Live Trial Coverage - CA v. Simpson - Day 156 - Part 1
DAN ABRAMS, Reporter: Today in the trial of O.J. Simpson the day will begin with arguments over the defense's attempt to use video clips of witnesses in their closing arguments and then when those legal arguments are done, prosecutor Marcia Clark is expected to deliver the first portion of her summation to the 12 jurors and two alternates. Well, that will do it for now in New York, Up next, Fred Graham in Los Angeles.
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: There may be some poetic justice in the fact that it is raining in Los Angeles on September 26th. One year to the day the jurors were brought in for the process known as voir dire, or jury selection. And today is the day of closing arguments. A final phase in this long, long trial. Kristin Jeannette-Meyers is standing by and Kristin, let me ask you first, the defense has been very upset about the fact, as I shout over the helicopter, it is a difficult day in Los Angeles. The defense is very upset that they put their submissions for video tapes in closing argument to the Court. They got their late, they judge has said that they're not going to be allowed to use them. But the prosecution also made submissions about using video tape, will theirs be able to be used?
KRISTIN JEANNETTE-MEYERS, Reporter: We're going to have to wait and see, we've just gotten a copy of the prosecution's submission and it's important to remember the way this all unfolded. It was last week the defense said, we want to use video tape of witness testimony during closing arguments. The prosecution said no, the judge sided with the defense. And now we are in court, Rikki, so let's go live.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: The jury is not present, all right, and Mr. Neufeld you have the Court's permission to wear your prescription dark glasses until your, until Lens Crafters manages to fix your glasses for you. All right, Counsel, we're here to start the final arguments for both parties. We have a number of demonstrative pieces that are going to be used by the parties. I understand there are some objections to some of these. Mr. Neufeld? Good morning sir.
PETER NEUFELD, Simpson Attorney: Good morning, first of all, I'm not the most qualified to argue some of the boards because, as you may recall, I wasn't even here for the early portion of the trial when some of those matters came to the forefront. What I would suggest we do, since we were also told by the prosecution they have a whole series of slides that were specially prepared for summation, that are not in evidence already, and we have to review those as well, before the summation begins. What I would ask is for the Court's indulgence to give Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Cochran just five minutes to look at the time line board and the so-called abuse board, which they could do very, very quickly, and at the same time, we could look at the slides
Judge LANCE ITO: That's why we started at 8:00 this morning, Counsel.
PETER NEUFELD: I know, and we were here on that, Your Honor. There were some technical glitches, but one of the things we expected to see at 8:00 this morning also was their slide show. We've yet to have that prescreened for us. So, I'm simply asking that we have that done, and while we're doing that
Judge LANCE ITO: We're going to take up the boards first, Counsel.
PETER NEUFELD: All right.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, first one evidence from the Bronco.
PETER NEUFELD: All right, are are the problem we have with the boards which are referred to as evidence from the Bronco, evidence at Rockingham and evidence at Bundy, allegedly connecting Mr. Simpson to those three scenes, is that the Court made a very explicit ruling early on in this case that the People cannot use the term, ``match,'' to refer to to draw a connection of a nexus, between hair and fiber evidence and individuals. That you, in fact had to instruct Ms. Clark repeatedly when she violated that rule, to refrain from using the word match and stick to consistent
Judge LANCE ITO: So the bottom line of your objection is that you object to the wording on the board regarding the hair and the fiber.
PETER NEUFELD: That's correct not regarding the blood, because the Court drew the distinction there, but regarding the hair and fiber. That although they're allowed to argue, they're not allowed to misstate the facts. And you set very strong parameters as to what the facts were with regard to hair and fiber.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, that pertains to the evidence from Bundy, the evidence at Rockingham and evidence from the Bronco boards, all three boards.
PETER NEUFELD: The, um, there was another board which was a time line board and just from my initial review, and again, I would need the help of Mr. Cochran and Mr. Shapiro on this, is that there was a suggestion that Kato heard three knocks between 10:51 and 10:52, whereas his testimony, both on direct and cross, is 10:40 to 10:45, and there is no testimony of 10:51 to 10:52 in the record, and they have no business asserting facts on a board which don't exist in the record. So, at least as to that statement of fact in the board, we would object to that and ask that it be changed. I think also you should bear in mind, Your Honor, that I believe that the prosecution has little cards and has the technical ability to make substitutions and changes, depending on your rulings this morning. Because they indicated that as to another time, they were going to make a change and put a card on it. But again, I would like my co-counsel to have just a two-minute opportunity to quickly look at that board as well, cause there were a lot of different times on it, and I'll be the first to admit that I don't have that kind of expert familiarity with every time suggested on there and we'd just like to be able to check it.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, any response to the objections regarding the boards. Ms. Clark, good morning.
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Yes, Your Honor, I mean if it even needs a response. I plan to argue, as the Court is aware, that Mr. Deedrick can testify to what he saw through a microscope and that can only be deemed consistent. But when we consider all of the evidence in the case, we know that it is his hair. And, this is argument. That's the reasonable inference to be drawn. At this point I should not be confined to saying it's only consistent, because I'm not just talking about Mr. Deedrick's opinion or conclusion, based solely on the microscopic comparison. I'll make that very clear to the jury. There's not going to be any doubt in anybody's mind and I'm not going to be saying Mr. Deedrick said it was a match, I'm not going to say that either. Mr. Deedrick said it was consistent, that's all he could say, that's all he knew. But when we look at all of the evidence, we know it's his hair. That's entirely permissible, in fact, mandatory argument in a case like this so I'd, I'd, I don't think the Court needs to hear that much more from me on that. With respect to the time-line, this is the problem with having, you know, lawyer's argue that haven't been here. On the time line thing, Kato said that he heard the thumps and two to three minutes later he walked out of his room. Allen Parks said that he was on the phone with his boss and hung up within 30 seconds of that, of seeing Kato and the defendant out in the yard. Kato in the side yard, the defendant in the driveway. We have his phone cell records cell phone records, that indicate that that phone call was completed at 10:55, something it's on the board, Your Honor, in any case. So I time it by that. We have a very, very accurate way of determining when Kato went out to the side yard and when he heard the thumps based on that. Is there anything else?
Judge LANCE ITO: Those were the two objections to the boards. Any response, Mr. Neufeld?
PETER NEUFELD: Judge, I believe that the prosecutors argument is simply that that's when Parks saw the two of them, but the phone records and his testimony, both on direct and cross is that it could have been 10:40, it could have been as late as 10:42, that's the window. They just enlarged it by 10 minutes and there's absolutely no testimony to support that. It's the phone records even don't, don't, don't aren't consistent with that, and we can pull out in 10 seconds, the portions of the transcript so it's crystal clear. But that number 10:52 is, just comes out of thin air and is not supported by the facts. And I think if you just give us a minute, we'll pull it for you.
Judge LANCE ITO: No, I recollect that there is some imprecision in the times, and the only times that we have are dated, are time stamped by the phone records. I agree with you there. However, I think that the prosecution has a rational basis to make that argument and they make that argument and if it's illogical and it doesn't make sense to the jury, they make that argument at their peril. But since they can extrapolate, so to speak, from the testimony, I think they're entitled to make that argument. All right, the other objections will be overruled with he following modification. Ms. Clark, I'm concerned that the hair and fiber, to say that it's the defendant's hair or fiber from the Bronco, when we know that the testimony it's consistent with, I think a labeling that it is consistent with.
MARCIA CLARK: I could understand the Court's concern if it was an issue of misrepresenting to the jury what the scientific testimony was. I'm sure the Court can appreciate that when everything is put together and that's the argument. These boards are a summation. These boards are not just based on Mr. Deedrick's testimony, and I will not let the jury be misled in that regard for one second. I need the purpose of these boards is to put it all together to say when you consider everything you know, this is his hair, that's the Bronco fiber. I'm going to make it clear, I'm not going to leave any doubt in anyone's mind what Mr. Deedrick said. He could only say this but on this board, I'm asking you to consider all of the evidence, and there's a wealth of it and when you put it all together, you know it's his hair. And that's the purpose of closing argument, it's to put it all together. So, I understand the Court's concern, but I can assure the Court 100 percent, the jury will not be misled by my argument, and the boards are closing argument boards. They're not going back in the jury room. I'm very clear about that and so I'm going to tell the jury that. This is based on all of the evidence, not just Mr. Deedrick. And I intend to make that very clear.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right.
PETER NEUFELD: [unintelligible]
MARCIA CLARK: Your Honor, I don't think the Court invited Mr. Neufeld to stand.
Judge LANCE ITO: No, I was still having a discussion with Ms. Clark.
PETER NEUFELD: Sorry.
Judge LANCE ITO: I see we're in fighting moods today.
MARCIA CLARK: It's argument but in any case, Your Honor, the purpose of the boards is to collate everything and if I have to start fragmenting it again. I understood for testimony and you know, I have no disagreement with the Court's concern during testimony of saying exactly what the witness was saying, but now it's argument and it's time to put it together.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, Mr. Neufeld, any brief response?
PETER NEUFELD: Yes, Your Honor, there are other boards where they refer to letters and other items of evidence, are in fact, statements of the actual record in this case. This is the one instance where to have it on a board is not an accurate statement of the record in this case. It is distortion, it is misleading, and it is a board that is suggesting that that is in fact the evidence, and that's not the evidence. And they can modify that board, they can change the wording in it to reflect the state of the evidence, just as they have on the other boards. And, it's actually disingenuous to suggest that whereas, there are other boards that are accurate statement of the record, but this board I'll single out and I'll explain to the jury that I don't mean this to be a statement of the evidence, I just mean this to be argument. That in itself is misleading cause it sets these boards apart from all the other boards they intend to use in their closing argument. It just isn't fair.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, thank you. All right, the objections will be overruled subject to modification during the course of Counsel's argument if it's not accurately argued. All right, how about the other exhibits? How many do you have, Mr. Faretlow.
[unintelligible]
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, let's see them.
[long pause]
Judge LANCE ITO: Mr. Faretlow, if you're going to have any remains displayed again, would you let me know.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: What you've been seeing on the ELMO, are what are called boards. These are the closing arguments for the prosecution. They're inferences that the prosecution wants the jury to draw about certain pieces of evidence. As you can see, the defense lawyers plus Mr. Simpson are attempting to review these arguments, and Judge Ito appears to be quite liberal with what he is permitting the prosecution to use. Is that true, Howard Price?
HOWARD PRICE, Criminal Defense Attorney: Well, it's true because this is argument and the whole purpose of argument is to try to persuade if somebody says something that is illogical or not substantiated by their record, the other side has the opportunity to refute that. You can't misstate the evidence and you can interpret the evidence and that's what this is all about.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: And what Howard Price is really bringing out is that fine distinction between opening statements, that is what
[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 156 - Part 2
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: We're going back into the courtroom. Johnnie Cochran is just about to speak.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: Good morning, Your Honor.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Good morning, Counsel.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Your Honor, with regard to this the first thing I'd like to point out is that the Court may want to give orders with regard to the time these these graphics were to be displayed to us, and we had people here this morning at eight o'clock. You'd said eight o'clock this morning. We're not seeing them at about 9:20 or thereafter, so they're more than an hour and 20 minutes later. I point that out because of the fact that Mr. Harris came with our our information regarding the tips the clips we wanted to use, and he misunderstood the time. He had them in plenty of time. He always gets here at 8:30. He got here, apparently, somewhere between nine and ten, as I understand it.
Judge LANCE ITO: After 10.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: I thought it was around before 10. But anyway, he said he was going to glue it. This is an hour and 20 minutes; we're just now seeing these. They went through very fast, and the Court saw them, so I won't belabor this. But I want to point that out at the beginning they should be precluded, if we're to be to precluded. If we're going to be able to use our clips which we have here, it's the same thing your order, even if it was misunderstood. Theirs weren't ready. Ours were ready. It was a misunderstanding by Mr. Harris.
But the point I wanted to make was that, for instance, on these boards, and looking through them very quickly, they went very quickly. This is the problem, right before argument, when they do this. The Bruno they talk about a Bruno Magli shoeprint, and they talk about the defendant's Bruno Maglis, I believe, at one point. There's no showing that Mr. Simpson purchased or bought any Bruno Maglis in this case. They have something on the defendant that did not go to his children; his children were brought to him.
I mean, these you know, this was the most misleading kind of argument. If they want to use this many of these things they're using at their own peril. I am warning them they're using it at their own peril. But the defendant did not go to his children. This photograph, this I don't know the point of this photograph, this kind of time sequence photograph, kind of in in a map, or a puzzle kind of fashion of Mr. Simpson. This idea of rejection by Paula there's no evidence of rejection by Paula. There's testimony that Paula was at the Mirage, being paid for by Michael Bolton, I believe, but there was no rejection by Paula. Using Kato to set up an alibi and this is just specious.
They in this, they use at one point the term ``consistent with,'' which is what you said they could do. That further highlights when she stands up and says, ``It's the defendant,'' or the ``defendant's hair.'' I mean, that that's misleading to this jury. This jury's not going to fall for this. They showed the photographs of the officers Riske never testified here in uniform. The have a photograph of him in uniform.
I mean, so that what they're doing here first they're an hour and 20 minutes late, beyond your order. They they're tremendously misleading, and we need actually more time to actually look at these to see. This was just jotting down as we went through these very, very quickly, and it seems to me this is totally unfair and contrary to the spirit of what you were talking about.
Now I contrast that with the video clips. The video clips, Your Honor, are exactly what happened in this courtroom.
Judge LANCE ITO: I'm not listening to that argument, Counsel.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: All right. Well, it's still the same thing well, then then they get it precluded then. If you're not listening to that argument, then under the same and and fairness and equal playing field, then these things get precluded. They weren't here on time, and so when here we're now facing this situation, you don't want to hear the argument regarding Mr. Harris yesterday, these things need to be precluded precluded. And clearly. You said eight o'clock, it was clear.
Judge LANCE ITO: Any other objections?
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Well, it's really difficult, Your Honor, when we saw them so fast for the first time. We're going to need to see them again. I need a little more time with them, quite frankly. That's all that I was able to jot down at that point, as we looked at them together for the first time. An hour and 20 minutes late.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right.
Why weren't these things here at eight o'clock?
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: They were. They were. Jonathan was here. He was here with all of the clips and the slides. They weren't ready. They were here. And we were ready to go. That's the answer. That's the answer. They don't have an excuse for this one. We were here, we were ready, they were not. That's it.
With respect to the points on the slides, however, Your Honor, I've never had to preview my closing argument in any trial in my life. Those points on the slides are my argument. Now unless Defense Counsel is going to be fair about this and give me their closing argument, I'll review it, and I'll tell Mr. Cochran what I think is fair for him to argue, too. OK? If he's if, as he says, the jury's ``not going to fall for that,'' then he shouldn't be concerned the jury won't fall for that. I think that the jury's not going to fall for their stuff. I think the jury's going to fall for reason and logic, and that's what this is. But I don't have to make that argument now. The Court's aware of these arguments.
But those points up there are reasonable inferences to be drawn from the evidence. If the jury doesn't agree, if the jury thinks they're unreasonable inferences, the jury knows what to do, and they will do it. And
Judge LANCE ITO: About the reject in the triggering events board that you have there, ``rejection by Paula Barbieri'' what's the basis for that?
MARCIA CLARK: During the days I'll just trace it from the afternoon. This is based on the defendant's cell phone records. We have a phone call to Nicole at 2:30 in the afternoon, lasting for four minutes. Immediately after that phone call, we have two calls to Paula Barbieri which were unanswered; if you recall, we've had testimony from the from Kathleen Delaney I think that's her last name. She was General Counsel for the Mirage, and she testified to the fact that Paula had checked in had made no, checked in to the Mirage on June the 12th at 1:59 p.m. So at the time the defendant was trying to call her, she was already at in Las Vegas, at the Mirage, a guest of Michael Bolton.
When the we also know that earlier in the morning, or the previous day, Paula had asked to go to the recital with him, and he had told her no, that he was going to keep it a family event. We have our theory about what he intended in telling Paula not to go to the recital, which we intend to argue at the appropriate time. In any case, when he showed up at the recital, he was clearly, as witnesses have testified, in a very unusual mood, glowering, ``spaced out,'' as Candace put it, ``simmering,'' I'm reminded, and whatever transpired in the phone call with Nicole at 2:30 in the afternoon, clearly had something to do with that mood. In addition to the fact that, when he went to the recital, and the Mezzaluna date was made, he was not included, and he had already told Paula not to come to the recital.
So, essentially and then he tries to reach Paula again later that night, at 10:03, calling her twice when he was in the Bronco. Couldn't reach her at those times, either. She was not there. So we know she was in Las Vegas, and I think that was the final the last straw for him. He was abandoned by Nicole, he was abandoned by Paula, and that's why we're here.
Judge LANCE ITO: How about the how about the Bruno Magli the indication that this was his shoe?
MARCIA CLARK: Which?
Judge LANCE ITO: One of the boards indicates the Bruno Magli shoe was the defendant's?
MARCIA CLARK: Can can we pull it up again, so I can see, Your Honor? I'm not sure.
[pause]
Judge LANCE ITO: Let me see that next slide.
MARCIA CLARK: Is that what you meant, Your Honor?
Judge LANCE ITO: No.
MARCIA CLARK: Next one?
Judge LANCE ITO: I think the one that has to do with
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: It's on the board as ``shoeprint''
Judge LANCE ITO: ``shoeprint in the Bronco.''
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: ``in the Bronco.''
MARCIA CLARK: OK.
[Johnnie Cochran talks to Marcia Clark off-mic]
MARCIA CLARK: Yeah.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, it says ``bloody Bruno Magli shoeprint on driver's side carpet''?
MARCIA CLARK: Yes. Mr. Bodziak testified that the there were characteristics in the print on the carpet that were consistent with the Bruno Magli shoeprint.
Would you like me to pull up the testimony?
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Yes.
MARCIA CLARK: OK. Can we pull up ?
PETER NEUFELD, Simpson Attorney: This is a statement of fact.
Judge LANCE ITO: Wait, wait, wait. Mr. Cochran Mr. Cochran's arguing this, Counsel.
PETER NEUFELD: The problem is, he wasn't here early this morning. I thought I could just give the Court
Judge LANCE ITO: Counsel, that was an indication to sit down.
PETER NEUFELD: All right.
MARCIA CLARK: We're pulling up your request right now, Your Honor.
[pause]
Judge LANCE ITO: Mr. Fairlow [sp], what time did you have this laser disc here?
Mr. FAIRLOW: I had the laser disc here at eight o'clock. I did a bar code check to make sure everything was correct. Two or three of my bar codes were off, so I went back up to reprint, so I could show them pieced in the correct order. At that point, I had came down, I believe about it was a little bit around nine o'clock.
Judge LANCE ITO: When was that thing actually prepared?
Mr. FAIRLOW: I I finished it up last night, Your Honor, at about four o'clock in the morning. I was still drawing slides to to laser at three o'clock last night, and I was in the office bar coding until about four o'clock.
Judge LANCE ITO: I'm waiting for the testimony.
SOMEONE OFF-MIC: Oh.
[pause]
MARCIA CLARK: Your Honor, it's going to take me a minute. Is there anything else you'd like me to respond to?
Judge LANCE ITO: It's the only two issues I've heard raised.
MARCIA CLARK: OK.
[pause]
RIKKI KLIEMAN: As as you can see and hear, what's happening is the difficulty with tensions that run so high about the form on the closing argument, let alone the contents. Comes down to arguing now about the time of when each side got to the courthouse, as to whether or not they're going to be able to use slides or other exhibits. These are the days where if you were in the courtroom itself, this is the kind of energy, as the cliche goes, the tension you could cut with a knife, no pun intended in this case. There's a lot of anxiety going on here. There are people who want to get going.
These are it's like right before the race, isn't that true, Howard Price?
HOWARD PRICE, Criminal Defense Attorney: Well, I I think this kind of helps Marcia. I know that I would enjoy having to do some speaking, get my whistle wet, so to speak, before having to approach the jury, so I think it's helping her, and she'll be ready if, in fact, they start today.
I'm really shocked, Rikki, that all of this stuff hasn't been worked out. There was a three-day hiatus for arguments to be prepared by the lawyers, and certainly all of the support staff that each lawyer has, beyond our conception, to iron out all of the technological and auxiliary tools that were going to be submitted in support of these arguments. I'm surprised that we're dealing with this, and I'm surprised that we're having arguments from the defense, trying to preempt the prosecution's interpretation of the evidence.
If, for example, as Cochran has submitted, that there's been a
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. Are we close to finding this?
MALE OFF-MIC: We're almost there, Your Honor.
HOWARD PRICE: A misinterpretation of the evidence, then it would be for him to point that out to the jury, and the jury would hold it against the lawyer that misinterpreted the evidence. But try to preclude somebody from putting something up in a demonstrative graphic aid and argument, I think is surprising.
MARCIA CLARK: It's taking awhile to get this. Is there anything else we can handle? Or I won't get to that part of my argument for awhile, so we can start. And then I can make sure I get that to the Court before we get to that point.
[someone speaks off-mic]
MARCIA CLARK: It's going to be about 10 minutes.
Judge LANCE ITO: Why is that?
MARCIA CLARK: Because
MALE OFF-MIC:
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: We have it. We know what he said, he didn't say that. That's why they're never going to find it. It'll be ten minutes or ten hours, they will not find it.
MARCIA CLARK: Well if they have it, let's see it.
Judge LANCE ITO: Do you have it?
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: We'll put it up in just a minute. We know what he said. He said he could not say they were Bruno Maglis.
FRED GRAHAM: predict what the prosecution certainly would be willing to take. It would be a huge victory for this prosecution to get a murder conviction, even second degree murder, even on both counts, even though it sort of runs counter to the evidence in the case of Nicole Brown Simpson. It would mean they would not have to try the case again. It would mean that the irritation of this entire case with its racial implications would be lifted from this community. It would certainly be a political plus for Gil Garcetti, the district attorney who's in some trouble now on this. So, I think you're going to see Marcia Clark hold out that prospect like a plum, like a tidbit, that if this jury doesn't want to go all the way, there's a way to compromise.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: It's interesting you know, Terry, because they do say it's dangerous to argue in the alternative, that's what the legal scholars say. But here, because there's two victims, with Ronald Goldman as Fred points out, that's a second degree type of case. And so the prosecutor's in the cat-bird seat here, and before I throw back to you, it dawned on me that what I said to you before, concerning Mark Fuhrman and Philip Vannatter, it's from the defense perspective of course, that it is shown that Philip Vannatter lied. But really it's merely an allegation and the jury has the right to believe Philip Vannatter, and so they may think that neither Mark Fuhrman or Philip Vannatter are the police officers that ought to be disbelieved. Now, I'll throw it back to you.
TERRY MORAN: All right Rikki, thanks. Well, we'll take a break and when we return I'll have a look ahead at what you can expect to take place inside Judge Lance Ito's courtroom and as we go to break, nine months and two days after Marcia Clark gave her opening statement, here she tells the jury that O.J. Simpson abused Nicole Brown Simpson.
MARCIA CLARK: That on June the 12th, 1994, after a violent relationship in which the defendant beat her, humiliated her and controlled her. After he took her youth, her freedom and her self-respect, just as she tried to break free, Orenthal James Simpson took her very life in what amounted to his final and his ultimate act of control.
[commercial break]
[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 156 - Part 3
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: The question that both sides are dealing with is the issue of the Bruno Magli shoes, and it goes back to the fact that sometimes you hear what you'd like to hear, rather than what was really said, and the defense, as you can see, is going back through their transcripts trying to find the evidence. It's interesting, Howard Price, because in terms of the Bruno Magli shoes, the salesman from Bloomingdale's did talk about the fact that O.J. Simpson liked to shop at Bloomingdale's and did buy shoes, there, but the question is, did he buy Bruno Maglis there? Now, the defense contends that he never said that O.J. Simpson was sold a pair of Bruno Maglis.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: [in progress] All right, Your Honor, I take it this 32751, and than I'll just try to read this 32571 50? Five-oh, OK. ``I could get any of the features in this enhanced impression to correspond with the Silga sole, such as I had with the other comparisons that I made. And I'm not able to make take an overlay and actually reconstruct the exact position of that shoe to the point where I could say it was absolutely the Silga design and even go further and say it was the same. There just wasn't enough detail and, of course, it is not representing the normal of the case, but it is just wherever there happened to be some blood up in the grooves and wherever the carpeting had to go up just randomly whip down the So, this would be in the negative area in the negative areas of the shoes, or the areas in the grooves, so to speak.''
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Your Honor.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: I think That Your Honor, I think that's the or you'll never find it. It doesn't It took 10 seconds. You can't say that, and they they're they're still playing games, Your Honor, talking about they couldn't find it, and and we found it right away.
May I respond further, too, Your Honor?
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: No, Ms. Clark was in the process of telling me what the transcript says.
MARCIA CLARK: Yes, Your Honor. What the Court needs to do is see the entire testimony. Counsel has only read, of course, a small snippet from an entire section of testimony and my recollection, and and I'm certain that I'm right about this, is that they they had He he testified as I indicated to you, previously, that there were features consistent with Bruno Magli shoe print, and that's
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Well, that's not what he said
MARCIA CLARK: That's what I said before. And, it is in here, and I need time to find it.
[inaudible comment by Johnnie Cochran, defense attorney]
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Now, the lawyers are dealing with another part of the Bruno Magli issue, which has to do with the expert's opinion of whether, in fact, these are Bruno Magli shoe prints, or whether they're consistent with Bruno Magli shoe prints. What about that, Howard Price?
HOWARD PRICE, Criminal Defense Attorney: Well, it it's my recollection that the expert said it was a Bruno Magli and that was never contested by the defense. In fact, I think that the defense expert almost conceded I forget which one it was conceded that it was a Bruno Magli. I think the issue always was, although it's a size 12, Mr. Simpson's shoe size, the shoe salesman never had a recollection of selling this specific shoe to Mr. Simpson. I always thought that was the issue, never that the shoe print found at the crime scene was nothing other than a Bruno Magli shoe print. In fact, the FBI man brought all of his computerized print and he found it in his data bank to be a Bruno Magli, and I never thought there was any cross-examination. If there were, I'm sure that Mr. Scheck would have been there for two days cross-examining him about the shoe print.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Or, at least, consistent, certainly, with a Bruno Magli shoe print. The the question I've always had is the fact that, once it's consistent with a Bruno Magli shoe print, even Marcia Clark has said, repeatedly, simply that O.J. Simpson was a candidate, as someone who could have worn the size 12 Bruno Maglis. That was repeated, as I recall, by F. Lee Bailey in his original cross-examination of Special Agent Bodziak when he appeared the first time, and now you can see, as all of these lawyers are looking through this transcript, the difficulty that jurors must have when they have to try to come to a consensus of 12 people as to what certain facts were in the case. Here you have in the lawyers in the case who can't come to an agreement.
HOWARD PRICE: Well, what's interesting here, and I've never seen this happen, is a preemptive attempt to censor the other party's argument before it even begins, and that's a very sharp tactic, for sure, but I've never seen it happen. Most judges would say that the jury has the ultimate decision as to what the evidence is.
MARCIA CLARK: [in progress] Counsel left off at the portion where he read, ``or the areas in the groove, so to speak.'' And then the testimony was, ``Yeah, I did notice that there was this area, here, which could possibly have been a border of the shoe, and there also is some little what I call squiggles or little S-shapes, which might represent the curved areas between the design elements, but they weren't clear enough or reliable enough to make any kind of a positive determination.'' And then, ``Can you point out the areas?'' And No, the upshot of this There's more testimony on this, but the upshot of the testimony was OK. And now he's referring to the actual carpet, and he said, ``OK, this area, here, was the area that I referred to that might be the border of the shoe, and this area down here where it changes direction, kind of like an S, is an example of that possible the negative area of the shoe.'' And then, ``Can you take the rubber shoe'' and that was the exemplar that he had, Your Honor ``and describe for us how it is that that is possibly consistent with the sole of the Silga?'' ``Yes. Well, the I don't know how well this can be seen with the light, but the If you follow the grooves between the design elements, they change direction, so there is gentle curves between those design elements, and that would be the area that would be still might be some blood in it at that point, back down the driveway, that far from the actual crime scene. And these little changes of directions that you can see down here, as well as this border, and you really can't see any of them clear enough to make an overlay, but you can see something that suggests that. But there is just not enough detail to absolutely say that that is representative of the Silga sole.'' ``OK, were you going to point out a couple of other other of these design elements that were consistent with these this sole?'' ``No, I think that these these in here probably show it as well as any, and actually, there is there isn't enough clarity throughout this whole thing to really point to it and say positively that is what it represents, but rather, you are seeing a change of direction and that is what you would expect if there was some blood here and the carpet tuffed up.''
Judge LANCE ITO: Ms. Clark, when do you anticipate
MARCIA CLARK: There is also the phenomena
Judge LANCE ITO: When do you anticipate getting to this exhibit, or this demonstration slide?
MARCIA CLARK: Let me see. Not for a while, Your Honor. That's why You know, we can I mean, the test I think that the testimony does clearly indicate he's saying it is consistent. He's not making a positive determination because there's not enough clarity for him to absolutely, positively say it's a Bruno Magli. We are making inferences, Your Honor, because we have Bruno Magli shoe prints going down the walkway and a and a and a bloody shoe print with features like it on the driver's side of the carpet. I think it's only a reasonable inference that it is the Bruno Magli shoe. It's not only a reasonable inference, it's it's an obvious inference. So, what he said was it was consistent with, but he would not make a positive determination.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, thank you.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: May I respond now, Your Honor?
Judge LANCE ITO: Yes, two issues, Mr. Cochran, specifically responding to the two objections that you made the triggering events issue and the Bruno Magli issue that we just finished discussing, and the second issue being an opportunity to see all of these.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Thank you. Let let me take the second issue, first. The Court asked Ms. Clark when would she get this get this in her argument. She should never get to this in her argument. It's the exact same thing. This Court has prided itself on being fair, I think, to both sides, or trying to be fair to both sides. Yesterday, you precluded us from something that everybody knows about because it's it's something that happened during the courtroom, and we were only to give, actually, the the the text passages, the the quotes, not even not even view, and show-and-tell, which we're prepared to do, which we worked all night to do. In this instance, what Mr. Blumfeld [sp] was trying to tell, Your Honor, that at 10 minutes to nine he spoke to you and told you they had not shown him this show-and-tell at that point, because Mr. Feretlow [sp] was not back down here. It didn't work at that point. There was a glitch, so as we said, an hour and 20 minutes after your order, so under that under that reasoning, I mean, this is a this is a real easy one, they are precluded from doing this. If we take those kinds of positions, it has to be for both sides, not just for the defense, and
Judge LANCE ITO: Well, Mr. Cochran, on the the 22nd, late in the day, Ms. Chapman asked for an extension.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Yes.
Judge LANCE ITO: I said, ``Yes, until 9:00 a.m.''
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Yes.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, 9:00 a.m. came and went, nobody showed up, at which point, at 9:30, I issued that order.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: May I be heard on that?
Judge LANCE ITO: So, there were two chances, two opportunities
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Your Honor, in something this important, we asked for the other extension, and let's make clear what we're talking about here. What you'd asked us to do is to provide, by nine o'clock yesterday, with a list of the items we wanted to do not even the items, 'cause that takes an awful lot of work. Mr. Harris misunderstood, and Mr. Harris is always here by 8:30. Certainly Mr. Harris didn't do that intentionally. He would never do that. He's always here every day. He's been here from Florida for a year-and-a-half, and certainly he would be here on time. But, the point is, this, Your Honor, if I might just say this, if you allow me Mr. Harris, not getting here, or being a half-hour or an hour late on just the actual quotes, that should not inure to the detriment of O.J. Simpson. That's unfair, and so what should happen, if you if you want to sanction Mr. Harris or sanction us, then do that, but not Mr. Simpson.
Now, let's put it in perspective here. The reason This is far different this is actual text that we need to see so the jury, the 14 people back there, don't have to spend this time. You said eight o'clock. We had people here at eight o'clock. They weren't ready at eight o'clock. Ms. Clark, again, has been caught. They weren't ready at eight o'clock. At 9:20, they were ready. Just like she makes this statement here about the bruddy the bloody Bruno Magli shoe shoe print.
You know, sometime we have to have some credibility in this courtroom. So, those are the facts, Your Honor. So, I know you said you didn't want to hear this, but you're a wise man and you have been fair in the past. If you look at this, how how can we look at O.J. Simpson and say because Howard Harris didn't get a text down here, that everybody knows what these clips are it's actually the trial testimony that O.J. Simpson should suffer from that. Mr. Harris is very sorry about that, if he got a chance to talk to you about it. But, that's just not fair, Your Honor, under the circumstances.
Now, we have a situation here where they come down, they don't come at eight o'clock. Neufeld tells you at 10 of nine we haven't seen it. At nine o'clock, when he comes back, we still don't see it. We have to ask to see it, and it's 9:20, and you can now see why we don't get a chance to see it, because it has all these things on here.
Now, that moves me to the other point you asked me to discuss. The bloody Bruno Magli shoe print on driver's side carpet. Now, Judge, she can argue all she wants, that the evidence does not show that. That's a lie. That The evidence doesn't show that. She can talk about reasonable inferences, which she would like to hope, but this just shows the desperation of the prosecution. At this 11th hour, they would try these tricks and they're tricks, Judge. These are nothing but tricks. It's not going to work, but but, I don't think we can be part of this, at this at this 11th hour, so to be fair, this has to be precluded. This has to be kept out because they didn't have it here at eight o'clock, we didn't get a chance to see it, we're prejudiced by this, even as we're arguing now, there are other things that went by so fast, I'm I'm not totally clear on all the things that were there. I happened to pick up ``bloody Bruno Magli shoe print'' 'cause I knew that wasn't true.
But, the other thing that I think you allowed me to talk about is this whole issue of Paula Barbieri. I mean, that is the rankest kind of speculation. Paula Barbieri stands by this man's side to this day. There is no indication there was ever any rejection. In fact, quite the contrary. They'd made plans for later that week. I mean, it's just the evidence, it's replete with the fact that she was totally supportive, and the the testimony, I think, of the young lady, Carol Connor, on on the Saturday night, June 11th, when O.J. Simpson takes the pictures with the elderly women at the $25,000 a plate dinner they were absolutely lovey-dovey on Friday, until Paula went to a prayer meeting. I mean, it's all to the contrary. This is You know, this is their their fantasy, their whole case. We should have known when the Shipp thing came up, this is all about their dreams, and it's not going to work, Judge, but we can't be part of that. So, this is unfair, and it just seems to me that they are precluded. Now, you know, we're not saying I I I would ask Your Honor to consider this, but under your ruling, yesterday, they're precluded, quite simply. It wasn't shown and this is far more different than just telling what telling you, generally, what we expected to show in clips, things that you've already seen during the course of this trial.
May I have a second, Your Honor?
[audio interruption in courtroom]
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: And and, I I'm reminded by by my colleague, there's there's a far difference Yesterday, what we're going to give you is the page and line number of things we wanted to show, and you also made it very clear, and that's why you see Mr. John Whitney [sp] here. We could not show the face of, say, the defendant or the lawyer asking the questions, so, in going through all this, we had to black all that out, and and that took a lot of work, as I said, but, there there was no prejudice to them, and I trust not to Your Honor, because it was a question of what had happened in this courtroom. We're talking about a search for truth. This is a lawyer's interpretation of what they would have hoped the evidence would be. There's much more prejudice to us, an hour an 20 minutes later when she's about to stand up and argue, for them to show us this in this rapid fire discussion. That's We're talking about prejudice and it's prejudice to Mr. O.J. Simpson, Your Honor, and so that I would say to Your Honor two two things. These should be precluded.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. What's the People's position on the videotape issue?
MARCIA CLARK: Does May I add another page to the Bruno Magli issue, Your Honor? There's
Judge LANCE ITO: No. I'm not interested.
MARCIA CLARK: OK.
Judge LANCE ITO: I've heard enough on that.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: May I have a second, Your Honor?
MARCIA CLARK: OK. There's a final conclusion that he makes on it
Judge LANCE ITO: I recollect, Counsel. I have my notes.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Johnnie Cochran speaking to Marcia Clark about likely, about the question of videotape of testimony and demonstrative evidence on the part of the defense and prosecution.
MARCIA CLARK: OK. On the videos I thought the Court ruled.
Judge LANCE ITO: Mr. Cochran is arguing a sophisticated version of tit-for-tat.
[inaudible comment by Johnnie Cochran]
MARCIA CLARK: That we be precluded from my argument?
Judge LANCE ITO: Yep.
MARCIA CLARK: I don't see that that is tit-for-tat, Your Honor. They wanted to use The Court made a very specific ruling. The Court did not say, ``Counsel is required to submit their closing argument to the opposing counsel for editing, ahead of time.'' Counsel The Court ruled that if we wanted to use video clips, they had to be Or, I thought it was just the defense, but that if video clips were to be used by the defense, they had to be submitted to the Court by a time certain, and that if they weren't, they wouldn't be allowed.
Isn't that a little different than what I'm allowed to argue to the jury? I mean, we're talking substance, here, because all those are are the words that I intend to argue. We're not talking about a slide, you know, involving a picture of something, we're not talking about videotape, because the use of videotapes in argument is a very novel thing, so under understandably, the Court was concerned that it be allowed to preview what counsel wanted to use because it is an avante-garde kind of thing to do. I don't know if it's ever been done before. And, the Court needed to assure itself that what was done was appropriate ahead of time. But, arguing reasonable inferences from the record is something that had been done for hundreds of year, Your Honor. I'm doing nothing different. So, all I'm doing is making it easier for the jury to see, just like we did in the old days when we had an easel and we'd get up there and write all the reasons why the defendant was guilty. OK. So, now we have this whiz-bang stuff and I can do it on a screen, but that's the only difference. I have a witness that says ``it's consistent with this, but I can't positively say.'' I draw reaonsable inferences based on all of the evidence and tell the jury, ``but we know it is.''
Now, is that something new and different that a prosecutor does? I'm not doing anything different. I'm just using a screen instead of an easel to do what we've been doing for hundreds of years, so this is not tit-for-tat, Your Honor. Counsel's so scared he's saying, ``Don't let her argue, don't let her draw reasonable inferences, don't let her pull this together for the jury.'' That's what we have here. I'm drawing inferences from the evidence and I'm arguing the evidence. He wants to use something novel that the Court wanted to safeguard. I understand that. Mr. Feretlow was down here at eight o'clock, Cheri Lewis was down here at eight o'clock. They weren't ready. They were looking at the boards. Peter Neufeld was had broken his glasses. They weren't ready to see anything. We were here.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Judge, let's not That's contrary to what Mr. Feretlow has just said, Your Honor, and Ms. Clark is not answering
MARCIA CLARK: Oh, he went downstairs and fixed a few bar codes, but if they had been ready to sit here and watch it at eight o'clock, he would have shown them what we had.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Your Honor, these are officers of the court, they were ready, that's why they were here, Your Honor.
MARCIA CLARK: Let me
Judge LANCE ITO: Wait.
MARCIA CLARK: Let me finish.
Judge LANCE ITO: Wait.
MARCIA CLARK: Mr. Neufeld.
Judge LANCE ITO: Wait, wait. Argument's over. I've heard enough. Thank you very much. It's been entertaining, as usual.
All right, the defense is entitled to see these, since they're going to be used during the course of argument, prior to their use. We'll take a 20-minute recess to allow that to occur.
Mr. Feretlow was, in fact, here this morning at 8:05, 'cause I did come out and see him seated back there, and he was playing with bar codes. We did look at the charts that were physically here and I did use members of my staff to go down and get Crazy Glue for Mr. Neufeld to fix his glasses. And that was what was occupying us for the most part.
Previous ruling stands regarding videotapes. The Court finds that, as far as the argument is concerned, there are inferences. What a prosecutor is allowed to do is to discuss the evidence and then draw reasonable or plausible inferences from that. I agree that, perhaps, some of these may not be logical, but it is argument.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Is that videotape on both sides, Your Honor?
Judge LANCE ITO: Videotapes on both side is precluded.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: May Would the Court May I say one last thing from that regard?
Judge LANCE ITO: No. That's the end of that argument. All right, we'll take 20 minutes. Show them the exhibits.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: If we have objections, do we bring those to Your Your Honor's attention?
Judge LANCE ITO: Then, we'll go. Counsel, it's argument. I've seen them all. Show them. All right, 20 minutes.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Judge Lance Ito being a strict judge today. Videotapes precluded the defense was too late with them. And, in addition to that, ``It's argument,'' he says, so the prosecution can go forward with their charts, with their oral representations about the inferences that the prosecution would like the jury to draw. There's a federal judge in Georgia named Tony Alamo [sp], and Judge Alamo used to say to jurors, ``It's time for final argument, ladies and gentlemen. This is when the lawyers get to do their thing.'' And perhaps that's what Judge Ito is thinking, as well.
We're going to take a commercial break. We'll be right back.
[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 156 - Part 4
HOWARD PRICE, Criminal Defense Attorney: whether Dan Blum [sp] is correct as to what Marcia will do. No one really knows what Marcia will do.
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: It's interesting. Dan Abrams [sp] had reported that Marcia Clark would go for the strong suit, not attack the defense case. As you know, I'm at advocate of that position. And I know you really feel strongly about the other side.
HOWARD PRICE: Well, I think we all agree that she should put on her best case and talk about the positive. There's agreement there. I, if I were Marcia, would try to preempt Johnnie Cochran's argument about the clip the police conspiracy. Because this is an argument that this jury is very susceptible to accepting. And I think she needs two bites out of the apple. I think she needs to talk in her opening summation to this jury about how ludicrous from the prosecution point of view it is to believe that a conspiracy existed to frame one of the most beloved men in America; a conspiracy that would have to entail a number of people beyond Vannatter and Fuhrman. It would have to involve African-American police officers. It would have to involve some of the criminalists in the laboratory. I think she has to take that wind out of his sails so that when they hear it for the first time from Cochran that they have already considered her point of view and it's not going to have the impact that it might have otherwise without her first commenting. She's also going to have the last word, which you and I both know is the most valuable tool that the prosecutor or any lawyer has in any kind of case. Now, we all understand why she has the last word and that's when she's going to have to really try to drive it home to this particular jury as to why certain things are not as she claims or as the defense claims.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: It's interesting. You know, Howard Price and I really two people commenting on what we think might be the best strategy for Marcia Clark. As I was reading the newspapers or watching all kinds of television during the weekend or early this morning, everyone has a view as to how Marcia Clark or Johnnie Cochran should argue this case. But in the end it's Marcia Clark who has to make that decision and she has to feel comfortable that she is using what I would call the best logical science while she is weaving a tale. We're going to take a commercial break. We'll be right back.
[commercial break]
RIKKI KLIEMAN: The lawyers are in the courtroom having looked at the exhibits if you want to call them that the visual aids that would be used in closing argument. The jury is not present.
It appears that the lawyers have looked over the exhibits but apparently and I better stop staying that having looked over the visual aids that Marcia Clark wants to use in terms of her closing argument, but that they were not finished. And as you can see, they continue to be looking at something on their monitor and trying to come to some consensus about it. Bob Shapiro seeming a bit agitated, not usual for him in the courtroom. Howard Price, you know Bob quite well. He usually seems to keep his reactions down to a minimum. I think his thumbs up sign looks like he's signalling not that it's OK, but that he wants to move to the next. That's what it looks like to me.
HOWARD PRICE: Either that or he's calling somebody out. I do know Bob long and well and, in fact, we went to grammar school together. Can I comment on one thing? I can't help but say, certainly from the prosecution point of view which I don't always identify with by any means, is that I think that possibly there's some game playing here. Some attempt for a tactical advantage by trying to rattle Marcia's cage before she gets up there to argue this case by asserting that nearly every one of her visual aids is defective in some way and it cannot be used. In my mind, you can pretty much put anything you want on the board and if it doesn't sail, it doesn't sail, and that would be the obligation of the opposing attorney to point that out. But for a gross example, why couldn't she put on the board that Simpson's responsible for the bombing in Oklahoma City. If there's no evidence of it, she's going to look foolish for putting it on the board. So, I don't see why, frankly, Ito is allowing all of this wasted time.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Well, I think, on the other hand, that there may be a number of judges who would feel that in a case of this length, that the closing argument is so important and that it isn't the question of saying O.J. Simpson committed the bombing in Oklahoma City, it's the question of having an inference, for example, that there is a Bruno Magli shoe print on the carpet in the Bronco. One could understand why the defense would get very rattle about that.
HOWARD PRICE: Do you think the shoe, when it's going to be on the other foot, I'm sorry to use that illusion, is not going to happen when they preview their visual aids? I'm talking about the defense visual aids. Are we not going to get into a game of tit-for-tat, that the prosecution will then argue that they can't say on their board certain inferences that they want the jury to draw from the evidence as they perceive it? I think this is inconceivable.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right. We've got the [unintelligible due to crosstalk from commentator] objections.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN, Simpson Attorney: that I could just look at them. I'd just like to make a general objection, if I might. These slides are totally misleading. We have There's a whole list of things. I won't even bother the Court's time now. They're totally misleading. And to allow this jury to hear this is just shows the prosecution's desperation. But we could point out, chapter and verse, but that's not going to do any good. So, I thought that we would I would just register a general objection. This, I think, is totally outrageous. The other thing I'd like to point out to the court is that we have some graphics, which are not precluded, and of course we have evidence, that it ties into evidence which we can still show during the course of this trial. Because of the fact they weren't ready this morning, they've not seen ours. I'm going to ask we be able to do that before we start our case. Plus, we will obviously now, be responding to these lies on these boards and try to tell this jury some measure of truth. So, am I correct we can do that also?
Judge LANCE ITO: As I noted, one uses these things at one's peril.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: You did say that, Your Honor. So, we'll be doing that and I'd like, before counsel, before we begin our case, to if the court wants us to we'll preview it or not, but we're ready. If they want to go with this now, you've noted my objection?
Judge LANCE ITO: Noted.
JOHNNIE COCHRAN: Let's get it on.
Judge LANCE ITO: Thank you, sir. All right.
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Deputy District Attorney: Let me just say this. They have shown us one board, Your Honor, one defense board. It's the thermometer involving reasonable doubt. That's standard. I just want to lodge an objection to that now. We can argue it before the defense argues.
Judge LANCE ITO: We'll get there, eventually. All right. Deputy Trower [sp], let's have the jurors, please.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Well, we can take a deep breath. It looks like they actually are sending for the jury and we are going to start those closing arguments that are going to go for some very long hours in the courtroom as well as our coverage on the air. Howard Price, on question. It's not only content that counts in closing arguments, it's body language. It's a relationship that these lawyers might have already with this jury. Is that right?
HOWARD PRICE: Oh, I assure you, I've had long cases. You cannot talk to these people but you've been observing them for months; they've been observing you. And there is this dialogue, this non-verbal dialogue. You know, or at least you think you know who's on your side, who's not against you. You already have people that you are already focusing on to try to persuade. You probably have some people you think that you cannot persuade. There's a bond, there's a relationship between all of these jurors. If we have time, can I just mention one other thing? And that is the propriety of these long hours. I think that it's If there's a rush in judgment here, it's the rush to judgment that we get this case to the jury so quickly. I think it's unfair to the lawyers, it's unfair to the case, it's unfair to the litigants, it's unfair to this jury to jam these arguments over such a long day because the average person can't speak that long, nor can one listen and absorb information. I think Judge Ito was wrong in acceding to the jury's wish to get this case argued so quickly over such a short period of time.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Spoken truly like a California lawyer and as you know, as we've had this discussion many times, in other parts of the country this would not be unusual with a sequestered jury to go, say, from 8:30 to 6:30 in this case they may be going from nine until seven or eight that it would not be extraordinary. It is extraordinary in California.
HOWARD PRICE: It would be very wise, then, for all of the lawyers, then, to ask that there be comfort breaks, so to speak, every 45 minutes, every hour take five minutes. You just can't sit there as if this is anthropology 101 and just have the lawyers drone on with their charts and their boards and going on for hour after hour without any break. I think it's just impossible to, one, as a lawyer convey information to a jury under those circumstances.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: Well, Judge Ito is now speaking to the jury. It's time for closing arguments to begin.
Judge LANCE ITO: [in progress] matters that we have to get out of the way before we actually start with the arguments of the attorneys. However, we are now ready to commence. We are at that stage where the attorneys will have the opportunity to argue to you and I should let you know that previously I had contemplated placing a time limit on the lawyers in their argument. Some of the factors that I considered in whether or not I should place a time limit on them was the quantity of the evidence that was produced, the conflicts in the testimony and the complexity of the issues that you will have to resolve. And after considering the length of the case and the nature of the evidence I have decided not to place a time limit on the argument of the attorneys. However, I have placed upon each side a limit of no more than two attorneys may argue to you for this part of the trial.
Now, the purpose of the argument by the attorneys is to discuss with you the facts and the evidence that have been presented to you, to discuss the law that I instructed you on earlier, and the attorneys may advance theories, based upon the evidence, and they may urge conclusions that are fairly drawn from that evidence. However, during the course of their arguments please remember my previous admonition to you that the comments and the argument made to you by the attorneys are not evidence. All right? Having said that, Miss Clark, on behalf of the People, are the prosecution prepared to proceed their opening argument?
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Yes, Your Honor, we are.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. You may proceed.
MARCIA CLARK: Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
MEMBERS OF THE JURY: [in unison] Good morning.
MARCIA CLARK: Finally. I feel like it's been forever since I've talked to you. It kind of has. It's very weird to be in this courtroom next to you, seeing you every day, not getting a chance to talk to you. It's just very unnatural and I have to tell you that as long as I've been doing this, as many years as I've been doing this, at this moment in a trial I always feel the same. I feel like I want to sit down with you and say, what do you want to talk about? Tell me what you're thinking.
Judge LANCE ITO: Miss Clark, I'm sorry.
MARCIA CLARK: You want a pen, sir?
Judge LANCE ITO: Juror 165 needs a pen. Miss Clark.
MARCIA CLARK: Thank you, sir. I want to sit down and I want to talk to you. I want you to tell me what do you want to know? You know, what do you want to talk about? Because that way I don't have to talk about stuff that you don't need to hear, stuff that you don't want explained, stuff that you're not interested in. And I can't. And I always have this sense of frustration. So, I'm sorry if I say things that you don't need to hear or I explain things that are already very clear to you. Please bear with me because I'm not a mind reader and I don't know.
Let me first I want to take this opportunity to thank you. And I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have been through so much. You have made a tremendous sacrifice. You haven't see your children enough, you haven't seen your family enough, you haven't seen your loved ones enough and all of this in the name of justice, in the service of justice. Your dedication and your selflessness are truly beyond the pale. No one can say that any jury has sacrificed more for the cause of justice than you have, and I want you to know sincerely, from my heart, I appreciate it. I speak on behalf, I know, of the all of the People of the State of California. This was a tremendous sacrifice. Your selflessness and your devotion will long be remembered by many and I thank you. I think no one can understand how great your sacrifice has been, how terrible the pressure has been, how awful it must be for you to have your lives kind of out of control this way, at the mercy of us taking longer than we should have and you having to put your lives aside for longer than you should have had to do. I'm sorry for that. I apologize for that.
There's only one bright side two bright sides. One, it's almost over. Number two, you have the assurance of knowing that no stone has been left unturned. The defense has explored every nook and cranny of the case. We have exhaustively tried to give you every piece of information that could possibly be relevant to answer the question we're here to answer; and in doing so, in the exhaustive examination and cross-examination of all of the witnesses in this case and the exhaustive investigation and work that's been done, one thing is clear this defendant has received the ultimate in a fair trial. And at least you know that. You have that assurance.
Now, in the course of presenting all of this evidence, in this trial just like every trial, some evidence has been presented to you that really is not relevant to answer the core question of who murdered Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown. And it's up to you, the jury, to weed out the distractions, weed out the side shows and determine what evidence is it that really helps me answer this question? And it's kind of like the artist, the sculptor, and somebody went to him and said, ``Well, how do you make an angel?'' ``Well, I take a piece of marble and I remove everything that's not an angel.'' That's what you have to do. It's not easy. It's going to require a lot of focus and a lot of determination on your part because the side shows may be very interesting, they present very important issues, very serious issues, but issues that really do not relate to who committed these murders. And they should be dealt with outside this courtroom, because here, now, in this courtroom we're here to decide who murdered Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown.
Now, you as jurors sit as judges of the evidence. You're called the trier of fact and, as such, your job it is to be neutral and to be impartial as you examine the testimony presented and in this regard you're guided just like any judge by the law. And the jury instructions that were read to you on Friday is the law that you will apply to the evidence to determine the answers to the question that is posed here who murdered Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown?
The instructions discuss a wide range of topics. They talk about guidelines for the determination of credibility of witnesses, both expert and lay witnesses, and they talk about what the People are required to prove to establish the defendant's guilt. But they go beyond that and they also tell you the frame of mind that you should adopt when you look at all the evidence, and one of the first instructions that was read to you by the judge on Friday, if you'll recall, concerned your duties as a jury and it stated in part ``You must not be influenced by pity for a defendant or by prejudice against him. You must not be biased against a defendant because he has been arrested for this offense, charged with a crime or brought to trial.'' Now, of course that makes sense. It's logical. And that means that we have to present proof to you. We can't just come in and say say it's so. I don't just get to get up here and say it's so. I have to prove it to you, with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. So, that makes sense. Now, the instruction goes on to read ``You must not be influenced by mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, passion, prejudice, public opinion or public feeling. Both the people and the defendant have a right to expect that you will conscientiously consider and weigh the evidence, apply the law and reach a just verdict regardless of the consequences.''
In the course of this trial you have heard some testimony of a very emotional nature. I expect that in the course of arguments you are going to hear very impassioned speeches, fiery speeches speeches that may stir up feelings of anger, sorrow, pity. Although your feelings may be aroused as would be natural and understandable for all of us as the instruction tells you as the trier of fact, you, the judges, are to remain neutral and impartial and not be influenced by such passion or sentiment, no matter how sorely tempted you may be to do so. And this applies to both sides both sides.
Although the brutal and callous way in which Ron and Nicole were murdered may understandably may make you feel sorrow, pity, even anger, it would be wrong to find the defendant guilty just because you felt sorry for them. On the other hand, although it would be completely understandable if you were to feel angry and disgusted with Mark Fuhrman, as we all are, still it would be wrong to find the defendant guilty not guilty just because of that anger and disgust. So, as you listen to the arguments of counsel, please remember when you weigh the evidence and you consider all of the evidence, remember that an appeal to passion and emotion is an invitation to ignore your responsibility as a juror. To be fair, we must examine all of the evidence in a calm and a rational and a logical way.
And let me come back to Mark Fuhrman for a minute, just so it's clear. Did he lie when he testified here in this courtroom saying that he did not use racial epithets in the last ten years? Yes. Is he a racist? Yes. Is he the worst LAPD has to offer? Yes. Do we wish that this person was never hired by LAPD? Yes. Should LAPD have ever hired him? No. Should such a person be a police officer. No. In fact, do we wish there were no such person on the planet? Yes. But the fact that Mark Fuhrman is a racist and lied about it on the witness stand does not mean that we haven't proven the defendant guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, and it would be a tragedy if with such overwhelming evidence, ladies and gentlemen, as we have presented to you, you found the defendant not-guilty in spite of all that because of the racist attitudes of one police officer.
It is your duty and it will be your challenge to stay focused on the question you were brought here to answer, and the only question you were brought here to answer did the defendant commit these murders? In seeking the answer to this question you look to all of the evidence presented to you by both sides now by both the People and by the defense and you determine what evidence really answers that question. Because the defense has thrown out many, many other questions. They've thrown out questions about whether LAPD has some bad police officers. Does the scientific division have some sloppy criminalists? Does the coroner's office have some sloppy coroners? And the answer to all of these questions is, sure. Yes. They do. That's not news to you. I'm sure it wasn't a big surprise to you. But those are not They're important issues. You know, we should look into the quality control, things should be done better, things could always be done better, in every case, at every time. There's no question about that. We're not here to vote on that today. The question is what the evidence that was presented to you that relates to who killed Ron and Nicole what does that tell you? Does that convince you beyond a reasonable doubt? No matter how much more qualified or how much better they could have done their job, still in all, did they present enough evidence to you? Did the evidence come to you in sufficient quantity and convincing force to convince you that the defendant committed these murders beyond a reasonable doubt? Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that we have more than met our burden in this case.
Now, the defense has thrown out a lot of possibilities to you, the merest of possibilities. And a lot of them were just there to scare you. You heard Dr. Gerdes talk about it could be this, it could have been that, I see the validation studies. You know, kind of like reminds me of the doctor when you have to go in for an operation they give all this list of things that could possibly happen to you could possibly happen to you. Nevertheless And they have to give you that warning, right? They've got to tell you that because otherwise you cannot give a conformed consent and say, yes, knowing the risk, I'm going to go and do this. Now, if you really believed that all of these horrible things were going to happen, no one would have an operation. You wouldn't take the risk. But you know. They've got to tell me everything no matter now remote the possibility. And indeed you go in and have the operation and you're fine. And none of that stuff happens.
Well, in this case, it's actually, they've raised all the possibilities of things that could happen in an effort to scare you away from the evidence. But we have done better than you could ever do in an operation because we have proven to you that nothing in this case did happen. We have proven to you that it was not contaminated. We have even proven to you that it was not planted, for lack of a better term. And I'm going to go through the evidence and demonstrate how we have proven that to you.
So, why were these issues raised? Why were these questions raised? Well, they are all questions and issues that were raised as a distraction. They were roads raised, roads created by the defense to lead you away form the core truth. And the issue that we're searching for the question for the answer to, which is who murdered Ron and Nicole ? But these roads, ladies and gentlemen, these are false roads. They are false roads because they lead to a dead end. The false roads were paved with inflammatory distractions, but even after all their tireless efforts, the evidence stands strong and powerful to prove to you the defendant's guilt.
Now, I'd like to show you a jury instruction that is very important. I think that both the prosecution and the defense will agree.
MARCIA CLARK: Your Honor, may I approach a moment?
RIKKI KLIEMAN: While they've gone to a sidebar we're going to take a brief commercial break.
[commercial break]
[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 156 - Part 6
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: [in progress] All right, now, Louis Karpf also told you something else. He told you that when he came home, he went into his garage and then he went out in front to get the mail, and when he went out in front to get the mail, he saw a dog in the street. And this was the time, he indicated, that he got home. When he got outside, he saw a dog running around in the street, barking insistently a dog that he identified for you as Kato, Nicole's dog. The dog was was prancing around in the street and acting in a very weird manner, and Mr. Karpf was a little afraid of him and went back inside.
Now, Mr. Karpf also told you that he saw a man walking a dog. Steve Schwab told you that at about 10:30 he left his home and went out and took his dog for a walk. If you recall, he said that he waited to see the end of the Dick Van Dyke Show and then went out to walk his dog. That was about a little after 10:30. He told you the route that he took, walking around the neighborhood, and he told you that at approximately 10:55, he saw Kato, Nicole's dog, at the corner of Dorothy and Bundy and he told you that the dog was acting very strangely. So he went over to look at the dog, and when he did, he noticed that the dog had blood on its back paw and the blood appeared to be moist. He crossed over to the east side of Bundy where, he said, the lighting was better in other words, saying to you, that the side of the street that Nicole lived on was poorly lit.
Now, he noticed that the dog's paws had blood on it, but he did not testify that he saw any paw prints on the sidewalk. Does that mean that they weren't there? No. It means he didn't notice them. Obviously, if the dog had blood on its paw and it was it had gone out of Nicole's home and it had walked down the sidewalk, there were paw prints there to be seen. The fact that someone doesn't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. It means they didn't see it. That's what I mean about reasonable inferences to be drawn from the evidence.
Now, when he crossed over to the east side of Bundy where they had more light, the dog stayed with Steve, stayed, and they continued to walk. But as they walked, at each house that they that there was a pathway, the dog stopped and barked, looking up the pathway. This dog was acting very strangely. Obviously, it had seen a very traumatic event. Whether it simply Whether it actually witnessed the murders or simply came up on the bloody aftermath, it's clear the dog saw something.
Now, when Steve got home, he took the dog into his courtyard, and he was able to see that there was blood on the underside of the belly and there was blood on all four paws, but the dog was not injured. Now, Steve's friend, Sukru Boztepe if you recall, he was the one who found the bodies Sukru agreed to take the dog from Steve for the night, and when he you recall that when he took him into his apartment, the dog was acting so agitated and so nervous that he had to take it out for a walk.
And he decided to let it lead him, perhaps, lead him to where it lived. And the dog did lead him. The dog pulled. The dog pulled. And, as they went south on Bundy, the dog pulled harder and harder. And as they walked south on Bundy towards Nicole's home, when it got to the pathway that led up to Nicole's house, the dog stopped and it looked up the pathway. And Sukru told you that had the dog not done that, he would not have looked up the pathway and he would not have seen what he saw. But, as it was, he did. And because he followed that dog's gaze, he saw a sight, probably, the most horrifying one ever seen in his life, or, hopefully, ever will see.
Now, Sukru told you that when he saw Nicole Brown lying on the ground, it was midnight. So we know that the murders occurred after 10:00 and before midnight. That's the window that we know we have, just based on what people observed and what people saw.
Now, I'd like to turn to the defendant's activities for that night, and I'm going to show you how during the time period preceding the barking, during the barking and for half an hour after the barking the defendant's whereabouts are unaccounted for. Let's start with Kato. Kato was a necessary witness for us to call, but he was by no means a witness who was happy to testify for the prosecution, as you could tell. This was the defendant's house guest, someone who started out as Nicole's friend and boarder, who found a better deal, certainly a cheaper deal, at the defendant's estate.
You'll recall that he met Nicole after her divorce back in 1992 in Aspen, and when he went to a party at her house on Gretna Green in 199 during 1993 or the end of 1992, he asked if he could rent the guest house on that property, and she agreed. And they made an arrangement that he would pay monthly rent and reduce that monthly rent to some extent by performing babysitting activities for her two children.
Now, he lived there with her in Gretna Green for almost a year, filling in as babysitter for the children, a friend to her and the children as well. But when Nicole moved in January of 1994 to Bundy, there was no separate home for him to live in, no separate guest house, and the defendant asked him not to go and move in with her. And he persuaded Kato to go and live with him at Rockingham for free.
That was a very good deal for Kato. As you may recall, I even asked him, ``How much money did that save you?'' You know, to stay in a place like the defendant offered him, with the availability of the pool and the jacuzzi, tennis court living on that estate in kind of like a studio apartment probably would have cost him $600 a month. And what did he say? I think we wound up estimating that the total amount of money he saved staying there for free was about $6000. He was very indebted to the defendant.
And the aspiring, but none-too-successful at that point, actor Kato saw, also, a career-wise move that was very good for him because in the defendant, he could have a connection. Get the picture here. Logically speaking, this man is indebted to Mr. Simpson. And he was not a happy camper to be a prosecution witness. And he certainly didn't want to come in here and give testimony that might prove damaging to him. And you could tell from his demeanor, I'm sure, that he was not about to volunteer anything he didn't absolutely have to tell us, unless he was cornered.
I don't know whether you remember it now it's really been a very long time but during his testimony, I brought out the fact that at the grand jury proceedings, back in June of '94, I asked him whether he'd ever witnessed any fights between the defendant and Nicole. And when he was asked in front of the grand jury whether he ever remembered seeing them fight, he answered that he remembered only one. And I asked him, ``Do you remember anything about the nature of that fight?'' And he said, ``No. Only that it was one.'' Only that it was one.
And then when he came into court here, ladies and gentlemen, when I asked him why he didn't bring we asked him what he meant by that one fight that he had witnessed. That was the 1993 call to Gretna Green that you heard on tape when Nicole Brown called 911 and the defendant was standing outside screaming, yelling obscenities at her, and broke the door down and she was afraid for her life. That was the fight he was talking about when he answered to me in the grand jury, ``I remember one fight and I only remember that it was one.''
Now, when he gave that vague, almost meaningless, answer, no one at that time knew about the 911 tapes, and so he could get away with it, until that became a matter of public record and we all found out. And I couldn't confront him with that, 'cause I didn't know about it, and that's how he slid around and would have continued had it not been brought to our attention by other means. But you see so at that time, he was safe. But when he got called on it and you realized how ``Only that it was one,'' and he's talking about that event, that gives you a sense of how much he wants to help Mr. Simpson.
Now, while on June the 20th, when he was directly asked under oath about the past relationship of violence between the defendant and Nicole, he said almost nothing, as I've indicated to you. And when he was interviewed by Mr. Shap Now, when he was interviewed by Mr. Shapiro six days before that, he was a lot more forthcoming. When he was interviewed by Mr. Shapiro, as I've pointed out, during his testimony he brought out the 1993 Gretna Green incident. He brought out the fight at the Jenners' Christmas party in 1993. But when I asked him one week later when he was under oath in front of the grand jury ``I remember only fight one fight, only that it was one.'' Very different demeanor between the time that he spoke to me in front of the grand jury and the time that he spoke to Mr. Shapiro one week earlier. And doesn't that alone tell you how reluctant a witness he was for the prosecution and how much he identified himself and wanted to identify himself with the defendant's side?
Now, after he spoke to the police, though, this is the position he finds himself in so you know, so you understand why he had to come here and give the testimony he did. At the time he spoke to the police in the early morning hours of June the 13th, he didn't know that what he was giving was damaging evidence against the defendant. He only knew he heard thumps on his wall. That's all he knew, and the events that transpired that night. He knew they went out to McDonalds. He knew that they had gone through all the things that I'll point out earlier later for you. But they went to McDonalds. They had a burger. They came back. He went to his guest house. Mr. Simpson stayed outside. He later heard thumps on the wall during a phone call. At that point, he didn't know the significance of what he was saying.
And he would surely never have told the police any of those things had he known what they meant. And so the problem was that once he told the police what had happened that night, he was stuck. He couldn't go back on his word. He had given them a detailed statement. It wasn't like he had given something vague that he could slide around with. He gave a very lengthy, detailed statement to the police, because he was telling the truth. He didn't know any better than to tell the truth, and so when he was called back before the grand jury at the preliminary hearing and at this trial, he had to recount that same truth. And he had to tell you. He had to tell you.
Now, back to the timing. Kato told us that he was on the phone with a friend when the defendant came out to the pool area near his door. And he was able to pinpoint that time with the phone call bill that he had, because the phone call was a long-distance call. Now, the call was placed at 9:03 and it lasted for seven minutes. And when he saw the defendant come out to talk to him, he hung up the phone. ``So it was about 10 after 9:00? I think we do. At 10 after 9:00, approximately, and so we have 9:10 here? Maybe it was 9:09.''
And so the defendant came out to talk to Kato. This is a very, very significant conversation that they have. I'm going to come back to this a couple of times. So, here's the first time. The defendant told Kato that he had only hundred dollar bills on him, and he asked Kato if he had any fives for the Skycap. You may recall that asked him if he had fives. Kato went to look, and he realized he only had $20 bills, so he gave the defendant a $20 bill, which the defendant took. Then the defendant told Kato that he was going out to get something to eat. He didn't invite Kato. Kato invited himself.
Now, I remember when I heard that, I thought, ``What's wrong with this picture? This doesn't fit. If you're going out to eat and you only have hundreds, you need change, you're going to break that hundred when you go out to eat. Why do you have to ask Kato for fives? You've only got hundreds. Wherever you go, you can break it, if you're going out already, anyhow. So what's the point here?''
Now, keep that thought in mind, because I'm going to come back to that. That's very significant.
All right, that was at about 9:10. They left immediately, and they drove to the McDonalds in the defendant's Bentley. Does this strike you as odd that he'd take a Bentley to a drive through, to McDonalds, when he's got a Bronco? It's not like there's no other car. Now, you've seen the picture of the defendant taken at the recital for his daughter, Sydney, earlier that night, and in that photograph, he's wearing black dress slacks and, like, a white polo type shirt and a black looks like a shirt to me, 'cause you can see the seams and the sleeve and a collar to it with the sleeves rolled up. But Kato told you that at the time he saw the defendant at approximately 10 after 9:00, the defendant was wearing a dark blue or black cotton sweat outfit that had long sleeves. So after the recital, the defendant changed clothes. And that's important, too. I'll come back to that.
Kato had several occasions to notice the defendant's hands during the drive to McDonalds, and during the time that they paid and during the time they got change, and he noticed that there were no cuts on the defendant's hands, or he didn't notice any cuts on the defendant's hands, to be more accurate. And That's, actually, an important distinction. You'll notice, too, though, when you look at the photograph of the defendant in the recital, you can see his left hand, and you can see that as of the time of the recital when he's posing with Sydney, there's no cut on the back of the middle finger of the left hand. And that's important.
[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 156 - Part 7
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: [in progress] see his left hand, and you can see that, as of the time of the recital, when he's posing with Sydney, there's no cut on the back of the middle finger of the left hand, and that's important.
Now, what's probably even more significant than Kato's lack of observation of any cuts on the defendant's hand when they're in the at the drive-through lane is this Kato wound up paying for the food with his own money paid for both of them. He handed the defendant the money. The defendant paid. The defendant got change back, and gave it to Kato gave it to Kato. Wasn't the whole point of talking to Kato to get change for the skycap, get fives for the skycap? OK.
Now, you have another inconsistency here. First of all, he asked Kato to give him change when he's going out already, he can get it himself. Secondly, he has the opportunity to get change right there at the drive-through window, either take Kato's or break his own break the 20 that Kato gave him, and he doesn't take that opportunity. That's important, too. I'll come back to it.
They returned to Rockingham and Kato proceeded I wanted to indicate, when they returned, during the ride home, the defendant wolfed his food down while he was driving. Kato saved his. And I'll All of these facts are going to be tied in at the end of this presentation, so I ask for your patience. Bear with me. I want to stick with the timing, right now, so I don't get distracted. When they got back to Rockingham, Kato got out and he walked towards the house, expecting the defendant to follow him, but when he got to the front door, he turned and realized he's not here. And he saw the defendant still standing by the Bentley watching him. And he had not moved. So, as Kato told you, he took the hint, turned and went to his room.
Now, why didn't the defendant just walk in the house? Or, if he intended to go somewhere, why didn't he just get back in the car and go, either in the Bentley or in the Bronco? Why wait for Kato to be out of sight? I'll come back to it. I just want to think about it for a minute.
Now, as soon as Kato got back to his room, he called a friend and, fortunately, the friend lives far enough away that it was a long distance call, so we have his phone bill that indicates what time it was. And, he indicated that he made that call as soon as he got back to his room. So he The call was made at 9:37. So, he left the defendant's presence at 9:36, and you can see, here, at 9:36, the defendant was last seen standing in the driveway. From 9:36 until 10:54, the defendant's whereabouts were unaccounted for. So, we have the beginning of our window of opportunity at 9:36.
OK. Now, I'd like to remind you of some testimony you heard about the Bronco back up for just a minute to talk about the car. Kato said the defendant almost always parked the Bronco on Ashford, and when I asked him when during the six months that he lived there, he could remember ever seeing it parked on Rockingham, he said that he he couldn't come up with any answer. I did ask him if he had seen the Bronco, either when they left left the house to go to MacDonalds or came back, and he indicated that he didn't notice either way. He wasn't looking for the Bronco.
But, there was a witness who was out on Rockingham that night. He was out walking his dog between 9:30 and 9:45. That witness was Charles Cale. He was a neighbor of the defendant's, and when he was walking his dog He was a neighbor of the defendant's, he knew where the defendant lived, and I think he indicated that he had even been on Mr. Simpson's property at some point. So, he was walking his dog that night between 9:30 and 9:45 and as he did so, he walked down Rockingham. And he looked, and he could see I think he indicated it was 60 yards away that he could see that'd be 180 feet that there was no Bronco parked on Rockingham between 9 when he was walking his dog, approximately between 9:30 and 9:45.
Now, there are two inferences we can draw from this. Either one is reasonable. Either the Bronco was on Ashford, which is why he didn't see it on Rockingham, or Mr. Simpson had already left in the Bronco by the time he walked his dog.
Now, he als Mr. Cale also indicated that when he left his home on June 13th, at 7:00 a.m., when he drove down Rockingham he did see the Bronco, and he noticed it was parked at kind of a funny angle to the curb. Now, what that tells us, then Let's adopt We have two reasonable inferences, and I'm going to talk to you about this a little bit later, we have a jury instruction on direct and circumstantial evidence, and that jury instruction tells you that when you have two inferences, both of which are equally reasonable, one of which points to guilt, one of which points to innocence, you are to adopt the interpretation that points to innocence that is, if both of them are equally reasonable.
Now, in this case, at the point that Charles Cale is walking down Rockingham and is walking his dog and sees no Bronco on Rockingham, since he didn't look down Ashford, it is equally reasonable that the Bronco could have been on Ashford, as it is that the defendant had already left in the Bronco. The the inference that is that points to the defendant that's less inculpatory, that is less incriminating, is that the Bronco is on Ashford. Let's take that one, OK? So, let's infer from his testimony that when Mr. Cale was walking his dog, the Bronco was on Ashford. What does that tell you? It wound up on Rockingham. That's where it was found in the early morning hours of June, the 13th. No one's disputing that. The Bronco was moved. And the inference to be drawn from that is that the defendant was out in the Bronco and he moved it. But, you don't have to rely on just that inference. We have more.
And what we have We have two things. As you may recall, Dr. Baden was the defense witness pathologist. He testified that the defendant told him that he had gotten cut when he went, on the night of June, the 12th, as he was preparing to get into the limo, he went to get a cell phone from the Bronco. That tells you the cell phone was in the Bronco. I'm going to talk about how he got that cut a little later. The cell phone was in the Bronco. That's where he had to go and get it from when he was getting ready to go to get into the limo. If the cell phone was in the Bronco and he's using the cell phone that night, he was out in the Bronco. And we have the proof for you in the form of the defendant's phone bill
[audio interruption in courtroom]
Judge LANCE ITO: [in progress] Counsel can see this.
MARCIA CLARK: People's 403.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. All right. Thank you.
MARCIA CLARK: This is a little bit smaller. I'm going to hold it closer so you can see it, but this this you'll have back in the jury room. I Let me tell you right now, in case I forget, the exhibits that I use that I'm not that I don't say a People's number for, you're not going to get those back in the jury room, so if you want to take notes or if anything will help trigger your memory from those, that you want to make a note from, go ahead and do it, 'cause you won't have 'em again. OK?
Here's the exhibit that we marked during the trial you will have this one back there with you. It indicates that the defendant made two phone calls on the night of June, the 12th, from his cell phone that we now know was in his Bronco, at 10:03. Now, in terms of the time line and on that night, what this tells you is that the defendant was outside was out in his car at 10:03. Now, at that time, he made phone calls to Paula Barbieri. You may recall, we heard the testimony of the I think it was Lou Ellen Robertson [sp] of Air Touch, and she told you she interpreted the record for you and what it meant, and she told you that the calls were not completed, but we didn't need her to tell you that. The calls to Paula Barbieri were not answered because Paula Barbieri was in Las Vegas. She was not at home, either in Florida or in Los Angeles. She was in Las Vegas at the Mirage, and you recall we had a witness testify to that. She checked into the Mirage at 2:00 p.m. on June, the 12th. So, she was not available to take those calls.
Now, I think we have further corroboration for the fact that the cell phone was in the Bronco in the fact that Allan Park, the limousine driver, testified that he saw as they were loading up the limo, he saw the defendant go out towards Rockingham, out to where we know the Bronco was parked, once or maybe even twice. So, there is further corroboration for the fact that he went and got the cell phone out of the Bronco just before they left.
Now, those phone calls are very significant in terms of their timing, because at You realize that at 10:03 when he's out in the Bronco and he's made those calls, that the murders occurred about 10 to 15 minutes after that. So, we'll talk more about the state of mind that he was in at that time. We'll do it a little later.
Now, Kato Let's go back to Kato. He indicated that at about 10:15 or 10:20, and he's very approximate on these times. He's not looking at his clock. He think he readily admitted that to you. He made a phone call to his friend, Rachel Ferrara, and that was a local call, so unfortunately we don't have a phone record to establish exactly when it occurred. This is an estimate on his part. Now, he testified, and I'm sure you recall it, that during that phone call he thought it was about a half-an-hour after he made the call he heard those thumping noises on his wall [sound of knocking] very loud. So loud and so strong that the wall he was leaning on, shook, and a picture moved. And he said it was right in the area of the air conditioner, the air conditioner that hangs over that narrow, dark, south pathway.
Those noises got him so upset he suspected that it was an earthquake. He also told her he had suspicions that it might have been a prowler, and so he decided that he would go and see what might have caused them. And he told Rachel He was scared and worried enough, that he told Rachel that if she didn't hear from him in the next 10 to 15 minutes, to call the police. Now, he may have said it half jokingly, but it's pretty clear he was worried. He was shook up. He was very shook up by those sounds that he heard, which is why he kept coming back to the issue, and he kept trying to talk to the defendant about it, and, Allan Park, the limo driver.
Now, let's talk about Allan Park for a minute. You remember, he was the young man who had never been to Brentwood before, so he decided to make sure that he wouldn't be late. And, although he was not supposed to be there until 10:45 for this pickup to LAX, he left at 9:45 to be on the safe side. And you may remember that this was a witness who was absolutely neutral absolutely neutral. He was not going to strain to avoid answers, he was not going to make any effort to embellish anything. This was a witness who was just going to tell it straight, and tell it honest all the way through, no matter who was asking the questions, myself or the defense. And he stood up there and he took the grilling for a very long time. I went back and I counted. The cross-examination and re-cross-examination by Mr. Cochran took up 175 pages of transcript in these proceedings.
Now, he told you that on that night he was driving down Sunset. He made a right at Rockingham and drove up Rockingham at 10:22. Now, he looked at his clock and his watch many times that night, and the reason he did is very obvious he's a driver. It's important that he be on time. It's important to him. It's important to his job, and this was an important job. I mean, he's going to drive for Mr. Simpson. You know, it's not just me, or somebody like that, or somebody that ordinary, average folk. It's important. He wants to do well, and he certainly doesn't want to be late, make Mr. Simpson miss his flight, so he's checking that clock. And at 10:22, he drives up Rockingham and he's looking at the curbs to see the addresses because he's never been there before, and he wants to see 360 Rockingham. This is also logical. I mean, what do you do when you're looking for an address? You look at the curbs and you try to see where it is. And that's what he did. But, when he did that when he did that he saw no Bronco parked on Rockingham, and he was looking right there at the curb.
[speaking to someone in the courtroom] Do we have the picture? This is People's 62-A, Your Honor. It kind of looks faded on the Well, you can see it, right? See that curb area, you can see there's a 360 there. Now, as he was driving up, he said, ``I could see I could see the 360 on the curb.'' Now, if he could see the 360 on the curb and you can see where the Bronco is right there, that big white car, he's not going to miss it. He's going to see it. I don't If he's driving slowly enough to see the number on the curb and realize that he's hit the defendant's address, then he's obviously paying enough attention to see a big, old white car there.
[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 156 - Part 8
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: It kind looks faded on the oh, you can see it, right? See that curb area? You can see there's a 360 there. Now, as he was driving up, he said, ``I could see I could see the 360 on the curb.'' Now, if he could the 360 on the curb, and you can see where the Bronco is right there, that big white car, he's not going to miss it. He's going to see it. I don't if he's driving slowly enough to see the number on the curb and realize that he's hit the defendant's address, then he's obviously paying enough attention to see a big old white car there. And he didn't see it. So we know that at 10:22, the Bronco was not on Rockingham. But we know more, because we know at this point, when Allan Park turned the corner onto Ashford, he told you he did not see any Bronco on Ashford either. So as of 10:22, that Bronco's gone, and the defendant is gone. That's further corroboration for what we told you with the phone calls in the Bronco. He was out in that Bronco on that night.
So he indicated that he turned right onto Ashford, he made a U-turn, and he parked across the street from the defendant's home from the Ashford gate side. He got out of his car. Remember, he sat on he went and sat on the curb behind the car and had a cigarette, waiting for it to be time to start buzzing for the defendant. And when he got back in his car, he looked at the clock, and he saw that it was 10:39. Now, at 10:39, he decided to check out the other gate, the Rockingham gate, and see if that would be easier to pull into than the Ashford gate because, remember, he told you he had that stretch limo, kind of hard to maneuver. So, you know, what gate he went in, and where he was this was an important consideration for him. The logistics were not that easy with that car.
When he drove down to the Rockingham gate, he told you that he pulled the driver's side window parallel with the driveway so that he could look into the driveway and see whether it would be easier for him to get the stretch limo up that side of the driveway because of the way it curved. And I'm you guys remember. You were there. You saw it. It's a curving driveway. When he did that, the area where the Bronco was found, on the curb, just north of the Rockingham gate, was well within his field of vision, but he didn't see it. Again, further corroboration the Bronco was not there.
Now, he backed up Rockingham, and he backed all the way up past Ashford and then made a left back onto Ashford. And at that point, he actually pulled up into the Ashford gate so that he's the headlights would be almost up against the Ashford gate, I think he indicated. And he told you that he saw a 300-ZX, a black one, parked to his left on the Ashford Ashford Street just to the left, or east, of the gate. And Kato told you, ``That's right. That was my car. That was there.'' And you even see it in some of the photographs that we've shown you during the course of this trial.
Now, when he pulled up facing the Ashford gate, Mr. Park told you that it was 10:40, and he looked at his clock. At that point, he turned off his headlights and left the parking lights on, and he got out to push the buzzer at the Ashford gate. He wanted to let the defendant know that he was there. He pushed the buzzer, he told you, a good two or three times, and he heard the buzzing and the ringing noise as he did that, but he got no answer. He was concerned because the pick-up was supposed, he told you, for 10:45. It's starting to get up there now, so he called his boss, and he wanted to ask him what he should do. I have a board that shows Allan Park's cel phone record, and that was a very important cel phone record because that helps us to fix a lot of the events that were testified to that otherwise would have been very approximate. With the help of his cel phone record, we have much more definite times, much more precise.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right, Ms. Clark, if you just briefly show defense counsel. All right, this is People's exhibit
MARCIA CLARK: Sorry, Your Honor. People's exhibit number 149.
Judge LANCE ITO: Thank you very much.
MARCIA CLARK: Hold it up close to you so you can see it. Can you all see? Yeah? OK. All right, he made the call to his boss at 10:43. You can see show you when the call begins and when the call ends. Dale St. John was his boss. And he called his pager. After he placed that call, he told you that he got out to ring the intercom a few more times. So now he rang the intercom at 10:40, now answer, 10:43, no answer. And he said he rang it a few times on each occasion, no answer. He noticed that there were no lights on downstairs and that there was one light on upstairs. He got back in the car and called his mother, and he got his boss' home phone number and called him again at 10:49. And you see that call we have a lot more calls in here. But at 10:49, he called his boss again, and he left a message because he got no answer. Now, when he left that message at 10:49 for his boss, after he hung up, he got out and tried the buzzer again. Now, this is the third time he's tried to get someone to answer that buzzer at the gate, the third time that he rang two or three times. And this third time again he got no answer. Now, he also testified throughout all these events getting in and out of the car and buzzing. You can guys can sit. I'll come back to you. I'm going to wear you out. Thank you. He told you also, if you recall, that during this time that he was out by the Ashford gate he was paying attention to who was there. He was trying to reach the defendant, but he was very focused on whether he can get somebody to answer the buzzer, on whether he could get Dale St. John to call him back. I mean, these were the things that were occupying his mind, and he was carefully concerned about this because he had to get to the airport. But he was not listening for traffic. He was not listening to hear if a Bronco pulled up, and it wouldn't have been he told you it would not have been significant to him if he had heard a car pull up or a car door slam. So what? It's not he's thinking, ``I've got to get somebody to the airport.'' He's not thinking what cars are driving by, who's here, who's not here. He just wants to get going. He's late, and he's worried about that. So although it would have been nice if he could have told us that he heard the Bronco pull up on Rockingham when it did, he just wasn't paying attention to that, and so he can't give us any information on that. We know the Bronco did pull up. We know it did because it got there. We know it wasn't there as of 10:40 10:39 when he drove down on Rockingham, and it was there later that night.
All right, back to Park. Now, after he tried the buzzer after calling his boss at 10:49, he got out. It was when he was actually buzzing at that point let me back up for a second. He called his boss at 10:49 at home. He got no answer. He went out to the gate, and he rang the buzzer again two or three times and got no answer. While he was at the gate that third time, he heard his car phone ringing, and he went back into the car. It was his boss calling him. That call came in that last call came in at 10:52, and he indicated now, he told you about the fact that his boss called him, and he told his boss that no one had been home and he'd been ringing for a while and he was very concerned because he was running late. Now, at that time, I asked him, ``Were you seated in you car when you were speaking to your boss?'' He said, ``Yes.'' ``Where were you looking?'' ``I was looking through the gate right into the driveway?'' ``Well, what is the driveway lighting like? What is it like in there?'' ``Well, it's not really well lit. ``The play area down in front,'' I'm going to pull out a diagram of Rockingham in a minute to show exactly what I mean, ``was dark, though. There was very little light. There was a light over the garage, but it gave very little illumination, and it did not light up the south pathway area at all.'' So he sat in his car talking to his boss, looking straight through the gate and at the driveway.
OK, this is just get you oriented in case you forgot. It's been a while since we went out and did the walk-through at Rockingham. You see the area that says play yard? There. And Park indicated that area was very dark. He indicated also as he was seated in his car at the Ashford gate that he could not see the Rockingham gate from where he was seated. He indicated to you do you see where that line is drawn at the garage. He saw nothing below that line. His field of view was limited to what was in front of that line, and that's because of the lighting that was at the driveway. Now, when he told his boss about no one being home and he was running late, his boss said, ``Well, sometimes he does run late. Mr. Simpson does run late. Why don't you check look at the lighting in the'' I believe he said the pantry area because he usually watches TV there. Well, Park checked the area, looked, and he couldn't see any lighting coming from that area, and that told that to his boss. During this conversation, Allan told you that he saw Kato come out on the side yard where the arrow is pointing, roughly in that area. I think it was a little bit farther back towards the tree. The other tree. That one. And he was holding a flashing. Do you recall he told you that? And at the same time, he said almost simultaneously, he saw a person approximately six feet tall, 200 pounds, African-American, wearing all dark clothing, walking at a good pace up the driveway. And he told you that he hung up within
Judge LANCE ITO: With the court reporter, please.
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: While the lawyers are at the sidebar, I'm here with Howard Price. It is very rare, isn't it, that a lawyer will interrupt another lawyer in the midst of closing argument and insist on a sidebar conference?
HOWARD PRICE, Criminal Defense Attorney: No, I don't think it's rare, Rikki. Out here, at least in Los Angeles, it happens, frankly, all too often, and it's usually the same stupid objection that the other attorney is misstating the evidence, and the judge makes the same ruling that it's for the jury to decide. They heard the evidence, and they will decide whether the attorney is reciting the evidence or not correctly. I don't know if that's what's happening here, but I sense it is because it's usually what occurs in these kind of situations. What else could it be other than her arguing either an inference that is disagreed with by the defense or the defense feels that she's actually misstating the record?
RIKKI KLIEMAN: It's interesting, Howard, because of course we cover all kinds of trials from various states around the country on Court TV, and sometimes you'll see a lawyer object during a closing, but very rarely does the judge invite the lawyers up to the sidebar. Usually the judge is, I'm sure Lance Ito would know just as you have known, that the logical objection would be that the attorney who is arguing is stating facts that were not in evidence or they're misleading the jury, and the judge usually right from the bench says, ``Remember, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what the lawyers say, and closing argument is not evidence, and it's your memory that controls.''
MARCIA CLARK: Now, I'm going to ask
Judge LANCE ITO: Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. The court reporter is changing paper as well. All right, thank you, Counsel. Ms. Clark, you may proceed.
MARCIA CLARK: Thank you, Your Honor. OK, I'm going to ask Mr. Feretlough [sp] to hold off. I wasn't watching his arrow. I want to try and be precise, if I can, about where Mr. Park said he first saw this man. Go ahead and use the arrow. I'll tell you where. You can turn it around. All right, I believe now, let me say this because I know I'm going to forget if I don't say it when I think of it now.
[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 156 - Part 9
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: [in progress] Let me say this, 'cause I know I'm going to forget if I don't say it when I think of it, now. If you have any questions about anything that is said by either myself or by the defense during argument as to whether or not it is accurate, you can ask to have the record read back. Court reporters hate me for saying this, but in a trial this length, you're probably going to need to have your memory refreshed about something. And it's real important that you not if your memory conflicts, if your notes conflict with what we're saying, you've got to have that resolved. If you need to have the record read back to have that resolved, then do it. And if you think that something I have said has been a misstatement, believe me, I'm not trying to. I'm trying to be very, very accurate here. But, in case everybody makes mistakes in case I make a mistake, have the record read back.
I believe the testimony indicated that he saw this person at approximately where the arrow is. He saw him walk up the driveway and into the entrance. Now, he hung up within 30 seconds of seeing that, which means that, according to the cell phone bill [break in satellite feed] according to the cell phone bill, the call ended at 10:55 and twelve seconds. Approximately 30 seconds before that is when he saw the man walk into the house. And immediately, immediately, as soon as the man walked into the house, the lights started to go on. They went on downstairs. Now, Allan waited in his car, thinking that someone would let him in, but no one did.
Now, if you recall, Kato said that he went out he had gone out to the side yard to investigate the thumping noises, and when he saw the limo driver, he figured that the limo driver was already taken care of and that some that the defendant would buzz him in, so he didn't worry about it. He kept on about his business and he went down to that south pathway, if you recall, to start looking to see what was going on back there.
So Allan got out of his car and buzzed again, and this was, now, within a minute of seeing the man walk into the house, the lights go on. Within a minute of that, Allan buzzed again. This is the fourth time. This time, he got an answer immediately, and the answer was given to him was by the defendant. The defendant answered and told him he'd overslept and he'd just gotten out of the shower and he would be down in a minute.
Now, Allan told you that the man who he saw enter the house appeared to be the same size as the defendant and about the same height and weight. He would not stretch even one iota to draw the obvious conclusion that the man he saw walking up the driveway was the defendant. Of course it was. There was no one else there that night. It was the defendant. Who else could walk in the door, immediately turn on the lights and then answer the intercom? I mean, this is an easy reasonable inference to draw. Easy.
But what's significant here is that he lied. Why did the defendant lie? Why, when he was just out in the driveway walking into the house, dressed in all dark clothing, why, when he answered the intercom for Allan Park did he lie and say ``I've overslept. Just getting out of the shower?'' We know it's not true. We know it's not true. Why was it important for him to make Allan Park believe that he'd been at home? And I think we all know the answer to that question. Because he hadn't been at home. Because he'd just come back from Bundy.
Now, let's go back to Kato for a moment, concerning those thumps and when they happened. Kato said that he hung up from his call with Rachel pretty quickly after he heard the thumping. He estimated for you two to three minutes. Now, with Allan's cell phone call bill, we can be very, very precise about when that was. He indicated that he went out to investigate the noises, hung up with Rachel, went up to investigate, two to three minutes after he heard the thumping. Al
Allan told you he saw Kato and the defendant at about I'm saying the defendant. He said ``The man that looked like the defendant.'' You understand. I'm talking about what we know based on all of the evidence. It was him ten fifty-four he saw Kato, approximately, because it was at the same he saw the defendant, and he hung up 30 seconds after seeing him walk in the house and after seeing Kato on the side yard.
So at 10:54, Kato was out in the side yard. Hearing the thumping noises two to three minutes before that means that he heard the thumping on his wall at 10:51 to 10:52. So what we have about two minutes after the thumping, the defendant was walking up was walking into his house from the driveway and Kato out in the side yard. In other words, we have the thumping and Kato walking out and the defendant walking out around at the same time. And the thumping happened very shortly, within half an hour, of the murders.
And the defense would have you believe, ladies and gentlemen, that the defendant's appearance on the driveway just two minutes after the thumping on Kato's wall is a coincidence. And the defense would have you believe that the thumping and the appearance of that glove the defendant's glove were unrelated events.
And the thumps themselves just think about that. Regardless of where or how they happened, just the fact that they happened shortly after the murders at the defendant's house and just before the defendant walked up his driveway in dark clothing like the dark blue or black sweat outfit that Kato described you just put those facts together and you realize what has happened.
The defendant came back from Bundy in a hurry. Ron Goldman upset his plans, and things took a little longer than anticipated. He ran back behind the house, that dark, narrow south pathway. You all saw it. You were there in daytime, but imagine how dark it is at night. That dark, narrow south pathway thinking he could get rid of the gloves, knife, in that dirt area in the back. You recall back behind the guest houses there's a dirt area. It's just all dirt, not very well tended.
But he was in a hurry. He was moving quickly down a dark, narrow pathway overhung with trees, strewn with leaves, and in his haste, he ran right into that air conditioner that was hanging over that south pathway. And running into that air conditioner caused him to fall against the wall making the wall of Kato's room shake. You recall that air conditioner. It was hanging low. You had to stoop to get down under it, and if you're in a hurry and you're not looking where you're going in that dark, narrow pathway, you can see how it can easily happen, how some one in a hurry can do that.
And it was just as simple as that. Simple common sense tells you that the thumping, the glove, and the defendant's appearance on the driveway almost immediately thereafter are all part one set of events, all connected in time and space. You don't need science to tell you that; you just need reason and logic.
Your Honor?
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take our recess for the morning session at this time. Please remember all my admonitions to you. Do not discuss the case amongst yourselves. Don't form any opinions about the case. Don't form any don't conduct any deliberations until the matter has been actually submitted to you. Do not allow anybody to communicate with you with regard to the case. We'll stand in recess until 1:30. All right?
BAILIFF: Please clear the courtroom.
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: The closing arguments have begun. Marcia Clark beginning with thanking the jury for their service, then turning to the reasonable doubt instruction and turning to Mark Fuhrman very early on in the argument, and then, finally, getting to the evidence itself, dealing with her strengths the time line. And Marcia Clark being very mindful of the clock. Her strengths came to the fore just in these closing moments before the luncheon recess, when she talked about what the defense would have the jury believe dealing with the amazing amount of coincidences, which, of course, is said with sarcasm. And finally dealing with the fact that when she appeals to the jury, she talks to them about one set of events dealing with reason and logic, a very powerful place for her to take the luncheon break.
[Court TV break]
[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 156 - Part 1
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right. Let the record reflect that we've been rejoined by all the members of our jury panel. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
JURY MEMBERS: [in unison] Good afternoon.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. Ms. Clark, are you prepared to proceed?
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Yes, Your Honor. Thank you.
Judge LANCE ITO: You may resume.
MARCIA CLARK: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
JURY MEMBERS: [in unison] Good afternoon.
MARCIA CLARK: All right. When we left off, I was talking about the occurrence of the thumping, the glove's appearing the glove's dropping on the walk the south pathway and the defendant's appearance on the driveway within a couple minutes of each other. Now, while Allan Park was speaking to the defendant on the intercom, at that time, Kato, who realized that who wasn't worried about Allan being left outside, went over to the south pathway and looked down the gate.
[to audio-visuals assistant] Can we get 66-D back? [to jury] We'll put up that diagram again so you can orient yourself because it's hard to talk about this in the abstract. OK. [to audio-visuals assistant] Can we back out just a little bit more? A little bit more. There we go.
[to jury] And the south pathway, if you recall, is at the bottom-most edge, below where that area marked ``Garage'' is. You might recall. And he said that he went over to that area, looked down there, went through the first gate, went as far as the second gate, but that flashlight was very dim, and he was worried, and he was scared, and he didn't want to go any farther. So he looked down there, but it was dark, and he didn't want to go any farther. He said that he could not see the portion of the pathway that was right outside the wall of his room where he'd heard the thumping. It was too dark, and he came back out without going actually any farther on the pathway. When he came back out, he realized that Allan Park was still waiting outside the gate. Now, this is after he, Allan, has spoken to the defendant on the intercom. And when he realized that the defendant had not yet buzzed Allan in, he went and he let him in.
Now, let me ask you this why didn't the defendant let Allan Park drive in to the driveway? Why leave him sitting out there at the gate? Why make him wait outside? Because the defendant was frazzled, ladies and gentlemen. He was hurried, and he needed to buy some time time to wash himself up, wash off the blood, change the clothes and to compose himself to appear normal, to appear calm, business as usual. So he bought himself that time, and he did not let Allan in, and when he came down When the defendant came downstairs, he had changed clothes no longer the dark clothing that Kato had described him in earlier that evening. He was wearing stone-washed denim jeans, denim shirt, and carrying a garment bag. You remember that Louis Vitton [sp] garment bag that's here in evidence.
Allan estimated that the defendant came downstairs dressed like that, carrying the garment bag about five to six minutes after he spoke to him on the intercom. I think Allan Park's words were ``a good five minutes, could have been longer.'' This was an estimate by him. But before the defendant actually came down, Kato went to let Allan Park in the gate, let him in, and he immediately told Allan about the thumping noises he had heard. He asked him, ``Did you feel an earthquake?'' the same thing he asked Rachel Ferrara, if you recall. She told him she hadn't. Allan said the same thing, ``I didn't feel an earthquake.''
Now, Kato was clearly upset, clearly distracted and upset by that thumping noise he had heard. In fact, as you recall, he went to check that south pathway twice once before he let Allan in, and then a second time after he let Allan in because he had the conversation with Allan Park, asked him about the earthquake, if he had felt it, told him about the thumping noises, I think said he told him, or he was thinking anyway, that it might have been a prowler. And after he let Allan in, he felt safer, and he went back to check the south pathway again, again with that dim flashlight, and didn't get any farther than he did the last time and still wasn't able to see as far as the area where his room was, and it was still very dark back there. And he gave up.
But so Kato was concerned enough to check that south pathway twice, talk to his girlfriend Rachel about it, saying, ``Call the police if you don't hear from me,'' talked to Allan Park about it, and he talked to the defendant about it. The defendant came downstairs, and he started talking to him ``Did you hear that? Did you feel an earthquake? I'm really worried. I thought I heard this thumping on my wall. I'm really concerned about this.'' He's really worried about it, and what does the defendant do? The defendant never went out to the south pathway to check what might have gone on back there, to check for the sound of the source of the thumping. The defendant never called Westec Security, nor did he ever tell Kato to call Westec Security. The defendant never called the police, nor did he tell Kato to call the police. In fact, he left without even setting the alarm and had to call Kato from the airport to tell him to set the alarm, something he had never done before.
Now, having heard about the thumping noises from Kato, hearing Kato's concern about it, how Kato was trying to figure out why that happened or what was the source of it and being very worried about it, knowing that he was going out of town, his daughter Arnelle staying on the property and would be there alone with Kato, he did nothing to check on the source of the thumping. He did none of the things you'd expect someone to do under those circumstances, that is someone who didn't already know what caused the thumping. But you see he did. He knew. So of course, he was unconcerned. He knew it was no prowler. Certainly, we knew it's no earthquake because he knew the thumps were caused by him bumping into the wall, and so he didn't have to be worried that Arnelle was going to be in danger, or even Kato in danger, or his home in danger because it was not a question for him. It was something he knew about, and he acted like someone who already knew what the source of those sounds were. Unconcerned.
Now, back to loading up the car. Allan and Kato described how they loaded up the bags, all except one. You may recall that there was testimony about a small, dark bag that was on the edge of the driveway by the Bentley. And Kato, as they were loading up the bags, offered to go and get that bag for him ``I'll go get that for you.'' The defendant said, ``No, no, no, no, no! I'll get it.'' And the testimony was that all of the bags were loaded by either Kato or Allan Park except for that one, and after the defendant walked towards it, after saying, ``No, I'll get it,'' after he walked towards it, no one ever saw that little, black, dark bag again. Nor have we ever found the knife the defendant used, nor have we ever found the clothes that he wore during the murder, nor have we ever found the shoes that he wore during the murder. And it's so typical and so common. They get rid of the murder weapon, they think that's it, can't get me, home free.
But you see, as you've seen, it's not that easy. Evidence was left behind, so we don't need the murder weapon because we have much, much more proof than that. Now, while they were loading the bags, Allan, as I told you before, saw the defendant go out to the Rockingham gate, where he saw where we saw that the Bronco was parked. Now I referred to this earlier that the defendant told Dr. Baden that he had cut his hand while getting the cell phone out of the Bronco. I'm going to show you why that does not explain all his blood in that car, and I'm going to show you that he did not receive that cut on his finger from the cell phone.
Now, the defendant stood in the foyer talking to Kato for a few moments. [to audio-visual assistant] Can we get a photograph of that? [to jury] And that's when he dripped blood. You see the little marker in that photograph. But after he came downstairs, the testimony went he never upstairs. Kato stood with him. Kato was talking to him. Kato went inside the foyer with him, went towards the kitchen at one point looking for a flashlight, you may recall, because Kato was asking the defendant for a better flashlight to go and look down that south pathway. Kato was standing by him, but the defendant was moving around the cars getting things loaded up. But no one ever testified that he went back upstairs. And I think that it was Kato's testi I think Kato only testified to going into the house with the defendant once and that was to get the flashlight. And they had also a conversation at that time about setting the alarm, when Kato said, ``I don't want to set the alarm. I don't want the responsibility. I don't know the code.'' And the defendant said at that time, ``OK, I'll set it.'' And then he forgot and called him from the airport.
Now, Allan Park indicated, I think, that he saw the defendant go in and out of the house a couple of times, but he never brought any more bags out. He only brought one bag out with him, and that was the garment bag as he came downstairs the first time. That was the only time he saw him bring a bag out. But Allan Park was busy loading the limo, and he was not watching the defendant carefully. Kato was hanging by the defendant. Kato was asking him, talking to him about the thumping, and he was trying to get his attention about something he was very concerned about because he was going to be left on that property alone with whatever caused that thumping noise. Kato didn't know. So he was talking to the defendant. He was asking for the flashlight, and he was talking to him about setting the alarm. And so Kato was the one who was more carefully tracking where the defendant was going, and Kato talked to him about what I told you the flashlight and the alarm.
Now, the defendant left, and when he left, as you know, he didn't set the alarm. While he was in the limousine, he asked the limousine driver to turn on the air conditioning. He complained repeatedly of being very hot. He rolled the windows down ``Boy, it's hot. Boy, it's hot.'' You have the weather report, and it'll indicate to you it was a cool night. The defendant kept complaining about being hot ``Man, I'm hot''' rolled down the windows, turned on the air conditioning. I asked Allan Park, ``Were you hot that night?'' ``No.'' I asked Kato, ``Were you hot that night?'' ``No, it was a cool night.''
Now, I said I'd show you that the defendant did not get that big cut on his middle finger from that cell phone when he went to get it from the Bronco. Let me show you something. [pause while exhibit is displayed] You recall the testimony that blood was collected from the bathroom upstairs. That's just off the defendant's bedroom. And the blood is found very It's found basically in between the sink and shower in the defendant's bathroom. The defendant was bleeding in his bathroom when he was cleaning and changing his clothes. Obviously. That was before he went down to the limo, ladies and gentlemen, before he ever went to the Bronco. He already had that cut by the time he got downstairs. He got it long before he went out to that Bronco to get that cell phone.
So, since we know he was bleeding upstairs in his own bathroom and before he went down to the limo, how come there weren't any bloodstains on the staircase? Obviously, he didn't fly, and just as obviously he also bled downstairs. I show you that foyer picture. You've see that quite a number of times with the blood spots on the floor. So he left blood downstairs as well. There are two possible reasons and we didn't see photographs of blood spots on the staircase. Number one they were there and they were missed. Seems doubtful because it's a light carpet, light color carpet. Blood should show. But it's possible. Or, two, the cut temporarily stopped bleeding. As you may remember, Dr. Huizenga testified that a cut will bleed, clot up, re-bleed, and I'm sure that wasn't news to you. I mean, that's life experience that's common to all of us. You've cut yourself, you'll bleed for a while, and then maybe your hand will be still, and then you'll re-bleed if you exercise it or you rub it against something, you irritate it somehow. But in any case, by the time the defendant got downstairs with the garment bag and started loading up the limo, the cut was temporarily sealed.
Now, here's the interesting thing about the blood trail on his driveway and the blood in the foyer. When you take into account the blood in the bathroom, doesn't it make sense that he actually reopened the cut while he was moving around getting ready to go? You know you have the blood in the bathroom before he gets down to the limo. So he was already bleeding. You know that you don't have blood spots in between the bathroom and the foyer, so at some point the bleeding stopped before he left his bedroom. But you do know that you have more blood downstairs. You have blood leading out to the Bronco.
Now, Allan Park told you that he saw the defendant go out toward the Rockingham gate as they were preparing to leave, and you know that the defendant told Dr. Baden that he went out to the Bronco to get his cell phone from the car. Now, although we don't know for a fact based on photographs that he certainly did not receive that cut on some razor-sharp cell phone, it certainly does make sense that when he went out to get the phone he opened the door to the Bronco, and his knuckle grazed the well of the door handle, reopening the cut.
[to audio-visual assistant] May I have the Bronco door? [to jury] You see where that where the spot is? Dennis Fung is holding up the number one. You see that little speck there. Picture yourself at the door at the car. OK. And you're up to the driver's door. What hand do you use to open the door? Your left. Especially one like that where you have to push the button in to open the door. Using his left hand, in which case, this middle knuckle is going to graze that door, in which case a cut that has just temporarily sealed seconds or maybe minutes earlier is going to get irritated and re-bleed. Now, this is just common sense, but when you open a car door, obviously, you need to use the handle. When you close a car door, you don't. How do you close a car door? Slam. Very simple. So by the time he opened the door, before he reached in and got the cell phone, that cut was bleeding again. You have him bleeding before he comes down to the limo up in his bathroom. You have him going down to the Bronco and opening the door. But either way you look at it, he's already bleeding before he gets the cell phone. And that's shown to you by photographs.
Now, consider this possibility he opened the car door, grazing his knuckle on that door, reopening the cut, and after getting the cell phone out, walks back up the driveway dripping blood, walks into the foyer, talks to Kato about getting a flashlight that's better or stronger than the one he's got, talks to him about setting the alarm, and while he's talking to him, he's standing in the foyer.
[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 156 - Part 11
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: [in progress] Walks into the foyer, talks to Kato about getting a flashlight that's better or stronger than the one he's got, talks to him about setting the alarm, and while he's talking to him he's standing in the foyer. All right, he's standing in that foyer can we get the close-up? All right. Now, you see those two drops down to the left of the number 12? It's kind of faint on this picture. You're going to have the pictures back in the jury room and think they'll be better and clearer for you than this is. Those are big drops. Those are big blood drops, folks. Not the kind you see from that little slice that Dr. Baden showed you on the defendant's finger.
Now, we've all been living in this world for a while, and you know that when you get big drops of blood that's from a big cut. You're not going to cut yourself on a little get a little slice, almost looking like a small slice on the inside of that finger and drip blood like that. It just makes this is common sense stuff, just very logical. Those drops came from a big cut, and we're talking about this cut on the middle finger.
Now, did the defendant notice at that point that he was bleeding? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he did put something small on it, get ready to go, let's go. But in the rush of getting ready to leave, Kato, who's worried about a burglar back there, Allan Park, who's worried about getting to the airport on time, no one's paying attention to Mr. Simpson's hands. The finger his finger is not the foremost thing that they're worried about here.
Now, about the blood on the outside of the car door. I want to make one thing clear. I'm not saying that the blood could only have gotten on the well of that door handle at Rockingham
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Excuse me, Counsel. Forgive me for interrupting you. Let me see counsel at the sidebar with the court reporter, please.
RIKKI KLIEMAN, Anchor: While the attorneys are at the sidebar, interestingly enough Barry Scheck seemed to be the first person to arrive with his characteristic gesture of pointing his finger, but it looked like it wasn't his idea to go there in the first place. I'm here with Art Danner, a frequent guest at Court TV, someone who is the district attorney of Santa Clara excuse me, Santa Cruz County. And as a D.A., as an assistant D.A., you have tried hundreds upon hundreds of murder cases, and in looking at this kind of closing argument by Marcia Clark, as a prosecutor, and the minute detail that we are going into point by point, I would think we could anticipate that this will a really lengthy closing, much more lengthy than I thought it would be.
ART DANNER, Criminal Defense Attorney: Well, I think if she continues in this mode there's no question about it. One of the things that I have noticed in her arguments is that she seems to be emphasizing every place she can where there's some statement by the defendant that she believes the facts, the particular facts and the specific facts will help disprove.
RIKKI KLIEMAN: OK. We're going to take a commercial break at this time and we will be right back.
[commercial break]
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor: And as you can see, the attorneys are still at the sidebar there. It's puzzling why they're there. It's one of those things that you can't tell and quite often can't tell after they leave. It did appear that perhaps Barry Scheck led the way up there and whatever it is it's been resolved and so we'll just listen.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right. In fact, ladies and gentlemen, let me ask you to step back into the jury room for just a moment.
FRED GRAHAM: Welcome back, I'm Fred Graham. Rikki Klieman has been with you for the first few minutes after the lunch break. I'm with you now and I'm looking forward to being with you for the quiet considerable time that we expect these closing arguments to extend right now.
Now, Art Danner, you've been around a long time. I'm told that we're going back in the courtroom. Perhaps now it will be explained what the issue is.
Judge LANCE ITO: Reflect that the jury has withdrawn from the courtroom. Counsel, as I mentioned to you at sidebar, the reason that I interrupted Ms. Clark and Ms. Clark, forgive me for the interruption but while I was taking my notes here on your argument I noticed that the television camera panned along the defense counsel table and, Mr. Cochran, did a close-up of your client taking notes. And it's not appropriate for the television camera to be going along sidebar close enough that one can see what people are writing in their notes, and that's not appropriate. And I thought it would not be necessary to tell the television coverage that that's not appropriate, but apparently it's necessary to tell them that it's not appropriate. And it's a very flagrant violation and intrusion into the attorney-client privilege, and I'm inclined to terminate the coverage at this time. All right. So, Mr. Bancroft, I'm going to direct you to turn the camera to the seal and the television coverage is terminated.
FRED GRAHAM: And obviously a very startling announcement by Judge Lance Ito. Those of you who were watching could see what we could see from this vantage point. It did appear that although the defendant could be seen taking notes, I have never seen a time when any of the people who were sitting at the counsel table there, that their notes could be read in any way. I don't know why it is that Judge Ito concluded that simply because the defendant could be seen to be writing that you could what he was writing.
ART DANNER: Well, it's hard to believe at this point because none of the defense counsel objected and said anything. This was on judge's own accord. And so at this point from what I could see, you couldn't see what he was writing. And you would it's little surprising. You would expect him to ask those kinds of questions to see, review the tape for a minute, to see if in fact
FRED GRAHAM: May I interrupt you here?
ART DANNER: Sure.
FRED GRAHAM: We are reviewing tape and we're going to show it here to our viewers. But go ahead with your point because you're making what appears to be quite a valid point, and we're going to check it out in a moment.
ART DANNER: And I think that at that point, if they were really concerned you would have seen the defense attorneys object and then ask and the judge ask to run the tape to see, in fact, if you could see what he was writing to see if it had been a particular infringement upon that attorney-client privilege.
FRED GRAHAM: You know, it if it appears as I saw it we do have the videotape. It is now cued up. We're going to have a look at it here and then we will be able to see what perhaps Judge Lance Ito couldn't see, and that is we cannot see, of course, now whether anyone here is taking notes. It does pull back now. O.J. Simpson is seen to be taking notes. His hands there are shown. He's tearing off some piece of paper. Each of you can judge for yourself whether any person could have been able to read what was seen there. I think Judge Ito has a monitor where he can see what's on the screen there, and there was a movement in there toward O.J. Simpson's hands. I can't believe that Judge Ito himself could read what was there because I, clearly, couldn't.
ART DANNER: Well, Fred, I'm thinking there's one other point here, and that is, there's been a lot of criticism of the fact that he allowed TV cameras in the first place. And it may be that at this point being sensitive to that kind of criticism over the time that this was the just the provoking reason for him to decide that he's going to show everyone that, at least in this instance, he's not going allow anything close to any kind of infringement on the attorney-client situation. But from what you could see on those pictures, it's very clear that they were looking at what O.J. was doing with his hands and there wasn't really anything you could see that was written that would have disclosed anything. And it looked like he tore up a piece of the paper and that's it.
FRED GRAHAM: You know, Art, you started to say something you said, at this point. It seems to me that this point is an almost incredibly inopportune time to suspend television coverage after all of these all of these of months of having coverage. I mean, we've passed the volatile stage, we've passed the stage where perhaps emotions wore thin and anger arose. And here we are at the end when ration rationality and reason is supposed to assert itself and, in fact, that's obviously the approach that Marcia Clark is taking, and, you know, in many ways this is the part the public really should see. They should see how, at least from her point of view, she makes it all hang together. And the public is going to have to judge the result of this trial. If they don't get to see all this, how is isn't it going to be more difficult for the public to know if what results from the jury deliberations are justified by the facts.
ART DANNER: Well, that certainly would be the argument, and I would think that the judge ought to reconsider here, especially if he later reconsiders and they show all of the defense argument and not all of the prosecution argument. And I think it's very important for people to see how the prosecutors think about the evidence that they've introduced in a way of tying it together in their final argument. This is a critical part of the case for people out there to understand just exactly what their theory is and they thought they did prove it. And it's the same with the defense. And so I would agree with you, at this juncture it really is incumbent on the judge, it would seem to me, to think it through and think, is this a serious violation, is there any violation, and should be the point at which you suspend TV coverage?
FRED GRAHAM: You know, Judge Ito has a bit of a track record in this case of snap judgment which are questionable and which he himself has questioned after the fact. There've been several instances where he has suddenly said something, made a decision, taken some action, and I can recall early in the trial he came back the next day and said quite candidly, you know, I've slept on this and I'm changing my mind. I think we've just seen him do something that later he may not fess up to but I think he'll wish maybe he had thought about that a little bit longer before he did that.
ART DANNER: Well, the mark, in my mind, of a good judge, a good jurist, is to consider, reflect upon something that he or she has decided during a case and if they think they've been wrong, to have the ability to come back and the capacity to change their mind. And so I think that that's a positive trait. But on the other side, you don't need to be, and you shouldn't be, so quick at the throttle. And, of course, this problem is just underlined by the fact that this case is unprecedented and so as a result there's a lot of pressure on this judge because he's receiving a lot of criticism about the way he's handling the case, and I suspect you just saw some of that maybe portrayed here in the decision that he made, very snap decision, as you say.
FRED GRAHAM: Well, I want to assure our viewers that we will in some manner raise the issues that we've been discussing here with Judge Ito at the first opportunity. That first opportunity may be the next time court takes one of its breaks in the course of the closing arguments. I can assure you that if not before we will certainly raise it through attorneys or in some other manner and we'll attempt to we certainly will bring to his attention if he'll listen to us, our point of view and the points of view that you hear expressed here.
We're going to take a commercial break at that point and then we'll be back with more after this message.
[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 156 - Part 12
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: [in progress] members of our jury panel.
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor: And Judge Lance Ito is now back on the bench and we'll listen.
Judge LANCE ITO: My apologies to you for those interruptions and my apologies to Ms. Clark for having interrupted her train of thought there. A couple of things happened that I needed to deal with immediately and I apologize to you for the disruption in the thought process.
We will go through, at this point, until five o'clock and then we'll take our mid-afternoon recess. However, I realize that since we're having extended hours, one or two of you may have a need for a comfort break. So, if you do, just raise your hand, get the bailiff's attention and we'll take a quick five or ten-minute break if you need to during the longer hours.
Ms. Clark.
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Thank you, Your Honor. Good afternoon. OK, so now, we've talked about conduct. We've talked about opportunity and timing, let's talk about the physical evidence. I'm not going to do it in the detail you've already heard it, heaven forbid. But although you've already seen, with the opportunity evidence, with the conduct evidence, we already have evidence to show you that the defendant did commit these murders, without even really getting into the physical evidence. And once you see the vast array of physical evidence, you can see that there's virtually an ocean of evidence to prove that this defendant committed these murders.
What all of it does, all of this evidence, is it links the defendant to the victims and the crime scene at Bundy. Now, the defense has gone to great lengths to try and to show that they could discredit this evidence. And the lengths that they have included have been some of the most bizarre and far-fetched notions I think I have ever heard. They've hinted that blood was planted. They've tried to create the impression that multiple other bloodstains were contaminated and that somehow, all the contamination only occurred where it would consistently prove the defendant was guilty.
So, now the little amplicons [sp], the little DNA, they're co-conspirators too, because they know they've got to rush to only the places where you can attribute the blood to the murderer. When you think about that, just think about that one point logically, OK? Obviously, it's common sense. If contamination is going on, you're going to see it going on all over the place. As a matter of fact, if what they're saying is true with this aerosol effect, flying DNA all over the place, then Mr. Simpson's blood type ought to be showing up in other cases, somewhere you know somewhere out or down in another department in a rape case, Mr. Simpson's type should be showing up, because it's everywhere. Or even just to confine it to this case.
Let's talk about that. How come, if the argument is that his blood is flying all over the place, his DNA is flying all over the place, why didn't we find his blood type showing up where it obviously shouldn't be? What I mean is this. They took samples from the pool of blood by Nicole's body. They took samples of blood that was near Ron Goldman's body. Obviously, the blood came from them, because they were lying there. And then, of course, you have the blood drops leading away from the crime scene. That had to be left by the killer. There's no question about that. That was left by the killer because they're next to the bloody shoe prints. So you know.
Why is it that the sample of blood that they took from her pool of blood didn't come up with the defendant's blood type, if the defendant's blood type DNA is flying all over the place, it's flying all over the place. Then it ought to be all over the place. Why isn't it in the pool of blood sample that was taken from Nicole Brown? Why isn't it in the pool of blood sample that was taken from near Ron Goldman's body? Logic, common sense. It ought to be there. The DNA, the amphlicons, those little things, they don't know where to go. They don't they're not guided. Contamination's a random thing, happens willy-nilly. And what you have here is they're trying to get you to believe that only the killer's blood was contaminated, and it was consistently contaminated with only the defendant's blood type. Does this make any sense to you?
What you ought to have, if you have contamination, if you've got a problem here, is that some of the blood drops come back to the defendant and some don't. They come back to the real killer. That's what you ought to get, because it can't be this consistent. If you had one blood drop in this case, ladies and gentlemen, you know, you might be concerned, with all of these possibilities they've raised. But you have so many you have so many you've got five blood drops leading away from the bodies of the victims out to the drive-way, and you've got the blood on the rear gate. And I that's the other part of their scenario that makes no sense, no sense.
You have all these police officers that were there on June the 13th. Officer Riske, saying his partner, a young rookie named Officer Terrasas [sp], shined his light on the rear gate to show him the blood on the rear gate. You have Officer Riske seeing the blood on the rear gate. You have Officer Rossi seeing the blood on the rear gate. You have Detective Phillips seeing the blood on the rear gate, all of it early on. Dennis Fung, whom you can see, is not the model of efficiency, forgot to collect it. And from this, we get a theory that seems to they seem to imply that the blood was planted. Why do they say that?
Now, first of all, I want to hear Mr. Cochran actually stand up in front of you and tell you he believes the blood was planted. I want to hear that. Because that is incredible. That is absolutely incredible. When you think about that, think, what evidence have you been given to show you how that blood was planted, to show you when that blood was planted, to show you who planted that blood.
Now, the reason that they have to come up with this story about contamination and planted, and I want to hear if they really, really do that, say that to you, is because they can't get around the result. You recall Doctor Gerdes testified for the defense and he said that the DNA testing that allowed for RFLP, the most powerful of the techniques of DNA, was successful on the rear gate because that blood had higher molecular weight DNA. From the fact that you have higher molecular weight DNA on blood collected later, July 3rd, they want you to infer that somehow it was planted. But they're inconsistent, because if you remember now, if you plant the blood, aren't you going to plant it close to the time you collect it? What are you going to do, plant it and hope somebody finds it later? You plant it when you expect someone to find it. Right?
When they have the EDTA going on, you have all these cross-examination questions about EDTA breaking down due to sunlight exposure. There's no proof that that happens, by the way, as you could tell and they did not test to prove that that happens, by the way. It would be nice. If they want to prove that, do a little testing. You've got the expert right there. Why didn't he do any tests, by the way? But he didn't do any, OK?
So, they're asking about EDTA breaking down in the sunlight, trying to infer that it was there for three weeks, that the blood was there for three weeks. If the blood was there for three weeks, it wasn't planted folks. It was there on the night of the murder. That's what I mean by inconsistent, illogical, this makes no sense.
If you're going to say that the blood was planted, then you're going to say that it was planted at or near the time of collection, in which case, the EDTA would not break down, in which case the EDTA should be intact, in which case you should see the kind of high, smooth arc that the graphs showed you from the reference tubes, instead of the jagged noise that you actually saw. And they brought in Doctor Reiders to try and tell you that that jagged noise looks just like that high arc, which is ridiculous, which is insulting to your intelligence.
But the reason that they have to say this, defying logic, defying common sense, is because, ladies and gentlemen, his blood on the rear gate with that match that makes him 1 in 57 billion people that could have left that blood I mean, there's what? There's five billion people on the planet? That mean's you'd have to go through 57 billion people to find the DNA profile that matches Mr. Simpson's. There's only five billion people on the planet. Ladies and gentlemen, that's an identification, OK? That proves it's his blood, nobody else's on the planet, no one. Now, they know that.
Now, the blood on the socks Nicole's blood on the socks again, RFLP match very powerful, showed from Cellmark, that was a five-probe match, I believe, found to be 1 in 6.8 billion people. Again, more than there are people on the planet, identification. An 11 probe match by DOJ, showed that it was 1 in 7.7 billion people. Again, her blood and only her's on this planet, could be on that sock. Now how do you get around that? It wasn't wrong and they couldn't find an expert who would say it was contaminated, because there's too much DNA. That is the blood. That type is the type. It is her blood. How do you get around that? And if you know that that's true, if you know it's her blood on his socks that they find on the morning of June the 13th, that alone, with the rear gate stain, convicts him. You can't believe otherwise. You have so much proof now, how do they get around that? They have to find a theory to get around that, and what do they do? This is what they come up with.
So, if it's low in volume DNA, it's contaminated. If it's high volume DNA, it's planted and it's also very convenient and ridiculous. Now, their experts had access to all of the evidence in this case. Their experts could have come in and shown you how the evidence got contaminated got contaminated not possibly. Remember, I talked to you about mere possibility? No, did, did get contaminated. And they could have come in here and told you and pointed out the evidence that showed why only the blood drops left by the murderer got contaminated and shown you why they consistently and only got contaminated that showed the defendant's DNA type, not that they possibly could have. Yes, possibly we're all sitting on Mars right now, you know, and I'm from Venus and I'm talking anything's possible.
Let's talk about what did happen. Let's talk about what we've got. They could have shown you proof that the Bundy blood drops were contaminated, not the mere possibility. No, I'm talking about evidence that gives you a reason to conclude that that happened and that they never could do. And they could have done it if it were true. But they didn't. And not one expert they brought in on the DNA did even one test on the blood evidence, the evidence that we have that proves to you that the defendant committed these murders, not one, with all those experts you saw. And the reason for that, ladies and gentlemen, is that it isn't true.
The blood on the Bundy trail comes back to the defendant because it's his blood. The blood on the rear gate comes back to the defendant because it's blood he left there on the night of the murders.
So, they took you through all this tortured and twisted road, one moment saying that the police are all a bunch of bumbling idiots, the next moment, they're clever conspirators. And now, ask yourself, did they ever prove who planted, when, how? And it's a fact that the defense doesn't have to prove anything. That's a fact. But once they do decide to put on a case, once they decide to try and prove something, their witnesses are subject to the same scrutiny as the People's witnesses are. Your jury instruction, as I've told you, makes no distinction.
It's up to them to do the best job that they can to make their point. And I think a good example of how they failed to do that miserably in this case, is the EDTA that preservative that you find in the purple-topped tube. They've got to make you believe that blood was planted. It's the cornerstone of their defense. It really is, because as I've pointed out, if you know that's his blood left on the rear gate, if you know that's her blood on her socks, what are you left to conclude?
Now, what do they do to show you, to prove to you the cornerstone of their defense? What do they do? They take our tests, our tests, and they have some other expert who neither did the test himself nor could, come in and try and interpret those graphs for you. Not only that, but he does it inconsistently. He writes a report, if you recall, he wrote a report in which he said he found one parent ion and one daughter ion, not the full daughter spectrum that would permit identification of EDTA. But the same finding one parent ion, one daughter ion that Mr. Martz said he found in his own blood, in his own non-preserved blood, which tends to prove no, which does prove that the blood on the rear gate, the blood on the socks, are just like Agent Martz' unpreserved blood, natural blood, not from a preservative tube.
So, what do they do with that? Here's what happened. Doctor Reiders wrote that report and he said the blood on the sock, the blood on the gate, one parent ion, one daughter ion. He wrote that report, I believe, on July 17th. A few days after he wrote the report, he found out that Agent Martz had just done the test on his own blood and come up with the same result he got on the sock and the gate very, very low noise readings and only two of the tree ions he should have found which leads you to understand that it was unpreserved blood.
Well, now he's got to do something about that. He has to answer that contradiction. Because now what we've got is he can't address this. We have proven conclusively it was not EDTA blood. He's got to do something to make his testimony weave its way around. So he gets up on the stand for the very first time on this witness stand, he makes a new conclusion, and now he says, ``I find a peak that shows the second daughter ion on the sock.'' ``Doctor Reiders, what happened between the time of your report and your testimony?'' ``Did you do some tests?'' ``No.'' ``Did you do some experiments.'' ``No.'' ``Well, are there some new graphs?'' Yes, Agent Martz' blood, not new graphs on the sock, Agent Martz' blood. He had to change his testimony to encompass evidence that refuted his conclusion completely. But what they gave you is somebody who did not one test, with access to all the evidence, he tested nothing. They have the experts to do the tests, they did nothing? They have the experts to do experiments to prove things they want to prove about it. Nothing. That's the cornerstone of their defense, ladies and gentlemen, they did nothing.
Now, what does that tell you? What that tells you is, they know this is not EDTA blood.
Saying it's so, doesn't make it so. Having a lawyer stand up in front of you and say something, no matter how often it's said, doesn't mean it's true. I include myself in this. You know, I only argue what the facts show, what I believe the facts have shown and any reasonable inferences that you can draw from them. That is all. I cannot stand before you and tell you something that is false, that is untrue. You need to go with what is true, with the evidence, with what we have, and the reasonable common sense deductions that you make from that evidence. I don't ask you to take my word for anything. That's why we present evidence. That's why we call witnesses.
If it isn't in the record or it doesn't make sense to you as a logical inference from what you've heard, reject it. I don't care who says it, reject it. But do the same for the defense. Hold me to that standard. Hold them to that standard.
When you hear them try to tell you that all of this evidence was either contaminated or planted, ask yourself, does this really make sense? What evidence was I given to prove that? Is there any evidence that really shows that? Or is it smoke and mirrors? Is it all the smoke to cloud everything, cloud all the issues, distract you? Take a little piece here, take a little piece there. It kind of reminds me of that story about all these guys that are blindfolded and each one goes to a different end of an elephant. One grabs the tail, and he says, ``Feels like a rope.'' And the other guy grabs the trunk, and he says, ``Feels like a fire hose.'' And another guy grabs a leg and says, ``Feels like a tree.'' OK? Not one of them got it right, did they? Take off the blind fold, it's an elephant.
You put all the pieces together, you put the whole picture together, and you can see the truth. But what they have done, systematically, is fragmented the case. This is not new. They did a very good job of it. They're fine lawyers. And they challenged the People's case, as they should, and that's good. Put the State to their proof. That's what we have to do, we have to deliver, that's our job. And we have. But be aware of what's happening here. They're fragmenting. They take little pieces out of context and focus on only a little piece and take a little piece of a picture, focus on only this little piece of the picture and forget about all the rest that puts it all in context. Give Henry Lee second generation photographs that he can't see anything on, instead of the good stuff, the original photographs that would show him what's going on on Bundy walk there.
Now, back to DNA. I'm sorry, I digress. Even when it's analyzed using the PCR method, it's not quite so easily contaminated as the defense would have you believe. As you've learned, it's used every day to save lives and as you've also heard, it's used in very non-sterile conditions. It's used to identify war dead. Now, what does that mean? War dead, soldiers who die in jungles and in deserts. That are not sterile environments, ladies and gentlemen. Those are very dirty environments. But they used PCR testing to identify those soldiers. And why do they do that? So they can notify next of kin. That's a very serious responsibility. You'd better be right. You better be right.
Now, if it's good enough to go in notifying next of kin that their son, their daughter, their husband, their father, has been murdered killed, excuse me, on a battlefield then it better be good and reliable stuff. So, if it's good enough for that, on body parts being recovered from jungles and deserts, it's pretty hearty, pretty durable.
Now, Doctor Lee, the defense expert they gave none of the DNA evidence to examine, who is a forensic experts, approves of DNA testing in criminal cases. Notice they didn't ask him to look at the evidence here. Notice they didn't ask him to tell what he thought of the results in this case, a forensic expert, a criminal expert. They didn't ask him. Who'd they bring in? Doctor Gerdes. Doctor Gerdes, who has admittedly, no experience in forensic cases, came in to tell us about validation studies and dot blots. What what did he do in this case? What forensic, criminal experience does he have? Zip, none. Why do you even use a guy like that in a criminal case, when you've got Doctor Lee? And don't forget Doctor Blake, Doctor Blake who is renowned as a scientist who is one of the foremost experts and leading ones in the forensic use of PCR technology, whom they had watching the testing at DOJ, examined the evidence in this case, took cuttings of the evidence in this case at Cellmark, never sat
[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 156 - Part 13
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: If it's good enough to go and notify next of kin that their son, their daughter, their husband, their father has been murdered killed, excuse me, on a battlefield, then it better be good and reliable stuff. So if it's good enough for that on body parts being recovered from jungles and deserts, it's pretty hardy, pretty durable. Now, Dr. Lee, the defense expert that gave none of the DNA evidence to examine, who is forensic expert, approves of DNA testing in criminal cases. Notice they didn't ask him to look at the evidence here. Notice they didn't ask him to tell what he thought of the results in this case, a forensic expert, a criminal expert. They didn't ask him. Who did they bring in? Dr. Gerdes. Dr. Gerdes, who has admittedly no experience in forensic cases, came in to tell us about validation studies on dot blots. But what did he do in this case? What forensic criminal experience does he have? Zip, none. Why do you even use a guy like that in a criminal case when you've got Dr. Lee? And don't forget Dr. Blake. Dr. Blake, who is renowned as a scientist, who is one of the foremost experts and leading ones in the forensic use of PCR technology, whom they had watching the testing at DOJ, examined the evidence in this case in his case, took cuttings of the evidence in this case at Cellmark, never sat in that blue chair for the defense. Why not? Where was he? If you have evidence to prove that there is something that there is contamination in these samples, you have an expert who is there watching the testing, who is an expert in the field of PCR, does it in criminal cases all the time, he's renowned, you never call him. What sense does that make? What does that tell you about what you've been given here in the nature of the defense? Smoke and mirrors, ladies and gentlemen. And by the way, when DNA degrades, as you've been told, it doesn't turn into someone else's type. You get no result. And you may remember no result, degrade, nothing. You may remember that Dr. Cotton testified she was asked, ``Well, how would a swatch in which DNA is all degraded get contaminated with another person's type? How could that happen?'' She says, ``Well, really they've got to be touching. The swatches would have to come in contact. A swatch of somebody else's type would have to come into physical contact with a swatch where the DNA had completely degraded. She could not envision flying DNA, as they have tried to sell you in the defense, because DNA just doesn't jump or fly. And don't forget, in case you had, we even did prove that their contamination theory was untrue. If you remember, we had a lot of testimony in what we called substraight controls. Now, all the substraight controls are it's really I think you remember it's very simple. You go and you collect a bloodstain from here, and then in order to make sure that the blood type you're going to pick up there isn't the result of something underneath that was already there before the blood came down, you take a little swatch right next to it to show that the ground underneath didn't have any DNA. And we did that. That was done at Bundy next to every bloodstain, systematically done. Now, how do you how do they help you? When you go to test the swatches, the bloodstain swatches and the controls are tested the same way. And if you have contamination, the controls should come up showing DNA. And the controls on the Bundy walk did not. And there you go.
I wanted to go over an instruction with you. This is a long instruction that has particular relevance to this case. It's called this is the instruction about circumstantial and direct evidence. There's a lot of words in this instruction, I must say. Let me first say something to you about direct and circumstantial evidence. This instruction explains them both. I don't know how well. You know, I'm not a big fan of these the way they're written. I think they could be a lot clearer, frankly. But they talk about direct and circumstantial evidence. This one is just circumstantial evidence. You have another instruction that distinguishes between the two. You're told in these instructions that direct and circumstantial evidence are of equal weight. Neither one is better than the other. Now, an example of direct evidence would be an eyewitness, someone who would say, ``I saw him. I saw that.'' We have an eyewitness in Allan Park, OK? His testimony seeing who we the man we know to be defendant walking into the house at Rockingham. Allan Park testified to his observations. That's direct evidence, OK? Circumstantial evidence is evidence that leads you to infer, OK? For example, in this in this case, the blood. The blood at Bundy dripped by the killer next to the bloody shoe prints. It's not direct. Somebody didn't see the murder being committed, didn't see the murderer leaving the scene of the crime, but you have the blood of the murderer left behind. It's kind of like well, and you have the blood on the rear gate that actually identifies Mr. Simpson. That's kind of like a fingerprint, OK? That's circumstantial evidence, as opposed to seeing it. Now, in terms of quality, there's no difference. The law has no favorites. But when you think about it, you think about it logically, circumstantial evidence has a lot of benefits that direct evidence doesn't it. What is that? It gives you a lot of quality assurance. It gives you independent corroborating basis on which to believe that the defendant is guilty. Instead of relying on one person's observation, one person who might be mistaken, who might be tired, who might not have observed very well. You know what happens because you saw it happen in this case. What happens with an eyewitness? They start out saying for example, you know, a robbery, OK? ``I was standing on the street corner. I saw the defendant go over to the woman and grab her purse, OK, purse snatch. OK, cross-examination. ``How far away were you from that woman? Where were you standing? Were they standing in shadow? Do you wear glasses? How much of the defendant's face did you see? Half? Three-quarters? Only a quarter? What kind of hair did he have? What kind of shirt did he wear? What kind of pants did he wear? What color eyes did he have? Did he have a goatee? Did he have a moustache? Did he have a beard?'' and so and so forth. And the witness starts to get torn down. And if that's all you got, that's all you got is that person's observation, it can make you a little unsteady about whether or not you really have enough proof to give you that certainty that you need. Now, contrast that with the following. You have the defendant committing a purse snatch. And what you have is someone who hears the woman scream, sees the back of a man running, and then a few minutes later the defendant is caught three blocks away holding her purse. Assume for a moment that she cannot really identify her attack. You got him with her purse just a few minutes later. A lot of things can be said about how it got to him, but that's circumstantial evidence. But even that circumstantial evidence is not nearly as good. It doesn't come close to what we have in this case. In this case, you have circumstantial evidence of the blood, you have hair and fiber, and you have some of the conduct evidence and the opportunity evidence. You have a wealth of evidence in this case all pointing to one person, the defendant.
Now this instruction. Usually when I see lawyers, they take out one paragraph and they only talk about that one. I'm going to talk about the whole instruction here. OK, it begins in the very first paragraph with the fact of ``finding of guilty as to any crime may not be based on circumstantial evidence unless the proved circumstances are not only, one, consistent with the theory that the defendant is guilty of the crime but, two, cannot be reconciled with any other rational conclusion.'' You'll see the word reasonable, rational throughout these jury instruction because that's what it's all about reason, common sense, logical, rational. All right, now, here's I'm going to jump around between this, and I'm going to come back and forth to this instruction because there's a lot here. But in the third paragraph, this is what I told you about a little bit earlier. If you have two reasonable interpretations remember, I talked to you about I gave you the example of the Bronco that could have been on Ashford or could have been gone completely at the time that Charles Cale was walking his dog. You had two reasonable interpretations from that evidence when he said he couldn't see the Bronco on Rockingham. At the point in time that he testified based on his testimony you had two reasonable conclusions to draw, either that it was not there at all or that it was on Ashford and he didn't see it. When you have two reasonable interpretations, one of which points to guilt and the other to innocence, you adopt the interpretation that points to the innocence and reject that interpretation which points to his guilt. That is when they are equally susceptible of two reasonable interpretations. If, on the other hand, one interpretation of the evidence appears to you to be reasonable and the other to be unreasonable, you must accept the reasonable interpretation and reject the unreasonable. Reasonable, rational. The defense will argue to you many things, inferences that could be drawn, just like the possibilities I talked to you about. Ask yourself are they reasonable, because if they are not, if those inferences are not reasonable, then you are to reject them and accept the reasonable. And that's why I keep referring to common sense, rational, logical.
All right, I'd like to start with hair and fiber. If you remember, Mr. Deedrick testified about the microscopic comparisons of hair and fiber in this case, and when he did so well, first, let me point something out. His testimony was uncontradicted by any other expert. His testimony is not disputed. His conclusions are not disputed. And you know that the hair and fiber evidence was examined by at least two other experts for the defense. Now, when Mr. Deedrick testified, he told you what his conclusions were based solely on what he could see through the microscope. That's all he can tell you about. He did not take into account the results of the DNA testing. He didn't take into account the testimony of Kato or of Allan Park, none of that. He looks through a microscope, so all he can tell you is that the defendant's hair shares the same microscopic characteristics as, for example, the hair in knit cap found at Bundy or the hair found on Ron Goldman's shirt. He can only say it's consistent, shares the same microscopic characteristics. But when you take into account all of the evidence, including the DNA, including the testimony of Kato and Park, including the defendant's opportunity to commit the murders, including his post-homicidal conduct, you know it's his hair, you know, it's that fiber. So now we are going to put it all together. So when I talk to you now about that's the defendant's hair in the cap, I'm talking about not just of Deedrick's testimony. I'm talking about his testimony along with everything else, all the reasonable inferences that you can draw, all the logical conclusions that you come to knowing all that we know in this case.
Now, I'm not going to talk about every conclusion that Mr. Deedrick testified to. Some of them were only testified to give you more information, more background, more knowledge about what you expect to find in this testimony. So let's start what I would like to do is start with the bodies at Bundy and move away from them as the defendant moved away from them after the murders and analyze all of the evidence that was left behind from that perspective. And just so you know, I will show you a couple of photographs from the crime scene, but I'm not going to put up any coroner's pictures. I've seen enough of that for a while. So when I describe the wounds from the coroner and that sort of thing, I'm just going to describe them. You're not going to see pictures from me. You can see them back in the jury room if you like. All right, let's start with the knit cap. Can we get the Bundy board? Your Honor, can I with the knit cap I think we have to cut the feed. Thank you.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, Mr. Bancroft [sp], this has remains on it.
MARCIA CLARK: OK, again, this is an argument board. You're not going to get it back in the jury room. This is just for me to talk to you and show you stuff with. It's too low. Raise it up a little.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, 230. Can you see it now?
MARCIA CLARK: All right, the knit cap. You can barely see it under the plant here? This is a position in which it was found. Now you can see how the defendant could miss it under the dark. It's underneath that plan I'm point to right here, that blue that patch of blue here. On that knit cap, you recall that the well, it's the defendant's hairs. Now, let me refer specifically to Mr. Deedrick's testimony in this regard because what he told us is this. He said they were the hairs that he said were consistent with the defendant's, he found nine inside the cap. And it's clear extrapolating from his testimony, it's clear that nine there were nine, I think, naturally shed hairs, is what he said, not fragments but naturally shed hairs, that he wore the cap from that. Now, what's interesting also is that he talked about fragments that were found inside the cap, hairs of black origin that were not consistent with Mr. Simpson's. And so I asked him, you know, what about those hairs? Well, he said they were treated, chemically treated. How long were they in the cap? Can't tell. They could have been there for years. Because you know, life experience. If you ever had anything knit like that, kind of a loose weave, and you'll have it in evidence, you can check it out, it's going to it's going to get hair in it, and those hairs could stay there for a very long time if it's not washed, if it's not laundered. So that's why I asked the defendant's hairdresser could it have what about the defendant's former wife, Marquerite? Did she treat her hair? What about Arnelle? Did she treat her hair? Those are other possible people that could have worn the cap and whose hair could the fragments, old fragments, could be from. But the nine naturally shed hairs inside the cap that were consistent with the defendant's were different in quality in those because they were not fragments and therefore unlikely to be old. All right, and taking into account that we know, those were his hairs in the cap. He wore the cap. He also found on that cap fiber, and he said it was consistent with the defendant's the carpet from the defendant's Bronco. And he talked to you about the unusual nature of the trilobal cross-section of that fiber, and he showed you photographs of it through the that were taken from the scanning electron microscope. You'll have that back in the jury room if you want to see it. It's very interesting stuff. But what we know, from all we know, that was a fiber from the defendant's Bronco on that cap. Now, that's very important because that actually with that cap we have tied the defendant and his car to the crime scene at Bundy. And now you see, to summarize, on the knit cap we have the defendant's hair and the Bronco fiber from the carpet in his Bronco, and another piece of the puzzle.
Now let's go to Ron's shirt. Now, on Mr. Goldman's shirt we have the defendant's hair and we have the blue-black cotton fiber. Now, of course, the defendant's hair is of obvious significance. Mr. Deedrick was asked whether or not that hair appeared to be the hair that he said was consistent with the defendant's whether it appeared soiled. He said no. That was very important, and that was very important for this reason.
[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 156 - Part 14
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: appear to be the hair that he said was consistent with the defendant's, whether it appeared soiled. He said, ``No.'' That was very important, and that was very important for this reason. If we had simply found hairs of the defendant in the soil of that area in Bundy where Ron Goldman was lying, we probably would not think that was a big deal. Why? He visited the place, he was there pick up the children, leave the children, and that there might be stray hairs lying around in the soil, you know, falling from whatever reason. This would not be very significant I wouldn't be standing here, talking to you about it right now, but you have an unsoiled hair on the victim's shirt that's important, and that makes the distinction, because if it had been something that he picked up from the soil, then you should have seen dirt in it. The fact that it was unsoiled means it was the result of contact between the defendant and Ronald Goldman that night, during the murders. We certainly have no reason at all to believe that there was any contact between the defendant and Ronald Goldman before the murders were committed.
We have something else on Ron's shirt. We have the blue-black cotton fibers. All right, so what's the big deal about that? Well, you'll recall that Mr. Diedrick found blue-black cotton fibers in two other places, and the blue-black cotton fibers that he found, that share the same microscopic characteristics as those he found on Ron Goldman's shirt, were found on the Rockingham glove and on the defendant's socks. So what could that be? Well clearly, those are fibers from what the defendant was wearing that night. You'll recall what Kato described he was wearing the dark blue to black cotton sweatsuit, with long sleeves. Now a sweatsuit has banded ankles, and is going to be in contact with your socks. Obviously, too, a sweatsuit you know, if you have those if you have an elastic ankle exertion, you're going to pull the pants up. It's going to rub. There's going to be some friction there. And it's natural, of course; it's also common sense that you'll find fiber from one piece of clothing transferred to another, which is why, if you'll recall, when he was testifying, I asked him, ``Did you find any of Ron Goldman's shirt fibers on his jeans?'' ``Yeah, I did.'' Not a surprising thing; very common. Same thing happened with the defendant. And when he had contact with Ronald Goldman, when he attacked Ronald Goldman, he left fibers from what he was wearing on Ron Goldman's shirt, and in wearing that sweatsuit over those socks, he left fibers on those socks, and in having, maybe, the Rockingham glove in his pocket, when he was running down the south pathway, picking up fibers from it from his clothing, when the glove fell out, it still had the fiber from his clothing, and that's why you have those fibers sharing the same microscopic characteristics with all the tests he performed on them, and there were quite a few in those three places. Going to the crime scene, the south pathway, and the defendant's bedroom. So with this piece of evidence, we have, again, we've tied the defendant to the murders, and this lead carries us from Bundy clear into the defendant's bedroom at Rockingham. And here's a summary of what we've just discussed. The defendant's hair on Ron Goldman's shirt and blue-black cotton fibers. And another piece of the puzzle.
All right, now let's move away from Ron and start up the walkway. Now I'm going to direct your attention to the board. The bloody shoe prints. Now the bloody shoe prints actually start down here. We'll just hold it up for a minute. On this very first photograph, on the bottom, you can see the shoe print right next to the blue knit cap. It starts between OK. And those bloody shoe prints go all the way down the walkway, 'till you get to about halfway, when they fade out. This is another important piece of evidence that proves the defendant's guilt. The shoe prints are all size 12. The shoe prints were all and by the way, size 12, less than 10 percent of the male population wears that size, and the men who wear that size tend to fall within the height range of five-eleven to six-four. The defendant is six-two. And these are not just any size 12s. They're expensive shoes, casual shoes that cost $160. Not dress shoes. Shoes that would be worn by a rich man, the kind of man who would wear cashmere-lined gloves. And what's even more important is that those shoes were only sold in 40 stores in this country. Out of how many thousands, maybe even millions of stores in this country, these shoes are only sold in 40 of them, and one of those 40 stores was Bloomingdale's, the store the defendant shopped in regularly, where he would buy shoes, both dress and casual, as you heard the testimony. They stopped selling those shoes back in 1992, but during the time that they sold them, the defendant was shopping at Bloomingdale's.
Now as we move down the walkway, we see that there's only one set of bloody shoe prints. Mr. Bodziak, I think, made that very clear, especially on his last visit only one set of the imprints were bloody shoe prints, and all of them were consistently Bruno Magli, size 12. And there's the summary. The defendant's shoe size is 12; less than 10 percent of the population, expensive, rare men's shoes, sold at very stores. And another piece of the puzzle.
Now we look to the left of the bloody shoe prints, and we see the blood drops on the walkway. These are the blood drops left by the murderer; I've already talked to you about that, and it's clear, because they go all the way alongside, to the left of the bloody shoe prints down that walkway. Five blood drops, all of which match the defendant. Now of the four inside the gate, four on the walkway that is inside the gate, all four were done with PCR. One was also done with conventional serology. You recall that there was testimony about that from Greg Matheson. But all of them match the defendant. As we get to the rear gate, we see that there's more blood, and this blood also matches the defendant. Now, on the rear gate, I think I've already talked to you about that the blood that matches the defendant was typed to one in 57 billion. In other words, that's identity that is his blood. And then we go out to the driveway and you recall blood drop number 52, and that drop was also done with RFLP, and in that blood drop out on the driveway, you have the typing, I think, determined with RFLP was that it was one in 170 million. The reason for the lower number is because they had fewer probes it was weaker sample. The reason for that let's talk about that for a minute.
You have a different environment, and I think it's important to note on the walkway we don't have a good picture of it here. There are other pictures that you have in evidence that will show this the walkway is very dirty, and it's concrete it's porous. It absorbs. On the other hand, on the gate, you have a smooth surface. It's up off the ground, and it's not as much in contact with dirt and with the elements, and it's not going to be absorbed in the gate, because you have the paint on the gate that prevents it from doing that. Which is why you have higher molecular weight DNA. The more that DNA is subjected to bacteria, to dirt, that degrades it, the more it's going to degrade, the less DNA you're going to have. The dirtier the environment, the less the DNA. The cleaner, less-hostile environment, the more DNA. Very simple. So you have more DNA on the gate than you do on a dirty walkway. The gate is not the cleanest thing in the world, I guarantee, but you do have it's up off the ground. You do have a non-absorbent surface, so that's part of the reason for the higher weight DNA. The other part of the reason is that the rear gate, by inference from all of the testimony, that stain was collected and taken down right away, instead of sitting in plastic bags in a hot truck.
All right, so you have all of the blood on the walkway matching the defendant, you have RFLP results on the rear gate that identify the defendant, you have a drop on the driveway one in 170 million. That's a virtual identification of the defendant under all of these circumstances as well. And, another piece of the puzzle.
Now let's talk about the Bronco.
Judge LANCE ITO: All right, Mr. Escobar, would you just show that briefly to counsel, please? All right, thank you.
MARCIA CLARK: All right, first of all, just consider the fact that there's blood in the Bronco at all. I mean, ladies and gentlemen, do you have blood on the interior driver's door of your car, on the dashboard, on the console? I mean, think about that. And all at the same time? As for the amount of blood in the car, how much would you expect to see? When you think about it, the defendant inflicted the wounds that bled out on these victims, the ones that really bled out, from behind them. The throat cut that was demonstrated to you by Dr. Lakshmanan. So if he's standing behind them, they're bleeding out this way how much blood is he going to get on them? Not very much. And he certainly wouldn't be getting any on his back, which is where he's going to be in contact with the seat that's his back and the back of his legs. No. If any blood at all, on his hands, from touching. So the blood that you see in the Bronco is actually, logically speaking, where you'd expect to see it from a cut hand or from a blood glove that's brought down next to the console. It's the amount you'd expect to see, it's where you'd expect to see it, given the circumstances of this case.
Now let's talk about the cut finger. Look at where we found blood on the door. You found blood inside the well of the driver's door handle, and you found some closer to the driver's window. This blood in here, in the well of the driver's door handle, inside the car, how do you get that blood there? Think about where you'd have to put your hand, think about where you'd have to be sitting when you put your hand there. When you get out of the car if you're seated in the car, in the driver's seat, and you need to open the door to get out, that's what you do you put your hand on the door handle to open it, in a seated position. So that blood got on there after when he drove back from Bundy with a bloody finger to get out of his car that's the only position you could be in to get the blood in the well of the door handle like that. Because to get it there, you're opening the door, and to be opening the door from inside the car, you'd be inside the car. So now we know yet another fact that shows he was bleeding in that car long before he went out to get his cell phone from the Bronco to leave for the airport.
Now the defense is not claiming that the defendant's blood in the Bronco was either planted or contaminated. They concede that one right up front, and that's because they can come up for an explanation for that one remember the razor-sharp cell phone. But remember, it's only the evidence that they can't otherwise explain that they resort to the desperation theories of contamination and planting. But it's not only the defendant's blood in this car. There's also the blood of Ron and Nicole in that Bronco. And there are other people who saw that there was blood in that car at Rockingham in the early morning hours of June the 13th. Recall another witness called by the defense, Officer Don Thompson, who was guarding the car and kind of taking care of business at Rockingham. He saw the blood in the Bronco as well. Now you may remember that the blood on the console was initially collected by the console, I mean the area here, marked by the number 31. This number tag it's in between the seats. Testimony was that Dennis Fung collected blood from that console on June the 14th at the print shed. That was before it went to Viertel's, that tow yard where it seems that everybody and his brother went to look at that car. Before it went there, Dennis Fung collected that blood. Now the results of the blood collected by Dennis Fung on the morning of June the 14th indicated with PCR testing the presence of blood from the defendant and from Ronald Goldman. And it indicated that the response was it was mostly the defendant's blood in that mixture. Now you heard all the testimony about the insecure conditions at Viertel's and how the car was kept unlocked because they didn't have a key for it, and you may remember that the defendant had to that the Bronco had to be towed from Rockingham because early in the morning, when the police had contacted the defendant, if you may recall, Kato testified that the detectives asked him for a key to the Bronco 'cause it was locked, they couldn't get inside it, and he couldn't find a key. And you may also recall that there was testimony indicating that the car had to be towed because it couldn't be unlocked. They didn't unlock it until the 14th, when they had to do that with a ``Slim Jim,'' basically, had to break into it. Well, after the Bronco left Viertel's, I think it was about a month later, it went to a more secure location, and at the request of the defense, an examination of the Bronco was conducted in their presence, and Michelle Kestler told you of how she saw that Dennis Fung had not collected all of the blood off the console, and she said, ``Let's collect the rest of it.'' So they took the console out and Greg Matheson actually swatched the remaining blood off the console in the presence of the defense experts, and that was on, I believe, August 26th either August 26th or September 1st. Now that blood that he swatched, on either August 26th or September 1st, in the presence of the defense, did not go through LAPD testing at all. That blood went straight up to the Department of Justice for testing, and it came back with an RFLP match that you heard late in the trial. RFLP meaning we had more DNA in it. And we were able to say, we were able to match the blood, again, to the defendant and Ron Goldman. That's very important for two reasons.
Number one, it shows you that it is not so easy to contaminate DNA. It's not so easy to contaminate blood, even though that console sat there in the Bronco at Viertel's, where everybody had to go and check this Bronco out. The results that were obtained on the morning of the 14th, before it went to Viertel's, are the same as the results that were obtained about two months later, two and a half months later. So it tells you also that PCR testing is accurate. But, of course, even more importantly, it tells you that Ron Goldman's blood is in that Bronco. Now there's no reason for his blood to be in that Bronco, an RFLP match, unless the defendant committed the murders and had the blood of Ron Goldman on him to swipe on that Bronco.
Now there's something else about that Bronco that I want
[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 156 - Part 15
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: [in progress] and had the blood of Ron Goldman on him to swipe on that Bronco. Now there's something else about that Bronco that I wanted to point out to you. Can we put the photo up? For this, I think it's better to show you the picture up on the screen. Which one is this one? One-hundred-and-forty-five?
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right. This is the photo of the Bronco's driver's side
MARCIA CLARK: Yes, Your Honor.
Judge LANCE ITO: floor board. Miss Clark, proceed and we'll have Mr. Fairwell [sp] tell us which one this is.
MARCIA CLARK: the resolution here a little bit. I showed you a photograph of this during the trial that I think was a lot clearer than what you're seeing now. This one is very faded. We're going to get a clearer picture for you. What I'm going to point out to you, though, ladies and gentlemen, is the bloody imprint that was in the driver on the driver's side of that carpet, on the driver's side of the floor mat where a driver would put his foot, we find a bloody imprint. A bloody imprint that, Mr. Boziak [sp] told you, had characteristics consistent with the Bruno Magli shoe, that ``s'' pattern that he talked about, and the bloody imprint that was tested and matched to the blood of Nicole Brown. That carpet piece was cut out of the Bronco by Dennis Fung on June the 14th at the print shed. Now, think about this one for a minute, because just the fact of having blood in that location tells you something. How in the world do you get blood on the floor mat in a position where a driver puts his foot unless you have stepped in blood and then sat in the car and put your foot on that spot. How else? How else? How many times have you stepped in blood and how many times have you tracked it into your car. I don't know how many but you can see just logically somebody who was walking around with bloody shoes gets in to drive his car and the carpet comes up there you go. And this is People's?
COURT OFFICIAL: It's People's 172.
MARCIA CLARK: People's 172, thank you.
Judge LANCE ITO: Thank you.
MARCIA CLARK: I'm going to ask Jonathan to point it out to you. It's you can probably see it, though.
Judge LANCE ITO: Want to use the laser?
MARCIA CLARK: Oh, great. This is easier. Look, see right here? And that's what we had testimony about with respect to the blood testing and with respect to Mr. Boziak. But when I sat and I listened to that, I thought, gee, I don't know how how much clearer it could be. I really don't. You have the bloody shoe prints going down the walkway, understandably on concrete, a hard surface, they fade out. Then you put that same bloody shoe that obviously got blood up in the grooves of the pattern of the shoe onto a soft surface like a carpet that picks up that blood, whatever is remaining. How else did it get there? And those bloody shoe prints that lead away from the bodies of Ron and Nicole reach right into the defendant's Bronco.
All right, we have you can already see, we have such a wealth of evidence that we could probably stop right here. Frankly, I'd like to, but I have to finish going through all of the evidence, and the Bronco went back to Rockingham. So, let's go back to Rockingham as we trace the steps and I'll quickly review the evidence for you at Rockingham.
All right, so he gets in the Bronco and he drives back to Rockingham, parking it on Rockingham just north of the Rockingham gate where we see it in all of the photographs. Now, as I've described earlier, the defendant runs down the south pathway and you think to yourself, why, why would he do that. I talked to you about disposing of the knife. Really common, murderers want to get rid of the murder weapon. They think that's the one thing that can nail them. He's running back to that rear lot. He never gets there because he crashes into the air conditioner dropping the glove. Why would he need to put the knife on his own property? You're thinking why not drop it in a dumpster on the way home. Doesn't that make sense? Why not why would you want to do that, leave it on your own property or bury it on your own property? He can't. He can't because he's famous. If someone sees him hanging around near a dumpster on that night of all nights, at that time of all times, dropping something into a dumpster, they're going to recognize him and he's going to have a witness, a witness who's going to put him very close to the scene of the crime at the very wrongest time he could be there, right after the murders. He can't dispose of evidence in public. Every move he makes is noticed. So, he's got to find a private place and that's the one that makes the most sense and he doesn't have a whole lot of time to be getting real creative here.
So, what do we find on the Rockingham glove, the one he dropped. We find everything, everything. We find fibers consistent with Ron Goldman's shirt. We find the hair of Ron. We find the hair of Nicole. We find the blood of Ron Goldman. We find the blood of Nicole Brown. And we find the blood of the defendant. And we find Bronco fiber from the defendant's Bronco. We find blue black cotton fibers just like those found on the shirt of Ron Goldman and on the socks of the defendant in his bedroom. And on this glove he is tied to every aspect of the murder to Ron Goldman, to Nicole Brown, to the car. And, of course, that's why the Defense has to say that the glove is planted, because if they don't everything about this glove convicts the defendant where it's found, what's found on it, what's found in it, even a black limb hair found inside the glove everything about it convicts him. Even though the planting theory is ridiculous, when you think about it, you give it a little rational thought, and you realize it's absurd. Whatever you think of Mark Fuhrman, nobody thinks much of him, he couldn't have done this. Why couldn't he have done this? It's not just the fact that all the other officers who were there before him saw only one glove. Think about what he knew at the time he went off to the south pathway. He didn't know whether or not there were eyewitnesses to the crime that would say ``somebody else did it.'' He didn't know if there was going to be someone who said ``I heard voices.'' They weren't his, they weren't Mr. Simpson's. He didn't know if the defendant had an airtight alibi and had maybe left on the 9 o'clock flight to Chicago. He didn't know any of that. What he could have done by planting evidence has been wrong and completely fouled up the solution of the case, because he is doing something like that without knowing anything about the case, subjecting himself, himself, think about his own self preservation, to an incredible felony. He's in big trouble, in big trouble. And all that has to happen is that an alibi is proven or an eyewitness comes forward, neither one of which he knows anything about. They could be out there for all he knows. He probably thinks they are. So, think about that when you consider this theory of the defense. I mean, it's like dismissing logic and reality and reason all at once, thrown out the window, because nothing makes sense about that theory, nothing from even Mark Fuhrman's point of view. But I think if you look clearly at the evidence, if you look straight on and you use your common sense, you're going to see this, you're going to know this, you will.
The bottom line is, and I think that you will reach the same conclusion, no one planted that glove. You know why? Because they're his gloves, they're his gloves. Think about all the evidence you've heard now. Remember that he is a size extra large. The gloves are a size extra large. The glove at Rockingham is a mate to the glove at Bundy. They're a pair, a pair that are the same exact type purchased by Nicole on December 18, 1990, one of only 200 pair sold that year, gloves that are cashmere-lined, gloves that cost $55, rich men's gloves, gloves that were exclusive to Bloomingdale's, gloves that were not sold west of Chicago, gloves that the defendant was wearing at football games from January of 1991, just a few weeks after she bought them, until the last football season before the murders.
Now, you recall that there was a photograph that was shown to you. First of all, the receipt. There was a receipt that was shown to you that showed that when she bought the gloves, she bought two pair of gloves and a muffler on December 18, 1990. There was a photograph shown to you during one of the football games that I'm trying to remember the date of, I think it was '92, I think it was '92, in which he is wearing a brown jacket, a brown muffler, and the brown gloves. Doesn't it makes sense that when she bought the muffler, she bought it to match at least one of the pair of the gloves, and there he is, wearing it. You see him wearing those gloves in the photographs that we showed you right up until the last football season before the murders. The gloves you saw him wearing in all of those pictures that we showed you at all those football games, are the gloves that you have right here in evidence in this courtroom.
You have testimony that was taken on this photograph. You see the muffler, the jacket, the gloves.
Judge LANCE ITO: Mr. Fairwell, what exhibit is this?
COURT OFFICIAL: I believe it's 614.
Judge LANCE ITO: Thank you.
MARCIA CLARK: I think it was January of '92. If you need to have that reviewed for you, it's in the testimony. Now, I know that you recall the glove demonstration when the defendant put the gloves on, the crime scene gloves on. Now, he mugged for you and he tried to act like it was real difficult, it was real hard for him, and almost impossible to get it on. Well, I'm sure it wasn't as easy as usual, he didn't ever have to wear them before over latex gloves. As Mr. Ruben [sp] told you, that makes it a great deal more difficult to put gloves on. And being old gloves, the blood that soaked into them, soaked in and made them that much less stretchable. Because, really, the issue is stretchability, not so much size. If he had had the chance to put them on, wear them for a while, they would have stretched back out, they would have been a better fit than they were. So, it might have taken a little effort and a little time, but you eventually would have seen that, of course, they do fit. It's no different than an experience that we all have in our lives. You have leather gloves, they get damp a little bit, you leave them to dry, you don't wear them for a while, you go back and pout them on, they're tight, they're tight. You got to drag them on, pull them on, you wear them for a little bit, they stretch back out. Again, that's common sense, that's something we've all had in our live experience. But if you're really trying, of course, you can do it. But have you ever tried to put shoes on a child that doesn't want shoes put on, or a jacket on a child that doesn't want the jacket to be put on? You know, you can't do it. They're going to kick, they're going to scream, they're going to avoid you, they're going to struggle, they're going to squiggle, and it's not going to happen. That's the same thing we have here. He doesn't want to put those gloves on. He doesn't want to show they fit. But did you see how quickly he snapped them off? If they were so hard to get on how come they came off like that? And they did. I'll tell you something else that really struck me. If I were asked to put on the gloves, the bloody gloves, that were used to murder the father of my children, I would not be laughing, I would not be mugging, I would not be playing games, I wouldn't think it was funny at all. Is that the attitude that you expect, the laughing and the mugging, putting on the bloody gloves that were used to murder the mother of your children?
DEFENSE: Objection.
Judge LANCE ITO: Sustained. Move on.
MARCIA CLARK: The point here is that the person who wore those gloves wore size extra large.
Judge LANCE ITO: Let me see Counsel at side bar.
[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 156 - Part 16
FRED GRAHAM, Anchor: And while they chat there, I want to ask Art Danner, I believe, perhaps jurors have gone out for a comfort break. Art Danner, you are a district attorney. You're a prosecutor. It's very subjective when an attorney goes over the line in argument. Was this a close call?
ART DANNER, District Attorney, Santa Cruz County, CA.: Well, I think probably what they're talking about is whether or not she is inferentially commenting on the fact that he hasn't testified, and that may be exactly what the topic is, and we'll have to wait and see. But, with that demonstration about the gloves, that may be the issue here.
FRED GRAHAM: What's happened is that two jurors have asked to take a comfort break, you probably heard. Judge Ito invited them to do that in this long afternoon if they felt they needed it. Two of them have gone out. We're going to take a break while that's taking place, and we'll return after this.
[commercial break]
FRED GRAHAM: Marcia Clark has just resumed her summation.
MARCIA CLARK: [in progress] That's what he would have done.
Now, the testimony has told us that the gloves in evidence are smaller now than were then when they were new. So the issue, with all that has been done to them blood-soaked, frozen, unfrozen, who knows what the issue is how they fit at 10 p.m. just before the murders on the night of June the 12th. The issue is how stretchable they were then, before the murders at 10 p.m. on June the 12th. And we know that those gloves fit him on the night of June the 12th because he wore them, the size extra large, the size you know fits him because he put on a new pair of extra large here in this courtroom. As Mr. Rubin said, they fit him beautifully. And he did that, of course, without the benefit of latex and I say ``benefit'' sarcastically latex to catch on them. So you have, in these gloves, all of the points that I've described, and as shown on the slide, and another piece of the puzzle.
Now, let's move back down the walkway, the south pathway, that is that dark, narrow, south pathway. And when he ran back down there, the defendant undoubtedly saw that the limousine was already there because it was pulled up facing into the driveway at the Ashford gate. It'd be hard for him to miss. And he knew that she he should already have been home. He was running late. And, don't forget, you know, he's he's pretty shook up at this point. He's run into the air conditioner and banged into the wall. He's worried got to be worried about the fact that Kato's going to come out and worry and try to find investigate the source of the noises. And he's got to get out of that south pathway, because if Kato sees him back there, how's he going to explain that? How's that going to look on the night of the murders of his of the wife and Ron Goldman? If Kato comes outside and sees him in that dark pathway, what's he doing there? So he's got to get back in that house and he's got to get back in a hurry, which is why there was no time to hide the knife behind the guest house. He had to get out of there. Which is also why there was no time to realize that he had dropped a glove.
All right. So he goes into the house, which is where Allan at the point that Allan Park sees him go in, which is a couple of minutes after the thumps are heard by Kato. The defendant went upstairs quickly. He answered the intercom when Allan buzzed him this fourth time, I think, and he needed to collect himself, he needed to buy time. He left Allan sitting and waiting at the gate while he got ready to go. But when he took off his socks, he reopened the cut on his finger, and that's why you have blood on the bathroom floor. And, under pressure to get out of there, get changed, and get going, because the limo driver's downstairs waiting, he left the socks on his bedroom floor. And in that one, simple, careless act, gave us the most possibly single most devastating proof of guilt in the case, because on that sock, on that sock we found blood that matched Nicole Brown, blood that matched the defendant, and the blue-black cotton fiber.
Now, I've already talked to you about the significance of the blue-black cotton fiber, fibers from the clothes he wore, clothes that we never found. What are the fibers that share the same microscopic characteristics as those found on the shirt of Ron Goldman doing on his socks and on the Rockingham glove? Those are fibers picked up from the clothes he wore that night, and we never found them. He got rid of them.
Now, the defendant's blood on that sock gave an RFLP match, once again putting him within 1 in 57 billion people. You'd have to go through 57 billion people to find blood type like the defendant's as we found on that sock. So that's his blood on the sock. That's an identification. But that's not all. We found Nicole's blood as well. Now, on this, on sock B, we have actually two stains for Nicole. Sock A, we have one stain.
Now, there's something interesting about these sock stains that, perhaps, was not made clear during the testimony. I want to bring it out now, because it is very important to this notion of planting. Gary Sims testified, and when he did, he told you about the fine spatter that he found above on sock A that he found above the Nicole Brown stain on sock A, little dots. I think he said there were like 10 of them above the Nicole Brown stain. And on sock B, he found little tiny spatter between the stains, two Nicole Brown stains on sock B, little, fine spatter, kind of like the little spatters you would get when you stepped in a puddle or a pool of blood.
Mr. MacDonell didn't want to talk to me about those little spatters. You know why? Because that little spatter proves to you that nothing was planted here, that blood got on his sock because he was wearing it at the crime scene when he was committing the murders, stepping in pools of blood. That's how that blood got there, and that's why you have that fine spatter. And, as I've told you, now, there was a smaller stain I think there were two smaller stains of Nicole Brown that were only good enough for PCR testing, and there was one large stain that was good enough for RFLP testing. And the testimony gave us the fact that you'd have to look through 6.8 billion people to find the blood type of Nicole that was found on that sock. And, of course, once again, that's identity. We have proven it's hers, and only hers, on this planet, that was on that sock.
All right. So, with all of this blood evidence, what we have done and fiber and hair look at all we've traced. Look at all we've proven. We have linked the defendant to the crime scene. We have linked the defendant to the victims. We have linked the defendant and the victims to his car. And that link has reached from Bundy into his bedroom at Rockingham. They are all interwoven by time, by space, by occurrence, by science, all linked.
Now let's turn to the murders themselves, and in this section, I'd like to talk to you about the manner of killing. [pause while exhibits are placed]
MARCIA CLARK: All right. In this section, I'm going to talk to you I'm not going to start this way, but ultimately, I'm going to talk to you about the law of homicide, what the People are required to prove in terms of proving that a murder occurred, what's a first-degree and what's a second-degree murder.
Before I do that, I'm going to address some preliminary questions that these are not questions the law requires us to answer, frankly. These are just kind of questions that you have, the things that you might want to debate in the jury room. I'd like to give you some ideas about these questions and ponder them with you for a little bit. But, let me let me preface my remarks by saying that this has nothing to do with the elements of the crime that we are required to prove. In terms of our requirements of proof as to who did it and what they did, this has nothing to do with those, just so you know. Because this is a matter of, as I told you in the jigsaw puzzle, this is a piece of sky, but it's interesting. And it might be something that you're interested in. So in that light, I'm going to talk a little bit about it.
First of all, how could one person do this without the victims being able to scream or escape? How long did this take to accomplish? What about these murders leads us to believe that it was committed by only one person? OK. I'll start with the last question first.
First of all, if someone else was involved, that certainly does not mean that the defendant didn't do it. It just means that he didn't get anyone to that he got somebody else to help him. That doesn't necessarily mean he didn't do it, though. I'm not saying that he did. I'm not saying that there was a second person there. I'm just saying that that alone doesn't mean anything. But secondly, first of all, if someone else was involved, on a purely basic level of observation, look at the nature of the wounds inflicted to each victim. And I don't mean look physically, because I'm not going to show them to you, but I mean, you can probably remember. The nature of these wounds you know, as I watched the testimony, I thought, ``Only one person could have done this because they killed the same way.'' The stab wounds to the back of the head, the coup de grace slash to the neck, the targeting of the neck that way, the style of killing is the same. That's just a lay person's observation, but it's kind of a practical, common-sense thing. The murders look the same.
You also heard a great deal of testimony concerning the murder weapon, whether it was single or double-edged, remember that? And whether all the wounds could have been inflicted by a single-edged knife. This is also information that goes to the determination as to whether or not you have one or two killers, although I must say, two killers could have two singled-edge knives because you can't tell I don't think or there was no testimony indicating whether you could match a particular knife to a knife wound. Dr. Lakshmanan testified, in this regard, that all of the major wounds were inflicted by a singled-edged knife. He indicated to you also that there were certain other wounds, lesser wounds, in which he couldn't tell whether it was made a single or double-edge knife. But it would seem to make sense that if all the major wounds are made with a single-edge knife, why would you come in there with, then, double-edge knife, just to do little ones? It just kind of makes sense, that a singled-edged knife was used. But beyond that, scientifically, I think we had Doug Diedrick testify that he examined the damage in Ron Goldman's shirt and he determined and a shirt, of course, is less elastic and less messy, if you will, than flesh, and he was able to see the damage in the shirt and see that it was the knife that the cuts in the shirt were made with a singled-edged, very sharp, knife. Which tends to support and corroborate what Dr. Lakshmanan said.
So the upshot of all that testimony is that to the extent that anything can be said based on what the wounds permit, and a description of the murder weapon, it would appear to be a singled-edged knife. Another indication that the murders were committed by one person comes from the blood evidence, and this is one of the few areas where there was really no dispute as to the accuracy or the reliability of the result, and here's a result we haven't yet talked about.
[audio cut from courtroom]
MARCIA CLARK: People's 100. All right, you see that blood drop on the bottom of the boot, ladies and gentlemen? That's the sole of Ron Goldman's boot. That's a photograph taken at the scene, at Bundy, after the coroner arrived, because you can see he's lying on that sheet. All right, now that blood drop was tested, and it was a high amount of DNA. It was a high amount of DNA, because as you can see, it was dripped on a part of the boot that doesn't look that dirty and it obviously dried on that boot, so the DNA did not degrade as badly as it did on the concrete. Again, that's a non-absorbent surface. It's plastic, so it was preserved better. Now what the result of that drop was was a mixture of the blood of Ron and Nicole. Now what does that blood drop mean? First of all, obviously, that blood drop, and I think Henry Lee even testified to this, was dripped on the sole and Ron Goldman was already down when it was dripped on the sole. How could it have dripped on the sole of the boot in that manner? Well, it would have had to have come from the murder weapon, from a knife. Those are drops are dripped on, cast-off drops from the murder weapon, from the knife, and that means that Ron had already been cut badly enough to leave a quantity of blood on that knife, and it also means that Nicole had also been cut badly enough to leave a quantity of blood on that same knife, because unless one knife has the mixture of blood of both victims on it, how can you get one blood drop from both victims? See what I mean? The blood of Ron and Nicole mixed on the knife, it dripped onto the boot, and that's why you get a blood drop with the mixture of their blood, and that shows you one murder weapon.
Now in addition to all of that, add the fact that you have virtually no evidence of the presence of a second killer. I mean, there should be something left, but there was really virtually nothing. Now Dr. Lee tried to tell us about second set of shoe prints, as you'll recall, but I think Mr. Bodziak made it very clear what that was all about some the only real shoe prints found that did not the Bruno Magli was that one shoe print he saw on June the 25th, after police officers had walked through the crime scene, after it was broken down. You recall those photographs. Two weeks after the crime, after cameramen had been on the walkway. I mean, what does that one shoe print mean? It means nothing, and it certainly has nothing to do with the murders.
Now, what about the hair and fiber does that tell us anything in terms of whether or not it was one or two people that committed the murders? Now as I've already mentioned, with respect to the hair and fiber, Mr. Diedrick testified
[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 156 - Part 17
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: [in progress] the hair and fiber. Does that tell us anything in terms of whether or not it was one or two people that committed the murder. Now, as I've already mentioned with respect to the hair and fiber, Mr. Deedrick testified to hairs, fragments of treated hairs that were not consistent with the defendant's inside the knit cap or on the knit cap. He also testified, though, that he did not know how long those hairs had been on the knit cap, and they could be there for a very long time.
But other than that, there was really no hair and fiber evidence that could directly connected to the murders that was associated with anyone but the defendant. And by that I mean hair or fiber on the victims or on the objects found at the crime scene that were directly and obviously involved in the murders, such as the glove or the knit cap. Dr. Lee testified to stray fibers and hairs that were in the dirt or that were on the envelope that was lying in the dirt, but stuff lying around in dirt could have been there for weeks, could have been there for months, and, as I told you before, if we had found hair consistent with the defendant's in the dirt there, I wouldn't be standing here and talking to you about that stuff because so what? Show me something that is directly connected to the murders. And there was nothing. Nothing. And you know if there was somebody else there, they had to leave something of themselves there. This was a struggle. Things happened there. Fur was flying there, as you can see.
Now, while I'm talking about hair and fiber, there's one more piece of evidence that tells you that the defendant acted alone. And that is this you recall that Mr. Deedrick testified that he found Nicole Well, Mr. Deedrick said he found hairs consistent with Nicole Brown's on the shirt of Ron Goldman, and we know from all of the evidence that's Nicole's hair on his shirt. Think about how that happens. If the killer kills Nicole or attacks Nicole in the initial attack and I'll get back to that later and he touches her hair, touches her head, he gets her hairs on him, goes over to attack Ron. Those hairs will be transferred, and Mr. Deedrick talked to you about how transfers occur.
Logically, her hairs would get on Ron's shirt if the person who attacked Nicole then went over to Ron. There would be no reason for the transfer to Ron's shirt of Nicole's hair if two people were involved in these murders. Logically speaking, two people are involved one takes on Ron, one takes on Nicole, but you don't have one person attacking Nicole and moving over to attack Ron if two people are there. No one wants to take their time committing murder. As a matter of common sense, you're going to get in, and you're going to get out, and if you've got two people available to do it, one's going to take one, and one's going to take the other. And you're going to have You're not going to have that kind of movement of hair from Nicole to Ron.
So it's very clear. The crime scene really makes it very clear that there is evidence of only one killer, and all of that evidence establishes that that is the defendant.
Next question how long could it have taken? On this subject, there really is some agreement. There is agreement that all of these wounds could have been inflicted very, very quickly. Even Dr. Baden didn't disagree with that. Dr. Lakshmanan said it could have been just a few minutes. Now, when you realize You look at this crime scene, look at what you have, look at where you have it, it is apparent from the evidence at the crime scene that Ronald Goldman was taken by surprise, and I'll get to Nicole in a minute because there's evidence with respect to her, too. But first, let's take Ronald Goldman because that's the one who struggled.
You see [to audio-visual assistant] Can we have that picture? Thank you. [to judge and jury] OK. This is 43-E, Your Honor. All right. You see the envelope, and it's just just inside the gate. Now, you remember because you were there how small that area is, that caged area in at Bundy. Very, very, very tight. And that envelope is virtually with one step in the gate, it dropped. And we have blood drippings on the envelope that indicate that it was dropped and then Ron bled, dripping onto that envelope. That indicates surprise. [pause while she speaks to AV assistant] I'm going to show you in a moment where the keys where the keys were found as well. He dropped his keys also.
Now, I know a lot of suggestions were made here about how you can use keys as a weapon. I don't see how that really makes any sense, frankly. How do you use keys against a six-inch sharp knife, and how do you see any evidence there that he even had them in his hands long enough to think about that? Those keys were dropped, and they were dropped right inside the gate, and I'll show you the photograph of where they were found. [pause while photograph is displayed] People's 56-C. See the keys right by the gate? Now, those are a little bit If this is the gate right here, if you step inside, it's just a little bit down to my right as I'm gesturing. But again, they're right inside the gate. They're right inside, dropped. Ron is taken by surprise.
Now, Dr. Lee tried to say that the struggle with Ron was not a short struggle. What does that mean? What does that mean? More than a minute? More than five? The fact that Ron struggled is clear, but what is also obvious is that someone who gets stabbed and is flailing about can get blood all over the place as he's struggling to back away from his attacker. And that happens very quickly. You can imagine in your mind's eye somebody just flailing, flailing about, trying to get away from their attacker, a big person with a knife in a very, very dark area, very confined space. He hasn't very far to go, ladies and gentlemen. He's got only a few feet to move. And he's backed into a corner [snaps fingers] like that. Where's he going to go?
He flails backwards, trying to avoid his attacker. The number of the contacts that you see, the bloody contacts on the fence, are made at once as he's flailing. And that's what you see on that fence. You see a young man bleeding, backing and falling, vainly trying to get away from the defendant who has him cornered in a cage and is coming at him with a very long knife.
Now I'm going to talk in a little more detail about how one person could do it how. Dr. Lakshmanan spoke of the fact that Nicole suffered only two I think, yeah, two defensive wounds one to the back of her left hand, and I think there was one to the right of her palm. She struggled very little. As Dr. Lakshmanan told you, there was She was rapidly I think he That's what he said ``rapidly incapacitated.'' She was disabled very quickly. There were stab wounds to the back of her head that indicated movement, perhaps as she tried to run, stabbing her in the back of the head. An abrasion to the right eyebrow indicates that she was pushed or fell into a hard surface, such as the wall or the stairs. She was stabbed in the left side of the neck four times. There was some movement shown on her part with respect to at least one of those stab wounds in the left side of her neck, which indicates there was still some effort at resistance.
And now, most importantly, Dr. Lakshmanan found evidence of a scalp and brain contusion caused by a blow to the head done by either a fist or the base of a knife, a contusion that was likely to cause unconsciousness, which, in fact, we know it did because, when the defendant cut Nicole's throat for the last time, there was no indication of any movement on her part. It was a clean cut. That final coup de grace had smooth margins that indicated no resistance on her part. And there's a little bit more evidence of that that I'll talk about later, but what's very important about these early wounds to the head and neck is that Dr. Lakshmanan told you there was evidence of bleeding in that brain contusion that showed that she lived after the infliction of those wounds for at least a minute, and maybe more likely in an unconscious state, certainly disabled at least a minute, maybe more before the final throat cut was delivered.
Please cut the feed, Your Honor. [with camera off exhibits] Now, look at the top, the upper step, ladies and gentlemen. You can see that she bled out on that step above her for a while before she came to the final spot at the foot of the stairs. And Dr. Lakshmanan testified that Nicole was unconscious when the final throat cut was administered and she was put down at the base of those stairs. If she lived for at least a minute, if not more, after she was hit on the head and struck unconscious before her throat was slashed for the last time and she was up on that upper step, where you see the first pool of blood, what was the defendant doing during that minute or more as she was laying [sic], unconscious or incapacitated on that upper step, bleeding? What was he doing before he came back to administer the final coup de grace?
With Nicole disabled, the defendant had ample opportunity to deal with an unsuspecting, unarmed Ronald Goldman who had just come to do a favor for a friend. And I remind you of the testimony I remind you of the testimony of Dr. Lakshmanan in which he described the very narrow and confined space, the cage, in which the defendant cornered him, a cage that left Ron nowhere to run and nowhere to hide literally.
The defendant had all the advantage no matter what Dr. Huizenga says. He talked about Tarzan's grandfather. He's built like Tarzan. He is built powerfully. And even Dr. Huizenga said, admitted, that whatever the defendant's disabilities may be, they did not prevent him from performing the actions necessary to commit these murders. And the defendant had the advantage. He had the advantage of size. Ron Goldman was only five foot, nine, I think 175 pounds. Nicole Brown, five-five, 125 pounds. The defendant, six-two, 210 pounds. He also had the advantage of the knife. He was the only one armed in this combat. He was the only one. And he had the advantage of surprise. He knew what he was going to do, but they didn't.
And don't forget, too, the adrenaline factor. That's real important. That's important. And Dr. Huizenga talked about that because adrenaline pumps you up, and even Dr. Huizenga talked about how football players get pumped up, and you know they have to. They've got to go running through these huge men I've never seen men that size on the football field. You gotta be able to knock 'em down, run through 'em, and you've got to get pumped. You've got to have a killer instinct to do that. And that's what the defendant did, and that's what he did that night.
And the defense can talk all they want about this new rare form of arthritis the defendant supposedly had that allows him to swing a golf club, lift a heavy set of golf clubs in that heavy golf bag you'll have it back there in the jury room, you'll see what I mean lifted it not once but a few times that night, and carry heavy suitcases. That curious form of arthritis that somehow prevents him only from doing the movement required to stab and murder these people. But that's not what Dr. Huizenga, his witness, said. He could do it. He could do it.
Now, let's talk about the attack of Ron. Ron was attacked with the defendant behind him. That much is clear. The wounds inflicted to the neck, those control wounds and I'll talk a little bit more about that and some of the other stab wounds. And Ron struggles. Unlike Nicole, he's not so easily put down. He struggles, and he grabs. The defendant, who's holding him from around the neck with his left hand and holding the knife in his right Ron is struggling, and he's grabbing at anything he can, and he's grabbing at the hand that's holding him, and that's how the glove comes off. And, by the way, that's why the right glove doesn't come off because the right glove, the right hand is holding the knife, holding the glove in place. But from the point forward From that point forward, after the defendant first attacked him, Ron's death was not a matter of ``if.'' It was just a matter of ``when,'' and Ron was totally on the defensive from the start, trying to ward off the knife and to back away, and in the process hitting the fence, the trees, and everything around him in a desperate effort to survive.
And all of this had to have happened very quickly. I say this as a matter of common sense. It didn't take Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown more than a few minutes to be overcome and slashed to death. And that's not really surprising. Think about it. A boxing match each round is, what, three minutes. And this is with men that are both prepared, ready to do battle, in good condition, who are not taken by surprise, who are prepared to do battle. And we know knock-outs occur in the very first round. They certainly happen within a minute. And that's with trained professionals. Same thing with martial arts matches very quick.
All right. Next question. Why did he leave the cap and glove? This one's probably very easy. It was late. He had to catch a flight. This took longer than expected. Ron Goldman was not expected at this scene. He was not supposed to be there, but it is only because of him, because of the struggle that he put up, that we have the cap, we have the glove, and we have all this evidence Ron's shirt, the blood. Because of the struggle with Ron, we have all of this evidence.
But it's not I'm not saying that the defendant was not aware as he was leaving the scene that he knew that he lost evidence. Because he was. There was evidence given to you by Mr. Bodziak, who testified that he saw hesitation shoeprints down the Bundy walk, that he saw evidence that the defendant walked down the walkway, stepped back against the north north wall and stepped out as though to look back at the crime scene. And what that shows you is evidence that he ``I've lost my cap. I've lost a glove.'' But he's thinking about going back, but doesn't dare. Time is running out. He might be seen by someone. The longer he remains, the more likely to be detected, and probably the dog howling already. And so he has to leave. Don't forget, too, that the glove and the cap are in complete darkness underneath that plant, in that very dark, dark area in the front of Nicole's condominium.
Now, I know that I have not explained every move that was made by the defendant which blow came first, which one came last and which one came in the middle. The law doesn't require us to do so, and of course, there's a simple reason for that. Because short of a videotape, we very rarely know exactly how any crime occurred. People who commit murder obviously try not to do that in public and where everyone can see them. Their victims can't talk, and they can't tell us what happened. We have to look to the physical evidence, and we have to use our common sense and our reason to make reasonable inferences to determine what happened to the best of our ability.
And even if we had a videotape, ladies and gentlemen, it would show you everything. What happens before the tape starts? What happens after the tape ends? And what if And of course, a camera only picks up what's in its lens. So if you saw, for example, a videotape of this case that had Nicole, that was able to focus on Nicole but not pick up Ron, and you saw the defendant killing Nicole and slashing her throat, and then he stepped out of range to attack Ron, would you thereby conclude that he didn't kill Ron? No, of course not. Of course not.
So the law does not require that we prove how a murder was committed simply because, in that case, we'd have very, very few convictions for murder. The law requires that we prove that a murder was committed, who committed and what degree of murder it was. So the order of wounds makes very little difference. It doesn't answer any of those questions that we're required to answer, and that's what we're here to determine is those questions that the law asks us to prove.
But there is one aspect of the nature of these murders that is a very telling point when you think about who did it. When you look at these pictures, ladies and gentlemen, you see rage, you see fury, you see overkill. These This is not the mark of a professional killer. These are not efficient murders. These are murders that are really slaughters that are personal. And in that respect, they reveal a great deal about who did them no stranger, no Colombian drug dealer, a man who was involved with his intended victim, one who wanted to control her and failed, and in failing found the one way to keep her under control where she could never slip out of it again. And that man is this defendant.
I have one more to go, so
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take our mid- or late afternoon recess at this time. Please remember all my admonitions to you, and we'll stand in recess until 6:00. All right. Thank you.
BAILIFF: Please clear the courtroom.
[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 156 - Part 18
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor: Thank you, Your Honor. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're really hanging out together today, aren't we. I hope you all had a real good dinner. I'm going to conclude remarks for you at this point in about I don't want to say exactly what time. Lawyers are always wrong. But I really think it will be about half an hour, OK? And I'm going to talk about the law of premeditation, and that means first and second degree murder. Let me tell you briefly what I forgot to tell you in the very beginning. In all criminal cases, because the People have the burden of proof, I argue to you first, and Mr. Darden will then argue to you. That's the prosecution. Then the defense will argue. Then, because we have the burden of proof, we get to argue again. We get the last word, so to speak, but it's fair because it's our burden, OK? So you're going to hear from me again. I've made really I'm making now to you the bulk of my remarks. I hope and pray not to be taking as much of your time when I stand up to speak to you again at the conclusion of the case. So I just wanted to let you know that that's the order of things. That's the way it goes in criminal trials.
All right, so let's talk about the degree of murder. Is it first or is it second degree, because you will be asked to determine this question also. And you'll have the law of first and second degree murder back there. And if I can give you a hand in stepping through the law to understand how it applies to the facts, I'd like to try and do that now and be of some help to you. The defendant is charged with two counts of murder, and you're going to decide whether they are first degree or second degree. And in order to do that what you do is you apply the law to the facts. It's what a judge does. And it's actually much simpler than it sounds. And let me start with the basic law of murder. Legally speaking, what is murder? You're going to have this in written forms back in the jury room with you, so if you have questions, you want to talk about them, you can go over them again.
All right. Every person who unlawfully kills a human being with malice aforethought is guilty of the crime of murder in violation of section 187 of the penal code. OK. In order to prove such crime, each of the following elements must be proved. Number one, a human being was killed. Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown were obviously human beings. Element satisfied. Two, the killing was unlawful. And what they mean by that is that there's no legal excuse for the killing. That's not even an issue here. Three, the killing was done with malice aforethought. OK, that's the issue. Let's talk about that. Malice can either be expressed or implied. In this case, the only issue we have is expressed malice. What is expressed malice? Expressed malice aforethought means that a person had an intent to kill where there was no lawful reason to do so, and malice does not require any hatred or ill will of a victim. So, for example, regardless of whether the defendant like or disliked Ron Goldman, or even never knew him, malice is shown if the evidence shows that he intended to kill him. With the kind now, how do you determine if there was an intent to kill. We're not talking about premeditation. We're talking about an intent to kill. How do you prove that? Look at the pictures. This one is proven easily when you look at the nature of the injuries that were suffered by the victims in this case. The unlawful intent to kill is very obvious. These victims were virtually hacked to death. So you have malice shown in the nature of the injuries, the nature of the wounds that were inflicted upon them. So malice expressed malice is shown. Just look at the pictures. Aforethought, malice aforethought, what does that mean? That just means that the intent to kill was formed before the actual killing occurred. It's not an afterthought. That doesn't mean premeditation or deliberation, and we'll talk about that in a minute. And again, with the nature and the number of the wounds that were suffered by these victims, it's very obvious that the killer went to great lengths to disable and kill them with the throat slashing wounds alone. The preformed intent to kill is very clear. In fact, malice aforethought in this case, again, it's proven so clearly just with the coroner's photographs and the pictures of the victims at the crime scene where they were found. So you look at those photographs. You can see that there was a preformed, even it was just a second before, intent to kill these victims and a great effort made to kill the victims with the nature of the wounds. And there you go. We've applied the law to the facts, just like you'll back in the jury room to determine what was done.
Let me give you an example aside from let me give you an example. This was a case I remember from a while back, a very simple example of second degree murder. In this example, a young man was standing on a street corner with his girlfriend. Another young man came and drove up to him on a bike rode up to him on a bike. He asked the young man on the corner, ``Hey, where are you from?'' The man the young man on the corner responded, ``I'm not from around here.'' The young man on the bike picked out a pulled out a gun, shot him to death. Second degree murder. In that example, you have a preformed intent to kill although no evidence that the young man planned to kill when he first rode up on the bike. But it was preformed in the second that the young man said, ``I'm not from around here.'' Second degree, because when he pulled out the gun, he clearly meant to kill, even though it was it was what you call a rash impulse. That's second degree murder. At a bare minimum in this case, at the very, very, very least in this case, we know we have second degree murder. That's the very least that we have. But now we ask do we have more? Is there more? Do we have evidence that the murders were of the first degree, that is premeditated and deliberate? In asking this question, what we're really asking is whether there is evidence that the defendant weight and considered the question of killing and the reasons for and against the choice, because that's what we're talking about in terms of premeditation. The answer to this question, just like all the others, comes from the evidence. We looked to all the evidence in the case, and we ask is there evidence of planning? Is there evidence of premeditation in the manner of killing? Is there evidence of preparation for the act of killing? I'll address all these questions right now in the course of the argument, but I can tell you that the answer to these questions is yes. I'll briefly discuss the law with you, and then I'm going to show you how the evidence can be applied to the law to answer all of the questions that, yes, we do have premeditated and deliberate murder.
First of all, premeditated. Let me see. I think we have the jury instruction for this. That's OK. I'll just tell you. Premeditated is what it sounds like. It does mean considered beforehand. And it's important to remember here that there is no time requirement. The jury instruction states that the law does not undertake to measure in units of time how long the thoughts of killing were considered before they write them into something that we call premeditation and deliberation. And the reason for that is very simple, and the law and the jury instruction you have will tell you so. Circumstances vary in each case. Each case is unique, has a unique set of facts. And each defendant is unique, and has unique thought processes. And so you cannot say, ``Well, three minutes is not enough, and five minutes is plenty.'' You can't do that. So it's not the consideration in terms of how much time because you can premeditate within just a few minutes, even seconds.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: Is this 8.20?
MARCIA CLARK: Thanks. Here's what I was saying. You'll have this in smaller form, and it won't be highlighted, but you'll have it back in the jury room. This is the area I was directing your attention to. ``The law does not undertake to measure in units of time the length of the period during which the thought must be pondered before it can write then into an intent to kill which is truly deliberate and premeditated. The time will vary with different individuals and under varying circumstances.'' And that's common sense. I mean, you would think that, wouldn't you? So the true test is not the duration of time but rather the extent of the reflection. So even if you want to say, for example, that premeditation and deliberation happened in a mere few minutes or seconds, you're going to have to show that during that time there was deliberation. Deliberation is really the issue. What do we mean by that under the law? Deliberation means that after giving careful thought and consideration, weighing the considerations for and against, the killer decides to and does kill. And that's really what the crux of the matter is in a premeditated and deliberate murder. Can you show that kind of weighing and considering of the consequences? And this is to be contrasted with a second degree murder because in second degree murder you have what is known as just a rash impulse. Do we have that? Sorry.
Judge LANCE ITO: Thank you.
MARCIA CLARK: All right, here's second degree murder. I just wanted to give you a chance to contrast it, OK? Murder of the second degree, the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. We talked about that. That's intent to kill. When there is manifested intention unlawfully to kill, there's an intent to kill, but the evidence is insufficient to establish deliberation and premeditation, OK? So you have basic murder, murder of the second degree. And then if you have more, if you have premeditation and deliberation, you have murder of the first degree.
To give you an example of first degree murder, let's add to the example I gave you previously of the young man on the bike. He goes up and he shoots the young man standing on the corner. To make this a first degree murder, this time assume the following. Assume that the shooter knows who his intended victim is. Assume further that the shooter is a member of a gang and that the intended victim is a member of a rival gang, OK? The young man standing on the corner, his gang recently killed somebody in the kid on the bike's gang. The kid on the bike the kid on the bike knows this. He sees the victim on the corner, recognizes him as a rival gang member, a member of a gang that just killed a member of his gang, and he decides payback time. ``We're going to get this guy. We're going to show him. And it's my time to do it.'' And now knowing who the victim is, knowing what his motivation is, knowing that he's going to pay him back, he rides up to the young man on the corner, goes up to him, pulls out his gun, shoots him at point blank range. There's first degree murder. He's got a premeditated and deliberate idea of what he's going to do and why he's going to do it, and then he goes to and does do it. Now, in this example, we see the evidence of planning, and we see the cold, calculated decision to kill that is all accomplished very rapidly when he sees and recognizes the victim as a member of the rival gang.
Here's a noncriminal example of premeditation and deliberation. This is something to show you that we make decisions that are premeditated and deliberate every day. Let's say that you come downtown with some of your friends. You come downtown to have dinner one night. You go into the restaurant. You have a good time. The hour gets late. And by the time you step out of the restaurant, it's already the streets are almost deserted. Very, very little traffic on the streets. You and your friends walk to the corner, and when you walk to the corner you see that the don't walk sign is flashing. But it's late. You're tired. You don't want to wait. The don't walk sign is flashing. You step out. You look this way. You look that way. You don't see any traffic. You cross the street. As you stepped of the curb, that was a premeditated and deliberate decision. It didn't take very long, but you weighed the consequences pro and conservation. You said, ``Well, I could get in trouble. There might be an officer around. I might get busted for jaywalking. But then again, it doesn't look like anybody is there, and it's probably OK.'' And you cross the street. Premeditated and deliberate decision. So you can see why it doesn't take long. It's not the length of time. It's the quality of the time spent. OK, so that's first degree and second degree murder. Second degree, a rash impulse, intent to kill with no premeditations and deliberation. First degree murder, premeditated and deliberated, a weighing of the consequences pro and con and a clear and deliberate decision to act and then the murder.
Now, the question is, do we have evidence of the premeditated and deliberate type in the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown. As I told you, the answer the question is yes. Now, I'd like to break down this evidence into three categories. For me, this is the easiest way to analyze a case to see if there is premeditation and deliberation, and I hope it works for you, too. The first category is motive. Do we have motive? Now, under this category would fall the subject matter that Mr. Darden is going to address, so I'm not going to discuss it with you other than to mention that the past episodes of domestic violence between the defendant and Nicole, that evidence is evidence
[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 156 - Part 19
MARCIA CLARK, Prosecutor (LIVE): [in progress] Do we have motive? Now, under this category would fall the subject matter that Mr. Darden is going to address. So, I'm not going to discuss it with you other than to mention that the past episodes of domestic violence between the defendant and Nicole is evidence of motive. I'm not going to say any more about that because Mr. Darden will address it.
The next category is planning activity. What did the defendant do that shows us that he was planning to commit murder? OK, now I'm going to come back to those questions I asked you to bear in mind early in the argument. Remember when I asked you to think about this? Why did he go out why did the defendant go out and ask Kato for fives for the skycap to break the hundreds that he had if he was already going to go out and eat? Remember I asked you that in the beginning of my argument? The significance of that of asking Kato for the fives, asking him for change when he already knew he was going to go out and get something to eat and could, obviously, get the change at that point? He obviously didn't need Kato to give him those fives. So, what was the point? And even when he went out with Kato and he got the change back, he didn't keep it. So, getting change from Kato was not the point. And none of his conduct is consistent with what he's telling Kato. None of it makes sense unless you look behind the words. What was he doing? What he was doing was he was setting up an alibi with Kato. He's going out to see Kato so that Kato can say that he say him. He can then Kato can later say ``I saw the defendant. I saw him at nine, ten-after-nine. He told me where he was going. He said he was going to get something to eat.'' So, if it is discovered that his whereabouts are unknown during the time of the murder, he at least has someone to say ``Well, wait a minute. He told me.'' He has a non-criminal explanation for where he was. So, he comes up with the pretext of needing change for the skycap. And it's a good way to remind Kato that he's going to be out of town, too. He'll have Kato remember that alibi also. ``I need change for the skycap.'' Unfortunately, Kato stepped in his way. Kato invited himself along. And the defendant would have been hard pressed to refuse. Because think about that. If Kato's going to be his alibi to tell anyone who later asks that ``I saw the defendant at thus and such a time'' and then ``He said he was just going to go out to get something to eat.'' And then he says, you know, ``but I tried to invite myself along but he wouldn't let me go with him,'' then you have further evidence of conscientiousness of guilt. Then, it's going to look suspicious. Why didn't he let him go with him? What's the big deal? I mean, he lets him live there. So, the defendant agrees. Take Kato with him. This unexpected development, however, eats up time for him time that he could have had out thinking about what to do; something that he was getting ready to do. Getting ready to commit the murders.
So, instead of going to a real restaurant which he had the time to do, at 10 after nine the limo wasn't going to get there until 10:45. Even if you assume there's some packing to be done for a one-day trip, how long does that take? They could have gone to a restaurant. But no, they didn't. They went to McDonalds and they went to a drive-through. The quickest way you can possibly think of to get some food. And he went there in the Bentley. Now, think about that. Why take the Bentley? Why not take the Bronco if all you're going to do is go to McDonalds unless there's something in the Bronco you don't want Kato to see? The knit cap? The knife? The gloves? If Kato sees those on the night that he intends to commit those murders, before he has committed them, and the police get to him and say ``What did you see? Where were you?'' I mean, what did happen? What happened in this case? He's going to say ``Ah, that knit cap. I know where I saw that.'' These things have to pass through his mind. Now, he's got these things in the Bronco, he doesn't want Kato sitting in that Bronco with him. So, they took the Bentley.
Now, once they got their food at McDonalds, the defendant eats his in the car all the way home. Why do that? You've got plenty of time to take it home. Eat it in your house. Relax. Live a little. It doesn't have to be rushed like that. But he eats it quickly. Why? Because now his time's been eaten up by Kato coming along. Time he doesn't have. Kato saves his. And it was interesting because he complained about being tired. It was about what was it 20 after nine, 25 after nine? They were in the car on the way back, I think it was. And he complained about being tired and Kato said ``Well, why don't you take a nap?'' He said ``Well, I've got no time.'' When I heard that ``Got no time?'' the limo It's 9:25, the limo doesn't come till 10:45. You've got time to lay down, unless you're planning on doing something else.
But what was really telling was after they got back. When they both got out of the car and Kato walks straight for the house and the defendant stood there by the Bentley not moving, watching Kato. Why do that? Why do you stand there and wait? Why not go in the house? Why not get back in your Bentley or get in the Bronco? Why do you wait for Kato to get out of sight unless you don't want him to see where you're going? Unless you have it in mind that you're not going to go back in the house. You don't want to take the time to do that and you don't want him to see you going to the Bronco.
Now, there's much more evidence planning planning that you see at the crime scene itself. And in that I mean the defendant wore dark clothing. The dark blue-black cotton sweatsuit that Kato described. Perfect in the nighttime if you don't want to be seen. The dark blue-black cotton fibers that were found on Ron Goldman, the socks, the Rockingham glove, the fibers of the clothing he wore, the watch cap and the gloves. It was June the 12th. It's a summer night. Why do you need these cashmere-lined gloves and a watch cap on a summer night unless you're going to commit a crime? Unless you're planning, unless you're preparing to commit a crime?
Gloves are easy. Why wear the gloves? Fingerprints. You don't want to leave fingerprints. And he didn't. You heard from the print people he didn't. Watch cap. A partial disguise. If he has to walk around the block the house, if he's going to be standing at the front gate, he doesn't want someone glancing to make the immediate connection. He doesn't want someone to see exactly who it is right away. Now, he doesn't intend to be there but a minute. Put a watch cap over that head, it's going to make someone that doesn't look like something he would wear. And it'd throw someone off. Now, those items alone show clear evidence of planning planning activity, planning for a murder, preparation.
But there's more. There's also time and by that I mean we know that the children were asleep at the time these murders were committed. We know that from the evidence. But who else would know when the children were going to be in bed? Who else would know when they would be safely out of the way? Who else would know when Nicole would be home alone with the children? Who else would know the perfect time to attack and get Nicole without the children being in the way? The defendant. And that not only shows premeditation, it also shows identity. Who did it?
Now, there's one more thing that shows evidence of premeditation and deliberation and that's the knife. In the inventory tape that you have in evidence, the defendant's closet is shown. And it's shown that he was in poss he had in that closet a gun. He had a gun. But he chose a knife. And this choice is evidence of planning. A gun makes noise, a knife doesn't. Particularly, if your intended victim is half your size. A gun is registered. It can be traced and bullets can be matched to guns. And even if you get rid of the gun, the type of bullet can be determined. It can be determined to have come from the type of gun you used to have. So, if you get rid of the gun, it's looking even worse almost than if the catch you in possession of it. Suddenly don't have the gun after your wife was shot to death and a bullet that could have come from that gun. But not a knife. A knife can't be identified to the exclusion of all other knives in making this wound or that wound. You can't match a knife to a murder. A knife isn't registered. All of these things make a knife a better weapon of choice than a gun. But maybe more than all of that, a knife is up close and personal. And that's the kind of murders these are, ladies and gentlemen. These murders are up close and personal. If your desire is to vent your rage on someone, a gun is far too sterile. It's far too removed. But a knife, it's lethal but it affords the opportunity for the expression of violence, power and control at very close range. The choice of a knife is evidence of planning and it too is also evidence that the defendant is the murderer.
Now, there's more evidence of premeditation and deliberation in the nature of the wounds themselves. Let's start with Nicole. As I previously discussed, Nicole was incapacitated very quickly. She had little if anything in the way of defensive wounds to her hands and she had no opportunity to defend herself. Likewise, the four wounds in close proximity on the left side of her neck, very close to one another, they indicated very little resistance. And they suggested that she was controlled or otherwise incapable of moving away to avoid being stabbed. And the gaping neck wound, the final coup-de-grace that nearly decapitated her, that is classic evidence of a cold, calculated, premeditated murder. Now, recall that this was a wound that was three-and-a-half inches deep, severed both carotid arteries and both jugular veins. This wound was so deep that the tip of the knife took a quarter inch gouge out of her vertebrae. As you recall and I've discussed it before, when this wound was inflicted, Nicole was incapacitated and helpless. There was no resistance indicated in the wound. The edges of the wound were smooth. And I told you there was something else that indicated she was unconscious and that is this. The evidence of her knuckles, unbloodied in an area where blood had already pooled around her, showed that she was incapable of raising her hand to protect herself. Incapable of raising her hand to try and ward off the knife or the hand that held the knife. No, the knuckles stayed in contact with the pavement and didn't get the blood on them that they would have gotten had she been able to raise a hand to do something to protect herself. And it's further evidence of her unconsciousness at the time that that final slash was inflicted.
Now, you remember as I indicated to you earlier the testimony indicated that the bleeding into the contusion in her brain showed that she lived for a minute or more before that final throat wound was administered to her. Now, that final gaping wound in her neck was inflicted inflicted upon an unconscious victim or at the very least incapacitated. It's clear evidence of a cold and calculated decision to kill. When a victim is already incapacitated and the defendant goes back to her, pulling back her head. She's lying there basically unconscious. He pulls back her head and he slashes the throat to such a degree that she's nearly decapitated. That was a cold and calculated decision to kill, to make sure she was dead. And it allows for no other reasonable inference.
Now, Ronald Goldman. Now, once again a very significant point with respect to Ronald Goldman as with Nicole, the neck is the target once again and we know that from the neck wounds on Ron described by Dr. Lakshmanan. Why the neck? Why is the neck that target? Because it's a sure kill. It's something we've all heard about. Go for the jugular. You go for the jugular because you cut it, you slice that neck, that person's dead. That's a sure bet. That's a sure thing. And the fact that the neck is the target for both victims indicates to you also a cold and calculated decision to kill. That is the epitome of a premeditated murder. Now, let me point out with respect to Ron, you have those two wounds. Do you recall those two lines across the neck almost parallel to each other with very little bleeding in them that Dr. Lakshmanan indicated were inflicted early on in the struggle? They're evidence. And the reason they're important is that they're evidence that the defendant controlled Ronald Goldman controlled him to the point that he could hold him and draw the knife across the neck in lines that were nearly parallel to each other. Holding Ron from behind him, left arm around him with the right hand drawing the knife. And Ron struggled to break free of that control and because he struggled and because he put off the fight, it took the defendant a little longer to incapacitate him than it did Nicole. And you've heard the cross-examination. And you heard the defense attempt to say that Ron Goldman fought with his attacker. Ron struggled but it was not a struggle with the defendant. It was a struggle to save his own life. It was a struggle to escape. The defense wants you to believe that Ron fought. That he punched the defendant. This was not a fight. And the reason we know this was not a fight was that Ron's palms are cut. For your palms to get cut, your hands have to be open. If your hands are in a fist, you're not going to get your palms cut. It's just as simple as that. And Ron's palms were cut because his hands were up as he was trying to ward off the knife. Trying to defend himself. And those abrasions on the back of his hands that were made so much of, they are fully consistent with Ron flailing back, hitting the trees, hitting the sapling, hitting the fence. There were so many areas for him to hit and get those abrasions. Abrasions that are not at all consistent with a fist hitting a face or a body part. And if you look carefully at those photographs, you'll see what I mean. A fist hits a face and you're going to get more than just one little scratch in one little area, you're going to get much more than that. You don't have it here and the reason you don't have it here is that you have evidence on the back of the hand that shows Ron Goldman falling backwards as you know he did by the blood on the fence behind him. There's no question about that. And you have his blood on the stump that he's around.
You have a lot of evidence to show you what happened here and it wasn't a fight. This was not a fight. To call this a fight, is to call drowning swimming. The shear number of wounds suffered by Ron as he struggled to pull away to escape, the shear number of these wounds is consistent with only one thought Ron Goldman must die. But beyond that there is evidence in the wounding. That the murder of Ron Goldman is of the first degree. The wound to his left abdomen, if you recall that one, the one that severed the aorta a wound that ordinarily would have bled profusely into the abdominal cavity and you expect to find all of that bleeding in the abdominal cavity if the blood pressure is normal, if the person is breathing. That blood pressure will force the blood into the cavity as a result of the wound to the abdomen. But there was very little blood to the abdominal cavity. And like Nicole's final would, there was no evidence of movement on Ron's part. The margins of the wound were clean which indicated that there was no resistance offered by Ron. And this wound was inflicted when Ron was very near death already. It was an unnecessary wound. It was a wound inflicted to make sure that Ron was dead. And it shows that the defendant took great pains to go back and deliver the final coup-de-grace to Ronald Goldman. But no matter when each wound was inflicted or in what order, the bottom line is very clear. The defendant could not leave a witness alive alive to tell what he saw. He had to deliver the fatal blows and make sure that they were fatal.
The defendant surely didn't anticipate that Ron would be there that night. He came to murder Nicole. But once Ron showed up, he could not allow him to walk away with the knowledge of what he had seen. Ron was a witness who had seen what no one was suppose to see. Ron was the ultimate threat, so Ron had to die. And the intent to eliminate a witness, ladies and gentlemen, is a premeditated and deliberate decision. It is a cold and a calculated decision. And it is not a decision that takes very long.
[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 156 - Part 22
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Deputy District Attorney: [in progress] Spousal abuse, spousal battery going on. And this is an emergency situation. And Sharon Gilbert, the 911 operator, put this call out, code two high, get somebody to 360 North Rockingham fast. And they do. And they do. About four o'clock in the morning, Officer Edwards arrives at 360 North Rockingham. You recall Officer Edwards, he and his partner, they drove up Rockingham I'm sorry, they drove up Ashford. They passed the Ashford gate, and they stopped at Rockingham where he saw the call box. He got out of his patrol car and he pushed a button at the call box and a voice responded on the other side. It was the voice of the maid at that time, Michelle Abdurahm.
Officer Edwards identified himself, told Michelle that he was there in response to a 911 call, and that he needed to speak to the person that made the call. Michelle said, ``Hey, there's no problem here. Don't worry about it. Go on about your way,'' but Officer Edwards was persistent and he said, ``No. No. No, I'm not leaving until I speak to the person that made that call,'' and he spoke to Michelle Abdurahm someone ran out of the bushes in the dark. Do you remember that testimony? You heard it. It was here. Someone ran from the bushes in dark. There was a woman, a woman with blonde hair. She was wearing a bra, just wearing a bra and pajamas, or sweat pants. And that woman came running from the bushes in the darkness toward the gate where the call box was and she was yelling something. She was shouting something. Do you remember what she was shouting? Do you remember what the testimony was in this case? She was shouting, ``He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me.'' And she shouted this four or five times.
And she arrived at that button and began pushing that button to get out of that gate, to get off that property, to get out of his house. And as Officer Edwards stood there on the street side, on the Rockingham side of that gate looking at her on the opposite side of the gate, what did he see? He saw that she was covered with mud. She was panicked. As Officer Edwards put it, ``She was hysterical.'' And she's hitting that button, hitting that button trying to open that gate to get out of there, and she's yelling to him, ``He's going to kill me.''
And what did Officer Edwards say? What did he say? ``Who? Who's going to kill you?'' He didn't see anybody running behind her. ``Who? Who was going to kill you?'' And what did she say? ``O.J. O.J.'' O.J. Simpson. The gate finally opened and she ran through the gate and she ran to Officer Edwards and she fell in his arms and collapsed and she said, ``He's going to kill me.'' And she just kept repeating it. Well, at that point, Officer Edwards shined his flashlight on her face. You remember the testimony?
When he shined that flashlight on her face, he saw that her eye was starting to blacken, the right side of her forehead was swollen, there was an imprint, some sort of a swollen mark on her right cheek, cheek, did I also say and he also said, she had a hand print. He saw a hand print, a hand print on the left side of her neck, on the left side of her throat, a hand print. Someone had grabbed this woman, his wife, by the neck, hard enough to leave an imprint around her neck, an imprint in the shape of his hand.
Well, let me say this to you. We submit to you that the hand that left that imprint five years ago is the same hand that cut that same throat, that same neck, on June 12, 1994. It was the defendant. It was the defendant then, it's the defendant now. And at that point, Nicole Brown made a she said a series of things to Officer Edwards. And remember, keep in mind that she was hysterical, she was upset and she was panicked, and I'm sure that she was in fear, because she must have been in fear because she was running through the night covered with mud in a bra and in her pajamas.
And she said to Officer Edwards, she said something very important to Officer Edwards. She said, ``You never do anything about him. You come out here. You've been out here eight times and you never do anything about him.'' That's what she told Officer Edwards that day. She said, ``You've been out here eight times.'' They want to tell you that police conspired against O.J. Simpson. Nicole says they'd been out there eight times before and never did anything to him. I don't know.
Well, let me ask you this. How many times does it take? If they'd been out there eight times before that night then that night was the ninth time. No one had ever done anything to him before. I don't know why that is, but what do you think? Do you think it's time to think that perhaps this time we ought to do something? Eight is enough. If eight isn't enough, nine is certainly enough. Nicole said it with her own mouth back then, ``He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me,'' and sure enough he has.
Well, after she makes these spontaneous statements to Officer Edwards after she complains that they'd been out there eight times before and they'd never done anything to him, this man, the defendant see, and we're seeing the defendant at home at this point, OK? We're seeing that private side of him, that private side that I told you I'd show you. He comes out of his house and he's wearing a bathrobe. It's four o'clock in the morning, nothing wrong with that. And he speaks to Officer Edwards. Now, when he speaks to Officer Edwards, does he ask him, how's my wife? No. Does he say, ``I hope I didn't hurt her too badly.'' No. What does he say? What does he do? He humiliates her. Do remember what he said? He said, ``I don't want that woman in my bed anymore. I got two other women. I don't want that woman in my bed anymore.''
That was his response. And this was Nicole, his wife. She'd been his wife four years. And you recall Officer Edwards' testimony that this defendant he was angry. He was mad. He was fit to tied. And he was yelling at Officer Edwards, and the defendant was on one side of the gate, he was on the Rockingham side on his own property, while Officer Edwards was on the other side of the gate. And there they are speaking to each other on opposite sides of the gate, and the defendant is yelling these things to Officer Edwards about his wife, saying these kinds of things about his wife to Officer Edwards, who is a stranger. And Officer Edwards said to the defendant, ``Your wife has been battered. She is injured. I am going to have to arrest you.''
Well, that just set the defendant off again, just set him off. Let me tell you something, the fuse is burning, the fuse is burning, folks. The fuse is burning, and at some point this fuse is going to run out, it's going to play out, it's going to get so short that and so close to the bomb that at some point this bomb is going to explode. And what does the defendant say when Officer Edwards says to him, ``I'm going to have to arrest you. I'm going to have to take you to jail.'' What does the defendant say? He says the same thing Nicole said, in a sense. He says to Officer Edwards this is what the defendant said, you recall his testimony. Officer Edwards heard the defendant say, ``You've been up here eight times before and now you're going to arrest me for this?''
Now, let's just think about that for a moment. If nothing else, we now have the confirmation that we need. It's a confirmation of the fact that police had been there eight times before. But what is this part about, ``And now you're going to arrest me for this.'' What does that mean? What does that mean? Now, you're going to arrest me for this, but you've been out there eight times before and I don't know. I mean, this is the evidence in the case. You're going to have to decide what that means. You can interpret what he says. You don't have to just take it literally. You decide what that means. It can mean a couple of things.
And after he said that, and after he complained to Officer Edwards about the fact that he was going to be arrested for beating his wife he says to Officer Edwards, ``This is a family matter. It's a family matter and nothing more.'' Well, wife beating is not just a family matter, is it? I mean, is this something we ought to take seriously? That's one thing about spousal abuse. You know what happens and it always happens behind closed doors. And you know what they say, nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors, and we don't know everything that went on behind the gates of this man's estate at Rockingham, but we do know this. That whatever it was, whatever went on there had gone on eight times prior to this time. We know that. But he says it's a family matter. He minimizes what has happened. He doesn't care about his woman. He didn't care about what he did to her.
Well, Officer Edwards gives him the he gives him the star treatment. He tells him, ``Hey, I'm gonna take you to jail. Go back in the house and get dressed.'' Well, Officer Edwards did not insist on arresting him right then and there and at that point. He let him go in the house, alone to get dressed. Now, apparently, that's what the defendant did because a few minutes later he came back out, yelling and complaining and moaning, complaining about being arrested and saying more derogatory things about his wife in front of this stranger.
Well, in the meantime, Officer Edwards has sent for a second car, a second police vehicle, a transport vehicle because he was going to transport Nicole to the station in one car and they were going to arrest this man and take him to the station in another car. And as that second police car arrived, and as Officer Edwards turned his attention toward that second police car, that meant that he turned his attention away from the defendant.
And what did the defendant do? Remember the testimony? You remember what happened. I know it's been a long time? What did he do? Jumped in the car and he ran. Remember that? He went out the other gate in the Bentley. He ran. He drove away. He got away. He didn't get arrested. He avoided responsibility that day for having done what he did to Nicole. Responsibility is an important word. Isn't that one of the words we teach our I know I teach my kids about responsibility. You know? You have to tell them. You have to let your kids know, hey, you're doing that, you got to accept responsibility. OK? You got to accept the consequences.
Well, he didn't accept the consequences that day. He didn't accept responsibility. He jumped in that Bentley, he drove away, he snuck off, he avoided responsibility, he got away from the police. They tried to catch him and they couldn't. Well, we caught him this time.
Well, after the defendant got away, Edwards asked Nicole to go down to Parker Center, to come from Rockingham all the way downtown to Parker Center so that he could have some professional photographs taken of her injuries. But she refused. Remember what she said? She said, ``No, I just want my children. I want to stay here with my children. I don't want to leave my children.''
Now, she was beaten and she was bruised and she was hurt, but she still wanted to stay with her kids. She wanted to be with her kids. And Edwards said, ``Well, will you do this for us? Will you just go down to West L.A. station and let us photograph your injuries? It will only take a few minutes.'' It seems as if she was more concerned about her kids than she was doing anything to the defendant. She didn't care about documenting her own injuries at that time, she just wanted to be with her kids.
But Edwards took her to West L.A. station and he took some Polaroid photographs of her. You remember those photographs? Back in February, I think it was, I think I marked those People's 4 and 5. I want you to go back for a moment with me, eight months ago, take a look at these injuries, and keep in mind that these are Polaroid and they're eight years old. But look at these injuries. And just look at what you can see, which isn't much at this point. See that small cut to the right side from where we are, on the right side of her upper lip? Look at the swelling on her left cheek. Look at the scar, the scratch, the bruise up on the right side of her forehead. You see that?
You've seen other pictures of her. You saw a picture of her when she was alive and smiling. You remember that picture? I'll have to find it for you tomorrow. But you look at that picture, the one you're looking at now, and you look at the one of her smiling. You look at those two pictures, I think, and it helps you discern just how badly bruised she was.
Well, at some point he took her back home to be with her kids. The defendant, well, they didn't catch him that night. And the next day Nicole spoke to Ron Shipp. And the next day as well the defendant spoke to Detective Farrell. Remember Detective Farrell, the detective investigating this case? He called Detective Farrell on the phone and apologized for the incident and expressed to Detective Farrell his dismay at the extent of her injuries. Do you remember that? He called Farrell and told him he didn't realize she'd been injured that much. He didn't realize the full extent of her injuries at the time.
I don't know. You tell me. That's a Polaroid. This is People's 29. She doesn't quite look like that in any other photograph that you've seen in this case, does she? The fuse was burning, ladies and gentlemen. He had injured her, he had harmed her, and he had beaten her and he did not fully realize the extent of his own anger, the extent of his own rage at that point. He had hurt her in ways that he apparently, he himself, didn't fully comprehend at the time.
Then later on, he wrote her some letters and was trying to get back on her good side. Now, you may see these as letters of apology. We say these are letters of manipulation.
[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 156 - Part 23
CHRISTOPHER DARDEN, Deputy District Attorney: [in progress] wrote her some letters. He was trying to get back on her good side.
Now, you may see these as letters of apology. We say these are letters of manipulation. What is he really attempting to accomplish here? You have the original letters in the jury room. In the beginning, he expresses to her how sorry he is. Actually, I don't know. Does he say he's sorry, and does he say he was wrong? Well, he says he was wrong for hurting her and that there's no excuse for what he did. And then he goes on to write something I think is very, very important here. He writes that he's thinking and trying to realize how he got so crazy. He had such emotional feelings towards her that were as high as any he'd ever felt. And it must have been it must be because of those feelings that he reacted so emotionally. With all of that emotion running in him, he says he didn't react too well.
It's just as I've said a moment before, he doesn't fully realize, or, he didn't in 1989, just how crazy he got, he could get, how emotional he could get, how passionate he could get. Now, what set this whole thing off? What happened in 1989 that caused him to get to the point that he beat this woman up? Well, Ron Shipp testified about his conversation with Nicole. Now, if you reflect back for a moment on on the defendant's statement to Edwards that he had two women, right? What did Shipp tell you about his conversation with Nicole? She found out about the other two women. She didn't want to have sex with him. She didn't want to be with him. That's what led to this whole thing in 1989, his passion, his emotion. And when that passion and that emotion gets out of control and he was out of control in 1989 and when that fuse starts burning, ladies and gentlemen, and it starts getting shorter and shorter, sets him off. He was set off that day in 1989.
But you look at this letter, and you'll have this letter in the jury room and you'll see. You'll see that he can't always control the passion and anger and emotion himself. Something about this woman, this woman, she does something to this man that causes him to lose control, and he lost control. He lost control of her, because in 1992, she moved out of his house. In January of 1992, as I recall, and the next month I think it's February, I don't know. Maybe I should pull out that time line board, Your Honor. Because in 1992 and in February, if I'm not mistaken, she filed for divorce. Well, you know, when a woman moves out of your house and files for divorce, I have learned, it means she doesn't want you anymore. It means that there's something wrong in the relationship. And it means, I think, that, perhaps, if you are the other party to that marriage, that perhaps you should be seeking companionship elsewhere. Now, that's not what they did in this case. She left, she filed for divorce, and he couldn't take it.
You heard from Catherine Boe and her husband, Mr. Colby. Remember Mr. Colby? They lived at the corner on Gretna Green. In 1992, and I believe it was April 28th, around 11 p.m. that night it's here on the chart they looked out the window and they saw a figure, a man, a man in the dark. In the darkness, they saw a man, and the man was out on the sidewalk and he was looking around and he was pacing a little bit up and down the sidewalk. He was pacing, walking up and down on the sidewalk. I don't know what it means when people pace. I do it a lot. But I don't know what this person was doing it pacing out there on the sidewalk. But they thought this was unusual at eleven o'clock at night. Was it a Sunday night? I think it was a Sunday night. And they watched this person and they watched this person, this man. By the way, this man was about six feet, 6'2, 200 pounds, African-American. They watched this man in the dark, in the night, pacing up and down the sidewalk. And then they saw that man walk down the sidewalk, up the driveway, and peer through the window of Nicole Brown's house on Gretna Green. Remember that testimony? He didn't handle that divorce the filing of that divorce too well, now did he?
Now they may say, ``Oh, well, you know, he you know, he looked through a window. Big deal.'' This is more than just looking through a window. This is stalking. When people come up to your window at eleven o'clock at night and they peek through it and they look through it and they watch you, there's something wrong here. There is something wrong here. This is obsessive conduct, ladies and gentlemen. This is obsessive conduct. This is stalking. And the Colbys saw this man. They saw him do that. They saw him walk back out on the sidewalk and they became so concerned about him that they telephoned the police. They called the police. And after they called the police, they continued to watch through their window to watch this man. They couldn't tell who the man was at that particular point in time but after a few moments, they could. Who was that man? Him. It was the defendant, O.J. Simpson, stalking Nicole.
It's already April April of 1992 and let me tell you something, by April of 1992 this woman knew that she was going to die. She told Edwards that he was going to kill her. She told him that back in 1989. And apparently she believed that. You heard testimony from a D.A. investigator in this case, my investigator from my office, Mike Stevens. And Mr. Stevens testified that in December of 1994 and with the permission of a judge, he said that he went to a bank and he drilled a hole in a safe deposit box. Do you recall that testimony? And it was in that safe deposit box that he found a letter that we showed you a moment ago. Remember that, the letter where the defendant says he doesn't know how he got so crazy. They found that letter and they found two other letters from the defendant, from O.J. Simpson to Nicole, attempting to get back with her, attempting to convince her to take him back, attempting to convince her that things would be better the next time.
They found those letters in that safe deposit box and they found something else. They found a will. They found a will, this woman's will. It had been executed during 1990, which means she must have been about 30 years old. You know many people at the age of 30 who execute wills? But you find her will, his letters and something else. Do you have those? There were some photographs, some photographs from back in 1989 because after he beat her in 1989 she called her sister, Denise, and Denise came over. And she showed Denise the injuries this man inflicted on her and she asked Denise to take pictures of those injuries. And she put those pictures in that safe deposit box, along with her will, along with her letters.
She put those things there for a reason. I mean they're just letters and they're just pictures, aren't they? But if you're going to have a safe deposit box, you think that the things that you put in that box are things that you think are important. And I don't know how you want to interpret that conduct. You can interpret it any way you want, but let me suggest to you that you should interpret it this way. She was leaving you a road map to let you know who it is who eventually kill her. She knew in 1989. She knew it and she wants you to know it. She knew who was going to do it to her but she didn't now when. But whenever that eventuality came, she wanted you to know who did it. Think about that. Just think about that; a will, photographs of her being beaten, OK? You tell me.
This is one of the photographs here that Denise took of her sister in 1989 People's 11. And this photograph was taken, as I recall, on the 3rd or the 4th I believe of January, three or four days after the beating. And you can still see the injuries. This wasn't some little bruise that healed overnight or that went away the next morning. She left these for you. This is a road map. This is a sign. She wanted you to know who killed her when the time came. But it's 1992, and in 1992 he's already beaten up her Mercedes and her car. He's already beaten her up. Show the next one. And he is peeping through her window.
Now, look at the picture up on the ELMO. Look at People's 29. That fuse is getting shorter, folks. It's burning and at some point he is going to explode. But in April of '92, as he peeks through the window and stalks her, he is jealous. He is jealous. He is consumed with jealousy. He has become obsessive and we know he's consumed with jealousy because we know that back in 1989 after he did this to her, he spoke to Ron Shipp? You remember that? You remember Ron Shipp. You remember what they did to Ron Ship on the witness stand?
Ron Shipp testified that back in '89 he was a member of the LAPD and a friend to Nicole and to the defendant, and that after he beat her in 1989, she called him, she asked him to come and see her and he did. Do you recall his testimony? When he walked through the door, he saw Nicole and he saw these injuries and these bruises and he was shocked. And he wanted to know who did this to her. She told him, ``He did it.'' And she talked to Ron Shipp about the defendant's conduct and their relationship and, as you recall, Ron Shipp at the time was teaching at the police academy. He was teaching a course on spousal abuse.
And he showed Nicole a document and this document listed some of the characteristics that are indicative of a man who beats women and are indicative of a woman who allows a man to beat her. And he showed it to Nicole and he spoke with her and she asked him to do her a favor, and that is to speak to O.J. Simpson her husband at the time, the defendant to speak with him about his conduct, to speak with him about what he did to her. And Ron Shipp did that. And he showed and he showed this document to O.J. Simpson, the defendant. The document, I believe, was called a profile, a batterer's profile, a list of all these characteristics or characteristics consistent with a person who beats his wife. And he showed them to O.J. Simpson and he had a discussion. And at first, this defendant tried to minimize what he had done to Nicole and he tried to suggest that, hey, he wasn't a batterer. And Ron said, ``Man, look at your wife. Look at the injuries. Of course you're a batterer.''
The defendant tried to minimize his conduct and he showed those characteristics, that profile, to O.J. Simpson and O.J. Simpson pointed one out. I mean, Shipp said, ``Hey, do any of these fit you in your mind? Do any of these fit you?'' There was one category entitled ``pathologically jealous,'' remember? And O.J. Simpson said, ``Well maybe, you know, maybe a little bit, maybe I'm a little bit jealous, maybe a little bit pathologically jealous.''
You know, that's one of those things where you, you know, you can't be just a little bit up. Either you are or you aren't. You know what I mean? I mean you can't be somewhat jealous or partially jealous. You're either jealous or you're not jealous. And this defendant, he was jealous and he was out of control and he was consumed with passion for Nicole and he was obsessive because in April of 1992 he is peeping through windows. He has already beaten her. He has beaten up her car. And he had done some other thing. In 1988 or 1989, I told you already that the testimony from Denise Brown was that he humiliated Nicole in public by grabbing her crotch in front of a bar full of strangers.
And what else had he done? What else had he done? He'd thrown Nicole and Denise out of his house one night. Remember that night, that night that Denise said to him, ``O.J., you take Nicole for granted.'' And he blew up. Remember, he blew up and he said, ``Hey, I do everything for her.'' And he became enraged back then and he picked Nicole up and he threw her against the wall and he threw her out the house. And he threw Denise out the house. And he threw all the clothes downstairs and out the house, too. Do you remember that testimony?
This is the private side of him. This is the other side. This is the other side of this man that you don't see in the commercial. He is out of control. He cannot handle it. And the fuse is burning.
Judge LANCE ITO, Los Angeles Superior Court: All right, ladies and gentlemen we're going to take our Mr. Wooden, would you take that down for me, please? Thank you, sir. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take our recess for the evening. Please all of my admonitions to you. Do not discuss this case amongst yourselves, don't form any opinions, 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 stand in recess until tomorrow morning at 9:00 and we'll resume with Mr. Darden's argument tomorrow morning at 9:00.
Have a pleasant evening what's left of it. We'll see you tomorrow morning, 9:00. All right, we'll stand in recess.
TERRY MORAN, Anchor: So after an 11-hour court day, Judge Ito sends the jurors back into their sequestered homes. Prosecutor Christopher arguing for just over an hour the domestic violence evidence, the evidence that the state contends is the motive evidence in this case. Prosecutor Christopher describing what he described was the burning of a long, slow fuse that led to the explosion that was these murders. He went through a lot of the domestic violence evidence and I want to ask Paul Cowan, our guest commentator who has been watching this with me. Their low key, conversational kind of approach to what is very intensely emotional evidence; how do you think Chris Darden has pulled this together?
PAUL CALLAN, Criminal Defense Attorney: It's very, very important evidence because it puts the
[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.]
