Ito refuses to end jury sequestration

September 13, 1995 -- 5 p.m. EDT

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- It was a day of ups and downs for the prosecution in the O.J. Simpson case. Judge Lance Ito denied a defense request to begin letting jurors go home at night, an idea that prosecutors strongly opposed.

The defense argued Tuesday that the sequestration order should be modified to let jurors go home. Ito ruled, "The conditions which caused the court to issue its original order to fully sequester the jury have continued and intensified. No good cause exists to modify the conditions of sequestration at this time."

[Clark] Ito fined the district attorney's office $1,000 dollars for keeping the court waiting Wednesday morning without calling to explain. Clark said the delay was caused by an emergency in the family of the person who was going to argue the admissibility of the Bronco chase. The fine was first set at $250, but when Clark complained that defense lawyer Robert Shapiro was also late, Ito raised the sanction to $1,000.

[Garcetti] After Ito's ruling, District Attorney Gil Garcetti accused the court of employing a double-standard. "If the defense does anything wrong, so be it. But the prosecution does something wrong -- bam! That's uncalled for. I'm not going to take that anymore. I don't expect Marcia Clark, Chris Darden, or anyone else to have to accept that kind of judgment by this court." (330K aiff)

Other developments Wednesday:

The prosecution has dropped, at least for now, plans to bring up Simpson's infamous flight from police on June 17, five days after the murders of his ex-wife and her friend. Clark said she wanted to see the rest of the defense case and their rebuttal witnesses before she decides if she will bring up the issue.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, the prosecution said, it will finish its rebuttal case Thursday.

Simpson's lawyers want Ito to dismiss a white woman from the jury due to her race and fears that she favors prosecution, a defense source has told CNN. The woman, a retired gas worker in her 60s, is one of two white women on the jury. A prosecution source called the effort "another defense move to play the race card."

Blood in the Bronco

In testimony Wednesday, prosecution rebuttal expert Gary Sims testified that a new DNA test showed a mixture of blood in O.J. Simpson's Ford Bronco was consistent with Simpson's blood and that of murder victim Ronald Goldman.

The prosecution contends Simpson drove the vehicle to and from the murder scene after he killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman in June 1994.

Results of the test Sims testified about arrived late in the case, but Ito ruled prosecutors did not delay in commencing the testing, as the defense had argued. Ito also ruled the testimony of Sims "is appropriate rebuttal to Dr. John Gerdes' testimony concerning stains from the Bronco console.

Gerdes testified that the LAPD crime lab was so contaminated it should be shut down. He was also critical of the use of DNA in forensic work. He said he had no scientific confidence in blood samples taken from the Bronco, but acknowledged he had no training in forensic science.

[Sims] Sims, who works for the California State Crime Lab, said (142K aiff) Gerdes was mistaken and the DNA test results are "consistent with Mr. Goldman and Mr. Simpson." On cross-examination, Sims said he didn't know what the basis of Gerdes' concerns were. Sims added that DNA testing continues on the Bronco.

Defense attorney Barry Scheck quizzed Sims about the break-in of the Bronco while it was at the police tow yard, which Sims said he had heard about. Sims said he had no knowledge of the history of the samples in this case, which he later said was not unusual.

Under re-direct, Sims said a break-in to the Bronco would not necessarily alter the results of PCR or RFLP DNA tests.

Prosecutor Rockne Harmon tried to establish that Simpson could have deposited the blood in the Bronco while wearing one bloody glove, but the line of questioning was not allowed.

Fiber evidence limited

On another matter relating to the Bronco, Ito turned down a prosecution attempt to get before the jury an FBI report regarding the rarity of carpet fibers from in Simpson's Bronco.

Fibers were found on the glove at Simpson's Rockingham estate and a watch cap found at Bundy Drive. According to prosecutors, the FBI report strengthens the conclusion that those fibers came from Simpson's Bronco.

During the prosecution case, Ito did not allow FBI agent Doug Deedrick to testify about the report because it had not been turned over to the defense.

Prosecutors argued the report should be allowed to rebut testimony, but the defense team argued they had not introduced any testimony that would allow that.

Clark tried to argue that the defense attempted to show through the testimony of Kathleen Bell that Mark Fuhrman drove a sports utility vehicle, implying that he may have been the source of the fibers.

But Ito said Bell's testimony regarded seeing Fuhrman in 1986. He said the testimony in this case was that Fuhrman came to the crime scene in a police car.

Ito refuses to end jury sequestration

Other developments Wednesday:

Blood in the Bronco

Fiber evidence limited

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