Miss Clark got up there and said, well, why didn't we here from Dr. Blake, who  If we didn't have Dr. Blake in this case to be sitting there as the testing was going on while you were already serving on this jury panel.  Things were being tested, he was up there looking at what they were doing.  If we didn't  We wouldn't have even known what was going on in this case, but the point is by the time it reached the California Department of Justice and Gary Sims, if that evidence  and we've demonstrated  contaminated, compromised and corrupted you could do a hundred tests.  Dr. Blake could test it, Dr. Lee's lab could test it, everybody could test it and you'd get the same result.  So, that has not been the issue in this case and don't be distracted by that.  Dr. Terry Speed.  You recall him.  He gave testimony in this case about error, laboratory error.  And he again pointed out  he used that term common mode error  if it happens here and that's where the evidence is compromised, contaminated and corrupted, these results are not adding anything.
     So, you ask the question  how did the Los Angeles Police Department  how does any laboratory  become a black hole that impairs the integrity of the evidence?  [to the court]  Could we have the first slide?  Any laboratory has to have three things; you have to have rules and training, you have to have what's known as quality assurance, and you have to have chain of custody, security of the evidence.  Well, what have we heard about rules and training at the Los Angeles Police Department laboratory?  Well, this laboratory is run without a set of rules that everyone knows.  They don't even have a manual.  Think about that.  That's extraordinary.  And then they have this draft manual and it's ignored by the criminalists, Fung and Mazzola.  They don't know what's in the draft manual, what procedures there are.  And then the laboratory director Michelle Kessler; well, she was the acting laboratory director.  Actually, one of the real problems here is that the time of this case the head of the laboratory was a police officer, not a scientist.  But Michelle Kessler, she had that draft manual on her desk for four years.  Going through it, and she says, well, some of this is no good.  And they didn't get around to it.  So, that's how you become a black hole.  
     The testimony is clear in this case.  They did not give their criminalists training in state of the art techniques, in particular  of great relevance here  there was no DNA training for the evidence collectors.  Now, that's got to be a significant point.  Miss Clark told you in the opening statement that collecting, preserving bloodstain evidence for purposes of DNA testing was as simple as going into your kitchen and cleaning up spillage.  Now, we all know  We all know that's not true based on what we've heard in this case.  [to the court]  Can we have the next slide, please?
     Quality assurance.  That's a term that's used in bureaucracies and hospitals and laboratories; any place where you're trying to deliver service with integrity.  What is going on here?  There is a failure to document how you collect the evidence, a fundamental duty as Dr. Lee showed you.  Remember with that chart?  A fundamental duty of criminalists to document the evidence.  In other words, where it was picked up, how it was picked up, when it was picked up and we have seen the problems in this case when you can't to that and you try to reconstruct it later when your memories are gone and you can't do it.  Well, that's not done.  And failure to document testing is tolerated.  Compare the notes at the Department of Justice, Gary Sims and Renee Montgomery, with what you saw from Collin Yamauchi and Dennis Fung.  We  It was  I had to rearrange the notes for Collin Yamauchi's own notes when he was on the witness stand and he goes, that's right.  First I took out O.J. Simpson's reference sample and made the Fitzco card.  Then the next thing I did was the glove and then the next thing I did, all within that one hour and 20 minutes, were the Bundy blood drops.  I had to reconstruct his notes for him.  And then he goes, that's right.  That's the way it happened.  I guess that's right.  I mean, it had to be when you reconstructed it all.  But the notes are not there and that's fundamental for having any integrity whatsoever.  There was no serious supervision of these people, that's just clear.  You saw it.  This lab was not inspected, this lab is not accredited, this lab is not subjective, certainly, the DNA to external blind proficiency testing which you know  which you know is what you know.  Dr. Gerdes told you about that.  Everybody talked about that.  This national research council will report DNA technology and forensic science.  [to court]  Could we have the next slide?
     Now this is critical.  Chain of custody and security.  There is absolutely nothing more fundamental to preserving integrity forensic evidence than a chain of custody, in having security.  You have to know what you're picking up.  You have to be able to document it, otherwise bad things can happen and nobody can trace it.  In this case, they did not count the swatches when they collected them.  They did not count the swatches when they got back to the laboratory and put them in the tubes for drying.  They did not count the swatches when they took them out of the tube and put them in the bindles.  We don't know how many swatches they started with.  They didn't book the evidence in this case for three days.  They kept it in the least secure facility, the evidence processing room, for three days without being able to track the items.  The lead homicide detective in this case  and we've talked about it a little and we'll talk about it some more  is walking around with an unsealed blood vial for three hours; it's unheard of.  The other lead detective in this case is taking shoes home.  Right out of that  This could be critical evidence, the shoes that their suspect was wearing that night  taking it home.  Now, you know, it was amazing, when Mr. Fung testified, the extent to which, you know, they've lost all track of the rules.  At one point I asked him, would it have been all right if they took the blood home?  And he said, ``Sure, you could, as long as you put it in the refrigerator overnight.''  Do you remember that answer?  I mean, there's no sense of what has to be done in order to give you reliable evidence  none.
     Think about the Bronco.  They finish doing the collection the Bronco and then it's abandoned, literally, for two months.  There's a box you're supposed to check off, give special care if you're going to collect it for biological evidence.  Not checked off.  It is sent to Viertel's.  It is abandoned for two months.  There are no records of who went in and out of that car.  There was a theft.  Anybody was allowed in there.  And then on August 26th they're collecting evidence from it?
     And then finally, and this is  [to court]  Could we have the next board?  This is a critical point that I think demonstrates all you need to know about security and chain of custody in this laboratory  the missing lens.  The missing lens.  Now, this is very important evidence.  This is the envelope that's found at the crime scene with the prescription glasses.  If you're investigating a case you're very concerned about this.
Judge LANCE ITO:  [inaudible]  on this board?
BARRY SCHECK:  No.  There are not, Your Honor.
Judge LANCE ITO:  All right.  Thank you.
BARRY SCHECK:  Now, we can tell, as Dr. Lee pointed out, on this lens there are smears of blood  trace evidence.  There could have been finger prints from the perpetrator who was going into that envelope.  On June 22nd, Dr. Baden and Dr. Wolf got an opportunity just to look, just to look at the evidence, not touch or examine or test  just to look and they saw two lens there; made a note of it.  February 16th  think about it, that's the first time we got a chance to inspect and just even handle the evidence.  You're already sitting here, February 16th.  There's something wrong.  When we look at it, that lens is gone.  There is no report, no record, no investigation of its disappearance.  Nobody comes in and tells you what happened.  Now, that tells you a lot.  Did somebody take this from the laboratory as a souvenir?  Did somebody walk off with this?  How can that be?  This is critical evidence in a case.  How can that be?  It just vanished down this black hole?  Now, they're going to say, we're Fort Knox.  Nobody could get to the evidence in this case with our evidence tracking system.  Now, I should just tell you in passing  I'm sure you caught it  that even when it's booked into the evidence control unit and it's supposedly being tracked, they didn't say their computer tracking system was a chain of custody system.  It isn't.  They have all the evidence item in boxes, like the sock and the blood drops and they'll put them in the serology freezer and they're in a box there.  Then somebody will hit the computer and they can go in and then they can take any item they want out of that box.  It's not tracked by specific items.  There is no good security in this system.  There's plenty of access if you want to tamper with evidence if you are authorized personnel, if you are a lead detective, if you are somebody there it can happen.  And the missing lens tells you all you need to know what is going on here.  And if they come back and say, well maybe there's  Maybe Dr. Baden and Wolf are wrong, there was no lens to begin with.  Well, that's even weirder, isn't it?  What kind of killer takes a souvenir like this?  How does that fit in with their theory?  The missing lens is a serious problem in this case.
     Now, the black hole symbolizes something else.  You know, science is no better than the methods employed and the people who employ it.  DNA is a sophisticated technology, it is a wonderful technology.  But there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.  The issue in this case is not is DNA good or bad?  DNA technology.  The issue is, right or wrong?  So, Miss Clark gets up here and tells you, well, Dr. Lee said, DNA is OK.  Therefore, the DNA evidence in this case is OK?  That's ridiculous.  Dr. Lee said, right way, wrong way.''  Dr. Lee is one of the authors of this report.  Right way, wrong way.  And something else.  During the cross-examination of Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola and Mr. Matheson, we brought out a pamphlet entitled ``Collection of DNA Evidence  How You Should Do It.''  It was a pamphlet that was put together by Dr. Henry Lee in association with the FBI.  Mr. Fung had only heard of it, if you recall, after he was prepared to testify in this case, not before they all went out and collected the evidence.  And in that report as it was established  And Mr. Bo Agent Bodziak, I don't know if he really knows a lot about Dr. Lee.  As he said, he had limited knowledge.  I mean, he's questioning whether he goes to crime scenes.  The FBI is saying, well, how do you collect DNA evidence from the crime scene?  Dr. Lee writes the manual.  And in that manual they say you don't put these swatches in plastic bags because if you put wet blood swatches in plastic bags you're going to degrade all the DNA in them.  And they sat here debating whether you could that for months.  And as we'll talk about it, now they're trying to turn that argument around.  But it's just plain that they didn't know what they were doing here and you could have the most sophisticated technology in the world and if you don't apply it correctly you can't trust the results.
     There's no compliance with the NRC report.  There's no compliance with the kind of standards that you would require in a life and death situation and this is a life and death situation.  And that's what you have to demand of a laboratory.  And Dr. Gerdes is a man that deals with life and death situations, bone marrow transplants, organ transplants, disease diagnosis.  He came in and told you about the standards that we demand, that we require, that ought to be the minimum.  They're not close.  
     You can't brush this off as Miss Clark did in her arguments by saying, bah, sloppy criminalists, sloppy coroner?  And that's all she said.  I'm  I fully anticipate that most of the matters I'm going to be addressing to you she's been planning to address in her rebuttal summation because she certainly didn't address them in her closing argument, did she?
     You can't just say, sloppy criminalists, sloppy coroner, big deal.  She said, DNA  It's an insult to your intelligence, frankly.  DNA is used to identify the war dead, therefore, accept all the evidence in this case.  That doesn't answer the question, does it?  As a matter of fact, the DNA tests she's talking about are something they call mydocondrial DNA tests [sp]; it has nothing to do with the tests in this case.  And the war dead has nothing to do with what was going on in this case.  Zero.  It's not an answer.  It's not this case.  It's not the techniques.  They argue the defense has to prove exactly how, exactly where, exactly when tampering occurred with any of this evidence.  That's not our burden.  They have to prove to you that this evidence has integrity beyond a reasonable doubt.  And, you know, when people tamper with evidence they don't do it on video tape.  They try to do it with some stealth.  They try to cover their tracks.  And as Mr. Cochran's pointed out and if you think about this evidence, it wouldn't take more than two bad police officers to do this.  And a lot of people look the other way.  [to court]  Could we have 2.01?
[audio segment ends]

BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  Now, the way that I'd like to organize the rest of my remarks for you is the systematic study of the essential facts.  And the circumstantial evidence charge in this case talks about key point [sic].  Each fact which is essential to complete a set of circumstances necessary to establish the defendant's guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt  each essential fact.  That's what's special about a circumstantial evidence case.  For each essential fact, they have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.  If they fail if there's a reasonable doubt about an essential fact, you must acquit.  Those are the rules.  And when you're looking at a piece of circumstantial evidence  If it is susceptible of two reasonable interpretations  one points to guilt, one point [sic] to innocent [sic] you must adopt the one that points to innocence.  Could we have the next chart?
So what I propose to do with you today, and I'll try to do it as quickly as I possibly can, is go through what we believe are essential facts.  Now, we don't have to prove anything, and we don't have the burden of proof here, and I'm gonna confront each and every one of these essential pieces of evidence in this case and raise a reasonable doubt about it more than a reasonable doubt many reasonable doubts, but if they fail in one of their essential facts, you have to acquit.  We're gonna go through the socks  You know, the reason I put this up here is that you'll know when I'm getting close to done [laughs], and you can follow along.  The socks, the stains on the back gate, the missing blood, the hair and fiber, the evidence of struggle at Bundy, the testimony of Dr. Baden and Dr. Lee, the Bronco, the Rockingham glove  That's what we'll be discussing this morning.  Let's start with the sock.  We know that on June 13th, when Mr. Fung went to collect the sock  not yet  he saw it on the throw rug  not yet  and he did not see blood.  He did not see soil on the carpet.  He did not see any trace evidence around  not on the stairwell, not on the carpet leading into the bedroom, not anywhere.  There's supposedly a stain  an ankle stain  on these socks.  You saw it cut out  about an inch and a half, huh  more DNA in that than anything in this case  Wouldn't that, if it were there, have left a transfer  some specks, something  if they're in a struggle?  You have children.  I have children.  You ever see them go out to play in dirt  like that closed in area at Bundy  get into some kind of raucous.  You  Socks come back; they're filthy.  It would have to be here if there's anything on them at all.  Nothing.  Nothing there.  Now, Mr. Fung is looking for blood.  These socks are the only clothing they take.  It's logical, as a criminalist, as he admitted on cross-examination, that he would be looking at the ankle area  the one they would look to first, 'cause that would be the most likely exposed.  He sees nothing.  He's running around trying to do testing of anything that looks like blood.  No test to the socks.  Then, on June 22nd, Dr. Baden and Dr. Wolf are permitted to go to the crime lab, and Michele Kestler shows them the socks.  They see nothing.  Now, we get to June 29th.  This is very interesting.  On June 29th, the defense wanted access to samples  split them  and the criminalists  Matheson, Kestler, the head of the laboratory and Yamauchi  are going through all the evidence in about a five or six-hour period  Right there, they're going through all the evidence to make an assessment of what kind of testing could be performed of what kind of biological material or blood would be on any of these pieces of evidence to see PCR testing, RFLP testing, how they could be divided  They also  Mr. Yamauchi said they were literally measuring the size of the swatches and making assessments and making examinations.  What piece of evidence, at that point, is more important to these people than the socks found in Mr. Simpson's bedroom?  Wouldn't you look at that?  And they told us that they took white paper, and they put the socks on the white paper, and if there's blood inch and a half on that ankle  You you know, you saw it every time that we put something down, little specks would come off.  You and Ms. Clark put those gloves on the very first day.  We actually had it on white paper.  You  You know, the plastic gloves, and little pieces of trace fell off, and we actually pulled those together, put 'em in a separate exhibit, because these kinds of things fall off.  If there were that stain on the sock  that big stain on the sock  they would have seen it.  Gary Sims told you, he was disturbed by it that a trained criminalist should have seen it.  You use light that's sufficient to look at what you're doing.  They're now telling you, we didn't have light.  We didn't look at what we were doing.  Please.  Where I come from, that don't pass the laugh test.  Now, what is the summary on the socks on the report they do on June 29th?  Dress socks, blood search  none observed.  None observed.  Tells you all you need to know or none obvious, I'm sorry.  Can't even read that.  It's either none observed or none obvious.  They have two different phrases  one on the handwritten report, one on the typewritten report.  OK.  Then, suddenly, on August 4th, Mr. Yamauchi can't remember.  It was some kind of general inventory.  Can't  Mr. Matheson might have asked him.  He can't remember what the direction was.  It wasn't specific to the socks.  Somebody said, go look at the go look at this stuff.  And then, for the first time, they find the stain on the ankle.  Now, we have evidence of the wet transfer going through surface one, surface two, through the little holes in the sock to surface three.  It's pretty simple.  If there's a leg in those socks, you can't have the transfer.  Professor McDonald and Dr. Lee came in, and they showed you the pictures of the little red balls, and I don't think it's even being seriously contested that this is evidence of a wet transfer now.  They're not contesting it really.  Can't get it when the leg's in the sock.  Their testimony stands unrefuted.  There was no blood stain expert that came in here and said that's not a wet transfer, Dr. Henry Lee Professor McDonald.  Dr. DeForest didn't show up here.  Why?  Now, during the course of cross-examination of Dr. Lee and Professor McDonald, the prosecution sent up some hypothetical explanations for this that I'll review with you, and each one of them was rejected by Dr. Lee Professor McDonald but Dr. Lee in particular, as I recall.  I think they gave him all of them as highly improbable.  Lots of things were possible, but he said these explanations were highly improbable.  Number one the idea that at the time of the killings, there could have been a touch with the finger from a victim of Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson on the leg, and that it wasn't dry when Mr. Simpson somehow got into that Bronco, came back to Rockingham, avoided Alan Park, ran down the side, left no blood stains, hit the air conditioner, hit the stucco fence leaving no trace somehow came in, all with the bloody clothes, went up the stairs, left no trace of blood, left no trace of soil, left no trace of berries, got into the house, took off the socks, left them there, and then it's still wet.  So, if it's still wet when he takes off the socks, you get this transfer to surface three.  Well, there's a big problem with that.  Then, you should have seen something on the carpet if that's what happened.  It doesn't make sense.  It doesn't fit.  Then, the next explanation is on August 4th, when Mr. Yamauchi did the Pheno test, taking the swab and brushing the stain to see if it were blood, that that somehow created wetness that transfered into the third surface or  Well, Dr. Lee and Dr. McDonald said that that doesn't make sense when you look at the stains, because if that brushing had occurred, you would see a diffusion, and you don't see that kind of diffusion.  That's not the way you would do the test anyhow  just touch it couldn't cause that kind of transfer through to surface three.  Highly improbable, said the leading forensic scientists in America.  Sweat  Next explanation is gonna be sweat.  Well, there was a stain from the crime scene, but sweating in the sock, and then the sock is taken off, and then, somehow by process of sweat, it t ransfers to surface three.  Dr. Lee and Dr. McDonald said ridiculous, highly improbable  You'd see that same diffusion as with the Pheno test, and we don't see it.  The next explanation  When Mr. Simpson is taking off the socks, he coincidentally has a finger that touches surface three opposite the ankle stain, so it's not Nicole Brown Simpson's blood that is on surface three.  It's Mr. Simpson's own blood that he accidentally touched exactly opposite.  That's a ridiculous coincidence.  That doesn't pass the laugh test.  That's the other explanation they floated.  Then, another explanation they tried  They showed Dr. Lee the new picture of the sock.  Remember how they were folded up?  They said, well, maybe blood of Mr. Simpson's [sic], when you fold the sock over, landed on surface three  coincidentally, opposite the stain  when they were bundled up, and that's what created it.  Again, rejected as a ridiculous, highly probable [sic] coincidence.  Now, none of these things make sense.  They were  Ms. Clark also said, you know, there's a tiny spatter of Mr. Simpson's Mr. Simpson's some blood the top of the socks  Mr. Simpson, and she says, well, there's spatter there.  Well, you know, Dr. Mc Professor McDonald said there's no spatter.  Gary Sims doesn't pretend to be a blood stain expert.  Dr. Professor McDonald, Dr. Lee  the leading experts in this area.  They didn't bring in anybody.  It's ridiculous to say there's spatter there, and if it's spatter of O.J. Simpson's blood, how does that happen?  What?  Did he bleed so much that created a puddle and spatter on the top of the socks?  Nonsense.  The point is, every explanation that they're desperately trying to come up with is a highly improbable inference.  The most likely and probable inference is the one that is not for the timid or the faint of heart.  Somebody played with this evidence, and there's no doubt about it.  And you know why there's no doubt about it?  Because they got so upset in the opening statement about the socks, about the back gate so upset that they sent it to the FBI.  And Mr. Harmon wrote them a letter saying, please refute the defense theory that somebody tampered with this evidence.  Please refute it.  Those were the words.  Not exactly an objective way [laughs] of sending it out  Please test this for EDTA  Please refute what the defense has to say.  And Agent Martz never testified in the prosecution's case, and you know why that is?  And that's really all you need to know  Because he couldn't refute it, because it's an inference consistent with innocence that they can't refute.  There's EDTA.  How does that happen?  There's EDTA there.  So, if we could have slide four  The sock  No blood on June 13th, when it's collected  No blood on June 22nd, when Dr. Lee, Dr. Baden and Dr. Wolf see it  They looked for blood.  On June 29th, on a lab paper, with reasonable light, three people with 25 years of experience, and they don't see it.  Most important piece of evidence examining it for purposes of court.  The wet transfer to surface three unrefuted and EDTA  Now, let's think about it.  Is this coincidence?  Kill that please.  Is this coincidence  all these things with the sock  or is it corroboration?  I say it's corroboration that something is wrong  Something is terribly wrong with the most important pieces of evidence in this case.  It is a cancer that is infecting the heart of this case.  You cannot render a verdict beyond a reasonable doubt based on evidence like this.  So, if we apply 2.01 an essential fact the socks, Ms. Clark said an essential fact, whose interpretation is the most reasonable?  And even if you give some of those cockamamy explanations some credence, and you say, well, maybe, ours is certainly reasonable enough for you to you must adopt it, and if you must adopt it, really, where does that leave us?  Because, you know, there's another instruction that I submit has some relevance here.  Can we have the slide now?

BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress] Now, you've been instructed that a witness who is willfully false in one material part of his or her testimony is to be distrusted in others.  You may reject the whole testimony of a witness who has willfully testified falsely as to a material point, unless from all the evidence you believe the probability of truth favors his or her testimony in other particulars.  Thank you.
     Now, yes, that applies to witnesses.  But I would argue to you that, by analogy, it applies to the messengers who are bringing you this forensic evidence, as well.  Because, let's just think about the socks.  The LAPD officers and lab people who were responsible for the collection of this, for the chain of custody for preserving the integrity of this evidence, are the same people who are bring you everything else.
     Remember what Dr. Lee said about the socks?  He said it's like eating a plate of spaghetti, looking through the plate bowl of spaghetti, I think he said.  You see a cockroach.  Do you then take every strand of that bowl of spaghetti to look for more cockroaches, or you just throw it away and eat no more?
     In your deliberations, somebody may say, all right.  I have a reasonable doubt about this essential piece of evidence, the socks.  I have a reasonable doubt.  It's reasonable that they manufactured this piece of evidence.  But let's put that aside and look at everything else.  Well, just wait a second.  Just think about what that means.  If they manufactured evidence on the sock, how can you trust anything else?  How, in this country, in this democracy, can they come in there's no doubt Fuhrman's a liar.  And a genocidal racist.  There's no doubt about that.  But there's really no doubt, either, that they played with this sock, is there?  And if that can happen, that's a reasonable doubt for this case, period.  End of sentence.  End of case.  It really is true.  Not in this country.  It's a test of citizenship.  Not in this country.
     Now let's go to the back gate.  Could we have the next slide?  Because you know there's more.  There's more of this cancer.  You want to add the rest of that?  Put it all up.  One-seventeen  put it all up, Harry  117 was the stain taken from the back gate.  And, you know, there was something very strange about it, wasn't there?  The blood drops at Bundy were degraded and had extremely low DNA concentrations.  One-seventeen had enough for an RFLP test.  It was 27 times as much as 47, the first blood drop, 45 times as much as 48, 270 as much as 49, 51 times as much as 50, 11 times as much as 52.
     This slide, like most of them I'm going to show you, is in evidence.  And you know who brought us that testimony?  Gary Sims from the Department of Justice.  Can we have the next slide?  That's 117, the one on the gate.
     Do them all.  This is 115 and 116.  The one on the lower parts of the gate.  Fifteen times as much as 47, 22 times as much as 48, 135 times as much as 49, 25 times as much as 50, six times as much as 52.  This supposedly has been out there from June 12th to July 3rd.  And there's no question sunlight degrades DNA.  Moisture and bacteria degrade DNA.  Why are these concentrations so much higher?
     And another point.  There's DNA concentrations, but there's also a separate test, as you've learned, when you look at those yield gels, for degradation.  These samples are not degraded.  How can that be?  Nothing.
     Now, there's something interesting here, too.  The prosecution is now saying, well, it's on a different surface than the Bundy blood drops.  The Bundy blood drops are on cement, this is on a metal gate.  Painted metal gate.  So there's something magical about this that will prevent it from degrading at all in over three weeks.
     It's remember, blood drop number 50 is just a few feet from this bottom portion of the gate that's very, very close to the surface and all the same environmental insults.  But, you know what proves this argument totally fallacious  and I asked this question of Gary Sims, and you can go back.  Remember the blood from the handrail?  That was one of the last questions I asked him.  It's very curious to me that they've never typed that.  They're still testing.  Remember the blood on the handrail, as you're leading up Bundy?  Same kind of surface.  Totally degraded.  Remember the samples from the front gate?  There was blood on the front gate.  Gary Sims' testimony, no question about that, severely degraded, just like the other samples from Bundy.  So those are the same kinds of surfaces.  So this explanation don't pass the lab test.
     Well, what's the other explanation that Miss Clark offered you?  Now, this is a whopper.  She said, well, it's the plastic bags.  [laughs] I mean, that's rich.  They spent weeks trying to deny that putting samples in plastic bags doesn't degrade the DNA.  Well, it does.  I mean, you know that.  From the moisture.  So now they're saying on July 3rd, when Fung made this collection, he put these swatches in a plastic bag, but he didn't let them cook as long in a truck as he did on June 12th.  Total incompetence.  That's the explanation.  That accounts for these differences.
     Well, you know, that doesn't work either, for a number of reasons.  Number one, they were going, as you recall, on a tour of the crime scene, and Fung apparently right away they found, all of a sudden they found this stuff on the back gate.  And there's no testimony, zero, as to how long it took Dennis Fung to bring those back to the evidence processing room, or how long he had them in a plastic bag, or what other things they had him doing.  There's no testimony that he immediately went back to the lab, he didn't continue with them in the tour, or anything like that.
     And you know why it's significant that they can't come in here and argue that?  And they don't present evidence?  Because they could've.  Because we know that there are records of when you go back into that evidence processing room and get in the door.  They could've demonstrated, if they really want to put this argument before you, they could have demonstrated how long it took.  Or they could have brought him back here to testify about it.  But, frankly, if they brought him back here to testify about that explanation so late in the game, you wouldn't have believed him, would you?
     So they can't use this plastic bag theory, and they can't use that it's a different surface.  They can't.  It doesn't make sense scientifically.  It doesn't fit.  So, what you know, what's going on here?
     Now, there's another thing.  They're going to say, well, you know, Officer Riske, Phillips, I believe, Fuhrman, Rossi, that night, when they were entering the premises, the back gate, they had their flashlights, and they were looking up and down and they think they saw some blood on the back gate.  So they all testify to it so you know it's there.
     Well, first of all, we know  you've been there  that this gate was rusting.  There were all kinds of darknesses, imperfections, there were berries all over there, there's all kinds of discolorations.  And what did they really see with their flashlights?  It's not clear what they saw with their flashlights.  But you know what's very, very interesting is that Lange said to Fung, ``Go look.  There's blood on the back gate.  You should go look.  Or, we're heard reports there's blood on the back gate.''  Now, this is very interesting.  Could we put up the diagram?
     You may remember this.  This is the diagram that Fung did of the back gate.  Pull back on it.  And you recall the testimony.  These are, the numbers you see, 115, 116, all those numbers, right?  Those are the photo numbers.  You recall how they did the collection, that they started, they put down a photo number, not the evidence item number.  So they started on the walkway with 112, and they put down 112, and that was sample 47, and they collected that.  Then they went and they put down 113, and that was sample 48, and they collected that.  Then they went down, and they put down 114, and that was sample 49, and they collected that.
     Then they put down 115, and that was sample 50, and now we're right by the back gate, and they collected that.  Now, this is what shows you there was no blood on the back gate.  Because at that point, what did they do?  They go to the front gate.  They walk all the way back to the front gate where the blood stain patterns are, that's 116.  And then they go back all the way to the end of the driveway and they get the last blood drop, number 52, 117.
     Why did they go all the way back?  I'll tell you why?  Because Detective Lange had told Mr. Fung, as he testified, that there was blood on the back gate, and they looked.  He'd heard reports of it, and they didn't see any blood on the back gate.  So the only blood they saw on a gate was on the front gate, so they went back and collected 116.
     And you know what else shows you that?  Could we have the picture?  Where is it, Mr. Fung?  They took no pictures of blood on the back gate, 117.  There's some discoloration there that may be consistent with 115 if it's blood at all, but there is no 116.  So there's no pictures, either.  Thank you.
     And what else?  What else?  What else?  There's EDTA on the stains from the back gate.  So can we have a chart on this?  Let's look at the back gate.  No documentation or photos on June 13th.  Discovered on July 3rd.  High DNA concentration.  No degradation.  EDTA.  Coincidence or corroboration that something is wrong?  Something is terribly wrong.  There is a cancer at the heart of this case.  This is a reasonable doubt.  You put this together with the sock.  How many cockroaches do you have to find in the bowl of spaghetti?
     This isn't made up.  This isn't invented.  These are facts.  How could all of this be?  How can this is not this is a reasonable interpretation of the evidence based on solid fact.  You cannot, on your oath, reject this and say, ah, it never happened.  You can't.  It's a reasonable doubt.
     Now let's discuss EDTA.  Because that's obviously an important issue.  They asked for the tests to be done after the opening statement.  Refute it.  And they didn't put them on, because it doesn't refute.  Reasonable interpretation of the evidence that there's EDTA there, consistent with having come from a purple-topped tube, on the face of it.  They didn't put them on.  We had to call them.
     But you know, there's a very, very interesting point that you might have missed in Dr. Rieders' testimony.  When we compare Dr. Rieders and Agent Martz.  And that is, in January there was a gentleman named Hankaus [sp], works with the LAPD science division, and they were interested, after the opening statement, in seeing whether or not tests could be performed to detect EDTA.  Do you recall who they called, at page 38414 of the transcript of Dr. Rieders?
     Question, ``Incidentally, at one point were you consulted by the Los Angeles Police Department during the course of this case about methods to detect EDTA?''  ``Yes.''  He was shown this letter from Mr. Hankaus.  ``Do you remember who that was?''  ``Mr. Hankaus.''  ``And did you provide him with materials to assist them in developing a method to detect EDTA?''  ``Yes, of course.''  That was a letter with a number of citations on it.
     Before the testing was done, before they knew he was even going to appear as a defense witness, the they reached out to Dr. Fredric Rieders.  Why?  Because Dr. Fredric Rieders, a Ph. D., a distinguished teacher, he runs a reference lab outside of Philadelphia.  A reference lab.  People go to this laboratory when you want to develop toxicology techniques which are specialized and sophisticated, because he is experienced, he is knowledgeable, he is learned.  They asked him for work about EDTA.
     You know why else?  As Dr. Rieders testified, he has expertise in EDTA.  And it's used to treat people for lead poisoning.  He's been working with EDTA for I think something on the order of 30 years.  He's the expert you would call to interpret the data.  So they asked him for references.  And now they want to tell you that he's out of his mind.  That he is not reasonable in his interpretation of this data, and he shouldn't be trusted.  Very interesting, isn't it?
     Now, you know, when you evaluate the testimony of Agent Martz and Dr. Rieders, there really isn't that much disagreement.  And remember the circumstantial evidence charge, about whether there's two plausible, reasonable interpretations?  You have to take the one that goes with innocence.
     There are three questions.  Is there EDTA there?  Dr. Rieders says yes.  Agent Martz says, could be consistent with EDTA based on the MSMS readings.  If it isn't EDTA, says Martz, I don't know what else it could be.
     Next question.  If it's EDTA, how much is there?  Now, both of them agree that it is, in parts-per-million, not parts-per-billion.  And both agree, when you examine the testimony, that if it is in parts-per-million, it cannot come from the EDTA we ingest in food that is then secreted into the blood.  You don't have parts-per-million that way, because if you did, you'd be in serious you'd have serious health problems.  You wouldn't clot.  You'd bleed to death, as Dr. Rieders was pointing out.
     The next question, and this is where they parted company  Is the amount of EDTA here sufficient to have come from a purple topped tube?  Agent Martz says Dr. Rieders says unless you were treating somebody for lead poisoning, injecting EDTA into them, that is the only reasonable explanation for parts-per-million in these samples of EDTA.  Agent Martz says no, I can't really say, because I would expect there to be more EDTA in a sample left for three weeks on the back gate or on a sock, you know, that I'm seeing six months later.  But he never did a single experiment to find out how much you would expect to get from stains that are months old and subjected to environmental insults.
     And you saw that there were quantitation problems when they tested it.  It would go up and down.  

BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  there to be more EDTA in a sample left for three weeks on the back gate, or in on a sock, you know, that I'm seeing six months later.  But he never did a single experiment to find out how much you expect to get from stains that are months old and are subjected to environmental insults, and you saw that there were quantitation problems when they tested it  it would go up and down.
     So when you look at it, look at the credentials, Martz vs. Rieders.  Rieders has far more experience with EDTA.  They wanted to hire him, or they consulted with him, I should say.  Dr. Rieders works with the FBI; they go to him and consult, as you heard, on cases.  He was working on a case for them, with them, at the time he came here to testify.  He runs a reference lab that specialized in these issues.  Even though he does not have the $750,000 machine yet, the MSMS, that Martz is using, he understands it, seen it before, interpreted data from it.  He's getting one soon.  So it's not a question of the machine, it's a question of the expertise to understand the data.  Agent Martz  he has a bachelor's degree.  He had some trouble with pi.  I don't want to belittle that, but he didn't even there were some disturbing parts of his testimony, let's face it.  He didn't even consider the validation studies that had been performed by others at the FBI laboratory.  They're going to make a big deal about these you know, he didn't look for that 132 daughter ion I promised not to talk about daughter ions to some people, but he didn't look he didn't perform the test to find that.  All the digital data he threw away.  He comes up with this thing where he says he tests his own blood and he finds some level of EDTA in it, but he threw away the documents about what he did.  He put it in a test tube in for two weeks, that has silicon in it, has a red stopper in it, that could be a source of EDTA.  He doesn't go and test anybody else's blood.  I mean, this would be certainly be a phenomenon if we found parts per million in all these kinds of blood, where his whole method is screwed up.  Why didn't he test more?  You know, they're going to come back and say, ``Well, Dr. Rieders should have done more of a test on these leftover samples.''  Excuse me.  That's what they should have done.  Well, you know, it's their burden.  It's their burden, after all.  They say it's key evidence.  She said it's their defense.  Well, then why not get some real studies or do more studies or save the data or present something to this jury that's that's credible, to disprove it.  Ms. Clark gets up here and says, ``We have disproven that this could be EDTA from a purple top tube.  Dr. Rieders has no basis whatsoever for saying this.  It can't be a reasonable interpretation.  Well, saying it doesn't make it so.  It's their burden.  They have to disprove this beyond a reasonable doubt.  They have not.
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor:  Objection.  Misstates the testimony.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  Overruled.
BARRY SCHECK:  ``An essential fact,'' that circumstantial evidence charge says, ``an essential fact must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.''  Ms. Clark got up here and told you this was essential.  Have they done that?  No, they haven't.  That is many, many reasonable doubts.
     Now I'd like to talk about missing blood, and I think that we can talk about this in the following way  access, opportunity, and the smoking gun  nurse Thano Peratis.  Could we have the first picture?  Now, Detective Vannatter, the man who carried the blood, picked up blood from the coroner's office of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, blood tubes that contained EDTA.  Let's show them all.  Remember these?  These are pictures of both sides of the tubes.  Just pull them out.  I think the point is made, one after another, covered with blood.  He got those from the lab.  He carried those.  Those tubes, the testimony is, had EDTA in them.  He carried them on June 15th.  Now we do not have records  there are no records of the amounts that were initially put in those tubes or where he went, how long he went.  No real evidence that we can examine about that, but he carried it.  On the other hand, we return now to Mr. Simpson.  That's enough.
     Yeah, he testified he took them from the coroner's office and he brought them to LAPD.  But there is no record of how much was initially put in those tubes, so we can't retrace the amounts.  Now let's look at the handling of the defendant's, Mr. O.J. Simpson's, reference file.  Detective Vannatter, as Mr. Cochran pointed out, was so upset about how this goes that when he was asked, ``Well, when did you get the blood vial?'' he said, ``Three-thirty.''  Well, it was 2:30  we know that.  His testimony is he gets the vial of blood and he goes off and he has a cup of coffee, and he's walking around Parker Center with a blood vial, in an unsealed tube.  And as you know, the rules are you're supposed to book it immediately.  You can book in that building, Parker Center.  You can walk a mile go a mile away, it takes just a few minutes, and you book 'em at Piper Tech, where the SID lab is, and you buy a DR number, which is the number for the case, and the case starts.  That's what the rules said, but that's not what they were doing.  Now can we have the next that's not it.  I want the instructions.
     There are instructions on this envelope that we reviewed, I think, with Mr. Yamauchi, which are fascinating.  It says that the investigating officer, the officer requesting withdrawal of blood, ``shall, when the vial is returned to you, enter your initials, shake the tube vigorously.  When the affidavit is completed, signed below, as a witnessing officer, and seal the vial in the completed, sealed evidence labels.''  In others words, what you're supposed to do after you get the vial from the nurse is you put it in this envelope and the instructions say, ``Using completed, sealed evidence labels,'' you seal the envelope.  Now he's been a detective a long time.  He knows the rules, and the testimony is he's never done this before  not seal it, not walk around with the blood, and now there's something else, and it's a little hard to see on this photograph, and we tried to get the original here, but at the very, very bottom, there's something very weird that you can inspect.  It's covered over by the label.  You see the date?  ``I declare''  this is Thano Peratis  ``I declare, under penalty of perjury, the forgoing is true,'' and then it says ``5/10/94.''  May 10th, '94.  Well, wait a second  this was June 13th.  This envelope is an old envelope in the lab.  It's something that Mr. Peratis had handing around there for some reason  it says May 10th, '94  it's an old envelope in the lab.  Why is that?  What's going on here?  They're not following the rules.  He's grabbing this envelope, he's carrying this blood.  It doesn't make sense, it doesn't fit.  It's a serious problem, isn't it?
     Now, the next thing that we have is this misnumbering  you recall, of the blood vial, and Mr. Fung, as you remember, was stumbling over it.  There's a problem here.  The sneakers were brought in by Detective Lange the next morning, and they were put in as 17.  The blood vial is numbered as 18, indicating receipt the next morning, after the sneakers, and 19 is this hair that Mr. Fung took off the Rockingham glove, all that morning of June 14th.  And you recall the testimony that we had in this case, that Mr. Fung remembers he had such, you know, problems, he said, ``Well, and I walked out of Rockingham.  I had the tube either in my ponzi box, that metal box, or I had in my hand in the envelope or I had it in a brown paper bag and I put it into the truck.''  And then we showed him videotape and all of the sudden, it changed and we had videotape of people inside and Vannatter bringing in the envelope, and now the state of the evidence is that Andrea Mazzola was given a black trash bag and that she didn't know, nobody told her, that the envelope had been put in it and maybe some of those other evidence cards, and you saw the video where they walk into the truck and they throw that trash bag inside the truck and they go back to the lab, and now the testimony is that they leave it out on a table, in a trash bag, after they, you know, put the swatches in the test tubes, and they leave.
     Now and they don't even refrigerate the vial.  Now this is a very odd story, to say the least.  And what and I think what's really peculiar about it, when you get down to it, is the way the testimony came out.  Andrea Mazzola said something very interesting.  She said that when she saw the next morning, June 14th, the blood vial in the black trash bag  she realized for the first time that she had been the one that carried the blood vial out of the Rockingham residence.  So she's saying that she knew that on June 14th.  You with me?  Now, we had all this we spent three days on this, if you'll recall.  Mr. Fung couldn't remember how the blood vial was carried out.  These prosecutors knew that there was misnumbering, that there was a problem with this blood vial and its transfer, they knew it was a problem.  Now if Ms. Mazzola had known since June 14th that she had carried this out in a plastic bag, because she realized it, looking at that at the next moment, how come nobody was told this?  Why didn't somebody know this?  Why didn't they interview these witnesses before they got on the stand for eight, ten days a piece?  And this was obviously a crucial problem, because there's something wrong here.  And of course, when she ultimately testified, poor Ms. Mazzola had to go over and sit on the couch and close her eyes for 20 minutes because she was tired and didn't see what went on in the foyer.  Now look, I submit to you I don't think that's all credible evidence.  I think there's something really wrong here, but, you know, you don't even need it, really, if you think about it, because in terms of access and opportunity, all that really matters is what nobody can deny, and that is Detective Vannatter is walking around with a May 10th envelope that he should have sealed and he should have booked for three hours, at least, unaccounted for.  What is going on?  There's something wrong.  It's not coincidence.  There's something wrong.  Terribly wrong.
     Now, the last part, really, of the missing blood issue is Thano Peratis.  The issue arose about how much blood was in the blood vial.  Now, if you recall from the testimony, the first thing that happened is that Mr. Yamauchi got the blood and he stuck in a pipeter that takes 1 milliliter and he created the Fitzco card, so that's 1 milliliter.  The next thing that happens that's on June 14th.  On June 21st, toxicology gets it, and toxicology does thing in an appropriate way  they measured how much blood was in the tube.  They take a tube, they as Mr. Matheson described it, you fill it with water, you look at the other tube, and you make a measurement, and they measured it to be 5.5.  Now if it's 5.5 and we started with eight CCs, and Yamauchi took one, there's 1.5 missing.  No way out of that.  No way out of that.  Now Mr. Matheson came in and you saw these incredible experiments that he was performing, where he went and he started taking he looked at all the other times people went into the tubes, and he's saying, ``Well, you know, if you pipette it out and you pipette it out, you may lose something over time.''  But let's face it  the Matheson explanations can't get around the 1.5 missing right away.  There's 1.5 missing right away and toxicology proves it, and they know it.  So, the only other way to explain the missing blood is Thano Peratis must have been mistaken.  That's the only way.  And what I'll leave you with this morning are two clips from Thano Peratis.
ROBERT SHAPIRO, Simpson Attorney, from videotape:  How much blood did you withdraw from Mr. Simpson.
THANO PERATIS, Prosecution Witness, from videotape:  Approximately eight CCs.
ROBERT SHAPIRO:  When you say approximately, you did not measure the amount?
THANO PERATIS:  Well, it could have been 7.9 or 8.1.  I just looked at the syringe and it looked about eight CCs, and I removed the needle from his.
HANK GOLDBERG, Deputy District Attorney, from videotape:  And, did you go through the same demonstration that you just showed for the camera today, when I was [unintelligible].  Now, there was another statement that I want to ask you about, that also took place, I think let me just get hold of that, and that was the statement that said, ``I just looked at the syringe and it looked at about eight CCs.''
THANO PERATIS:  That was an incorrect statement.  I looked at the [unintelligible] and it looked like it was enough, which it was enough.  Eight CCs, I just I was wrong on that eight CCs altogether.
HANK GOLDBERG:  Can you show us what you did do in terms of looking at the syringe after the blood while the blood is being drawn from Mr. Simpson.
THANO PERATIS:  I pulled it out, I saw that it wasn't [unintelligible].  Excuse me.  I just looked at the syringe.  I didn't turn it over.
HANK GOLDBERG:  OK, there is
BARRY SCHECK:  Come back from lunch, we'll discuss the meaning of this.  Thank you.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take our break for the lunch recess.  Please remember all my admonitions to you  don't discuss this case amongst yourselves, don't form any opinions about the case, don't conduct any deliberations until the matter has been submitted to you.  Don't allow anybody to communicate with you with regard to the case.  We'll stand in recess until 1:30.  All right, thank you, counsel.
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor:  Barry Scheck, of course, the DNA expert, or at least that's the reputation that he brought with him from Brooklyn to this trial.  He has now developed into something of a much broader scale in the scheme of things for the defense, and that was very much reflected in what he's had to say so far.  We're going to take a commercial break and we'll analyze this when we come back, after these messages.

[FRED GRAHAM, Anchor:  To a certain extent, the defense shifted gears when they switched from Johnnie Cochran to Barry Scheck  but really not as much as might have been expected.  Barry Scheck came to the case as a DNA expert.  It would have been thought, perhaps, that he would have gone down the line of attempting to prove, through scientific analysis, that some of those DNA some of the DNA evidence, particularly that that indicates that O.J. Simpson left his blood at the murder scene, that that would be his focus.  In fact, his focus has been very much in the direction of Johnnie Cochran's.  That is that the facts  the scientific facts  suggest conspiracy planting.  Kristin Jeannette-Meyers is standing by.  Kristin, are you surprised at all by this?
KRISTIN JEANNETTE-MEYERS, Reporter:  It certainly is interesting, and we're going to have to wait and see how Scheck continues and where he goes.  But where he is going now, and what he has chosen to lead with, is particularly interesting, based on the many, many conversations, I think, that many reporters here have had with Barry Scheck outside of court, constantly talking about the science in this case.  And throughout his focus has always been a belief that there was contamination of the crime scene and of the samples in this case and saying that the contamination resulted in the test results that the prosecution put in.  And it's a very complicated there theory, and he would talk a lot about how people didn't understand it's not what the prosecution's saying, that he's arguing DNA flies through the air and lands, but rather there's degradation, and then there's contamination with other samples, and he would painstakingly spell this out to reporters who, on occasion, would just roll their eyes.  That's not what we're hearing from Barry Scheck today.  We are hearing about planting blood on the sock on the back gate.  We are hearing about the concentration of DNA in the back gate blood, but we're hearing about it as proof that it was planted there, so I think you're right, this is a departure, and we are just going to have to wait and see, though, if indeed that is as far as Scheck goes, or if he does make his way into what you might call the defense alternative theory, which is that that contamination because of sloppy police work accounts for the results in this case.  And, Fred, I should also tell you, I'm being told that Johnnie Cochran and the defense team are going to be holding a press conference shortly, and we might speculate that this could be in response to the press conference held by the family of victim Ronald Goldman during the mid-morning break, where he very, very emotionally and vociferously blasted Johnnie Cochran and called him a racist for the closing argument Cochran gave this morning.
FRED GRAHAM:  Well, and of course, we will go to that live if and when it happens in the course of this break.  Now, Kristin, was there some development involving Denise Brown?
KRISTIN JEANNETTE-MEYERS:  Well, Denise Brown is in court, which has not happened during the closing arguments, and we were told it was because Denise Brown was traveling, working for the Nicole Brown Foundation that the family has started to help battered women.  But there was some speculation she wasn't showing up because of allegations and the way her name had been bandied about by Robert Shapiro and other members of the defense team, concerning the Fiato brothers, you might remember, who testified in the end of the defense case.  However, Denise Brown is here today.  She joins her sister, Tanya, her mother, Juditha, and her father, Lou, in the courtroom, as well as the Goldman family, who have been there I mean, almost every day, literally.  And something that's often said of Denise, which is something that could be noted by jurors, if they choose to look, is that she has a haunting similarity, at least in her facial structure, to her sister, Nicole.  And she is wearing her hair off of her face today, back in in a ponytail ponytail, and when you see the camera pan over to that, you do see that.  You see that similarity.
FRED GRAHAM:  Kristin, thank you very much for that report.  We're going to take a commercial break.  We'll return after this.
[commercial break]
FRED GRAHAM:  Welcome back.  We've been told, as you know and we don't know whether or not this is really a fact, that, perhaps, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, with the Simpson family, will hold a press conference on camera.  The Simpson family is going to speak out.  Of course, we'll go right to that.  Johnnie Cochran  This might be his last chance, for a long time, if not permanently, to hold a press conference of this nature.  That's true, isn't it?
GIGI GORDON, Criminal Defense Attorney:  It is.  I believe the new publicity rule in California goes into effect on October 1st
FRED GRAHAM:  Yeah
GIGI GORDON:  And, so, this is the last chance.  I think what we may see, if we do see the Simpson family, is the wave of the future, which is having non lawyers involved in the case  victim, family member spokespersons, spokespersons from the family of the person accused, and I think that's one of the problems with the bill is all we've done is substitute
FRED GRAHAM:  Yeah, and what what the California has done is said, look, a counsel in a case cannot make a public statement if it could really effect the outcome of the case.  I think he might argue that the jury is sequestered here, but the problem is that the lawyer could be severely disciplined, and the lawyers are gonna be afraid to skirt it skate up to the edge there and, as you say, what they'll do
GIGI GORDON:  Surrogates [inaudible]
FRED GRAHAM:  Yeah.  Now, speaking about skating up to the edge, in his summation there toward the end, there were times at which the prosecution might have done what it did to Barry Scheck, and that's object.  We didn't hear that.
GIGI GORDON:  We didn't hear it with Johnnie Cochran, and I think that's because this is a personal issue.  It's a personal debate, at some level, between Cochran and Darden, and I think the prosecution  The prosecution feels they can attack Johnnie Cochran personally, although I feel that he's baiting them to do that in their rebuttal argument.
FRED GRAHAM:  All right.  I want to notify our viewers here that we have now been told that at one o'clock Pacific time  that is just a little bit after 12 Pacific time now  that the Simpson family  It's interesting.  You heard Gigi Gordon explain that we may be seeing more of that because of a sort of a gag permanent gag order that's been placed by the Supreme Court of California on its attorney, that they will have a press conference.  This would be something new and unique for the Simpson family to speak out in this forum.  Several of them testified in the case, and Court TV will bring that to you live when it happens.  Before we toss this back to New York, Gigi, we've been on a bit of a roller coaster here, both emotionally, legally and otherwise, and I just wonder what you think about this?  I guess it was predictable, although in the way it's come out, perhaps, not so.  What's your reaction?
GIGI GORDON:  I think it's a very emotional argument.  I was very moved at times
FRED GRAHAM:  Um, hmm
GIGI GORDON:  but I think if you sort of pull back and reflect on it, what you're seeing is a classic argument divided into two pieces
FRED GRAHAM:  Hmm
GIGI GORDON:  Johnnie Cochran is trying to give this jury the will give them the heart to do what he wants, and Barry Scheck is trying to get show this jury the way and showing them how, intellectually, they can do it, and it's really classic stuff, although it's hard to see through all of this and see the craft and the art behind it when you're so moved
FRED GRAHAM:  Hmm
GIGI GORDON:  by the moment.
FRED GRAHAM:  Well, you know, you've been with us so often on our coverage, you know  the O.J. Simpson case  and you've contributed so much over the course of all these months.  I'm so happy that you got in here in what is one of clearly, one of the last days, and we appreciate not just this but all the times prior to this.
GIGI GORDON:  Thank you for having me.
FRED GRAHAM:  All right.  We're going to toss this back to June Grasso in our studio in New York.
JUNE GRASSO, Anchor:  Fred, during the lunch break in the O.J. Simpson trial, we're going to be taking viewers phone calls.  The number to call is 212-557-1301 if you have questions or comments about the trial, and, also, at about 4 p.m. Eastern time we, of course, will be going live to the press conference the Simpson family is going to be giving is expected to give, at least.  We'll take a commercial break, and then we'll return to more of your phone calls.  Again, the number  212-557-1301.  We look forward to hearing from you.



RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor:  Welcome back to Court TV.  I'm Rikki Klieman.  Although court is not scheduled to resume until 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time with the final argument on behalf of the defense by Barry Scheck, we are expecting that a press conference is going to develop very, very soon.  And before we go to that press conference live, let's go to Kristin Jeannette-Myers who is standing by.  And, Kristin, let me first go back to Barry Scheck.  Barry Scheck is not doing what a lot of people anticipated  at least he hasn't thus far  about pounding in on contamination.  Rather, he seems to be right in stride with Johnnie Cochran in talking about the planting of evidence.  Tell us about this change?
KRISTIN JEANNETTE-MEYERS, Reporter:  Yeah, Rikki, it's interesting.  Now, it's a change so far.  Barry Scheck still has argument to go.  So, it remains to be seen if he will completely stay away from something that he's been talking about for months now, both in and out of the courtroom  this idea that there could have been DNA that could have degraded at the crime scene and then there could have been cross-contamination from the blood vial  the sample of O.J. Simpson' blood  or the two victims, and that the degradation plus cross-contamination could have caused the results we see in this case.  We're hearing accusations that blood was planted on the back gate, blood was planted on the socks.  And it seems that this is much more in keeping with what Johnnie Cochran argued so passionately last night and it is steering away from what has always been a bit of a conflict in the defense theory.  A lot of people would say, well, either there was planting because these people are very sophisticated and clever and they were doing this, the police.  Or it was sloppy police work and they contaminated the whole crime scene because they don't know what they're doing.  But how can it be both?  It seems that we're seeing the defense theory tilting towards out and out planting, fabrication of evidence and we're seeing that in Barry Scheck's closing.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  Kristin, in Barry Scheck's argument, which I'm going to put aside for right now because it looks like this press conference may be starting sooner than we expected  the reason this press argument is so unusual is that  at least to my memory in the nine months of this trial  we have never heard a press conference called by the Simpson family.  Can you tell us why they're coming up there?  What are they responding to?
KRISTIN JEANNETTE-MEYERS:  Yes.  Well, what happened at the mid-morning break was Fred Goldman, the father of victim Ronald Goldman, stepped up to the microphone and had some harsh words for Johnnie Cochran.  He said Johnnie Cochran was sick.  He said he was a racist.  And he particularly objected to Johnnie Cochran's allusion to Adolph Hitler in his argument this morning when talking about the actions of Mark Fuhrman in this case.  Fred Goldman has been emotional on occasion in the past, but nothing like what happened during this mid-morning break.  And I'm told that the response by the Simpson family is happening now.
CARMELITA SIMPSON-DURIO, O.J. Simpson's Sister:  the last 15 months, my family We have carried ourselves with pride and dignity.  We have set in the courtroom for the last nine months.  We have heard lies being told about my brother, their father, her son, her brother and brother-in-law.  Not only do we hear lies being told in the courtroom when we get in our car to drive home.  We hear the lies on the radio.  If we go home we decide to look at TV the lies are slapping us in the face.  We have waited all this time and now we are telling  Well, not we, but the attorneys are telling my brother's story.  And it's very shocking that once Johnnie gets up and starts telling what we feel happens, that this has rocked somebody's world.  I think it's time for everybody to wake up and realize that we are in a for real world and we have dealt with racism all our lives, every single day.  And if someone cannot accept the fact that we have Mark Fuhrman's walking around in this world, who has collected all of the vital evidence, and they say that he is not important in this case, they're living in a fantasy world.  
SHIRLEY BAKER, O.J. Simpson's Sister:  We want to say on behalf of the Simpson family, you guys have seen us here for the last year.  We are a crime victim as well as the Brown's and the Goldman family.  Nicole Brown was a part of our family and we loved her very deeply.  She's a very important part of our life and for 17 years we've had a great relationship with the Brown family and we continue to do so today.  When we sit in that courtroom and we see pictures of Nicole, we hurt.  It hurts us because Nicole is a part of us.  We have children, Sydney and Justin, they're all a part of us.  We hurt.  When we sit in the courtroom and we see our brother at arm's reach  we've not been able to touch him, to hug him, to comfort him  we hurt.  We feel sorry for the Goldman family because I see his family in court daily and I know they hurt.  I know he must have been a loved person.  It also hurts us when we sit in that courtroom and we hear lies said about our brother.  Every inch of personal thing that could be said about the Simpson family has been said, and it has been said all over the world.  And believe me, there's been a lot of times that I would love to run down here and to tell you what I think.  But we are in the United States of America, and the law  not Shirley Baker, not Johnnie Cochran, not Marcia Clark, the law  says that O.J. Simpson is entitled to a trial.  And that is what we have been doing for the last nine months.
     Now, we don't take it personal.  It hurts us when we hear the prosecution say things about our loved one.  It hurts us.  We don't like it.  But we do not come down here and attack them personally.  The prosecution, they're doing their job.  And we have set back for nine months and we've listened.  Now, it's a defense time.  The defense, they're doing their job.  Johnnie, Barry, Peter, Bob, Neufeld, all of them, Robert Shapiro, they're all doing their job.  Bob Blasier.  They're doing a job.  They're working very hard.  This is what the law states.  This is what we're supposed to do.
     We are shocked that every time something is said about the defense that sounds a little good, or you guys give us a little positive press, then everybody's upset.  It's not fair.  The only one that can say that Orenthal James Simpson is guilty of these murders are the 12 people in that jury box.  It's not you, it's not I.  It's the 12 people in that jury box.  Now, we know he's innocent.  We know that.  But all these months we haven't preached that to you.  We talked with a lot of you guys in the room.  You guys know us.  We say, we're not preaching to you.  You don't hear us talking about Marcia Clark.  You don't hear us downin' the Brown family.  You don't hear us downing the Goldman family.  You don't hear us doing anything.  We're there.  We're there as support for our brother.  And that's what we expect.  This is the United States of America.  And it's wrong, even when you're hurting, it's wrong for someone to get up and to personally attack our lawyers and say that they're liars.
     We didn't create Mark Fuhrman.  From June 13th we have said from day one that the evidence was planted and the evidence was contaminated.  We've not changed our position from day one.  So, why is everybody shocked?  We didn't put Mark Fuhrman in there.  We didn't.  Mark Fuhrman is not our friend.  Everybody said there was nothing to Mark Fuhrman.  It's true.  And we have to say something.  We want you guys to know O.J. has a family.  But we will continue to carry ourself in dignity and pride.  We know he's innocent, but we are no longer going to sit back and every time somebody says one little word, somebody is going to come down here and continue to degrade our family, disgrace our family, talk about our lawyers.  This is the United States of America.  
     Now, all these many months that we've come here when my mother's with us we're allowed to go downstairs and one person gets out the car and comes upstairs with her so my mother doesn't have to go to the public elevator.  My mother gets to do that.  We don't complain about that.  The other families, they park their cars someplace else.  They're chauffeured into down there.  We pay $240 a month to park our car here.  We walk on the outside.  Now, the Nation of Islam have come here and they have offered to embrace us and to help us so that we could go in and out, but now there's something wrong with that.  You guys, this is United States of America.  Let's have a trial.  We've got good lawyers on both sides.  The prosecution, they have great lawyers.  We have great lawyers.  Let us have the trial and please let us keep our dignity.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  The first time that the Simpson family has spoken out and what struck me is  as I go to Dan Abrams  what struck me is the fact that they sound like such a normal family, that is, the siblings of someone accused of a crime.  And sometimes, Dan, you know, it's like we think of the celebrity of Orenthal James Simpson, but we forget that he does have a family like other families.  They said they were pushed over the top because Fred Goldman attacked their lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, and it is the first time that they have come out to speak.  Dan, this is a very unusual situation for both sides.  What
DAN ABRAMS, Reporter:  It
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  Go ahead.
DAN ABRAMS:  It is, Rikki.  And I'll tell you it is particularly unusual because the Simpson family and the Brown family actually have a very good relationship, still, to this day.  In fact, you will regularly see Juditha Brown, Nicole Brown Simpson's mother, and Eunice Simpson chatting in the hallways before the closing arguments begin.  Tanya Brown, Nicole Brown Simpson's sister, was embracing Shirley Baker and she said, ``Hang in there.''  These are former in-laws and they are still friendly, been on good terms.  It is the Goldman's and the family of O.J. Simpson that don't have a relationship.  And it is the Goldmans, and Fred Goldman in particular, who was attacking O.J. Simpson and Johnnie Cochran today in this press conference.  But it's always struck me how friendly the Simpson family and the Brown family continue to be despite the fact that the Brown family had said publicly that they believe O.J. Simpson is guilty and the Simpson family saying that O.J. Simpson is innocent.  Both are coming to that courtroom very day, both hoping for exactly the opposite verdict.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  One of O.J. Simpson's sisters made the remark, just as you suggest Dan, that they grieve for Nicole Brown as well, that for 17 years that she was part of their family and that they have suffered a loss as well.  And that appears from what you are saying to be a sincere comment because of the relationship of these two families.  Would you say that that observation is correct?
DAN ABRAMS:  Absolutely.  I don't think that anyone would deny that the Simpson family here are victims as well.  They come to court every day.  They sit inside that courtroom and listen to the testimony and they believe that O.J. Simpson is not guilty of these crimes.  They have been deprived, they believe, of their brother.  But whether or not O.J. Simpson is guilty or not doesn't seem to be  almost  the issue when the families seem to be getting together.  But most of what Shirley Baker said really is backed up by observations of those of us who see them everyday.  They are here every single day.  They do chit-chat with the media.  They do hold themselves with great dignity, in court and outside of court, as well.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  Dan, when we go back into the courtroom, there are now other issues that have to be dealt with inside that room with these prosecutors about Mr. Cochran's closing argument in particular.  Mr. Cochran has,  successful or not, we won't know until the verdict is in  made a great attempt to shift the focus away from O.J. Simpson once again and put the focus not only on Mark Fuhrman but on racism in society.  And wanting the word to of forth to right this racism wrong.  What are the prosecutors going to do about that in their rebuttal case
DAN ABRAMS:  The prosecution
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  or rebuttal argument.
DAN ABRAMS:  The prosecution has to try as hard as they can to focus the jury on what evidence exists, not on what the police didn't do, not on what they did wrong, not on how late they may have been, but what results they actually did receive.  The key for the prosecution is to move this away from an argument basically over public policy.  Is O.J. Simpson entitled to an acquittal?  That question can bring the prosecution problems.  Because even Judge Ito said at one point that Philip Vannatter had engaged recklessly when he decided to go over the wall and what he wrote down on, actually, his search warrant application.  And so, they really have to focus this jury again on the evidence.  And the most important evidence for the prosecution is some of the evidence which it doesn't sound like the defense is going to be able to challenge  the size 12 shoeprint that O.J. Simpson matches  less than 10 percent of the population has a size 12 shoe  the fact that O.J. Simpson's finger was cut, even within the same day.  I mean, the defense is alleging it happened the next day.  But the coincidence of the fact that it happened to be his left hand.  That the killer happened to be dropping blood drops to the left of these size 12 shoeprints.  And so, they're going to have to focus on what they have definitively and I think they're going to have to be careful about not arguing too much over the details, over the minutia of what particularly Barry Scheck has been arguing.  Because they really have to prove to this jury that they have a strong case here and move them away from the public policy arguments.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  OK, Dan.  Stand by for a moment.  Kristin Jeannette-Meyers is there.  And Kristin, you were at the press conference itself.  Tell us about what it was like in terms of the fact that what we could what was seen, but mostly of the speaker.  Was that family all together there?
KRISTIN JEANNETTE-MEYERS:  Yes.  Well, the people in attendance were Carmelita and Shirley, the sisters of O.J. Simpson.  Behind them was Eunice Simpson in a wheelchair, the mother of Carmelita and Shirley and O.J. and then Arnelle and Jason, the two grown children of O.J. Simpson were also there.  In addition, the husband of Shirley Baker, Benny Baker.  All of them standing there plus the usual crowd of media.  But even more people, civilians, regular people who have business  I can only presume  in the court were gathered not only around where they were speaking but also in that lobby area.  It is the lobby of the criminal courts building.  There is a second floor with a balcony that overlooks where they were speaking, so it's possible to stand up and be looking down and hear them speaking in the lobby.  So, there were people who were gathered around that second floor balcony and when you heard the cheers at different points in time, that was apparently spontaneous bursts from people who had just come upon the scene and were listening to  Particularly, I think, the cheering was when there were complaints that any time something good happens for the defense or any time the press reports something in a way that makes it seem like the defense scored a point that the Goldman's and other people get mad and they get angry and they act as if it's an insult to the victims in this case.  I think the point that the Simpson sisters were trying to make is that the two don't necessarily connect and at least not in their minds.
     One other thing to add, Rikki, it is completely accurate that this is the first press conference they've ever given while they are here every day, these sisters, and Arnelle and Jason Simpson come on different occasions as does the mother, Eunice Simpson.  They do interact with the reporters in the hallway.  They have for eight months.  They always turn down our requests to do a formal interview, go on camera.  And they have always maintained the position that you heard today.  So, for what it's worth, this stand about not calling names and wanting to maintain dignity is a position they have taken off camera for the entire eight months that this trial has been in session.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  OK, Kristin, thanks so much for that report.  Maybe a good thing that this trial is coming to a close, the emotions are running high enough to go over the edge.  And what we think we should do is take a commercial break right now.  But when we come back, let's show you part of the press conference that Fred Goldman had given earlier today in response to Mr. Cochran's closing argument that then became the impetus for the Simpson family press conference.  We'll be right back.  Stay with us.


RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor:  Court is just about to begin.  The parties are present.  They are bringing in the jury.  I have a moment with Lane Liroff.  Barry Scheck left off his closing argument just before the luncheon break where he showed two tapes of Thano Peratis, the nurse who drew O.J. Simpson's blood. He shows the preliminary hearing tape where Mr. Peratis says he drew approximately 8 cc's of blood.  Then we have the district attorney-made tape going out later on where it's not 8cc's any longer.
     The fact that Hank Goldberg went out to do that unsworn statement after testimony, could that be a problem for the prosecution in these closing arguments, looking like they've gone too far to get their evidence?
LANE LIROFF, Deputy District Attorney:  Well, the problem is that they weren't able to cross-examine the nurse on this point.  On the on the direct portion of that preliminary testimony, he said approximately Shapiro somehow, incredibly luckily, tried to press him and got the figure in terms of the eight, I think this is milliliters  and the prosecution was stuck.  They had a a a incredible luck that Judge Ito let this videotape that they had tamed in because it's a it's a challenging evidentiary issue, but they got it in.  So at that point they should be very happy that they got that far.  I'm sure that there is a lot of criticism that that the defense can render against this home video.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  It's it's really I think you were being quite circumspect in your speech there.  It's one of the only rulings in this case that I cannot explain, I mean, as much as I try.
LANE LIROFF:  Judge Ito has a lot of lawyers have talked about some of his rulings, but this is a ruling that really did seem strange and surprising to me.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  OK.  We are in the courtroom.  Barry Scheck will begin again.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  Mr. Scheck, you may continue with your arguments, sir.
BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  Thank you very much, Your Honor.  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.  
     When we left, we were I showed you two clips from Thano Peratis.  In the first clip, he was under oath.  He said when he drew Mr. Simpson's blood, he looked at the syringe, and that's how he knew it was between 7.9 and 8.1, no doubt about it, something he does all the time, routine, something people in this field would do and know.  He looked at the syringe.  Then, because they couldn't live with it, because 1.5 is missing  and they could have called Thano Peratis in a direct case and put him under oath  Mr. Goldberg goes out and does this statement, this strange, bizarre statement, in Mr. Peratis' home, which they tell you is unscripted, or, that is to say, I mean, let's not say he gave him the script, but, I mean, common sense tells you that they spoke to this man before they went and did this videotape, and you can tell at parts, he literally said  [Scheck demonstrates by mouthing words]  ``I don't remember,'' because he was forgetting certain parts of what he, I guess, what they what what it was their what it was planned to say.
     But let's get down to the substance.  I mean this is not under oath.  It is the only testimony you've gotten in this case that is not under oath, which is fairly extraordinary.  But you know what's even weirder?  It's what he said.  His position is this now.  First of all, you can see the syringe and you can see the calibrations on the syringe.  So now he's saying ``Well, the syringe was turned over and I didn't see the numbers.''  Well, that's pretty strange.  But I think that what's even more odd is that it his position that he now realized that he goofed.  How does he know?  He says that he took one of these tubes  now these, you know, are items in evidence  and he looked at it, and he now remembers, months later, that when he drew Mr. Simpson's blood on June 13th, he can remember the level that the blood was in the vial.  And, based on his recollection of where the blood is in the vial, he then starts putting water in to another test tube to get it up to that level, and then he says ``Well, that's 6.5.'' 
     Well, that's not worthy of belief, is it?  That you can remember all these months later the exact level and that's how you come up with 6.5?  So, not only is it not under oath and not only is obviously a convenient recantation and it appears to have been prepared, shall we say, to suit the prosecution's purposes when things just didn't fit, but the story is an absurdity.  It is just an absurdity.  It is not worthy of belief.  It is a reasonable doubt, in and of itself.  Blood is missing.
Judge LANCE ITO:  Which evidence items are those?
BARRY SCHECK:  This was the syringe, which is 1382, and 1124, a purple-top tube of exactly the kind
Judge LANCE ITO:  Thank you.
BARRY SCHECK:  involved in this matter.  Could we have slide number nine?  
     So, let's review the bidding.  Missing blood, access opportunity and Mr. Peratis  the smoking gun.  Detective Vannatter is walking around with this tube in a May 10th envelope, unsealed, going up for coffee, three hours.  It is misnumbered.  It comes in as 18, not 17  18, after the sneakers, which were brought in the next morning.  There is at least 1.5 mil missing, no question about it, early in the game, because of the toxicology entry.  And then we have Mr. Peratis' unsworn recantation.
     Is this a coincidence or is it corroboration that something is wrong, something's terribly wrong, at the heart of this case?  It is a reasonable doubt, because missing blood, I submit to you, the blood is an essential fact, an essential fact in the prosecution's circumstantial case.  If you can't trust the man who carried the blood, if you can't trust where this blood went  I mean, EDTA, missing blood.  Coincidence?  Corroboration.  Something is terribly wrong.
     Now, I'd like to move to the blood drops found at Bundy.  And there are two aspects of examining this evidence.  The first has to go the integrity of the samples and the second one goes to the issue of cross-contamination.  First, I would like to address the issue of the integrity of the samples.  We start with the handling of the swatches.  And we know that they are not counted at the scene, they are not counted when they get back to the lab and put into test tubes for drying, they are not counted the next morning when they're taking out of those tubes.  There's no count.  The first time there's a count is when Yamauchi gets it between nine and 11:20 that morning, June 14th.  So we don't know how many swatches we started with originally.  And, as Dr. Lee told you, as all criminalists told you, as Gary Sims told you, it is the first duty of a forensic scientist to document the evidence and to establish a chain of custody that preserves the integrity of the evidence so that you can bring it into court and good people like you can feel satisfied that you have honest, reliable evidence.  That was not done.
     No booking until June 16th.  It's in the lowest security area, that evidence processing room where that metal gate can be lifted, where she asked, you have to have a card to get into the door, but other people walk in and out and the entries are not monitored.  It is an unlocked cabinet.  And in this phase, there is no way to trace the individual items.  
     Now, we had asked, Your Honor, for the bindles to be produced but they have not been produced.  But you can get them.  You can get them when you go back into the jury room.  And there is one absolutely extraordinary fact in this case.  On August 23rd, Andrea Mazzola was called to testify at a hearing in this court, put her hand on the Bible, swore to tell the truth.  When she came in, she had her notes, the same crime scene log notes that she and Mr. Fung had reviewed in their testimony.  She got on the stand and she was asked questions by Mr. Neufeld about how they went about collecting the swatches and the evidence in this case.  And she described the process of taking up the swatches, coming back to the lab, putting them in the tubes for drying, taking them out the next morning, putting them into bindles, and then she testified that they initialed the bindles; that she, Andrea Mazzola, took some of them, Mr. Fung took others of them, and she initialed the bindles, those little, white bindles that the swatches were in.  You all recall that.  She said that under oath on August 23rd.  
     And, you know, think about whether or not she would have good reason to remember and have a best recollection of what actually occurred when she testified on August 23rd.  This case was the first crime scene that Andrea Mazzola had ever primary responsibility for collecting blood evidence  a good reason to remember.  
     Between June 13th and August 23rd, when she testified under oath, Andrea Mazzola had not done another crime scene, so there was nothing to confuse her   collected blood from a crime scene.  When she testified, she knew that this was an important matter.  I realize that she did not know who Mr. O.J. Simpson was  fair enough.  But she certainly knew that this was an important matter and that everybody was concerned about it.  And you would expect that she would want to testify in a fashion, to the best of her recollection, looking at those notes.    


BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress] Could we have the board?  
     Dr. Henry Lee is quite a remarkable man, and we tracked this evidence.  He was not His offer was not taken up, he and Dr. Baden, to examine this evidence at the time it was collected, as the testing was going on.  He did not really get a chance to examine and handle the evidence until February 16, while you're still sitting here.  However, we did try to track it as much as possible, and we were allowed to take pictures at the CellMark laboratory of the swatches.  And we were allowed to take pictures of the bindles and measure them and weigh them, because something was wrong.  
     And then we found the wet transfers.  This is very disturbing, as Dr. Lee indicates, because the uncontradicted testimony is that these swatches were put in test tubes to dry for 14 hours.  And Dr. Lee gave you his best estimate that he thought they would dry within three.  Then Mr. Goldberg came in with  do you have that study  the Epstein Barr study, and if we've go to cotton cloth indicates that it should take about 55 minutes if you look it under condition number one  that's at room temperature  to dry.  That's enough.  
     They should have been dry.  I expect they'll come in and they'll say, ``Well, there was a swatch sandwich.  They were all stuck together, so they wouldn't dry.''  Nonsense.  Use your common sense.  How do you get wet transfers like this?  Well, within three hours of the time that they were taken out and put in bindles, if somebody had switched swatches, you'd see wet transfer.  
     Now, there was a very interesting point in this trial where Mr. Matheson was asked some questions about knowledge that detectives had with respect to the collection of blood evidence.  And he and both Mr. Fung testified to this, that detectives are trained in the collection of blood evidence in exactly the way that they do it at LAPD.  Now, remember, the way they do it at LAPD is not the way one should do it for the collection of samples for purposes of DNA evidence.  They haven't changed their procedures, as was testified by Ms. Kestler, the head of the lab, in terms of, you know, old conventional serology testing.  So they're still putting 'em in plastic bags and degrading samples.  
     But put that aside for a second.  Matheson is asked, starting at 25031 of the transcript, about Question  ``When you say `evidence collection technique' have you ever taught detectives how to collect a stain using LAPD procedures, talking about a biological stain?'' ``Yes.''  And he goes on to talk about how they want detectives to have the capability to collect blood drops, and they have an on-call system, and sometimes a criminalist is not available.  So they want detectives to swatch blood stains.  And he goes on to say, and I quote, ``We supply them with blood collection kits  simply a file box with the tools that are necessary to collect the samples.''  We're talking, here, plastic bags and swatches and gloves.  And, question  ``And are they are taught how to, you know, take a control and use the distilled water and use the tweezers  the whole nine yards?''  Answer  ``Yes.  They are both shown in the demonstration forum.  We talk to them about it.  It is demonstrated to them, and if time permits, we have practice with them within class.''  Question  ``And are detectives, in fact, collecting biological evidence in the Los Angeles Police Department and submitting it to your laboratory for analysis?''  ``Yes, they do.''  
     Detectives have swatches.  These detectives would put them in plastic bags, just like Fung and Yamauchi.  If they were to be stored for some period of time, it would degrade them, even if they put swatches with EDTA blood on them, they'd still degrade them.  They'd these ridiculous techniques.  If they were put into those envelopes and left wet transfers, the integrity of the evidence is in question.  Something wrong.     
     We, while admittedly, to be fair to the prosecution, there's probably not enough sample left from the Bundy blood drops to take them out for EDTA testing, but they didn't do it.  And I think you have to ask yourself a fair question, given the way the blood evidence has been handled in this case.  What would those results be?  Just from this, you must question, you must have a reasonable doubt about the integrity of this evidence.  
     But when you consider the evidence  and we have to take the evidence as it is and we have to reconstruct as best we can what's going on in the case, as you must, in a fair and unbiased way  and you consider the evidence, the whole issue of contamination arises.  And it arises in a funny way, because one can see that if these samples had been contaminated, cross-contaminated, in a way that I I know you have followed and I will review with you, and forgive me if I repeat details that I'm sure you have followed, that certainly would convince certain people that they were on the right track, and maybe they wouldn't hesitate to tamper with other evidence after that to make the case look better, could cross-contamination have happened on these facts?  
     Before I go into detail, I'd like to make two points, the same point I think I made at the beginning, Dr. Speed made.  If there was cross-contamination in the evidence processing room on the morning of June 14th when Mr. Yamauchi was handling the samples and Mr. Simpson's reference samples at the same time, or on June 13th to June 14th when Fung and Mazzola were handling these swatches, it wouldn't matter how many times you tested them after that, they'd all come back the same.  So let's focus on what the issue is.  It's what Dr. Speed was calling ``common mode error.''  
     In fact, if we could put this flow chart on the remember the prosecution showed Dr. Speed a flow chart.  It's a little hard to see there, but, Mr. Harris, if you could circle the evidence processing room.  This was the final flow chart.  There are two little houses that represent the evidence processing room.  That's drying on June 13th at the bottom and sampling on 6-14.  And, as you see, in terms of the testing  now do both.  Please circle both.  This is an item of evidence.  The circling won't be in evidence, although, I was looking for it.  I could have sworn Dr. Speed had circled one, but I couldn't find the exhibit.  In terms of the work flow, that's where cross-contamination contamination occurred in the way they handled these swatches on June 13th and June 14th, and if it happens there, it doesn't matter who else tests it or how many times, you can't validate it, 'cause if the DNA was cross-contaminated there, it's going to come out the same every time.  Now, thank you.  That's point number one.
     Point number two is the presumption of regularity.  You heard that the primary answer that Gary Sims and Robin Cotton were giving on why they distrusted the explanation of cross-contamination is they said ``We must assume that substrate controls were handled in parallel with the other evidence items.''  Now, there's a lot of problems with making that assumption.  Number one, we know that Fung and Mazzola have no training in terms of why the substrate controls should be handled in parallel.  In other words, that all the in other words that they handle all the wet red swatches first, and then they did the controls afterward.  If they didn't put 'em in precise order, then it no longer serves as a control against cross-contamination.  So they're saying, ``That we must assume that they were handled in parallel.  And if we make that assumption then everything then we think controls worked.''
     Well, there can be no presumption of regularity at the LAPD on how they handle these swatches, and the reason that they are not entitled to that presumption and the Well, there's number one, Mr. Simpson is entitled to the presumption of innocence.  But number two number two, we have proven that they're not entitled to it.  Dr. Gerdes has proven it.  Dr. Gerdes came in and he did an extensive study of the LAPD lab.  Can we get rid of that circle?  And I won't review all of what he said, but I think it's a fair assessment of this man's testimony.  It is a solid, straightforward, careful scientist who spent hundreds of hours reviewing data, doing an inspection.  And what he found is that there was a cesspool of contamination in this laboratory, no mistake about it.  A cesspool of contamination.  The second thing that he proved, and get that cesspool  how can you just assume they're doing everything right, when we can prove they're doing everything wrong?  
     Next slide.  The next part of his testimony that has particular relevance is the whole issue of contamination by control.  If you recall, when he examined the controls, there were controls that would show that there was contamination going on at the extraction process, that is, in the evidence handling  the EPR, the evidence processing room stage  as opposed to later when the amplification occurs, or the so-called ``negative amplification control.''  And based on this data, he made the assessment that the contamination problem at LAPD is happening in that evidence processing room stage when they're handling the samples.  Thank you.
     So we have proven that they are not entitled to any assumption of regularity in that evidence processing room in ways they handle the samples, because they are getting this contamination all the time.  Dr. Gerdes' testimony, I think, also proves something significant in this regard.  He proved that they literally don't know what they're doing.  It's it's a shame.  They do a validation study where they're processing known samples in things like cases, and they give a report saying there are no incorrect typable results observed, and that's simply not true.  And I know we went back and forth about the errors that they made, but you recall the testimony.  Some of the errors they made on their own validation study, Mr. Yamauchi and the others, were of the kind that could create false positives that could convict innocent people.  And they didn't even note in their own review of it that they made those errors.  If they're saying they could be justified, then they should have, at the least said, there were some incorrect results observed, but these are the reasons.  But they didn't even do that, because they didn't weren't even aware of it.  Mr. Matheson, who admits no DNA expertise of any significance, is the one reviewing it. He didn't notice anything wrong.  
     Dr. Gerdes, without going into too much, talked about how they don't change their reagents in a regular way, like they do at DOJ or CellMark, or any other self-respecting laboratory.  They didn't even realize that they had this contamination problem, which is even more frightening.  And you did not see a witness come in to rebut Dr. Gerdes.  One would have assumed that an independent scientist not associated with the laboratory would have come in here to refute his data, and they'll talk about, `` Well, you didn't call Dr. Mullis.  You know, that person would have come in.  Dr. Mullis could have been a surrebuttal witness.''  It didn't happen.  I'm kind of surprised, frankly.
[Marcia Clark makes inaudible objection.]
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  Overruled. 
BARRY SCHECK:  Now, they're going to say that or have said now, what have they said about Dr. Gerdes so far?  ``He was paid money.  He's not a forensic scientist.  He's not qualified to review a DNA laboratory.''  
     Well, I think you're going to reject that for good reasons.  He's reviewed 23 forensic laboratories  the work of them.  He's visited seven laboratories.  He, plainly, knows the literature in this field.  He demonstrated that on cross-examination by a very fine lawyer.  Couldn't ask him one question about an article he hadn't read or assessed.  He is a microbiologist, which is particularly important training  I'm sure some of you know that from your own work  and that is a person of how a student of how contamination occurs, bacterial contamination occurs  clean methods, sterile methods.  He has a Ph.D. in this field from UCLA.  
     This man, his lab, is accredited by a number of organizations in paternity testing, disease diagnosis, organ transplants, bone marrow transplants.  Many organizations inspected, accredited his laboratory.  He understands these procedures.  This man deals with life and death every day.  Every day, with DNA testing.  
     The nerve of them to say, ``You're not a forensic scientist.  You can't assess a DNA laboratory and how they handle the samples there.''  That's audacious.  That is not worthy of your consideration as an answer.  Put on a witness, show data, get a self-respecting scientist to come in here and refute what Dr. Gerdes said.  They couldn't do it, they wouldn't do it, they can't do it and that's why you heard no one, because he's right.  
     And the lab, it's terrible.  You can see.  They were training each other  Yamauchi and Aaron Riley [sp].  They had not Ph.D. brought in to construct this place.  That's not right.  That's not right.  You're citizens here.  We're entitled to more than that.  You can't run a lab like this.  You can't, then, get up here in closing argument and go, ``We have a sloppy lab.''  We're dealing with life and death.  Just like these transplants, we're dealing with life and death.  It's too late to say, now, ``Ignore all this.''  You can't.
     Now, they're going to say, ``He's doing it by medical standards.  It's too high; can't judge a forensic lab by the standards we used for medical DNA.''  But we went through this, and we know, frankly, that forensics is more challenging.  In medical applications, known samples, clean samples, unlimited amounts, they're not degraded.  All that occurs in the forensic situation.  There's no justification for saying the standards should be lower.  And even under a forensic standard, whatever that might be, and frankly, these are the standards, and you know they're not coming close to this book, even by those standards, Dr. Gerdes offered a conclusion which, I think, is not unreasonable on the evidence and stands unrefuted  it should have been shut down.  And that's what they're asking you to accept.
     But it goes further. 


BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress]  You know, Ms. Clark said, and I frankly think I assume she's going to be answering all this in rebuttal.  It is not, after all we went through with this DNA evidence, it is not enough to say to you, because you know a lot about this now, to say, ``Oh, they're saying something about flying DNA caused cross-contamination, about flying DNA.''  That is not the contention.  The contention is specific.  It is in the evidence processing room.  It is in the way these samples were handled.  It is in the kind of lab they deal with.  
[to slide operator]     Do you have the next slide, please?  [pause while slide is prepped]
     Now, we know  and I know you know what this is about  when you take the swatches and you put them in plastic bags and you cook them for seven hours, you degrade the DNA.  And as we went through it, Dr. Cotton admitted it, Gary Sims admits it, everybody admits it.  It's fundamental.  You can degrade the DNA so that there's none left that is detectable, and if you cross-contaminate it with another sample from a reference tube from high-concentration DNA  and, remember, we're not talking about very much.  The highest amount here is an RFLP test by CellMark of 25 nanograms, and you know, because we've been through this, that is, you know, such a small amount, less than a drop, a very small speck, can create 25 nanograms of high molecular weight DNA.  You know that now.  I bet you before you came into this jury you wouldn't have ever thought that you be literate in this, but you are.  You know this now.
[to slide operator]     OK, next.  No, no, that's not it.  
     Now, there's an issue of risk factors, and you have to assess what was handled here in terms of what is an acceptable or an unacceptable level of risk.  Now we you remember all these logos, and I won't go through all of them, but handling multiple swatches in a hurry, handling samples from both crime scenes at the same time, not changing gloves routinely between samples, not changing paper and washing down between samples; when you scrape the samples out of the tubes creating aerosols  all these things create risks of cross-contamination.  All these things, Gary Sims told you  their witness  were wrong. 
     But the single worst thing that was done, the cardinal rule of handling these these samples in a DNA lab, is the one in the upper right hand corner, and that is handling Mr. Simpson's reference tube at the same time that you were processing the swatches and the glove.  That is the biggest no-no that forensic labs have learned from bitter experiences we'll discuss in a minute.  What happened in the evidence processing room that morning.  We know that Mr. Yamauchi says he got the sample at about nine from Mr. Fung, and on cross-examination, he said something that was really remarkable.  Do you recall this?  All of a sudden, he said, ``I remember now.  I opened up the tube and the blood spurted up through the Kimwipe and it got on my gloves.''
     Now, he was a little vague about what he did with the gloves.  He doesn't remember whether he put them in a biohazard bag right in the evidence processing room or got up, went to the serology lab and got rid of them there.  But all of a sudden, we now know there was a spillage of blood there.  Now, that is extraordinarily significant, because there's plenty of high-molecular-weight DNA in the smallest drop to if you get it on your gloves or if you don't change the gloves, and, frankly, I think there's no reason to believe he did, to contaminate these samples that we know are degraded.  And it's so easy to do that and not be aware of it, and it's so easy to do that when you're in a hurry, and it's so easy to do that when you're only out of training for six months and you're in a tough position, and it's so easy to do that and not really be aware of it.  So easy to make that kind of mistake when you really haven't had the training.  So easy to do it when you're handling 21 samples that morning in one day, something that an experienced technician like Gary Sims tells you it takes days to do.  So easy to make that mistake and cross-contaminate these samples.  So easy.
     What's most important is that there's an unacceptable level of risk.  You cannot accept this presumption that it all went right beyond a reasonable doubt.  There's no way.  
     Now, interestingly, when he says, even by his testimony, that he opened up the tube, the blood spurted out  let's give him changing the gloves, although there's no real reason to accept that, frankly  there's still, by his own admission, going to be blood on that table  blood that you can swipe with your gloves or your hands, and it doesn't take much to do this transfer.  He didn't wash down that table.  There was no paper there that he changed.  There's blood on the table  a fair inference. 
     Now, the next thing that Ms. Clark said  and I don't know if she was listening to the evidence that carefully in this phase of the case, to be frank  is, she said, ``Well, if there were contamination, if there were DNA flying around from Mr. Simpson's sample, then we would have seen proof somewhere else, that his blood had contaminated other samples.  That's what we would have seen.''  Well, there was.  
     On June 15th, if you'll recall, a second set of samples was handled by Mr. Yamauchi.  He had the reference tube from Nicole Brown Simpson, the reference tube from Ronald Goldman, and he had item number 12, which were the three blood drops picked up at the foyer in Mr. Simpson's residence.  Those were the last drops picked up that day.  They were the ones that were last put in a plastic bag, and Gary Sims has told us those were the ones that had the highest DNA concentration of any of the samples, item number 12.  They're the one that got an RFLP result from CellMark.  So we know that item number 12 is high-concentration DNA.  We know that item number 12 was being handled by Mr. Yamauchi on June 15th with the reference samples of Goldman and Nicole, which are also high-concentration samples.  And, Dr. Gerdes showed you how, at LAPD, and then on the polymarkers at CellMark, and then at DOJ, we got typings that were consistent with cross-contamination from item number 12.  And all the controls on those second days, those negative controls, were clean, because  as I'll discuss in a second  we've already proven these things happen with negative controls being clean, you get this cross-contamination.
     So, this was proof that Mr. Simpson's DNA, by sloppy handling, was cross-contaminated and typed, lab after lab.  And you heard that  on cross-examination  Mr. Clarke didn't even confront Dr. Gerdes with this board.  And you know why?  He's a fine lawyer, and he knows this subject matter well.  He didn't cross him on it because they can't touch it.  In order for this to be true, the only thing they can say is, ``Well, there was an extraordinary series of artifacts that accounted for some of it.''  But it didn't account for this polymarker typing.  That can't be an artifact.  It's proven, thank you, and not refuted.
     And, I should say one more thing in passing.  I forgot to mention that when Dr. Gerdes showed you his study of cross of contamination at LAPD, when you have these negative controls, you can have contamination and the negative controls come up clean.  In fact, in the instances where he saw contamination, 26 percent of the time, the negative controls were clean.  And there's there's reasons for that, because these negative controls are not always going to pick stuff up.  And you saw it right here.  There's proof.
     Now, there's one other point to be made about this issue of cross-contamination at the LAPD.  In that evidence processing room  we can't be any more specific about it  there's no flying DNA  and that is, you have to have an appreciation of how mistakes can happen with this technology, and we learned something about that from Dr. Robin Cotten.  If you'll recall, the California Association of Crime Lab Directors gave a proficiency test where they used degraded samples in 1989.  And in this test, they gave samples to CellMark and to other labs, and there were false positives.  And CellMark got two false positives, the first and the second time, and do you remember what Dr. Cotten told you about what they learned of that?  
     When they did these tests, the second one in particular, the way that they got a false positive through cross-contamination is that they had a degraded sample.  And the CACLD study is the only one where they really were sending these labs degraded samples.  Just like here, there's a degraded sample, so that creates a risk of cross-contamination when you degrade out the initial DNA.  And the only thing  do you recall this  the only thing they could isolate is that they were handling the reference sample at the same time they were handling the degraded sample.  And what was interesting about her testimony is she testified that they had a witness in the room.  In other words, when they were doing these proficiency tests, they were witnessed.  Each transfer was witnessed by somebody standing right there.  And all they could reconstruct, all they could reconstruct, at the end, was that they had made a mistake.
     This discussion started at 27517.  Mr. Neufeld was asking, ``And you determined that it happened at some point during the extraction process?'' ``Yes, in dealing with the sperm fractions.'' ``But even to this day, Dr. Cotten, would it be fair to say you don't know how the accidental contamination occurred during the extraction process?'' ``Yes, that would be fair to say.''  Question, ``And it would also be fair to say that this cross-contamination, this accidental cross-contamination, happened in spite of the fact that all of the sample transfers were witnessed by a second person to make sure no errors occurred?''  Answer, ``You are exactly right.''
     Now, just think of the analogy.  This is 1989.  Actually, the second one also happened in 1990.  This was when CellMark was starting out, and even when they started out, they had far more qualified personnel than anybody that came in here from the LAPD.  And they got a degraded sample and they handled the reference sample at the same time, and they still can't figure it out that that's when the cross-contamination occurred.  So, it happens, and it happened to a much better lab than LAPD, and it happened when they were just beginning, just the way LAPD is just beginning here with far less trained personnel, frankly.  So don't come in and tell us, based on this evidence, that it's unreasonable to suggest that there was cross-contamination, because all the evidence, really, all the rational inferences, point in that direction, that there was unacceptable risk of it, and we have proof that it was going on with those samples from June 15th.
     Now, this leads me to a discussion, briefly, of numbers.  We saw a lot of numbers in this case, and one of those numbers, as the judge has instructed you, is what I guess is being called the random-match probability.  That is, what are the odds that somebody coincidentally has the same DNA pattern that they may find in some sample.  And, some of these numbers are pretty staggering.  These are just frequencies  you know, one in a billion, one in a trillion.  
     Now, there are, frankly, some problems with these numbers.  Dr. Weir, who came in here and testified that he's absolutely 100 percent right and these people are just wrong, then offered you numbers which he had to admit were wrong and inflated and biased against the defendant.  And Dr. Cotten, using Dr. Weir's methods, has come in here and told you that the database for a five-probe match at CellMark for an African-American is based on samples they got from Detroit.  And in terms of how many people have been tested on all five probes, when you get down to it, it's a group of people from Detroit, and just two of them. 
     So, there are some problems with these numbers.  But let's put them aside because, they're really, in a sense, irrelevant to the main issues in this case.  There are problems with them, and I don't think that you can just accept them at face value.  But to find many reasonable doubts, they're really irrelevant, and the reason is that the issues in this case, as I'm sure you've realized, are how did blood get on these samples in the first place, who put it there; did they get there through contamination, was there laboratory error, was there corruption, contamination, of these samples.  That's the issue.  So, the numbers really are irrelevant.  They're just telling you frequencies about samples, but it doesn't answer the question how'd the blood get there.
     Now, the judge has told you that laboratory error and these random-match probabilities are different phenomena.  They are  they're different things, and you know that from your own common sense.  Let me give you a simple analogy.  Let's say that we're trying to figure out the odds of somebody getting killed when they're walking across the street.  There's lots of different ways that it can happen.  You could get struck by lightning, and the odds of that happening are probably like some of these random-match probabilities  one in a trillion.  On the other hand, if you're walking down the street, cross the street, and it's a busy thoroughfare, and you walk out in the middle of traffic, the odds are greater you'll get hit and killed.  If the cars are moving at 60 miles an hour,  70 miles an hour, the odds increase.  If you walk out in the middle of the block, the odds are getting greater.  If you're walking against the light, the odds are getting greater.  The chances can be almost certain that you're making a mistake.      So, what you have to look at, in assessing laboratory error, are risk factors.  And we know that the risk factors in the evidence processing room are unacceptably high, as Dr. Gerdes told you  unacceptably high.  
     So, if we could review.  Are the Bundy blood drops cross-contaminated?  You have to look at the history of this lab, a cesspool of contamination, unrefuted.  The contamination, as Dr. Gerdes says, is localized in the evidence handling, exactly where it looks like it happened in this case.  The risk factors in that evidence processing room are unacceptably high.  We have contamination from that reference sample board on June 15th of Mr. Simpson's blood going into two reference samples with the controls being clean. 


BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress]  cross-contaminating.  You have to look at the history of this lab, a cesspool of contamination unrefuted.  The contamination, as Dr. Gerdes says, is localized in the evidence handling, exactly where it looks like it happened in this case.  The risk factors in that evidence processing room are unacceptably high.  We have contamination from that reference sample board on June 15th of Mr. Simpson's blood going into two reference samples with the controls being clean.  And then we had the whole issue if Mr. Yamauchi spilling the blood.  That's reasonable doubt.  
     Now I'd like to turn briefly the hair and fiber evidence.  You heard from  You know, Ms. Clark can say it's his hair, or it's this fiber, but as she had to say in her closing, that is not what the testimony was from the witness because hair and fiber evidence, as Mr. Deedrick pointed out, and as we know, and as Dr. Lee pointed out, is what they call weak association evidence.  It ain't DNA.  It is weak association.  We're talking about broad similarities.  You can't even say the word ``match'' when you're talking about this evidence.  It is really evidence by way of exclusion.  They have to  They can't come up with a number and say this hair is  The odds of this being someone else's hair is one in 20.  Can't even say that.  It's just a question of looking at as many similar hairs to see if you can get an exclusion from a particular race.  So there's no data base.  There's no number.  It's just similarities.  It is weak association evidence.  Nobody is telling you that is definitely somebody's hair or some particular fiber.
     Therefore, what you have to do with this kind of evidence, as Deedrick and Dr. Lee mentioned, is that you have to exclude other frequent visitors, for example, African-American visitors to the Bundy condo area if you're doing a serious assessment of whose hair, man or woman, older children of Mr. Simpson, younger children of Mr. Simpson.  Others who were there could be contributors of the hair.  Fiber is no different, the same general class characteristics.  A big deal is being made about blue-black fiber from some unknown source that's found of three objects and maybe more.  
     Now, we have Mr. Deedrick talking about the blue-black fiber at 35,338, line 12 to 17.  Question  ``Do you remember what you told us in your direct examination about the amount of cotton fiber that is manufactured in the United States every year?'' Answer  ``Five billion pounds.''  Question  ``OK.  Do you have any idea whatsoever of the number of fabrics of blue-black nature that looks black to the naked eye and were distributed in the Los Angeles area in the past five or ten years?''  Answer  ``I have no idea.''  You want to say ten percent?  What's ten percent of five billion?  Look around the courtroom.  How many people are wearing blue-black cotton fibers?  Maybe some of you right now.  
     So you have to look when you're assessing this evidence at background.  Who could be contributing these hairs and fibers, and you can't say anything certain at all about the similarities.  It's weak association evidence.  We know that Mr. Simpson is a frequent visitor to the condo area.  You would expect to find his hairs around there.  You would expect to find Bronco fibers around there, not just from Mr. Simpson, but from Nicole Brown Simpson, from the children, from others who were in and out of that Bronco that's used as a utility vehicle.  
     Just as a simple illustration, Dr. Lee  This is a soil exemplar that the LAPD took.  They never made an assessment of the fibers.  Here's hair and fiber that you just see in the soil from that closed-in area.  OK.  It's around everywhere.  We shed them.  It comes out.  It's all around an area where people live.  Now, one interesting character that could be a source of all these is Kato the dog.  After all, Kato the dog is probably in that closed-in dirt area, one of the more frequent visitors, and Kato the dog is carrying hairs from all of the significant members of the family, and he's carrying Bronco fibers with him because he's a dog that shed.  I had a sheepdog.  You all have dogs, you know that that is a phenomenon.  And Kato the dog, as we'll see and it's a significant point, was at the crime scene that night.
     In terms of assessing hair and fiber evidence, you have to look at the issue of contamination, particularly when you're talking about hair and fiber flying all over the place at a crime scene.  I mean, this is where the issue of contaminating a scene is of critical importance.  And how did they handle this scene?  We have the issue of the blanket.  I mean, this, as Mr. Fung admitted, was colossal stupidity  to take a blanket that people that Mr. Simpson and others with Bronco fibers, hairs, hairs from all kinds of African Americans on that blanket, and then throw it out over the crime scene over the bodies, over the evidence items, everywhere, is asking for trouble. 
     But perhaps the most significant problem here  and it's the one they haven't come clean on in this case at all  is dragging around the bodies.  This was, in terms of handling a crime scene, this was really an incredible thing because, if you're trying to make associations about hair and fiber evidence from clothing of the two victims and what might have been in the dirt area, where people are shedding these things all, and you drag the bodies all over the place, over the evidence that you're testing?  That is  There's no integrity to that!  It's ludicrous, and nobody ever came clean and said who it was that moved those bodies through the envelope and the hat.  And we all know that happened, right?  They have to admit it happened. When they pulled Mr. Goldman's body through, Lord knows what was going on.  It was all moved and replaced, and nobody's ever come back and told you who put the envelope back in a different position, who put the hat back in a different position, who put the glove back.  Nobody's ever come in a told you.  And they certainly didn't investigate.  We'll talk about that a little bit more.
     But we put in concrete evidence that this kind of cross-contamination was going on in the hair and fiber evidence.  [to audio-visuals assistant]  Could we have the next slide?  [to jury]  These were slides that were put in evidence by Mr. Blasier, if you recall, and this represented something really interesting.  It had to do with bloodstains that blood evidence that you found on the clothes, the dress of Nicole Brown Simpson on the left and the shirt and the jeans of Mr. Goldman on the right. And if you recall, there was not only blood evidence, stains, on their the bodies themselves, but there was also in the area where they were taking controls.  You know, you try to find an area where there's no bloodstain, and you take a control, and those controls came up showing evidence of Nicole's blood on Ron's shirt, vice versa.  
     [to audio-visuals assistant]  Could we have the next slide?  What is the exhibit number?  I'll get you that.  These are in evidence.  [to jury]  The summary of the results were on those clothings [sic]  [to audio-visuals assistant]  Go back, please.  [to jury]  The summary of the results  there were 23 stains tested.  Sixteen of those stains showed carry-over, and very interestingly, if Mr. Simpson supposedly committed these murders and his hand was cut and he's struggling here, no matches, no evidence of his blood on this clothing.  But there is carry-over between the clothing.  Now, what does that mean?  That means, frankly, that the bodies were dragged through the crime scene, and blood from Nicole Brown Simpson got on Mr. Goldman and vice versa, and, if that happens, that's how the fibers can get carried over, too.  
     And Ms. Clark went on  I think she even put some, you know, little pieces of the puzzle up there.  She went on and on with this rank speculation where she was saying, ``Well, we know that it was one killer, and we know that it was one killer because we saw some fibers that came from Nicole's dress and got Ron's shirt or jeans and then back and forth, and that's how we know that one person was going back and forth between two victims.''  Nonsense!  This proves it.  This proves that the hair and fiber and the blood evidence were all coming together because they the handling of this crime scene is a disgrace.  A disgrace!  They're dragging the bodies back and forth.  OK.
     Now, also it should be noted that it came out during the testimony of Ms. Brockbank that the two gloves and the two hats, the knit hat and the plaid hat found in Mr. Simpson's Bronco, and the Bronco carpet that was cut out of the car were all placed in the same box.  I mean, the way they handled this stuff  and then they want to come in and say there's integrity to the hair and fiber evidence  it's ridiculous.  Briefly on the hat, we had testimony about dandruff.  You heard Mr. Simpson's barber say that in the off-season in the summer and the spring he gets dandruff.  Right after he's arrested, they remove known hair samples.  His hair has dandruff.  There's no dandruff in the hair in that hat.  
     Now, if we look at the hair and fiber evidence as a whole, there are  and this is just weak association evidence  nonetheless, there are powerful inferences consistent with innocence, and these were put on slides that are in evidence.  I'd like to review them briefly with you.  Both gloves  no hair consistent with Mr. Simpson on the Bundy glove, no hair consistent with Mr. Simpson on the Rockingham glove.  That's the slide we put up.  But you know what we should have added to that slide?  Very significant facts that I hope you don't forget.  There was an unidentified Caucasian hair on the Rockingham glove.  Did they test Mark Fuhrman?  Did they get a hair exemplar from him?  [answering his rhetorical question in the negative]  Mmmm-mmmm.  
     Also, and this is a fascinating point  Kato the dog  his hair was found on the Rockingham glove, and I'd like to read this testimony to you because I don't think it was an answer that Ms. Clark particularly liked, and this was in the cross-examination of Mr. Deedrick.  Question  and they were talking about Kato's hair on page 34,949 of the transcript  ``Is the finding of such hairs, Kato hairs, on the Rockingham glove accounted for by possible contact between the wearer of that glove, the murderer, and Kato the dog either during or immediately after the murders?''  Answer  ``Could have.  It could have been a direct transfer for the dog, or as I stated before, an indirect transfer from hairs at the crime scene.''  Question  ``That were say where?''  Answer  ``On the ground maybe.  It would have to have been on the ground.''  Question  ``Have to have been on the ground?''  Answer  ``Or perhaps from one of the victims who had been on the ground and collected the hairs.''  Question  ``And that you had previously described those as being common to the under part of a dog, as opposed to the tuft or the coat.''  Now, he's talking about the hair.  This was a soft hair from Kato the dog found on the Rockingham glove.  Answer  ``OK.  It may be just a matter of semantics here but I say the under part, under the fur, under the outer coat, which could have been on the belly.  It could have been on the back, but it is just the soft, fine hairs that are closer to the body.''  Question  ``If that dog used that shaded place to sleep or lie down on a regular basis when it was in the Bundy residence, might you expect to find some fur hairs left behind in the soil?''  Answer  ``I would expect that, yes.''  Question  ``And if the Rockingham glove were deposited any time on that soil, the Rockingham glove, being on the Bundy soil in the closed-in the area, were deposited any time on that soil, might that not explain the presence of those hairs?''  Answer  ``It could, yes.''
     So very simply, he is saying that this is hair from the sort underbelly of Kato, of the dog, the kind that you would expect to be shed if he were lying on the ground there  not the kind that you get if the dog sort of pats you  All right.  Or it comes up on you as you're, they're gonna probably claim, you know, fleeing the crime scene or something.  It's a soft hair.  It's the kind that you would find on the ground in the closed-in area.  What does that mean?  That means that Rockingham glove started at Bundy.  Somebody took it somewhere else, and you know who that was.  
          Let's go on to the next slide.  The socks.  There's no fiber on the socks consistent with either glove, and these are cashmere gloves where cashmere would easily come out and get on your hands and transfer to the socks.  No fiber consistent with Mr. Goldman's clothes.   And we know there was hand-to-hand combat here.  No fiber consistent with Nicole Brown Simpson's clothes.  Nothing on those socks.  Also, we should add no soil on those socks, no trace, no berries, nothing.  Pretty interesting, those socks.  
     Next one, please.  As far as the hair is concerned, no hair from Mr. Goldman, no hair from Nicole Brown Simpson on those socks.  Next please.  As far as Bronco fiber is concerned, no Bronco fiber is found on either glove.  No fiber consistent with Mr. Goldman's clothes is found.  No fiber consistent with Nicole Brown Simpson's clothes is found.  Next.  As far as hair, no hair consistent with Ms. Brown Simpson, no hair consistent with Mr. Goldman in the Bronco.  OK.  And I should add, you know, in the Bronco, what they did is not only did they take out that carpet, but they went in, they vacuumed it.  They vacuumed it to get all the hair and trace.  They vacuumed it, and even Mr. Deedrick himself, when he was talking about hair transfer, said, ``Well, the way it would get transferred is when you go and sit down in your car, things would come off.''  There's nothing in the Bronco.  How can that be?
     Now I'd like to move on to the crime scene at Bundy and evidence of struggle, the testimony of Dr. Baden and Dr. Lee, and I guess Dr. Lakshmanan, who came in here as the person for the prosecution to try to reconstruct that crime scene.  You know there are bloodstain experts and criminalists and people like Dr. Lee out there the prosecution could have called to come in here and try to assess this evidence for you.  They did not do so.  They brought you Dr. Lakshmanan, working over section generation photographs, who is a coroner, to do only one part, or as best he could with this evidence.


BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress]  and I guess Dr. Lakshmanan, who came in here as the person for the prosecution to try reconstruct that crime scene.  You know, there are blood stain experts and criminalists and people like Dr. Lee out there the prosecution could have called to come in here and try to assess this evidence for you.  They did not do so.  They brought you Dr. Lakshmanan working over section generation photographs, who is a coroner, to do only one part or as best he could with this evidence.
     Now, we know, as Ms. Clark indicated in her closing argument, that Nicole Brown Simpson did struggle before her death.  And we know that there were defensive wounds on her hands.  And we know that some of the wounds to her neck showed evidence of struggle.  And then we have the fingernail scrapings.  Now, Mr. Sims had said that he would expect that when you did fingernail scrapings you would find  excuse me for just a second  he would expect that there would be skin under the nails.  Now, he's a fine man and fine forensic scientist.  I have no quarrel with him, but he was admittedly testifying in an area outside of his expertise when he told you  he was saying that his was his common sense understanding.  But Dr. Baden came in testified about what one ordinarily finds as a coroner with fingernail scrapings  Dr. Lakshmanan didn't dispute it  and that is that with fingernail scrapings, when you find it, you find blood under the nails, but you don't find skin because when it grabs the blood comes up, but the skin doesn't come with it.  That's what Dr. Baden says you find.  That's what the textbook say you find when you get fingernail scrapings.  So, you would get blood, but not tissue.  So, let's explode that myth right away.
     But now we have the problem for the prosecution that when they do the fingernail scrapings, they come up on the EAP system with a B.  That is not O. J. Simpson's type.  That is not Nicole Brown Simpson's type.  That is not Mr. Goldman's type.  It is some other person.  And that's what their typing result showed.  And so then it doesn't fit.  It can't be right.  So, we have to see if we can make an assessment that would somehow undercut that finding.  Now, remember when you have two conflicting reasonable interpretations of evidence in a circumstantial evidence case, you have to go with the one that the inference that's consistent with innocence.  Now, let's look at what happened.
     Mr. Matheson said, ``I think what could be here is that we had''   can we show this slide?  ``a four-banded BA from Nicole Brown Simpson that degrades into a two-banded B.''  Now, you recall this testimony, I'm sure, and the crossexamination by Mr. Blasier and the testimony by Mr. Sims, who'd been doing serology a lot longer than Mr. Matheson, had a lot of experience in conventional serology.  These are the facts.  The facts are in the literature this supposed degradation pattern that Greg Matheson suggests could occur does not exist.  There is no literature.  Dr. George Sensabal [sp], all the experts in this field, that doesn't happen.  Nobody has seen it.  Mr. Sims, who did more conventional serology than Mr. Matheson, said he in his experience has never seen a four-banded BA degrade into a two-banded B.  Never.  Mr. Matheson says he thinks he recalls somewhere he saw it.  That ain't good enough.  That kind of maybe  maybe I saw it  that ain't good enough.  Maybe doesn't cut it in a criminal case.  We're talking proof beyond a reasonable doubt.  This is nonsense.
     Now, the other thing that they're trying to say is, all right, you can put aside the EAPB because there was DNA testing of some of that material under the nails and that came back as 1.11.1  Nicole Brown Simpson's type.  And they think that you're not going to understand this.  But you do because as you heard the EAP system is a red blood cell.  A red blood cell does not have a nucleus.  There's no DNA on the red blood cell.  The EAP typing system is something that looks at antigens on the outside of that red blood cell.  So, you could have blood under that nail, small amounts of blood under that nail, test that to a EAPB, and then when you get the little bed of epithelial cells under the nail, all right, or even some other things that blood that might have come in there from Nicole Brown Simpson, that can type out 1.11.1.  But the initial scrapings, when they duck down, they came with the EAPB, and you can't get around that.  And you can't try to explain it away.  And they don't bring in any serologist.  Now, even Dr. Mr. Sims  he's not a doctor  Mr. Sims, the best that he could do in looking at all of this, when they finally asked him the question on page 28748, he said, ``Well, looking at all these findings, I can't exclude the possibility that the EAPB or that might have been from Nicole Brown's system.  I can't exclude the possibility.'' That is not exactly a firm statement.  That is, again, a maybe.  And a maybe doesn't cut it in a criminal case.  And when you have two reasonable conflicting inferences, you've got to go with the one consistent with innocence.  And that's what this evidence shows.  That's fact.  I'm not making any of this up.  Those are facts.  OK?
[coughing in court room]
     Now would you
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  Want a glass of water?
BARRY SCHECK:  Something I said?
     Now could we have the board?  There's the whole issue of Mr. Goldman and his struggle with perpetrator or perpetrators.  There were 30 stab wounds inflicted upon Mr. Goldman.  Ms. Clark told you about, well, there were cuts on his hand, his open palm.  Sure.  But what does that mean?  If there are cuts on his hand and he is struggling with an assailant it gets on the clothes of the assailant.  Dr. Lee did an analysis of the scene based on the limited evidence that he could get because they didn't document it in any where you could do a reconstruction, just a limited reconstruction, and we had multiple contacts, blood transfers in different areas of the closed-in area.  And in each of these different areas where the multiple contacts occurred, as you recall, there were also vertical blood drops.  And the fair inference from that evidence is that somebody, there's a struggle, people are up against one area, then another area, up against the other area  blood drops are going down.  So, there's struggle in different areas with an assailant or assailants.  I mean, we can just reason from facts.  We can't Dr. Lakshmanan got up, and there's a whole hypothesis here that it all happened so quickly by surprise, stealth I mean.  You can't do that.  You've got to look at facts.  You've got to do a best analysis, fair inference from the facts, and the facts show that there's multiple contacts in these different areas from the blood stain evidence by the country the world's leading analyst of this, whose testimony on these points stand unrefuted.
     There is, of course, as we've discussed the dug out area, particular struggle here as even Detective Lange told you, where there's in other areas where there's sign of struggle between the assailant and Mr. Goldman, soil on the socks.  There's contact by the way that they're banging against the sides of the gate such that pants are going come into contact with pants and shirt.  Now, it's clear from the way this struggle went that some point early on, Mr. Goldman sustained this wound to his neck and the blood began oozing down.  And as Dr. Lee pointed out, he had to be standing Dr. Baden  had to be standing vertical for some period of time because the blood did go down from his shirt all the way down his pants leg.  And we saw blood, a lot of blood, on the back of his pants.  Now, if assailants are struggling together, there's going to be blood from the pants, blood from the shirt, in close contact, transferred to the assailant, got to be.  It's a bloody struggle.  And that's what this blood stain evidence shows you.  It's fair inferences from the facts.
     Now, the beeper and the keys.  The significance, I submit to you, of the beeper and the keys at the very least, put aside keys as weapon, just the significance is thrown you know there's violence, tussling and struggling, the beeper is thrown down here.  In the other area, another area of struggle, the keys are thrown down.  If the keys are in the pocket, that's got to be a considerable tussle because for the keys to come out of the pocket in the other area.  Where if the keys are in his hand, well he's going to use that as a weapon.  So, you can't, you know, you can't have it both ways.  It shows multiple banging and struggling throughout that area.
     Now, the key fact that Ms. Clark conceded in her closing argument  key fact  is what Dr. Baden told you about the time between the wound in the neck and the time to the last fatal wound in the chest.  And this is just fact.  As Dr. Lee would say, there is scientific fact; there's interpretation.  We deal with fact.  The fact is that this wound had to come first, the one to the neck.  There's blood oozing down.  And the last wound is to the chest.  When the wound in the chest occurred, as Dr. Baden told you, is only 100 ccs of blood in the chest.  What that must mean is that by the time Mr. Goldman was stabbed there, his heart was compromised.  It wasn't beating very hard, so you did not have the amount, much more than 100 ccs of blood, you would expect to find in the chest if it hadn't been the last, if not the about the last wound.  And Dr. Baden said from the time, just based on finding a 100 ccs in the bleeding, the compromise of the heart, the time between the first stab and the last stab would be between at least five minutes, as much as 15 minutes, most reasonably ten.
     Now, that doesn't mean that the struggle took the struggle went on from the first wound to the last wound for ten minutes, what it means is, and this is what's crucial, that the assailant or assailants were there for that period of time.  It could be that Mr. Goldman was subdued, was lying on the ground and they did come and stab him last, and make that last wound.  But we know from the facts that between this wound and the wound to the chest, most reasonably 10 minutes.  Somebody is there, at least some people are there, for 10 minutes.
     Now, if the struggle occurs, starts at 10:35, 10:40, based on scientific fact, Mr. Simpson can't be guilty of these crimes because he can't be two places at the same time can he?  Now, that time period is even, you know, longer.  Oh, they say take the five minutes.  Give us  the prosecution  you know, the inferences.  Well, you can't.  You know, you can't because reasonable inferences, if it's between five and 15, most reasonably 10, you've got to take 10.  You can't give them the five.  That's not the way you can reason about a circumstantial evidence case.  But even if you take the five, you know, something happened before that first wound, some period of time.  So, the window, the time here that it these murders took is not this incredibly quick event that is necessary for the prosecution's time line.  And that's based on a reasonable, careful, scientific investigation of the evidence by Dr. Baden, one of the foremost pathologists, and Dr. Lee, one of the foremost forensic experts.  This is evidence.


BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress] Is not this incredibly quick event that is necessary for the prosecution's time line.  And that's based on a reasonable, careful scientific investigation of the evidence by Dr. Baden, one of the foremost pathologists, and Dr. Lee, one of the foremost forensic experts.  This is evidence.
     Now, the next thing I'd like to point out has to do with the bloodstain imprints on the envelope. Oh, I'm sorry.  I forgot this, thank you very much.  One other thing I should mention about the struggle.  It's a critical point, I can't believe I left it out.  
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  Are there [unintelligible] on this board?
BARRY SCHECK:  No.
Judge LANCE ITO:  All right. 
BARRY SCHECK:  Where did this come from?  Dr. Lee testified that it is a fresh cut you can see if when  you examine the clean part of the top here, the interior.  It is a fresh cut from a sharp instrument consistent with a knife.  Think about that.  Think about that.  What does that indicate about the nature of the struggle?  Mr. Goldman, one or two assailants, somebody coming towards him.  He kicked.  Dr. Lee testified that by the angle that is consistent with the foot being raised in the air and a sharp instrument coming  down there's kicking.  And if there's kicking, why are there no bruises on Mr. Simpson's body consistent with that kick?  And why didn't anybody else come in here and point out this cut on the boot?  Very significant evidence.  And, of course, there's the dirt on the boot that you would expect to see and the blood on Mr. Goldman's jeans and the broken buttons.  Indication of struggle there.
     Now, the bloodstain imprints on the envelope.  Now I know it's not Mr. Bodziak's area, but you know you have to consider all the evidence, and Dr. Lee, I think, gave us all a pretty sound education on bloodstain interpretation enough to basically figure out and understand which bloodstains that certain deposits are made first, then other deposits are made over them.  And I think that that's, you know, pretty significant in terms of assessing this.
     Now, the first point that I think this goes to is, you recall Mr. Bodziak's testimony that there could only be one set of footprints leaving the scene.  When you analyze it, he concedes that that was based on the assumption that there was a pool of blood that all assailants would have to walk through.  And I understand that he was not following all of Dr. Lee's testimony, only, I guess, 95 percent of it that dealt with footprints but not the full 95 percent as I originally thought he was saying.  But the point is, you know, it's like you forgot about Dr. Lakshmanan.  
     Dr. Lakshmanan offered a scenario in broad respects that Dr. Baden said could well be the case, and there seems to be an operating premise here, and that is that Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson was subdued, she could have been hit on the head.  It wouldn't necessarily knock her, as Dr. Baden indicated.  But it might have incapacitated her or knocked her out.  And then there's a struggle with Mr. Goldman, and then or as a close to the final act, Ms. Nicole Brown Simpson's leaning over the stairwell, is inflicted with the last wound to her neck and then the huge blood pool occurs.
     But if you're not necessarily and that is the assumption underlying Agent Bodziak's testimony that if there were to be another set of footprints it would have to be dark from the big pool of blood.  It you know, it's not even it's not consistent with Lakshmanan said.  There could have been one, two other people left that scene, somebody without leaving that tracks.  They could have come out the way that the police did, which wouldn't leave imprints.  Or there could have been partial imprints with small amounts of blood on the shoes that were not discovered because, frankly, they were not looking, as you can tell, very hard  or very aggressively for anything other than focusing in on those Bruno Magli shoes. 
     And I realize Agent Bodziak thinks very well of the photography of the criminalists at the LAPD, but taking good photographs of once Bruno Magli shoes does not mean that it was combined with does not mean that they were looking for other imprints as his book recommends that people do and do aggressively.  
     Now the one really interesting part of this envelope has to do with its handling.  Do you recall, Dr. Lee pointed out on the far right-hand corner that this is a mirror-image stain,  meaning that it had to be a wet deposit and then somebody folded the envelope.  So the blood is wet and the envelope is folded.  And then we see  could we have the next this is what number, I'm sorry?  Thirteen forty-eight, as he focused in, is what appears to be consistent with a light transfer of a finger. Next.  Next, next one.  
     And then, if you recall, there was the other print consistent with the finger.  Can you see the bottom there?  The top one is the light one, and then the bottom one, do you see how that's, as Dr. Lee pointed out, could be a finger that was completely covered in blood making contact with the envelope.  Now, this is a very interesting fact, if you think about it, because Ms. Clark gave the hypothesis to you in her closing argument that Mr. Goldman was taken by surprise and dropped the envelope to the ground.
     So, her theory is not that he kept that envelope in his hand as the struggle is continuing, or that he would make the bloody imprints on the envelope with his fingers, but somebody was interested in that envelope.  Somebody appears to have opened up that envelope and created a bloody smear on the one lanes we have remaining.  Somebody made the mirror-image fold on that envelope.  Somebody was looking in it for some reason, who had been in the struggle and left a bloody imprint of fingers.  It's interesting, isn't it?  And it is consistent with well, it is inconsistent certainly with the prosecution's theory of Mr. Simpson committing these crimes and consistent with others. 
     Now, let's discuss the imprints, and the hour's getting late and lots to cover here, but let me just briefly go through that imprint evidence on the piece of paper, on the envelope, and on the jeans.  Let's and what Dr. Lee found on the walkway.  And let's just piece it through simple step by step.  You'll go back, you'll look at the imprints on the jeans.  And Agent Bodziak did  not say that he  had any expertise in imprints on fabric, and Agent Deedrick said this was the first time he'd ever done anything like this before.  
     But I submit to you what Dr. Lee said about the imprints about the jeans is simply this, and I think if you look at those parallel line imprints you'll see they could be consistent with kicking from a shoe.  When they're bunched up, all right, there are some imprints, Dr. Lee said, is accordion effect.  It's just the bunching of the jeans but it's three dimensional.  You bunch up the jeans, an imprint occurs on it, and that's why some of those lines are not complete or completely parallel to that three-inch heel print, in particular, that we went over with Agent Bodziak.  
     It could be consistent with that kind of an imprint.  But I really think it's inconsistent with, and Agent Deedrick sort of gave it away that he'd never done this kind of analysis before, is this parallel lines from Mr. Goldman's shirt because they were talking about a swipe and you also know what a swipe is.  A swipe leaves that smear.  You can't swipe and leave those kinds of patterns like that on the jeans.  It doesn't make any sense that there's this flailing and hitting of this fabric and it's going to create those kinds of imprints. It's more consistent with flat, hard surface hitting the three-dimensional, folded up area.  That's the jeans.
     Now, with respect to the piece of paper and the envelope, we can have a debate about whether or not, based on this evidence, you know, they're imprints before there's a lot of blood on the scene, the early imprints.  There's no border, but that's not necessarily inconsistent with there no being a shoe print, parallel line imprint.  Agent Bodziak didn't look very hard for these kind of parallel line imprints.  Put that aside.  Put that aside. Let's go with what they said.  Agent Deedrick said, well, maybe that's from Mr. Goldman's jeans, and then he conceded that the most reasonable interpretation would be that Mr. Goldman fell once on the envelope area, if that's his jean imprint, and then again, or maybe once at the same on the piece of paper out on the walkway.  
     Well, that's not exactly consistent with the prosecution's theory about how these murders occurred, is it?  So I don't think that gives them any real help here.  And as to those shoe prints on the walkway that Dr. Lee discovered on June 25th, one is definitely a shoe print, no question about it.  The other one Agent Bodziak says is consistent with footwear.  Well, you know, they haven't eliminated the police or the photographer.  It's just an example of what you could do.  He got to the crime scene for 20 minutes and did the best he could under those circumstances, is illustrative, it is not really explained.  But you don't even need that when you consider the full scope of the evidence, that two people could have done this crime on these facts as a fair inference.  A lot of evidence to support that proposition. 
Judge LANCE ITO:  Mr. Scheck, would this be a good time?  
BARRY SCHECK:  Sure.
Judge LANCE ITO:  All right.  Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take our mid-afternoon break at this time.  Remember  all my admonitions.  We'll be in recess for about 15 minutes.  All right.  Thank you.
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor:  What we've seen from Barry Scheck is a change from this morning to this afternoon.  In his time before the luncheon recess, we heard Barry Scheck in the throes of a more passionate rhetorical  argument dealing with he called ``the cancer in the case,'' the cesspool of contamination, the world of compromise.  And what he is dealing with this afternoon are things he has to deal with, which are facts.  He had to go through the difficulties for the defense with the DNA, with the shoe prints, with blood evidence.  And perhaps where he was at his strongest, perhaps, depending on one's listening ear, may have been in his argument about hair and fiber evidence. All of it comes to the fact that Barry Scheck wants the jurors to have a reasonable doubt.  It's going to be an interesting question in the end after a verdict, assuming there is a verdict from the jurors, if they could get all of these facts.  There's a lot of facts here for them to master, or is it too late? 
     We're going to take a commercial break.  Our guest commentator, Lane Liroff,  will give us his perspective on this closing argument.  Stay with us. 



RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor:  We're waiting for the jury to come in.  They are on their way.  Lane Liroff, you've prosecuted a lot of murder cases, and what do you do with the situation when one of your chief detective goes and takes a blood vial of the defendant's blood, has it for two or three hours, and brings to the crime scene?  What do you do?
LANE LIROFF, Deputy District Attorney:  Well, certainly, no one should be happy about that, but what the prosecution can do in this case is, literally, stand in front of the jury, or, at least they could consider doing this, and say, ``What could happen?  What could he have done with that blood during that time period?''  He obviously didn't spill it on the gate  didn't happen then.  He didn't have the opportunity and access to the Bronco  couldn't have happened then.  Couldn't have put any blood on Bundy.  Where did he do it and what could he have done with that blood, and try, using sarcasm, point out to the jury that this is part of the mirrors and smoke and that this really doesn't account for anything.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  And is your argument that he couldn't have put blood on the Bundy rear gate because there were still too many people there?
LANE LIROFF:  There was too many people there, and, at that point, the crime scene, I believe, was still controlled.  And, if the theory of the defense is that the DNA was stronger then, that means that the blood was added there later, more recent to the time it was taken, and that if it was put on at that point, then there's no accounting or explaining why it sat there and weathered for two weeks but still had strong DNA.  So their version doesn't necessarily make that as much sense.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  OK.  We'll see, eventually, what the prosecutors do with this.  We're going back into court.  The jury's present.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: [in progress] taking his summation to the jury at this time, and, Mr. Scheck, you may continue.
BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  Thank you very much.  I realize it's these have been long days, and I really appreciate the patience and the way that you've followed. 
     I shouldn't I was inaccurate in a statement that I made to you, and I want to correct it immediately.  That had to do with the hairs found on the Rockingham glove.  Detective Fuhrman, in checking the transcripted 34923 was, in fact, eliminated as the donor of that Caucasian hair, and that was an inaccuracy on my part, and any time  I've tried very hard to key everything to the areas of the transcript, and, obviously, Ms. Clark, I'm sure, will bring any inaccuracies to your attention if there are any, try very hard to do that, and you should have the testimony reread.  You shouldn't misread things, like I just did.  
     Another thing I forgot to mention about the Rockingham gloves, however, both gloves, and that is that they found a limb hair.  Now, this Caucasian hair is not accounted for to anybody, but there is a limb hair that was found inside the glove.
     Now, if Mr. Simpson had had these gloves for four years, as the prosecution contends, then there should have been more limb hairs.  One thing that you saw when you saw his hands, and that is is that he has a lot of hair on this part of his fingers, and if these gloves had been worn for four years, you would expect to find a lot more of this limb hair inside the gloves.  But you don't find that, so that's another point to consider that I left out.
     One quick point here on Do you remember Ms. Clark talked about a blood drop that landed on Mr. Goldman's boot, number 78, that on RFLP testing turned out to be a mixture of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman?  And Detective Lange had offered a theory to you that this mixture could have occurred because one knife had committed both of these acts, and there was a combination or mixture on the knife, and the blood drop fell and hit Mr. Goldman's boot there.  Now, the first point to be made about that is the photograph you were shown was Mr. Goldman's boot being lifted up at the time that his body was taken over into the walkway and the coroners were taking pictures of it.  If you look back at the photographs and you see the way his shoe was configured, it would be extremely unlikely that one drop of blood could hit, because the shoe is at an angle.  You couldn't have a drop that would fall in exactly that place in exactly that way, or it's extremely unlikely.  But the other thing about this so-called ``mixture''  mostly Nicole Brown Simpson and less of Ronald Goldman on the RFLP probes  is Dr. Lee addressed this, if you recall, when he pointed out the bag in which the boots were taken.  Do you remember that?  This was the wet transfer of blood coming through the bag, here.  When these boots are taken off and it's dragged into an area where there is blood from both victims, and then the wet blood is put into a bag, any kind of typing that you're going to get, if there's a drop on that area from a mixture, the DNA test is suspect when you handle the evidence in this fashion in terms of getting a mixture.  So that's a point for your consideration, I think.
     Now, what's left in this analysis is the Bronco, the Rockingham gloves, some short final remarks and you'll be hearing from Mr. Cochran.
     The first point I'd like to make when we talk about the blood stain patterns in the Bronco has to do with something that Ms. Clark said, first of all, about the blood drops in the foyer in Mr. Simpson's Rockingham residence.  If you recall, in her closing argument, she said  and I don't know how she could say this in terms of the record  that the blood drops that were found in the foyer  you recall, there were three that were recovered by LAPD, and then when Dr. Lee went back there, he found another three smaller cast off-type drops  and she said, ``Well, those drops couldn't be made by a cut on the side of the finger, a comparatively superficial cut on the side of the finger.  It would have to be made with a major cut, or that fish hook-type cut,'' because that's their theory, right, that there's this fish hook-type cut on the knuckle that nobody sees.  Nobody sees.  No one on the way to Chicago.
     But Dr. Lee testified about this at page 43022 of the transcript.  Question  and he's talking about the blood drop pattern in the foyer  ``And so if one had a superficial cut on the side of a finger and shook it in the fashion I'm doing'' and then, Mr. Scheck, ``Let the record reflect I'm shaking my hand down  does that create the cast off pattern?'' ``Yes.''  ``And that would would that be consistent with what you found here?'' ``Yes.'' ``And could the pattern that you found here be consistent with a superficial cut on the side of the finger?''  That's talking about all the drops.  Answer was   ``Consistent with a small volume of blood.''  ``Is the pattern that you see here consistent with a major cut?'' ``No.''  
     So you have Ms. Clark's speculation, and then you have directly contradictory testimony by Dr. Lee, and there is no testimony in the record that supports her contention.  It is mere speculation on her part.  She is not a blood stain expert, and I submit to you, you have to take the sworn, uncontradicted testimony.
     Now, we know, from what was said to Dr. Baden, that in the course of getting things together on leaving, Mr. Simpson sustained a cut going into the Bronco retrieving materials on his way out, packing, and that it's the position of the defense that the blood stains that you see and well, briefly, why don't we take out that board and I'll come back to it.  This is the prosecution's ``blood stain pattern in the Bronco'' board, if you recall it.
     Now, there are blood stain patterns on the handle, instrument panel, the console, of course, and then, these are other items.  That's the footprint area and on top of the windowsill  the windowsill is somewhere around here  that are consistent, everybody agrees, with a cut to the left hand, somebody getting into the car sitting down looking for something.  Consistent with our theory, consistent, arguably, with their theory.  But, then, when you start looking at the rest of the blood stain patterns, you have to start asking, ``Which interpretation is reasonable?''
     Now, the first point that has to be made  take this down for a second  is that, of course, initial deposits would be made by Mr. Simpson that evening, and then somebody else was in that Bronco.  Now, we know someone else was in that Bronco, and that's been, I submit to you, demonstrated by the evidence.  Let's take a look at this picture.  Mr. Cochran has already reviewed with you the testimony of Mark Fuhrman at the preliminary hearing, and you heard it on videotape, where he said he found blood in the Bronco  a bit of a Freudian slip.  
     But I submit to you one of the most significant moments has to do with the testimony of Dennis Fung and the blood stain patterns on the door sill of the Bronco.  You recall that Detective Fuhrman testified at the preliminary hearing at this trial that he observed four brush mark blood stain patterns on the door sill of the Bronco that he could observe when the door was closed.  When Mr. Fung came in, he circled these pictures, and, if you recall his testimony, the bottom circle closest to the door, that's only one stain.  He said that that stain could be observed when the door was closed, but the other three stains that are represented by those other two circles could only be seen when the door was open.  Could only be seen when the door was open.
     From their own witnesses, evidence he was in the Bronco.  And it only makes sense that he would go in that Bronco.  And how much credibility do you really put in that man's testimony, that here's evidence that he was in there.  You know what other evidence there is?  This is one of the most interesting facts, and it's hard, scientific evidence that supports our position with respect to the blood stain pattern in the Bronco  the steering wheel.  You recall that the typing on the steering wheel was 1.1, 1.2, a genotype consistent with O.J. Simpson, and four.  Who is the contributor of the four allele?  That was an issue, and much was made of it in the case, was it not?  Lots of cross-examination, lots of highlighting of that 4 allele in the steering wheel.  And the prosecution well knew that it was the contention of the defense that Mr. Fuhrman and/or other officers had been in the Bronco.  Doesn't take much to get a blood sample, or you just take a swab, in testimony, as you run it through somebody's mouth.  You can do a quick DQ-Alpha test.
     What is Mark Fuhrman's genotype?  We know that Andrea Mazzola and Dennis Fung, just like you do eliminations, they their genotypes were taken so we would know what they were.  They are not consistent with the four.  None of them has the four.  They're eliminated.  Why wasn't Mark Fuhrman eliminated?  Why didn't they take exemplars from the police on this?  Why?
     But I think that a fair inference consistent with innocence which you are, under oath, obliged to take, you must consider that Mr. Fuhrman was in the Bronco.  And the evidence is that a picture 4:30, around 4:30 in the evening, he is pointing at that glove at Bundy walking through a pool of blood.  Now, comes into that Bronco, the vicinity of that Bronco, the area 5:00 in the morning, right initially, then goes out and does his secuitus [sp] little trip where he finds the glove and is alone for 15 minutes around 5:30.  Now, there's very interesting testimony from Dennis Fung at page 21438 of the transcript about the ground.  And he's talking, here, about Fuhrman, and he's talking about arriving  excuse me, Vannatter  he's talking about arriving, initially, at the Rockingham location.  And he talks about how he was shown a red stain on the driver's door of the vehicle and a blood trail.  And is questioned  ``OK, did you notice anything about the temperature at that time, or the weather?''  Answer  ``It was fairly cool.'' ``What about the lawns?  Did you notice anything that looked like it could have been dew on the lawns?''  Answer  ``I did notice there was some that the grass was wet.''  Question  ``All right.''
     So Fung tells us that the grass is wet, but we know that there's no dew.  We introduced into evidence under 1280 the weather, and when it was introduced and you can take this back into the jury room, you can examine the areas that are highlighted in purple.  The only thing to  it doesn't really make much of a difference  to be tricky about is Professor MacDonell explained all of this  that when you look at the time listing over here, it's standard time, so any time you see the time, you have to add an hour.  But when you look at the temperature and the dew point, you're going to see that the temperature was always many degrees above the dew point.  So, in other words, when you look through this, you'll see there is no dew.  But the grass was wet.  And you were at that location, and you noticed the sprinkler heads and the sprinkler system, and right in that area, that grass area where the Bronco was parked, there are six sprinkler heads.  The grass, a fair inference, was watered regularly at that location.  The grass was wet.  That's the fact.
     Now, if you have, as Agent Bodziac indicated, blood that is caked on the inside of your shoe  even if loafers like Mr. Fuhrman in the inside heel area in your shoe  and then you walk through a wet area and then you step onto the carpet, you're going to get the same kind of pattern that was testified to for the prosecution side in terms of the fibers going into the shoes and getting out blood that would be consistent with the genotype of Nicole Brown Simpson that is found on the carpet of the Bronco.
     Then we have the issue of the blood stain pattern on the console.  Now, let me be precise, because when Mr. Cochran was showing you about the seven-tenths of the drop of blood, I just want to make sure that  I saw some, even the prosecutors with a quizzical look.  But that happened, I think you recall, at the very end of the trial, and that was the testimony of Gary Sims.  You recall that he came back, he was testifying about the RFLP tests and the combining of all the stains.  And I asked him a series of questions about combining all the stains.  That is the collection on June 14th from the console of 30 and 31, then the August 26th samples, 303, 304, 305.  And we talked about the amount of DNA that you would get, you know, with one drop containing 1,000 nanograms of high molecular weight DNA.
     And then when he looked at the amount of DNA when you combined all the samples, he said that it wasn't over 100 and question  ``So that is one-tenth of one drop of blood?''  it's what it is, 100 nanograms, one-tenth of one drop of blood.  And he said  ``Qualify it.''  He said answer  ``Well, you have to remember with a drop of blood, for example, if you were testing liquid blood, that is not the same as extracting DNA out of the stain's worth of one drop of blood.''  So there is you're not quite talking apples.  You are somewhat talking apples and oranges there, but in terms of the ball park you're talking about, you know maybe getting three quarters of that DNA out, so you can figure it from that.
     So then I asked him a question trying to make it English.  ``All right.  So what you're basically saying to us is that maybe if you're just dealing with the pristine drop of blood you wouldn't get 1,000 nanograms, you'd get 750.''  Answer  ``Something like that.''  ``Is that what you just said in English?''  Answer  ``Yes that's what I said.''  ``OK.  If you were to summarize and I mean no disrespect  so if we've about 100 nanograms of DNA in the 750 nanograms in a drop of blood, can you give me that fraction quickly?  That would be about a seventh?''  Answer  ``Something like that.''  ``OK.''  So in other words, make it very, very simple.  Hard science when you combine the amount of DNA and you give them all favorable inferences, Gary Sims their own witness says when you look at the smears of blood on the console, it's seven- tenths of a drop.
     Now how could that be you're saying?  Let's say it's a drop or two.  How could that be?  Well that's because as Dr. Lee explained, that when you have a blood drop and you smear it over a non-absorbent surface it smears so it looks a small amount of blood can make a big smear.  And of course Mr. Goldman's contribution to that seven- tenths of a drop of blood is at the most 30, 40 percent.  That's very, very, very little.  And so then you have to ask yourself does this make any sense?  How could so little even if we assume, you know, how could so little be there?  How could so little be there?
     You know, Ms. Clark was trying to say well this is how the blood got there.  You know, the Rockingham glove had a lot of blood mostly from Mr. Goldman, some from Nicole Brown Simpson and that was somehow placed on the side of the console.  So that's why we get the little amount of Goldman's DNA that's on the console.  That


BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress]  of course, Mr. Goldman's contribution to that seven-tenths of a drop of blood is at the most 30 or 40 percent.  That's very, very, very little.  And so then you have to ask yourself, does this make any sense.  How could so little even if we assume, you know, how could so little be there?  How could so little be there?
     You know, Miss Clark was trying to say, well, this is how the blood got there.  We know the Rockingham glove had a lot of blood, mostly from Mr. Goldman, some from Nicole Brown Simpson.  And that was somehow placed on the side of the console.  So that's why we get the little amount of Goldman's DNA that's on the console.  That's their theory.
     Well, that's consistent Mr. Fuhrman placing the glove in there.  It's consistent with even Mr. Fuhrman having handled the glove and getting blood on his sleeve in just searching around the area, or one of the other police officers, and just getting a small smear of it with his sleeve on the console.  That's consistent with this evidence.  And you know what isn't consistent with this evidence?  Think about it.  What are they really saying?
     If Mr. Simpson had committed these murders and he grabbed the glove, as they're saying, with his open left hand, all right, and placed it on the side, well then, in getting in the car, why aren't there mixtures on the window, right?  On the window.  On all those other drops, everything else, all those other blood stains, there's no trace of blood from either of the victims.  There's no mixtures.  Wouldn't there be other blood on the hands?
     And, of course, their theory before you, and this is extraordinary, is that he's wearing these clothes, that we've just been though the evidence of struggle.  If there's blood on pants, it's going to be on the seat.  If there's blood from the struggle with Goldman, it should be there.  We know there's no hair, there's no trace, there's no fibers from clothing.  There's no berries.  There's nothing in that Bronco that would be consistent with somebody that had committed a violent double homicide, that had been in a life-and-death struggle with Mr. Goldman.  It doesn't make one bit of sense.  If you look at the blood stain pattern in the Bronco, you have to have a reasonable doubt about that.
     And haven't we shown you, by credible, fair and reasonable evidence, that this Detective Fuhrman would have gone in that car, and by his own testimony and exposed lies from the prosecution's own witnesses, there's evidence he was there.  Those stains on the door sill give up the lie, don't they?  He was in that car.  And probably more than one of them was in that car.
     Now, with respect to the credibility of the evidence, very briefly, and I know you're you followed this.  We have to make a distinction.  You know, in her opening statement, Miss Clark actually said to you that all she was going to talk about in her opening statement with respect to the Bronco were the stains that were collected on June 14th.  She didn't even indicate they were going to offer you anything from aft August 26th, because they know how terribly this was handled, and that no jury could really accept the integrity of the evidence after this car was abandoned.  But could we bring up the board, please, on the 13 I think it's 1351.  The DNA board with the
     Very briefly, you recall this.  And we made a distinction here.  We have to look at the samples that were collected on June 14th, and the samples that were collected on August 26th, as Dr. Gerdes suggested to you.  If you look at the June 14th DNA evidence, with samples 30 and 31, okay, nothing in 30, 31 they're calling this faint 1.3 allele, where the 1.3 is showing up in the controls.  And you remember the whole business about development length and the notion of controls failing?  This is it.  From June 14th, this is it with respect to DNA from Mr. Goldman in the Bronco.  That's it.
     And as Dr. Gerdes indicated to you, that is not credible scientific evidence.  Of course, they're offering you evidence that was collected on August 26th, after this vehicle was literally abandoned.  After the ``no special care'' hold had been taken off it.  After there was a theft.  Now, Mr. Meraz, he wasn't the world's most credible witness on the issue of the theft.  But I really think that's besides the point.  Number one, he's stealing, he's inside that car.  What's going on?  He didn't see blood.
     But you don't have to accept Meraz.  What about Detective Mulldorfer, who's investigating this?  She doesn't see blood.  And then there's Mr. Blasini.  He doesn't see blood on the console.  And we know that there's all kinds of people allowed into this vehicle, and probably more disturbing than anything else, as Detective Mulldorfer indicated, the rules are violated, and there's no record kept of any authorized police personnel, of any police personnel, going in and out of there.  They could just go in and out and no records were kept and nobody would know, period.
     And all of a sudden what we have on August 26th, when the car is finally brought in, and Miss Clark said it was she must have misspoke when she tried to imply that the inspection of the Bronco was at the request of the defense.  Those are not the facts.  The facts are that they brought it in, they allowed the def two defense people to observe, and then Michele Kestler looks in the vehicle and there's a photographer that was brought down from Life magazine at the behest of the police commissioner to witness this grand examination of the Bronco.
     And lo and behold, they find as much blood on the console on August 26th as there was on June 14th.  And then when they do the DNA testing patterns, they find not only Mr. traces of Mr. Goldman's blood, but Nicole Brown Simpson's blood in those same areas.  That is awfully odd.
     So, the integrity of the evidence, again, is in question here, in terms of what you can accept beyond a reasonable doubt.  But even if you're willing to look aside from that  and I don't really think that one can, in fairness  I think that the defense version of how the blood got there, and the blood stain pattern in the Bronco, is far more plausible than the prosecution's version.  It just doesn't fit.  There would be mixtures on all those stains, according to their own theory.  There should be more blood in the Bronco, given what occurred in this case.  The blood stain patterns don't make sense, do they?  They really don't.  And nor does the hair and the fiber in that Bronco.
     Now, let's talk about the glove.  The first point to be made about the glove is an integrity issue.  And that is that you recall that when Mr. Yamauchi opened up the reference tube in the morning and spilled out the blood, the first thing he did after that was this examination of the Rockingham glove.  And as you recall, he was putting his initials in, he was doing all these phenol testing, these manipulations, all in the wrist area of the glove, and manipulating it.  There is so little DNA in these few areas here from the D1S80 tested, minuscule, nanogram amounts.  Very, very small, consistent with a small sample handling transfer from Mr. Yamauchi.  And that alone, I think, can explain the small amount of DNA on the glove.
     But, of course, under the other scenarios, the competing scenarios of the defense and the prosecution, if the Rockingham glove was up against the side of the console, that certainly would, of course, explain a small transfer of Mr. Simpson's blood into the heel area of the glove.  But you know what doesn't make sense?  What doesn't make sense what doesn't make sense is their theory.
     First of all, the tight glove is thrown off from the left hand in the course of this struggle.  But they're saying that, with a cut, a bleeding cut, a fishhook on the knuckle, which nobody sees on the way to Chicago, and blood on this hand, the gloves are taken off.  Can they really suggest to you the gloves are taken off at the wrist?  I'm from back east Brooklyn, you know, and I wear a lot of gloves.  You may not have as much experience.  But think about it.  You don't take gloves like this, you take them off like that.
     And you know what?  That's exactly what the criminalists were thinking.  That's what Gary Sims was thinking.  Even Mr. Yamauchi was thinking that.  Because most of the initial DNA testing, all was done looking for blood on the fingers, top fingers of the glove.  Because that's all that makes sense.  And there was nothing there.  And that's got to give you, I would submit, a reasonable doubt.
     So, what I've tried to do in my remarks is review with you essential pieces, circumstantial evidence of the prosecution's case.  And we don't have to do that.  We don't have the burden of proof in this case.  And each essential piece, I think it's fair to say, there's a reasonable doubt.  And some, some of these, are so profoundly disturbing in terms of the manufacturing of evidence in this case, that I'm sure you really can't abide it.  Not in this country.  Not in this democracy can we allow dishonest, manufactured evidence to lie at the heart of a case like this.  It cannot be.  You cannot trust.  You cannot go back and say, well, they maybe they planted evidence on the glove.  Maybe on the back gate.  Oh, there's blood missing.  Big deal.  How can that be a big deal?  There's many, many reasonable doubts embedded in all of that.
     But you know, there's a fourth ``c''.  Contaminated, compromised and corrupted.  But there's a fourth ``c'' that goes along with how these things happened, that relates to this forensic testimony, and the fourth ``c'' has to do with coverup.  And I'm not even talking about the statements of the police officers and the coverup of Mr. Fuhrman that Mr. Cochran has discussed with you so eloquently in the last two days.  Let's just talk a little bit about the criminalists, and what you can view in terms of that evidence, and how that affects on their credibility, because if you lie in small things  and some of these are not so small things  you lie in big things.  And if you're trying to turn the other way and cover up real problems  real problems  serious problems, you can't abide it.
     Now, when I alluded to early, and I just think it goes to the heart of the hair and fiber evidence and so much in this case, and your common sense tells you, they moved Mr. Goldman's body.  They were traipsing around that crime scene.  And we know the envelop was moved.  And we know the glove was moved and somebody put it back.
     And remember Mr. Fung they actually have a form, ``If the scene was altered, describe how.'' And Mr. Fung says, ``It's not my job.  We don't ask.''  Detective Lange, do you know?  ``I don't know.''  Did anybody ask Jacobo [sp] or Radcliff [sp], the coroners?  Did anybody come in and do an investigation?  Isn't it important to know who's moving around this evidence, that they're going to come in and make a big deal about hair and fiber and other things?  Don't we have to know that?  Isn't that just fair dealing with you?
     And how can I mean, they're covering this up.  They're covering up how miserably this was handled and how the integrity of the evidence was compromised.  It's as plain as day.  It's an insult to your intelligence to say otherwise.  Why?  They have a responsibility to come in here and do that.  And we looked at videos where, I submit to you, there's a glove on the blanket that somebody put back.
     And then there was the testimony you know, Detective Lange said, and if this isn't covering I don't know what is, well, why did you move the bodies?  Why did you wait so long to bring the criminalists in?  Why did you move the bodies before you collected the evidence, because that's lunacy?  And the answer was, ``This is what you call a closed-in crime scene.''  And in a closed-in crime scene, where the evidence is close to the bodies, the first thing you do is move the bodies?  That was a make-up.  It was nonsense.  As all the other criminalists who came in here and testified.  Even Mr. Fung couldn't abide that.  Because it's covering for mistakes.  
     Now, another one is just the whole way it went.  Mr. Fung, when he testified in the Grand Jury, and initially at the preliminary hearing, he forgot Andrea Mazzola was there with him, because she was a trainee, and she played a big role in this case in handling the evidence, and they wanted to forget it ever happened.  And, you know, that's the way it was, and you know, when I asked him, well, did any was there any concern in the lab about this before you went to testify in the Grand Jury preliminary hearing?  ``No.  It's just this habit I have of saying `I' when I mean `we'.  It's a habit of testifying.''
     But you know, when Miss Kestler came here she was actually asked by Mr. Neufeld, was there any discussion before Mr. Fung testified in the Grand Jury about what went on in this case, and they said, well there was some concern that Miss Mazzola was listed on the forms as the officer in charge.  And I think that tells you all you need to know.  Of course they were concerned about that, because they realized that the whole scene had been miserably botched, and there were serious problems here with the integrity of this evidence.
     Then, of course, there is the handoff of the envelop.  And just as a quality of testimony, I mean, Mr. Fung said, ``Oh, I wouldn't take that envelop, pick up that envelop with my bare hands.''  And then we showed it to him on videotape where he's picking up the envelop with his bare hands, and then he goes, ``Well, that couldn't have happened because the coroner, Mr. Jacobo, wasn't there, so I have the timing right.''  And then we showed him the videotape of Mr. Jacobo walking by, that he was still there.
     Well, there's something wrong with the quality of testimony like that.  There's something wrong when Miss Mazzola conveniently begins to close her eyes because problems arise on how the trash bag is carrying this blood vial out, sitting on the couch.  There's problems with the whole trash bag story.  There's problems there's an extraordinary problem with Miss Mazzola suddenly forgetting that her initials are on the bindles.  The only credible testimony is that they were there and something's wrong.  So, when something's wrong, people's memories get selective, and testimony comes in in funny ways.
     Dr. Goldman, the coroner, never showed up.  Mr. Martz destroyed his underlying digital data, and didn't save much of the data.  Mr. Martz stopped looking, in terms of testing



BARRY SCHECK, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress]  Mr. Rubin stopped looking pretty early.  We have an EAP exclusion on the fingernails that they're desperately trying to change.  And then, of course, there's Ms. Kessler  can't even remember the substance of the meetings that were had early in the case about security of the samples.  And then, that was remarkable.  Remember when Ms. Kessler, when we were talking about looking for blood on the sock and it said ``blood search not obvious,'' and then, remember that testimony where she said, ``Well, that wasn't a blood search.''  Well, it says blood search right here. ``Well, that wasn't a blood search.''      I mean, some of it was remarkable.  And, then, of course, there's the Thano Peratis tape and the missing blood.  There's a lot of it.  I'm sure you remember more than I've just listed.
     Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I thank you very much for your patience.  I've tried to reason through this evidence, drawing the fair inferences as best we could, looking at the integrity of the evidence, and I just think there's very little question here, is there?  So much of the essential facts in this case are just shot through with reasonable doubt.  There is something wrong.  There's something terribly wrong about this evidence.  Somebody manufactured evidence in this case.  There's missing blood.  There's EDTA.  There's questions, serious, deeply troubling questions.  You must distrust it.  You have to distrust it.  You cannot render a verdict in this case of beyond a reasonable doubt on this kind of evidence, because if you do, no one's safe  no one.  The Constitution means nothing.  This cannot, will not, shall not, happen in this country with you good people.  It just won't.  Thank you very much.  
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  Thank you, Mr. Scheck.  Do you want to take a change-over here?                
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney:  Justjust three minutes or so.
Judge LANCE ITO:  All right.  Ladies and gentlemen, let me ask you to just step back into the jury room.  It'll probably be about five minutes.
[Commercial break] 
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor:  Well, we're going to see what Mr. Cochran has to do in his final, final argument. 
JOHNNIE COCHRAN:  [in progress]  Again, to my colleagues.  Good afternoon again, ladies and gentlemen.  [jury responds in kind]  Seems like we did this yesterday.  But I won't be nearly as long this time.  I'm back, as I promised you I'd come back, to try and wrap up the defense discussion of the evidence with you.
     You just heard what I believe was a remarkable discussion by Mr. Barry Scheck, an excellent lawyer.  He may be from Brooklyn, but he's become a Californian as far as we're concerned.  He is a very valued member of our team of defense lawyers for Mr. O.J. Simpson, and you see why.  This is, indeed, a talented lawyer.  And, so, he shared with you a number of things which I will not be redundant about, and go over you have them clear in mind.  And if I were not to say anything else, there are many reasonable doubts in this case, and O.J. Simpson is entitled to an acquittal based on what we have told you. 
     This is my last chance, of course, to speak to you, and I want to take this time to tell you again that the prosecution, because they bear the burden of proving this case beyond a reasonable doubt, will have the opportunity to speak to you last.  We may not be here too late tonight, because I'm not going to be much longer, and I think that, more than likely I think we can probably guarantee, this case is going to get to you sometime tomorrow afternoon, so you can kind of sit back and relax.  It's been a long, long, long road to get to this point. 
     It's been kind of like a relay race, hasn't it been, in many respects, in this journey toward justice.  The prosecution was first running with it.  We, then, took the baton and we started running with it.  We've run almost up to the jury box, and soon, we're going to pass the baton to you.  This is how our system works.  This is what makes it so great.  We pass the baton to you, and we'll be glad.  We can then sit back and watch you at work.  You've watched us for a year.  Two or three days, now, we get to watch you.  It'll be symbolically watching you, because we won't see you back in that room.  But you know we're going to be counting on you, giving both sides the benefit of your individual opinion.  Now it's your time to perform.
     You know how you could think about us in those days when you wanted to criticize us?  We're not going to criticize you, though.  We're going to just watch you work, and watching you work is what makes this country so great, because it's 12 citizens, good and true, coming together from this community, from disparate backgrounds.  Experience not required  citizenship the only requirement to do justice, to do right, to right some wrongs, to straighten this out.  That's what we're asking you to do.  To follow the law, determine the facts, and come to a well-reasoned decision.  That's what's going to happen tomorrow afternoon for you.  Now, it may take one day, or 100 days.  But you've been committed.  I know that you'll stay the course, keep your eye on the prize, and do the right thing. 
     Now, when I sit down this time, I won't get another chance to argue to you or discuss the inferences, because it has to stop some time.  But Ms. Clark gets to talk to you later tonight or tomorrow.  And I want you, again, to use your common sense, and remember, if she raises some point, I may not be able to get up and respond, Mr. Scheck or I.  If it's something that's not purely rebuttal, you may see more objections this time, because we've got to keep it in line.  But if it's a point that we can't respond to, you substitute your wisdom and common sense as to any point.  I think you know by this time, we can answer anything that they would say.  So, I'm sure you'll give her the same attention you've given us today, and I wish them good luck.      In fact, let me say this.  In this case, we have been advocates.  We have fought hard, I hope.  But it's not personal.  What is personal is this case.  What is personal is our zeal and our desire that our client be acquitted.  It's not personal against these prosecutors.  
     In this part of our discussion, I want to share a couple of things with you and clear up a couple of things, if I might.  Remember, I was examining Detective Lange, and it was interesting that we saw Detective Lange here today.  That's interesting, isn't it?  Detective Lange was here.  He's the only one who can really come anymore.  We discussed the roles of these people.  He's the only one who's going to show his face here, you can count on.  But Lange says that, early on, that they had I asked him questions about 



JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney (LIVE):  [in progress]  traveling around the world to investigate this case, to get an idea of what resources were they putting on this case?  You remember right at the very outset the reason that robbery-homicide was put on the case was because downtown they supposedly had better resources.  There's some doubt about that but they did that and they put resources, including everybody in the LAPD.  They had the DA's office and their investigators.  They've had the FBI.  They've been all over the world.  You know, they've been everywhere looking for Bruno Magli shoes.  They've been to Italy.  They've been to many of the states in the United States.  And I ask them about those things to give you a scope of what they were trying to do.  And, you know, it's awesome the power of the state and at one point I worked as the assistant district attorney.  So I know about power of the state.  There's no priority to being on this side.  I used to be on this side.  You could be on both side.  Perhaps gives you a little different a  balance perspective.  But they have a lot of power.  They can do a lot of things.  They have a lot of resources.  And they've used them in this case.  So don't feel sorry for them.  They've used every resource they had.  When they didn't call people there was a reason for it.  It wasn't that they didn't have the resources.  These are excellent lawyers.  They know the facts.  If they didn't disprove something, if they couldn't disprove Henry Lee, if they didn't call anybody for John Gerdes, it's because they couldn't find anybody.
     Earlier I talked to you about Detective Fuhrman on this particular point.  I wanted to make sure so we could be as accurate as possible.  This question was asked by Bailey.  ``There is a problem that has been brought to your attention, isn't there, Detective Fuhrman?''  Answer ``No.''  Question  ``When discussing this event in the preliminary hearing and talking about the glove, your tongued slipped and you said `Them' didn't you?''  Answer ``Yes.''
     In case there was any question about what we'd said earlier, Mr. Scheck has covered the brush marks on the door, but what I'd like for you to do is look back at your notes because Fuhrman said that regarding these brush marks, he said he saw these marks on that door while the door of the Bronco was closed, remember?  The reason why this has become so important was he was trying to say he hadn't gotten inside.  Then we called Larry Riegel [sp] who said you couldn't see the ones at the top unless the door was open.  And then Fuhrman also had said that he told Fung about these brush marks.  If you look at Fung's testimony I think you'll find that Fung never says that he heard that from Fuhrman.  And so, you know, with regard to Fuhrman, we could have I could have gone on and on and on about lies, but that would be counter-productive after awhile because you know who he is now.
     There's one other point I wanted to share with you about Fuhrman before we take our leave of him is that there was a question some questions in counsel at 18906 about opportunity for Detective Fuhrman.  And here was a series of quick questions.  ``When you arrived at the scene this night, were you wearing a coat, a jacket of some sort?''  ``When I first arrived at the scene, yes.''  ``Can you describe it?''  Answer  ``A blue blazer.''  ``All right.  And you were wearing the trousers and shirt that we see you in with your weapon in the picture pointing at the left-handed glove?''  ``Yes, tan slacks.''  ``OK, now, at some point did you walk back to your vehicle and take off your blazer and hang it to lay in the vehicle somewhere?''  ``Yes, sir.''  ``OK.  Can you tell the Court and jury about what time of day that happened bearing in mind that you arrived at about 2:10'' that's a.m.  ``I would be after I was relieved from the case.''  Now, he's relieved a short time after he gets there.  He's relieved by three o'clock, isn't he?  Before three o'clock.  ``All right, that would be close to three o'clock?''  ``Yes, sir.''  Question  ``And that is when you walked back to the vehicle and left the jacket, stood waiting for your relief?''  ``Yes, sir.''
     Now, I don't believe hardly anything he says except that it is true that in this photograph taken at 4:30 or before sunrise  the one you saw where he's pointing at the glove  he doesn't have a jacket on.  So, he had a jacket.  Went to that car by himself.  There's many things in that car.  This man had ample opportunity to get up to that scene.  You know, as I told you, it's so stretches the credulity to believe that so neatly placed were this knit hat and this glove.  Were there two gloves at some point when he says ``I saw them?''  Why would you say ``them'' if there weren't two gloves?  And, you know, it's so unusual because everything else is spread all out.  This was a vicious fight.  There was a beeper over here and there's keys over there.  But these items are right there.  Right where he could point at them.  It's too, too pat.  So, you can ask yourself those questions when you go back into that jury room.
     Now, in this case I discuss with you Ms. Juanita Moore [sp], a lady that I called to the stand, and I think I misspoke myself.  I think I mentioned to you that I think I may have said she said that Mr. Simpson did not have dandruff.  And I if I did say that, I got that wrong.  She said that Mr. Simpson would get dandruff, I think, in the off-season  in the spring and summer when he was here as opposed to when he was in New York.  And I wanted to make sure in looking at the transcript over the lunch hour I noted that.
     Ms. Clark seemed to be amazed when Mr. Scheck said that Kelly Mulldorfer said she didn't see blood in that Bronco.  So, to save her some time I'm going to read you the transcript.  Kelly Mulldorfer, at 38268, lines 26 through line nine, I think, on 38269.  Question ``And when you looked at the console, do you remember seeing any blood there?''  Answer  ``No, I don't have any specific recollection.''  That's the lady, the investigator, who was looking at this.
     And so now we come to some jury instructions which I think have some real relevance as we conclude this case, hopefully.  We've already talked about a witness woefully false.  We've talked an awful lot you now know a lot about circumstantial evidence and I dare say you know the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence.  We won't talk further about that.  And you know what happens where the proof circumstances are equally consistent, one of which points to innocence, the other which points to guilt, where they're both reasonable, you must adopt that which points to innocence.  You understand that.  You understand about circumstantial evidence, so, enough about that.  And we've displayed this.  And we talked about how this works and how it inures to the benefit of the defendant because there's this burden of proof.
     But there's another instruction which I want to talk to you about now and this is one that where the prosecutors keep wanting to change things around.  And ask what we proved and what we didn't do.  This is what the law is.  The prosecution has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt each element of the crimes charged in the information.  And that the defendant was a perpetrator of any search crimes.  There's no doubt about that among any of us is it?  Defendant is not required to prove him or herself innocent or to prove that another person committed the crimes charged.  So, now, if that's what the law is and the judge gave you that, why would Mr. Darden ask the question ``Who did this?  Who committed this crime?''  Why would he ask that when the judge just said  ``The defendant doesn't have to show anything?''  And we know in this case they rushed to judgment.  They didn't look at anybody else.  That's a question he should be asking these detectives.  Not us.  We're the ones who had the [unintelligible] experts who wanted to help out.  They wouldn't accept them.  How could he ask us that question?  How could he ask us that question in good faith?  So, what the answer is  you go ask your detectives.  That's the answer.
     Now, he ask another question.  He said ``Well, where was O. J. Simpson?''  He says  ``Well, you know, how does he account for his whereabouts after 10 o'clock?''  Let let me just take a minute about this.  He asked that question, so let me let me answer it for you and for him.  Some of you, in your former life, probably lived alone.  If you lived alone, if something happened between 10 o'clock and six o'clock in the morning, it's real difficult if you live alone to prove where you were.  Nobody lives there with you.  Isn't that true?  Is that common sense?  Mr. Simpson lived alone.  And we've done more than that.  We can, I think, establish where he was.  He was at home.  That Bronco was outside.  He was packing and getting ready and rushing around at the last minute and coming outside to that Bronco; getting his phone, getting the paraphernalia for that phone.  That's what he was doing.  He was packing.  He was getting the golf balls and golf bag out of his car that was seated out there.  He was getting golf shoes and whatever goes with golf, if you're a golfer.  That's what he's doing.  He's getting this little knapsack out that has golf balls in it.  And he was bringing another bag down.  All of which were ready when Park and Kato were out there.  Then, he comes down with the other bag, carrying it.  That's what he was doing, Mr. Darden.  That's where he was.  It's your speculation he's on the side of his house running into an air conditioner.  That didn't happen.  That's unreasonable.  Nobody here believes it.  It's not going to help save their case.  They're speculating again.  Speculating.  Cynically speculating.  And it's not going to work.
     And so, that brings me to that other instruction.  It's called alibi.  You remember during voir dire I asked you about this.  I said that you won't place a bad connotation on the term alibi?  That's what the law calls it  alibi.  And it says as follows that ``evidence has been received for the purpose of showing that the defendant was not present at the time and place of the commission of the alleged crime for which he is here on trial.  If after a consideration of all the evidence, you have a reasonable doubt that the defendant was present at the time the crime was committed, you must find him not guilty.''  Can I repeat that last part for you?  ``If after a consideration of all the evidence, you have a reasonable doubt that the defendant was present at the time the crime was committed''  It doesn't say you might find him not guilty; you might think about it.  It says ``you must find him not guilty.''  And so, we you know, when you talk about this whole concept of reasonable doubt, and we'll talk a little bit more about that, is how you feel inside about this evidence.  It's how you feel inside about these messengers and their message.  It's when you have that queasy feeling, you can't trust this evidence.  Barry Scheck described it well as a cancer.
      We talked about one cockroach you don't need to see any more.  Because you know if you see one, there's a lot of them around.  All you need is one and that's going to make you go the other way.   In this case, you get passed the you don't have to get passed the socks, but then you get to the glove and the Bronco and you get to all of it, none of which you can trust and then how do you do it?  Do you get back there and say ``Well, I don't trust them on this?  I don't think I can trust them on that?'' When the essential link in the chain is broken, you've got reasonable doubt.  And so, your job won't be quite as tough as you may have thought.  Reasonable doubt in this case  the prosecution has not offered one coherent theory to explain how these deaths occurred.
     I won't talk about Thano Paratis and the desperation that brought about.  But let me talk to you about this whole concept of what took place in this case.  One of the things that was intriguing to me and I'm sure you've thought about it and I know that your collective minds are far better than mine and Mr. Scheck's and but, you know, we think about things that'll be helpful to you.  Now, one of the things that's always troubled me about the prosecution's case is  you've probably thought about this  Kato the dog was purchased by O. J. Simpson after the other dog died.  Remember, Arnelle told you about how they had to bury the dog and it was a real tough time for the kids and all.  O. J. had that dog Kato along with Chacie [sp] the other dog over at Rockingham and he let his son have the dog because they named the dog after Kato who was now living over with O. J. Simpson.  That dog knows O. J. Simpson.  It's his dog.  He bought the dog.  They didn't know this as they were speculating.  It's his dog.  If O. J. Simpson had been the one there that night, that dog would have followed him out the back gate.  He wouldn't be going out the front.  Those paw prints wouldn't be going out that way and down the sidewalk saw.  It's common sense.  I said use your common sense.  That makes sense to you.  The other thing is, the one thing that you can count on in this case, is these two people, even when they weren't getting along loved their children and their children loved them.  Whether it was pediatric aids affairs, whether it was recitals, whether it was Sunshine Preschool affairs  just look at the month of May.  The things that you heard that O. J. Simpson went to.  Always on the weekend because he was traveling.  Was no fuse, he was out of town working.  He was the breadwinner.  So, whether it was the pediatric aids or something for his children's school, had 400 people over at the Rockingham estate  he was always there for this kids.  If it meant coming back from Chicago on Friday or from wherever he was  in New York  on Friday to go back to Chicago on Sunday, to go back for an engagement, he came home.  He came home because his little girl was having a concert.  That's the kind of dad he is and somebody has to stand up for him.  People don't want you to stand up for him.  People can't stand the truth.  But they're going to hear truth in here.  This one place you can't take away somebody's voice and that's in the courtroom.  And you want to tell the truth.
     For 16 months this man sat over here and heard people talk about him day in and day out.  Judged him and pre-judged him against the American way.  What right?  How dare them do that.  And he has one day or two days to have somebody stand up for him.  And people are crying and mourning.  It's outrageous in America.  It's intolerable, if you will.  And so, this is a good and decent man who loves his family and loves his kids.  None of us are perfect.  But he's a man who went a long, long way.  Raised primarily by his mother, you know what he did with his life.  He had a good life, a wonderful life.  He's done well.  He's not going to give all that up to try and kill somebody with a knife?  He's not going to give that up.  And you know what?  You should think about this case  can you



JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney:  [in progress]  And so this is a good and decent man who loves his family, loves his kids.  None of us are perfect, but he's a man who went a long, long way.  Raised primarily by his mother, you know what he did with his life.  He had a good life, a wonderful life.  He's done well.  He's now going to give all that up, try and kill somebody with a knife?  He's not going to give that up.  And you know what, if you think about this case, can you imagine that a man who loves his children so much is going to go over kill his ex-wife, kill their mother and leave her so that the children can come downstairs and find her?  That defies credulity.  None of you believe he would do that.  It's contrary to everything that you can believe and that you've heard about this man and what he's done and what he's done with his life.
     So forgive me if I speak out for O.J. Simpson.  If I'm so presumptuous as to believe that the constitution means that you're presumed to be innocent until you make the decision.  Nobody outside here has a vote.  You have that vote thank heaven.  These narrow minded people, thank heaven they don't have the vote.  You will have the final say.
     And so this concept then of reasonable doubt.  What then does it mean?  We've heard about it, we've talked about it.  We have a chart I'm going to ask Mr. Douglas to put over there and let's talk about this whole idea of burden of proof and reasonable doubt and what is reasonable doubt.  You remember during voir dire, I talked to you about this concept of reasonable doubt.  And before we go to that chart I mean it's that stated the case after the entire comparison and consideration of the evidence, leaves the minds of the jury in that condition where they cannot say they feel an inviting conviction of the truth of the charge.  That's what reasonable doubt is and let's go over it one more time because this is the cornerstone of every criminal case.
     What it really is is a doubt based upon a reason.  In this case, we have given you myriad reasons.  There are many, many, many, many, many reasonable doubts.  It's not just one.  All of which lead you to one verdict in this case and one verdict only of not guilty, but let's go over it one last time together.  A defendant in a criminal case is presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proved.  And in the case of a reasonable doubt, whether his guilt is satisfactorily shown, he is entitled to a verdict of not guilty.  This presumption places upon the people the burden of proving him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  You've heard a lot about that.  That's what people need to learn and be reminded of in this country.
     Reasonable doubt is defined as follows.  It is not a mere possible doubt and we know that, because everything relating to human affairs is open to some possible or imaginary doubt.  It is that state of the case where after the entire comparison and consideration of all the evidence leaves the minds of the jurors in that condition if they cannot say they feel an abiding conviction of the truth of the charge.  That's reasonable doubt.  It's not written just for O.J. Simpson  it's for you, it's for you, it's for you, it's for all of us who are citizens.  It's given in every criminal case.  You have to give it, that's the burden.  You don't change it once the trial starts, that's the burden.
     And let's see how it works.  In this whole idea of a burden of proof, let's start down at the bottom and look at the burden that's placed upon the state and they should have a burden like this.  You're talking about talking somebody's freedom for the rest of their life or whatever.  There are a number of things that you might want to think but in the case sometimes in cases you actually can prove the person charged not guilty.  And in this case, in my 32 and a half years this may be as close as any case where somebody's been proven not guilty.  Because if you look at these facts, you look at what we've shared with you over the course of the last two days.  This man has been proven not guilty.
     But that's at the very bottom of the rung.  You may say somebody among you may say well, you know, I have some suspicions, I'm I think it's highly unlikely but I have some suspicions.  Somebody else may say well it's less than likely but, you know, I don't know, they didn't convince me beyond a reasonable doubt.  And somebody else might say well you know he's probably not guilty based upon this evidence.  Somebody else would say it's unlikely he's guilty, no way in the world is he ever going to go over and kill the mother of his children in these circumstances.  The time line shatters their case.  Somebody says I don't trust the police.  Fuhrman was central.  I don't trust Vannatter.  It's the messenger, isn't there a message?  It just doesn't fit.  Something's wrong.  There's a cancer here.  Possibly not.  Guilty?  Maybe not.
     As Mr. Scheck said to you, you know, maybe that's not good enough when you're talking about somebody's freedom for the rest of their lives.  Well, then somebody else may say well perhaps, gee, I don't know.  I suspect that he might be.  Maybe he's possibly guilty of something.  Maybe he's probably guilty.  Maybe guilt is likely.  Maybe guilt may be highly likely.
     I don't think you're going to find it in this case, because I think we've shown that he's we've proven he's not guilty.  But all of those levels from proven not guilty to the guilt highly likely is our interpretation of what you have to do before you get all the way up to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt so that you won't have that queasy feeling about this case.  Where you can believe to an abiding conviction of the truth of these charges.  Can you have that?  I think not on this evidence.  Not on this evidence, not on this case.  They have failed.
     You know, we ask you a question.  Did you have the courage?  Did you have the intestinal fortitude to walk back into this courtroom if they failed to prove Mr. Simpson guilty do you have the courage to walk back in here and say we find him not guilty?  And you said you could do that.  You knew that was part of your job.  You said you could do that.  I'm going to hold you to that because that's what makes the system great  your courage, your willingness to stand up for what is right.
     And so in this scenario, and I'm thinking about reasonable doubt even more, the prosecution had a puzzle and it was interesting how they did this puzzle.  Technology is wonderful and you saw they kept onto this puzzle, putting on pieces and that sort of thing.  And so we thought about that, I thought about this puzzle.  Thought about what it meant in this particular case.  I got a call from a very, very wise, wise, wise lady who reminded me that if you've ever gone to the store and bought a puzzle when you buy a puzzle, on the outside of the box of the puzzle there's a picture, so you know what the puzzle looks like when it's finished.
     Well in this case, the prosecution took a photograph or picture of O.J. Simpson first, then they took the pieces apart.  If they really wanted to talk about reasonable doubt, you don't jump to conclusions in the beginning.  You don't rush to judgment and then be concerned about an obsession to win.  What you do is you take the pieces and put them together and then you come to conclusions.  They got it all backwards.  It's like what they did with the fourth amendment.  It's like asking us where is this witness, what did you prove?  Solve this crime for us.  They got it all backwards.  Don't you see?  And so that little example, a jigsaw puzzle was clever, but really it trivializes a man's fight for his freedom, who's always said that he was innocent from day one.
     So I wanted to just summarize our sense with a graphic, thanks to Mr. Bob Blasier, of this evidence and why there is reasonable doubt as to each of these items.  Please note the monitor.  All right, let's look at first, we know in the upper left hand corner, there's missing blood.  They can't explain it and they went down in flames going out with a home video where it was actually embarrassing this morning.  You want a little levity during the tough times in your deliberations, play the Thano Peratis video.  In fact, it's so bizarre that if you listen to it again you'll hear Hank Goldberg is laughing himself.  He starts laughing when if you look the words are mouthed by Peratis [whispering] ``I don't remember.''  He goes like that and Goldberg starts laughing at his next question.  How embarrassing this is, but this blood is still missing.  You'll have that syringe there.  So Mr. Blasier and Mr. Harris what does that mean that missing blood?  It means reasonable doubt.
     Then we have the socks, my personal favorites.  And when I talked to you about the socks yesterday, I may not have told you that in addition to the socks not being in the video at 4:13 on June 13th and how they placed them there later and how they were collected at 4:35 or between 4:30 and 4:40, Willie Ford came in here and testified to you he didn't see the socks.  I forgot to tell you that yesterday.  He testified they weren't there either.  So thank heaven there's one person who wasn't part of that cover-up, although they got to him and he was saying things, oh well, the socks may have been covered.  But he still works over there, so we'll forgive him for that, but he didn't know what we knew about Lange and Mazzola and the time they were collected and their log, plus that the timing on the whole thing  got them.  And those straps on the bed further.      So what have we shown you about the socks?  Reasonable doubt.
     That moves to the back gate.  What about that back gate with EDTA and more DNA than you could ever imagine and is picked up and collected three weeks afterwards when people have been all over the place?  And you saw the photograph, look at that photograph.  That photograph doesn't show any blood, it shows some little tiny spot.  It was totally inconsistent.  They're trapped again by the video.  This case will go down as the video case because we have shown you for your own eyes why they lose this case, why there is reasonable doubt.  So the back gate?    Reasonable doubt.
     And then we started out with the time line because we knew at the outset, the time line with the witnesses that they failed and refused to call and establish a reasonable doubt.  It shatters the prosecution case.  If you start there, you'll find these witnesses credible.  O.J. Simpson couldn't have committed these crimes.  There's reasonable doubt.  He's not guilty.  The time line.
     We went from there to the EAPD and you'll remember that and Mr. Scheck has talked about it, I won't be redundant.  The double banded B, that's somebody else.  They can't explain it.  They never tried to explain it except to talk to you about something that's not in their literature.  It didn't work and there's reasonable doubt about who that person was.
     And so with regard to and I see I've lost track of my chart there demeanor before we get to EAPD, under demeanor  O.J. Simpson's demeanor.  All those witnesses who didn't know each other.  Well you heard who they talked to, you saw 'em all.  You think that he was acting for those people?  You remember one of the most interesting things was Mr. Darden said that when the Scott Kennedy video at the June 12th recital where a man just happens to stop by and take some video, Simpson doesn't even know he's being video'd.  This guy doesn't know Simpson, he's taking the video.  Just came to us out of the blue.  They had the audacity to tell you he was on camera.  He didn't know anything about being on camera.  Somebody's taking a video of you, how do you know that?  But we had that video and they have nothing else to say.  You ever notice when they have nothing else to say how they just say anything?  That's an example of that.  That's an example of O.J. Simpson's demeanor and that was our answer to this so-called fuse.  We had proof for you.  You saw him on that date and we took you through step by step through that date.
     We've already covered the EAPD.  The Bundy blood drops that Mr. Scheck did such a great job on and you know about those drops, you know the numbers as well as we do and I won't go over those any more.  I think there's reasonable doubt based upon those and of course you know the Bronco.  How can you trust the Bronco?  Chain of custody, how can you trust it?  There's nothing you can trust about that Bronco and how they handled it.
     And then the gloves.  The gloves didn't fit.  The gloves didn't fit.  The gloves didn't fit.  Reasonable doubt.
     And then the why.  A motive is not an element.  A crime of murder but absence of motive would tend to establish innocence, that's why Mr. Darden went to such a long and exhaustive study.  And I have shared with you the fact that there is no motive in this case, but I just want to briefly tell you this about their theory at the end.  If you believe what the prosecutors want you to believe you have to believe that O.J. Simpson, who has a limo driver coming I guess around 10:30, 10:40, after he goes and gets a hamburger at McDonald's, after having been worried about change, 'cause he had 100 dollar bills, that he's already been packing because clothes are being brought down.  He's taking his golf clubs, because he is going to play golf and that makes sense as a preplanned trip.  He was just off the road and going back on the road.  That he is perhaps the most recognizable person in Brentwood in that area where he's lived, we know, for 17 years.  That he drives a white Bronco, that he decides to put on a knit cap and you saw that exhibition yesterday of him or you or I in a knit cap, he decides he'll put that on.  He changes out of his tennis shoes, his Reebok tennis shoes and his sweat socks and puts on some dress socks and puts on some Bruno Magli shoes and let me just stop right there for a minute put a pin in that.
     The Bruno Magli shoes  you heard all about Bruno Magli shoes and Bruno Magli shoes and we searched all around the world and we went to Bloomingdale's and what did we find.  There is nobody who ever sold O.J. Simpson any Bruno Magli shoes.  They searched, they tried.  They never sold him any shoes, so they've just been talking about Bruno Magli shoes.  I mean, there must be every other house in Brentwood of somebody wanting to afford some Bruno Magli shoes, I guess they could.  Now that's their case.  There is no evidence that O.J. Simpson had any Bruno Magli shoe ever.  In fact, when Lange is looking for the clothes and O.J. Simpson says this is what I wore, here are the tennis shoes, he took only tennis shoes that night.  There is no evidence that O.J. Simpson ever owned any Bruno Magli shoes and please remember that.
     So he gets, puts these Bruno Magli shoes on, he's trying to disguise himself, of course, he puts on a pair of gloves that don't fit and he gets in his car and he decides that what he'll do is he'll drive over to the alley way behind Bundy where his wife lives in this big Bronco.  Now while he's going to do that, he's been over a number of times and, you know, they've already told you about Pablo Fenjves and these people who live back there.  Remember when you went on that jury view?  There are homes and windows and things that face down on that alley, on both sides.  From I guess Gretna Green and from the Bundy side.  People are looking down in that alley that's well lit.  You saw photographs yesterday of what Mark Storfer would have seen.  He pulls into this alley way in this Bronco, in this



JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney:  He puts on pair of gloves that don't fit, and he gets in his car, and he decides that what he'll do is he'll drive over to the alleyway behind Bundy, where his wife lives, in this big Bronco.  Now, why he's going to do that  he's been over there a number of times, and you know.  They've already told you about Pablo Fenjves and these people who live back there.  Do you remember when you went on that jury view?  There are homes and windows and things that face down on that alley on both sides from, I guess, the Gretna Green side and from the Bundy side.  People are looking down in that alley.  It's well-lit.  You saw the photograph yesterday of what Mark Storfer would have seen.  He pulls into this alleyway in this Bronco, dressed the way they want to have him dressed, because he's come to kill his wife.
     Now, somehow, in trying to kill his wife, or whatever, he doesn't kill her in the back back there where the car is. He goes and lures her to the front gate.  It doesn't make any sense, does it?  He goes to the front gate to lure her to that front gate.  Then he gets into a fight with somebody he doesn't even know.  This fight goes on for five to 15 minutes.  The fight is so fierce that a hat a glove are torn off.  That's how fierce this fight had to be  the keys, the beeper.  You saw how tough it is for, in any kind of an altercation, for gloves to come off, for a hat to come off.  There's kicking.  There's all kind of fighting in this small, small area.  But that's what they want you to believe, and so we find the keys and the beeper and the gloves all  And of course, we find specifically the cap and the gloves neatly packaged under the item there.  And then he leaves this one glove behind and then just walks slowly out to the alleyway.
     Now, the dog we heard so much about, who he bought, who was his dog, doesn't go with him.  He goes the other way, out the front, to go down the other way  Kato, the dog  under what they would have you believe.  And he's got these bloody clothes on and everything.  Now, he goes back out there where his car has been sitting 10, 15, 20 minutes, right out there in the alleyway.  Anybody could look, anybody coming home.  People are driving up and down the street.  Gets back in his car.  Then, presumably, he races back home, where the limousine driver who's there doesn't here him come up, doesn't see him, doesn't do any of those things.  Now, we know, from the time they see O.J. Simpson, within five minutes, he's coming downstairs, packed, luggage is already down there, looking neat as a pin!  Heading for the airport!  Now, he was expecting this man after he came back from the hamburger. 
     This is what their case is!  This is what they want you to believe!  And just for good measure  it's not enough.  That's not enough!  Under their scenario, once he gets home after he's rushing, he's got enough time, he's got all these bloody clothes on, he runs down the side of his house, where he's lived for 17 years, and runs into the air conditioning.  And says ``Oops.''  No  No marks, of course, on his body.  But while he's back there, he drops a bloody glove to match the other glove found over at Bundy. And just for good measure so they'll be sure and find it, he knocks on the wall.  He doesn't run into the wall.  He knocks on the wall!  He says  [thumps three times]  He gives a signal.  Then he decides he comes in the house, but nobody sees him do any of that.  That's what they had you believe.  That is the prosecution's case.
     We have been here one year, ladies and gentlemen, and two days to hear this is what they have told you!  It just doesn't fit.  It doesn't fit, you must acquit.  Something is wrong with the prosecution's case, and your common sense is never going to let you fall for it.  So the other side, of course, we submit, in answering the questions, is that O.J. Simpson is at home getting ready for his trip.  He had no problem with his ex-wife.  He had gone to this concert.  She had gotten the tickets for him.  There's no argument.  Nobody's coming here as though they had any argument that day!  There's no fight.  They talked earlier and made arrangements for the tickets.  We went to the concert.  You saw him at the concert.  You traced his steps that day and what he did.  And then he went on to Chicago and came back immediately, and everything he did was consistent with innocence.  
     This case is a tragedy for everybody  for certainly the victims and their families, for the Simpsons' family.  They're victims, too, because they lost the ex-daughter-in-law.  For the defendant, who's been in custody since June of 1994 for a crime that he didn't commit.  Someone has taken these children's mother.  I certainly hope that your decision doesn't take their father and that justice is finally achieved in this case.
     One final word about Allan Park.  We talked a lot about Allan Park.  He's somebody that Ms. Clark, of course, found credible.  But even credible people don't get everything right.  Remember the golf bag.  He thought it was a blue golf bag, and we know it's black with an insignia on it.  We know that there was a lot of questions asked about whether you saw a car parked at the curb, and I read you the portion that, when I questioned him, where he said he hadn't really been looking.  He was not very clear with regard to that.  But like all witnesses, you hold them up to the same standard and look at them. 
     And so now, I promise you we're coming to the end.  If after hearing all this evidence, you have a reasonable doubt, it is clear that O.J. Simpson is entitled to an acquittal, and whether it is O.J. or No-J., the result would have to be the same.  His status doesn't count.  It's the evidence that counts and what's been proven to you under these circumstances.  But he is a good and decent man who you have seen and observed every day we're in session since September 26th, 1994.  Now, as it comes time for me to conclude my remarks, I may never have an opportunity again to speak to you, certainly not in this setting, maybe when the case is over.  
     As you've been told many, many times, there is a very heavy burden placed upon the People, and for good reason  prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt.  As such, it is Ms. Clark's duty to answer for you as best she can any legitimate questions arising from the evidence, which we believe casts doubt upon Mr. Simpson's guilt.  There may be 1,000 such questions in a case like this which could be put to her, but we intend no such exercise.  I do think after careful deliberation that it might be fair to suggest 15 questions  just 15 questions  which literally hang in the air in this courtroom at this moment.  And as the time approaches for you to decide this case for us, to hand the baton to you, I offer these questions now as a most important challenge to the prosecution, the prosecution which claims that it's met its burden in this case.  If that burden has, in fact, been met, you'll be given logical, sensible, credible, satisfying answers to each of these 15 questions.  If the questions are overwhelming and unanswerable, they will be ignored, or you'll be told that the prosecution has no obligation to answer questions.  If you're given anything less than a complete sensible and satisfactory response, satisfying you beyond a reasonable doubt to these 15 questions, you'll quickly realize the case really is transparent, and you'll think about the scenario that I just went through for you.  And that  The term ``smoke and mirrors'' that you heard about can't apply to the defense.  We've proved real, hard things for you  things that you could see, things you could take back in that jury room.  And accordingly, you'd have to find Mr. Simpson not guilty.
     When I've concluded, for Ms. Clark's convenience, should she decide to deal with these very troublesome questions, I'm going to leave a written list of these questions here when I conclude.  Let me go over these 15 questions with you just briefly.
     One  why  and they're on the monitor  did the blood show up on the sock almost two months after a careful search for evidence?  And why, as demonstrated by Dr. Lee and Professor MacDonell, was the blood applied when there was no foot in it?  Think that's a fair question in this case?  Let's see if she can answer that question.
     Question number two  why was Mark Fuhrman, a detective who'd been pushed off the case, the person who went by himself to the Bronco, over the fence to interrogate Kato, to discover the glove in the thump, thump, thump area?
     Number three  why was the glove still moist when Fuhrman found it if Mr. Simpson had dropped it seven hours earlier?  As Agent Bodziak told you, as Herb MacDonell has told you, blood dries very rapidly.  
     Four  if Mark Fuhrman, who speaks so openly about his intense genocidal racism to a relative stranger, such as Kathleen Bell, how many of his coworkers, the other detectives in this case, were also aware that he lied when he denied using the ``N-word,'' yet failed to come forward?  Part of Barry Scheck's fourth ``C'' of continuing cover-up.  
     Five  why did the prosecution not call a single police officer to rebut police photographer Rokahr's testimony that Detective Fuhrman was pointing at the glove before  before  Fuhrman went to Rockingham, that is around 4:30 in the morning?
     Six  if the glove had been dropped on the walkway at Rockingham 10 minutes after the murder, why is there no blood or fiber on that south walkway or on the leaves the glove was resting on?  Why is there no blood on the 150 feet of narrow walkway or on the stucco wall abutting it?  And you've been back there.
     Number seven  for what purpose was Vannatter carrying Mr. Simpson's blood in his pocket for three hours and a distance of 25 miles instead of booking it down the hall at Parker Center?  
     Number eight  why did Deputy District Attorney Hank Goldberg, in a desperate effort to cover up for the missing 1.5 milliliters of Mr. Simpson's blood, secretly go out to the home of police nurse Thano Peratis, without notice to the defense, and get him to contradict his previous sworn testimony at both the grand jury and the preliminary hearing?  Peratis was never sworn.  We were never given notice.
     Nine  why, if according to Ms. Clark, he walked into his own house wearing the murder clothes and shoes, is there not any soil or so much as a smear or drop of blood associated with the victims on the floor, the white carpeting, the doorknobs, the light switches and his bedding?  
     Ten  if Mr. Simpson had just killed Mr. Goldman in a bloody battle involving more than two dozen knife wounds, where Mr. Goldman remained standing and struggling for several minutes, how come there is less than 7/10 of one drop of blood consistent with Mr. Goldman found in the Bronco?
     Number 11  why, following a bitter struggle allegedly with Mr. Goldman, were there no bruises or marks on O.J. Simpson's body?  And you all have those photographs back in the jury room.  
     Number 12  why do bloodstains with the most DNA not show up until weeks after the murders  those on the socks, those on the back gate, those on  Those are two major areas.
     Number 13  Why did Mark Fuhrman lie to us?  Why did Phil Vannatter lie to us?
     And finally, 15  given Professor MacDonell's testimony that the gloves would not have shrunk, no matter how much blood was smeared on them, and given that they never shrank from June 21st, 1994, until now, despite having been repeatedly frozen and thawed, how come the gloves just don't fit?
     I'm going to leave those questions for Ms. Clark, and we'll see what she chooses to do with and about them.  That'll be her choice, but I think you have a right to demand answers.  If you're going to do your job in this case, it seems to me you will need to have answers to those questions.  Now, there are many, many, many more, but, as with everything in this case, there comes a time when you can only do so much.  We took 15 as representatives, but I can tell you we had more than 50 questions.  But 15 will be enough, don't you think?  I think so.
     In this case when we started out a long time ago, we talked a lot about truth.  And I always like in a circular fashion that you kind of end up where you started out.  Truth is a wonderful commodity in this society.  Some people can't stand the truth.  But you know what?  That notwithstanding, we still have to deal with truth in this society.  Carlyle said that no lie can live forever.  We've seen a number of big lies in this case, in this so-called rush to judgment.  We've seen lie after lie, so much so that at least two of the major witnesses, Vannatter and Lange  Vannatter and  strike that  and Fuhrman  their testimony by you may be totally disregarded, further dismantling the People's case.  You have that right, you know, in this search for truth.
     In times like these, we often turn to the Bible for some answers to try and figure out when you've got situations like this and you want to get an answer and you want to try to understand.  I happen to really like the Book of Proverbs, and in Proverbs it talks a lot about false witnesses.  It says that ``a false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.''  That meant a lot to me in this case because there was Mark Fuhrman acting like a choir boy, making you believe he was the best witness that walked in here, generally applauded for his wonderful performance.  Turns out he was the biggest liar in this courtroom during this process!  But the Bible had already told us the answer  that a false witness that shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.
     In that same book it tells us that a faithful witness will no lie, but a false witness will utter lies.  Finally, in Proverbs it says that ``he that speaketh truth showeth the forthrightness, but a false witness shows deceit.''  So when we're talking about truth, we're talking about truth and lies and conspiracies and cover-ups.  I always think about one of my favorite poems, which I think is so very appropriate for this case.  You know when things are at the darkest, there's always light the next day in your life, in all of our lives.  You have the capacity to transform all Mr. O.J. Simpson' dark yesterdays into brighter tomorrows.  You have that capacity.  You have that power in your hand, and James Russell Lowell


JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney:  Finally, in Proverbs it says that ``he that speaketh truth showeth forthrightfullness, but a false witness shows deceit.''  So when we're talking about truth, we're talking about truth and lies and conspiracies and cover-ups.  I always think about one my favorite poems, which I think is so very appropriate for this case.  You know, when things are at the darkest, there's always light the next day, in your life, in all of our lives.  You have the capacity to transform Mr. O.J. Simpson's dark yesterdays into brighter tomorrows.  You have the capacity.  You have that power in your hand.  And James Russell Lowell said it best about wrong and evil.  He said that ``truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the future and beyond the dimmer known standeth God within shadows keeping watch above his own.''  You walk with that every day.  You carry that with you.  And things will come you, and you will be able to reveal people who come to you in uniforms and high positions who lie and are corrupt.  That's what happened in this case.  And so the truth is now out.  It's now up to you.  We're going to pass this baton to you soon.  You will do the right thing.  You've made a commitment for justice.  You'll do the right thing.  I will some day go on to other case, no doubt, as will Ms. Clark and Mr. Darden.  Judge Ito will try another case some day, I hope.  But this is O.J. Simpson's one day in court.  By your decision, you control his very life in your hands.  Treat it carefully.  Treat it fairly.  Be fair.  Don't be part of this continuing cover-up.  Do the right thing, remembering that if it doesn't fit you must acquit, that if these messengers have lied to you, you can't trust their message, that this has been a search for truth, that no matter how bad it looks, if truth is out there is out there on a scaffold and wrong is in here on the throne, remember that the scaffold always sways the future and beyond the dimmer known standeth the same God for all people keeping watch above his own.  He watches all of us, and he'll watch you in your decision.  Thank you for your attention.  God bless you.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court:  Thank you very much, Mr. Cochran.  All right, let me see Counsel over at the sidebar without the court reporter please.
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor:  A powerful, passionate ending for Johnnie Cochran, quoting poetry, talking about truth on the scaffold, talking about what should happen in this courtroom, ending invoking the name of God, telling the jurors, ``God bless you.''  We see O.J. Simpson, as we can look upon the screen, looking emotional, conversing with his counselor, Mr. Kardashian being one of his good friends as well as a lawyer for him, and some smiles upon the faces of the defense lawyers.  I'm here with Lane Liroff.  And as we've watched Mr. Cochran, one has to say no matter what side you are on that you have to appreciate his level of advocacy, which is superb.
LANE LIROFF, Deputy District Attorney:  Quite good.  We referred earlier to him as a as a passionate bulldozer.  And this afternoon, he was of a different nature, trying to put it together, focusing more on reasonable doubt that heretofore, but finally bringing it to this jury and using the style of a preacher, which many of us had referred to and always thought that he would be a preacher.  And it was so effective, and left it to the jury at this time, left it in their hands.  You know, a trial attorney never wants to sit down.  A trial attorney never wants to close that final argument because at that point you have no more control over the proceeding.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  In this case, Lane, he used the puzzle, and he really turned it again on its head.  The prosecution, of course, having used it in their closing argument that as pieces of the puzzle got were fit in that eventually through the wonders of technology we saw O.J. Simpson's face.  Johnnie Cochran turning it inside out, saying that really that was the same as having the puzzle picture on the cover of the box and that it proved his rush to judgment.  I'm going to pause for a moment.  Let's hear what Judge Ito has to say.  Probably about timing.
Judge LANCE ITO:  All right, ladies and gentlemen, contrary to our previous schedule, I'm going to recess for the evening at this time.  We will resume tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, and the lawyers have promised me that we will finish this case.  One of the conditions that we go over until tomorrow morning is that we will finish tomorrow afternoon with the rebuttal arguments by the prosecution, I will instruct you, and the case will be yours tomorrow afternoon.  And I hopefully will at least get it far enough to have you go in, select a foreperson to preside over your deliberations, and then Mrs. Robertson has a list of the exhibits and everything that will presented to you, so you can get organized fro the coming days.  All right, having said that, please remember all my admonitions to you.  Don't discuss amongst yourselves.  Don't form any opinions about the case.  Don't conduct any deliberations until the matter has been submitted to you.  Do not allow anybody to communicate with you with regard to the case.  We'll see you tomorrow morning, nine o'clock sharp.  All right, we'll be in recess.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  I'm here with Lane Liroff, and we were right.  We suspected that was what Judge Ito would do.  And in certain ways it makes sense because the prosecution undoubtedly wanted the evening to regroup and think about their rebuttal.  And as long as the case can get to the jury tomorrow, there is no harm in giving the recess.
LANE LIROFF:  If I am the defense attorney, I would much prefer to have the prosecution stand up, tired, beleaguered, and face this very weary jury.  If I'm the prosecutor, while I may not pleased at looking at the list of 15 questions presented to me, I am very grateful that I have the evening to prepare yet again another argument.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  I want to ask you about the 15 questions, but before I do that, I want to ask you about the puzzle, because that's where I was at.  The puzzle is not a new device.  In many places, prosecutors have used the puzzle.  It usually doesn't happen by virtue of technology.  It usually happens by means of a jigsaw puzzle on a board or by means even on a blackboard.  You said to me that you have a different version of the puzzle, and I'm curious about your version versus what happened here because the result was almost predictable here.
LANE LIROFF:  Well, here what we saw was a high tech pinball version in which they were able to put before the jury again and again the not so subliminal message, reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt.  What we have done in our county is we have available a jigsaw puzzle of a hamburger.  It's not very high tech.  It's just a jigsaw puzzle of a hamburger, but about 10 percent of the of the pieces are missing.  And we show it to the jury, and clearly it is a photograph of a hamburger.  But we say to them proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not beyond all possible doubt.  Rather, it is proof only that dispels those doubts which are reasonable.  ``Look at this look at this jigsaw puzzle.  Do any of you have any question whether or not this is a photograph of a hamburger?''  And it's in the appropriate case, it's remarkable effective, though a very low tech version.
RIKKI KLIEMAN:  Well, I think that most of us are used to those low tech versions.  But it's interesting.  There's been a lot of commentary about the high tech puzzle.  And Johnnie Cochran said that some lady had called him up about the puzzle, the picture being on the cover of the box and that it was a version of the rush to judgment.  So people on both sides, a prosecutor or defense lawyer, have to be careful about the images that they use because they have to think about what the consequences of using that image may be.  We're going to take a brief commercial break, and Lane Liroff and I will be right back with you to discuss more of Mr. Cochran's and Mr. Scheck's closing arguments.

[The preceding text has been professionally transcribed.  However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid distribution and transmission deadlines, it may not have been proofread against tape.]