Judge Reopens Access to Simpson Jury Selection : Trial: New transcripts reveal attorneys for both sides say prospective jurors may be lying to get on the panel.

Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito reversed field Friday and reopened media access to jury selection in the O.J. Simpson murder case even as newly released transcripts revealed that attorneys on both sides said prospective jurors may have been lying to get on the panel.

In a rare criticism of the people who may judge Simpson’s fate, attorney Robert L. Shapiro suggested in the transcript that prospective jurors had been “begging to be on the case of the century.” Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark went even further, saying many potential jurors had been lying to conceal a bias toward Simpson.

Ito unsealed the transcripts Friday shortly after resuming jury selection in the presence of reporters.

That move headed off a legal challenge from news organizations. It also came after Shapiro announced that the defense team had had a change of heart and now supported allowing reporters to cover the individual questioning of prospective jurors on the topic of their exposure to publicity surrounding the high-profile case.

The reopening of the jury selection process--10 prospective jurors were questioned Friday and five were excused--was accompanied by the release of the startling transcript from a closed hearing earlier this week. During that session, attorneys for both sides raised questions about the honesty of prospective jurors, and Simpson asked to address the judge, for the first time publicly trying to explain his actions June 17, when a spellbound nation watched the football great and his best friend lead police on a low-speed pursuit across Orange and Los Angeles counties.

“I’m an innocent man,” Simpson said in a short speech intended to persuade Ito to grant him bail and delay the trial. “I want to get to the jury. I want to get to a jury. I want to get it over with as soon as I can.”

Simpson added: “Mrs. Clark, Miss Clark, said I was trying to run. Everyone knows that I called my father-in-law. I was not in a frame of mind. I admit that I was not in the right frame of mind at the time I was trying to get to my wife. . . .”

“Excuse me,” Shapiro interjected, apparently to keep his client from straying off the subject.

But Simpson continued: “I was headed back home.”

At that point, Shapiro interrupted again, telling Simpson he was prohibiting him from speaking further and stating that he would resign as his lawyer if Simpson kept talking.

“Thank you,” Simpson said. He then stopped.

Prosecutors objected to the release of the transcript and said later that they opposed it because of Simpson’s comments, which Deputy Dist. Atty. William Hodgman called “a soliloquy by the defendant.”

“He was not cross-examined,” Hodgman added. “He was permitted to offer what we characterize as a very self-serving statement.”

Shapiro countered by stating that it is not unusual for a defendant to speak on his own behalf during a discussion of bail and that the release of the transcript would cause no harm. Ito agreed and unsealed the document.

Simpson’s comments, his most extensive public remarks since being arrested four months ago, came near the close of the intense debate over pretrial publicity and the defense’s request for a long delay in the trial.

Some of that argument was repeated later in open court, but the closed session featured surprising comments from lawyers on both sides. Among other things, prosecutors and defense attorneys both asserted that they believe that some of the prospective jurors were lying when they were questioned in the presence of other panelists. The Simpson attorneys also asked Ito whether it was true, as sources had apparently told them, that the judge and prosecutors had met privately last week without defense lawyers present.

Ito denied that, calling the allegation “preposterous.”

The session, at which Simpson and lawyers for both sides were present, highlighted the enormous difficulty that the attorneys perceive in finding impartial jurors to weigh the evidence against Simpson, who is charged with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. Simpson has pleaded not guilty to those charges.

“We have 300 people begging to be on the case of the century and will give you any answer they want,” Shapiro said at one point. “Today, you know in your heart of hearts we cannot get a fair trial. The prosecutors know it, Mr. Simpson knows it, and the world knows it.”

Although she vehemently disputed Shapiro’s contention that Simpson cannot receive a fair trial, prosecutor Clark reluctantly agreed that finding impartial jurors was a difficult task, complicated by what she said was the willingness of many prospective jurors to lie.

“Many if not most (of the prospective jurors) are lying to the detriment of the People because they are sitting there as fans of the defendant,” Clark said. “I wish that we could only put all the jurors on polygraph because if the People could get just 12 fair-minded, impartial jurors to listen to the evidence, then we know what the outcome will be.”

Clark’s comments about the prospective jurors were “remarkable,” said Loyola law professor Laurie Levenson.

“She’s expressing her frustration,” Levenson said. “This is a situation she’s probably never been in before. In most murder cases, jurors are at least subconsciously in favor of the prosecution.”

In urging Ito to grant Simpson bail, a motion the judge denied, defense lawyers said that their client posed no risk of flight and that the once-wealthy superstar’s funds now are nearly gone. Paying the costs of his legal defense and setting up trust funds for his children have left Simpson’s funds “virtually depleted,” Shapiro said.

The session also featured a blunt discussion of the racial themes that have occasionally surfaced in the case.

Clark accused defense attorneys of first denying that they intended to make an issue of race in the trial and then injecting that issue, primarily as part of the defense attack on a Los Angeles police detective. As he has before, Shapiro denied that he intends to make race an issue at trial, saying his interest is in challenging the detective’s credibility.

But Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. took a different tack. Cochran has handled a number of high-profile cases in which race has figured prominently--he represents Reginald O. Denny in a lawsuit alleging that Denny’s beating during the 1992 riots was partly the fault of police officials failing to protect minority neighborhoods.

“We as lawyers would be derelict in our duties if we did not ask people about these things,” Cochran said. “Race plays a part in everything in America. We don’t make it an issue, but society makes it an issue.”

On Thursday, after inviting both sides to request that some jury questioning be conducted in private, Ito closed the jury questioning on media issues to the press and public. But he relented Friday in the face of stiff opposition. By changing course, Ito avoided what legal experts had said would be a difficult fight for him in the appellate courts.

The Times, the Associated Press and other news organizations filed an emergency petition with the state Court of Appeal’s 2nd Appellate District on Friday morning, asking that court to overturn Ito’s decision to close off part of the jury selection process.

In that motion, written by attorney Kelli L. Sager, the media outlets argued that Ito’s order was “without any justification, let alone the compelling justification required by the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution and controlling case law.”

The appellate court immediately asked the parties in the case to respond to the media appeal, but before they could, Shapiro announced the change in defense position and Ito withdrew his order.

“We’re delighted that the defense became convinced that our position yesterday was correct and equally delighted that Judge Ito was persuaded to change his ruling,” Sager said.

With the process reopened, Ito and the attorneys returned to the work of questioning prospective jurors about their ability to serve fairly. Despite the presence of reporters, the questioning was lively, the approach intimate and sometimes highly personal.

One prospective juror broke down in tears when questioned by Hodgman about her paranoid schizophrenic brother, who has been in and out of jail.

When the woman began to cry, Ito interceded and apologized profusely. She was allowed to go home for the day but remained a member of the jury panel.

On Thursday, Ito imposed a new approach to jury questioning, mandating that each panelist be interviewed individually, out of the presence of the other prospective jurors. That method appeared to elicit more candid responses from some of the prospective jurors. In previous sessions, most had insisted that they could be fair to both sides despite publicity. On Friday, some conceded that they had formed opinions about the case that might make it difficult for them to serve.

Two prospective jurors said they believed that Simpson is innocent and expressed doubts about some aspects of the prosecution theory of the case.

“I couldn’t understand why one glove would be left at the (murder) scene, and the other one at the house,” one man said, referring to the theory that Simpson accidentally dropped one of the gloves during a struggle with Goldman and the other as he made his way along a darkened path near the back of his Brentwood estate.

He was excused, as was another panelist who said she believes that authorities are biased against Simpson because he is wealthy and a celebrity.

One man openly acknowledged his racism, saying he would not be troubled if one ethnic group was “wiped off the planet.” He also recounted a racist joke. He was excused.

As they attempt to screen out jurors whose exposure to the media may have tainted their views, Ito and the lawyers asked the panelists about whether they obeyed the judge’s order this week in which he directed them to avoid all television, radio, newspapers and magazines--as well as bookstores. That order was prompted by the release of a book purporting to detail the final months of Nicole Simpson’s life.

The authors have appeared on radio and television shows in recent days hawking their new book. Ito’s order is intended in part to shield prospective jurors from the book and reports about it.

Of the two who were dismissed, one said she had only listened to classical music on a classical music station. Ito asked her the name of the station and when she told him, he responded: “I listen to that station. I know they do news reports.” The second prospective juror acknowledged that he had listened to traffic reports on his car radio on the way to court each morning.

“Everywhere you stand or walk, everyone has a TV or radio on,” the man said, explaining why he had violated Ito’s admonition. “It’s in the air.”

Those two prospective jurors were excused, and a third also delivered news that clearly disturbed Ito.

That woman, a county worker, said that after Ito warned members of the jury panel not to discuss any aspect of the case among themselves or with others, she walked into the jury assembly room and was shocked to hear several of her co-panelists talking animatedly about the Nicole Simpson book and who wrote it.

They also talked, the woman said, about reports of Halloween costumes depicting Simpson and his wife.

“It was a shock,” she said. “I thought it was gross.”

“That concerns me,” Ito responded. “My order was not to talk about the case and to hear you were talking about it as soon as you walked out concerns me.”

Hearing Transcripts

During a closed-door hearing this week, attorneys on both sides of the O.J. Simpson case expressed strong doubts about the honesty of potential jurors in the case. During the same session, Simpson addressed Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito and proclaimed his innocence. The following are excerpts from transcripts released Friday.

ON THE JURY POOL

Defense lawyer Robert L. Shapiro: “We have 300 people begging to be on the case of the century and will give you any answer they want, unfortunately.”

Prosecutor Marcia Clark: “Mr. Shapiro is right. They want to sit on the case of the century. Many, if not most, are lying to the detriment of the People because they are sitting there as the fans of this defendant, saying, ‘We want to get on this jury because we want to turn a blind eye to your evidence and a deaf ear to the testimony so we can acquit this man no matter what.’

“The People are suffering mightily by this. And the fact that the defense may suffer is a horrible thing. I hope that is not so. I wish that we could only put all the jurors on polygraph, because if the People could get just 12 fair-minded, impartial jurors to listen to this evidence, then we know what the outcome will be.”

SIMPSON ADDRESSES THE JUDGE

Simpson: “Well, I feel I’ve been attacked here today. I’m an innocent man. I want to get to the jury. I want to get a jury. I want to get it over with as soon as I can.

“I have two young kids out there. That’s my only concern. . . . I’ve got two young kids out there that don’t have a mother.

“And I didn’t do it. I want to get to the trial as soon as I can get to trial. I’ve been told by everybody that I know, everybody that I spoke to, that it is impossible for me to get a fair trial at this point. They told me maybe we should wait, maybe we should put it off. I can’t afford to be away from my kids any longer than I have to be away from my kids at this point.

“Mrs. Clark--Miss Clark--said that I was trying to run. Everyone knows that I called my father-in-law. I was not in a frame of mind--I admit that I was not in the right frame of mind at the time I was trying to get to my wife. . . .”

Shapiro: “Your honor, excuse me.”

Simpson: “I was headed back home.”

Shapiro: “Mr. Simpson, I am telling you that I will not allow you to speak and I will resign as your lawyer if you continue to do so.”

Simpson: “Thank you.”

Ito: “Thank you, sir.”