Simpson Defense Loses Bid for Share of Blood Samples : Courts: Ruling clears way for prosecution to conduct DNA tests, but defense must be given access to leftovers. Judge rejects claims of misconduct in grand jury probe.

A major pretrial battle in the O.J. Simpson murder case ended Friday when Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito denied defense lawyers equal shares of blood samples for DNA testing by their own experts.

The ruling means that blood samples held hostage by an intense legal debate between the defense and prosecution may now be tested at a California Department of Justice laboratory in Berkeley. Tests at a laboratory in Maryland are continuing.

In an order released Friday, Ito concluded that the DNA tests proposed by the prosecution are “reasonably necessary” and may proceed even if they consume the samples and make it impossible for the defense to perform a process known as genetic fingerprinting. The judge directed prosecutors and their scientific experts to give the defense notice of any tests and to conduct them as conservatively as possible so that the defense might be able to use any leftover samples.

The defense suffered a second setback later in the day. A judge turned down an emergency request that he sanction prosecutors or dismiss charges against Simpson, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Simpson’s attorneys had accused prosecutors of misconduct in their handling of a grand jury investigation of the actions of Simpson’s friend Al Cowlings. They asked the judge to dismiss the case against Simpson because, they charged, prosecutors are improperly using the grand jury to gather more evidence against their client.

After rejecting a media request that he hold the misconduct hearing in open court, Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger met behind closed doors with the prosecutors and defense attorneys and released an order turning down the motion to dismiss the charges.

“There is no support in fact or law supporting the sanctions which (Simpson) seeks at this time,” Czuleger wrote. He added that witnesses who testify before the grand jury should feel free to discuss their testimony with Simpson’s attorneys. The judge also required that he be notified before any member of Simpson’s defense team--or any defense or prosecution witness in the Simpson case--is forced to testify before the Cowlings grand jury.

While the grand jury presses ahead, Ito’s ruling in the Simpson case ended, at least for now, the vitriolic debate on splitting blood samples and subjecting them to a battery of DNA tests.

Preliminary DNA tests have shown similarities between Simpson’s blood and samples taken from the scene of the murders. Defense attorneys are challenging the integrity of those tests, however, and from the opening moments of the investigation have accused authorities of mishandling the samples.

In a series of recent hearings, they had sought independent testing of all the blood samples. They argued that the prosecution had engaged in a conspiracy to consume all of the samples, improperly withheld some of the samples without notifying the defense and significantly mishandled the evidence. They had also contended that Simpson could not put on an adequate defense without independent testing of the blood.

In his ruling Friday, Ito chided the prosecution and the Los Angeles Police Department for their handling of some of the tests but declined to accept the defense’s characterization of those actions.

“What was revealed to the court in the course of this hearing was a picture of confusion, miscommunication and non-communication between the prosecuting attorneys and the LAPD,” Ito wrote. “Such conduct, while less than exemplary, does not rise to the level of bad faith or misconduct.”

Although he cleared the way for the prosecution to continue testing the various blood and hair samples, the judge ordered government experts to conduct their tests “in a conservative manner” and to “maintain for potential defense testing any residual or remaining material.”

The prosecution also must notify the defense 48 hours before any testing is performed so it can have its experts on hand to watch. That requirement had already been in effect, but Ito’s order extended it to any future tests.

The ruling resoundingly rejected the defense efforts to secure the samples, and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti expressed his satisfaction with the ruling.

“The judge said it best,” Garcetti remarked after reading the ruling. “There is no legal basis for the defense to get what they were asking for.”

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., one of Simpson’s attorneys, said: “We’re not disappointed at all. The motion was well-taken and he ruled.”

Meanwhile, law enforcement sources said Friday that the LAPD is preparing to take administrative action against a police sergeant who provided security for Simpson and who concocted a scheme to help the famous athlete elude reporters the day before he was arrested.

The sergeant, Dennis Sebenick of the Harbor Division, is expected to face administrative charges growing out of the conflict-of-interest created by an LAPD officer providing security for someone under investigation by the department. Sebenick has taken vacation time and was not available for comment Friday, but he has asked a colleague from Harbor Division to act as his defense representative.

“The investigation is ongoing, we know that much,” Sgt. Paul Enox, Sebenick’s representative, said Friday. “I certainly would hope that it will be completed soon.”

Sebenick was ordered to testify before the Los Angeles County Grand Jury investigating Cowlings, and law enforcement sources say his commanding officer has recommended that he be suspended for an undetermined period. If Sebenick objects, or if superiors in the department determine that the recommended suspension is not appropriate, the sergeant could be forced to face a disciplinary hearing known as a board of rights.

According to sources familiar with the Sebenick investigation, the sergeant said he was contacted by people close to Simpson and asked to provide security for the funeral of Nicole Simpson. At the end of the funeral, Simpson was trying to avoid reporters and photographers outside his home, and Sebenick, who runs a private security business, suggested that they use a decoy.

Photographs of the decoy, accompanied by Sebenick and another man, were published and aired on television, tipping off LAPD officials to Sebenick’s work for Simpson.

As the Police Department weighed action against Sebenick, the city attorney’s office filed its response to the Simpson defense team’s effort to secure personnel records and other documents related to the background of the four LAPD detectives who played important roles in the opening hours of the murder investigation.

In papers filed Friday with Ito, Deputy City Atty. Donna Weisz Jones asked the judge to deny the defense request altogether or severely limit it “due to the overly broad, vague and improper requests for information.”

The defense lawyers have asked for all reports or other materials related to citizen complaints, allegations of falsified or mishandled evidence and accusations of failure to follow police procedures lodged against Detective Mark Fuhrman, and a narrower array of records on Detectives Philip L. Vannatter, Tom Lange and Ronald Phillips.

The defense also wants any records of contacts between any of the detectives and Simpson, his ex-wife and Goldman.

Lange and Vannatter are the lead detectives in the case. Fuhrman and his supervisor, Phillips, work at the LAPD’s West Los Angeles Division and were briefly assigned to the murder investigation. Within hours of the killings, however, the case was transferred to the Police Department’s robbery-homicide division and turned over to Lange and Vannatter.

In a motion prepared by Simpson lawyer Carl E. Douglas, the defense accused Fuhrman of harboring “despicable attitudes and viewpoints toward African Americans” and especially toward interracial couples such as Simpson and his ex-wife.

That motion called the detective a “dangerous officer with a propensity to create false information against African American defendants.”

Fuhrman’s lawyer, Robert H. Tourtelot, has denied that his client ever made racist statements or did anything else improper. Tourtelot and Jones will oppose the release of the personnel records at a hearing scheduled for Monday.

Outside court, new details emerged about items taken from Simpson’s Ford Bronco after he surrendered to authorities.

Earlier reports had suggested that two sums of cash were taken from the car, one from Simpson and another from Cowlings. In fact, sources said Friday, only one large sum of money was found in the car. Property reports indicate that Cowlings was carrying $8,750 in cash, and sources close to the case say that money had been given to him by Simpson--who asked Cowlings to pass it along to Simpson’s children. The cash was taken from Cowlings when he was arrested and returned to him when he posted bond.

Simpson also was carrying his passport and a gun, sources have said. Authorities said the combination of the cash and the passport in the car bolstered their contention that Simpson was hoping to flee prosecution and that Cowlings was aiding his friend’s flight from justice.

Lawyers for Simpson and Cowlings dispute that. The money, they say, was meant to provide for Simpson’s family after he had gone through with a plan to kill himself. And, according to them, the passport was merely among Simpson’s personal effects and papers, which he had gathered to turn himself in.