BY  Sally Ann Stewart

        LOS ANGELES - Experts say both sides of the O.J. Simpson case scored points in the battle for the perfect jury.
        The prosecution benefits because eight of the 12 jurors seated Thursday are women, perhaps better able to identify with victim Nicole Brown Simpson, outside criminal defense lawyer Don Wager says.
        "As for the defense, if you want to attack the credibility of the police, you certainly want African-American jurors," he says. Eight jurors are black.
        A closer look at the 12:
        -- Seat No. 1: Black woman, 50, divorced, works as a vendor. On her jury questionnaire, she wrote she had a "sick feeling" when she first heard that O.J. Simpson was a suspect: "I respect him as an individual based on his past."
        -- Seat No. 2: A black female flight attendant, 25. She said she saw Simpson in Roots and Naked Gun movies: "He seemed like he would have a good sense of humor."
        -- Seat No. 3: Half Native American and half white male, 52, a teacher. He believes racial bias in southern California is "not too serious." But he said that while a teen, he was denied entrance to a public swimming pool because of his race.
        -- Seat No. 4: A truck driver/soda deliverer, 32, half-black and half-Hispanic.  On his questionnaire, he described defense lawyer Robert Shapiro as a "happy-go-lucky kind of guy" and wrote that prosecutor Marcia Clark "looks tough. I wouldn't mess with her."
        -- Seat No. 5: A self-employed black woman, 37. During questioning, she said her son was wrongly arrested once because he had the same birthdate and almost the same name as a criminal suspect. But, she said, she doesn't hold a grudge against police.
        -- Seat No. 6: A black man, 48, who's worked for Hertz - Simpson's own former employer - for 25 years. He said during courtroom questioning: "If you do a crime or anything wrong, you should pay for it."
        -- Seat No. 7: A black woman, 38, an employment interviewer, married for 17 years. She said she could understand why Simpson pleaded no-contest to a 1989 charge of spouse abuse: "Because the media is so vicious."
        -- Seat No. 8: A black woman, 38, single. An environmental health specialist with a college degree in dietetics, she wrote on her questionnaire: "I am not familiar with . . . DNA as it relates to identifying a person at a crime scene."
        -- Seat No. 9: A black woman, 52, divorced, U.S. Postal Service worker. She watched some of the preliminary hearing, but wrote that she never noticed Simpson before because she's "not a football fan."
        -- Seat No. 10: A Hispanic woman, 38, single, works as a letter carrier. She wrote that she experienced "verbal and mental abuse by an ex-boyfriend." During courtroom questioning: "I guess anyone could commit murder."
        -- Seat No. 11: A white woman, 22, who works as an insurance claims adjuster. She's from the Midwest and her proudest accomplishment "is coming to California and making it on my own."
        -- Seat No. 12: A black man, 46, who works as a courier, married for eight years. "Growing up in the '50s and '60s as a person of color was not easy," he wrote in his questionnaire. During questioning, he said that while he watched the freeway chase, "I was concerned there was going to be a real ugly mess."