Few Confident in DNA Use Kept for Simpson Jury

Potential jurors rejected from serving in the O. J. Simpson double murder trial tend to be better educated and more willing to believe in the reliability of DNA testing than those who have cleared initial questioning and are still eligible to hear the case, a computer analysis of questionnaires in the case shows.

Nearly 39% of those who were excused said they believed the process of genetic matching--which forms the crux of the prosecution’s case against the football great--to be “somewhat” or “very” reliable for tracing blood and hair samples at a crime scene to an individual.

That compares to about 10% of the jurors who have passed the initial screening to serve on the panel that will consider charges that Simpson murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman, outside her Brentwood condominium June 12.

With no known eyewitnesses to the crime, the prosecution’s case against Simpson could rest heavily on results of DNA tests performed on blood found at the murder scene, in his white Ford Bronco and at his Rockingham Avenue home. Simpson’s defense team has already attacked the DNA tests in pretrial motions, and is expected to try to raise more doubts about the scientific process during the trial.

Most of those excused from service have been removed because of their exposure to the media--not because of their views on DNA. Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito and attorneys for both sides have winnowed the pool of potential jurors to 42. The last candidate is scheduled to be interviewed today.

Other differences between the jurors who were kept on the case and those let go:

* Whites made up nearly half of the jury rejects, compared to 26% of the jurors kept on the case. Those percentages were reversed for blacks--they made up 26% of the jury rejects, but nearly 61% of the remaining pool. According to the 1990 census, Los Angeles County’s population is 56% white and 11% black.

* Less than half of the jury rejects said they had dated someone of a different race, while 56% of the current jury panel said they have. Attitudes toward interracial relationships may figure in the case because Simpson, who has pleaded not guilty to the murders, is black; his ex-wife was white, as was Goldman.

* More than 31% of those excused said they had experienced domestic violence in their household as a child or adult, compared to 19% of those still in the running. And 81% of the rejected jurors said they have been crime victims--including one woman who was raped--compared to 48% of the current panel.

* More than 31% of those excused had an opinion on whether Simpson is guilty or innocent, with eight of the 48 saying they believe he probably committed the murders and seven saying he probably did not. Fewer than 10% in the current jury pool--four out of 42--expressed an opinion.

Lawyers today are expected to begin weeding out the panel further by using peremptory challenges, which allow them without explanation to remove jurors for any reason other than their race or sex. If a jury cannot be selected from among the 42, about 200 more panelists wait in the wings and could be summoned for questioning.

Beth Bonora, president of the Oakland-based National Jury Project West, a jury consulting firm that usually works with defense attorneys, said the defense benefits when jurors who believe strongly in DNA evidence are removed. Such beliefs often grow out of media exposure, she said.

“If what you’re doing is eliminating a lot of people who have a lot of media exposure, it is quite likely that you are eliminating people who have read more about DNA and have a basis to have an opinion,” Bonora said.

The effect, she said, would be a “plus for the defense because there aren’t people (in the pool) who have already made up their minds that it is irrefutable evidence. . . . If you have a large percentage of people who believe in the validity of it already, that means the defense would have more of an uphill battle in persuading people.”

The question about DNA testing appears on Page 54 of a lengthy jury survey designed to determine whether jurors could be impartial. It asks: “What is your view concerning the reliability of DNA analysis to accurately identify a person as the possible source of blood or hair found at a crime scene (very reliable to unreliable)? Explain.”

Thirty-seven of the 41 people who answered the DNA question and remain in the jury pool said they had no opinion about the reliability of such testing. One potential juror did not answer the question.

Typical of the responses was the answer given by a 52-year-old female clerk from South-Central Los Angeles. “Don’t know,” she wrote. “DNA very new to me. I have no views on this.”

Only four people who remain in the pool said they believed DNA testing was somewhat or very reliable. Wrote a 42-year-old woman who lives in Ladera Heights and works as a supervisor at Los Angeles International Airport: “Very reliable--from what I remember learning about DNA in college, DNA mapping is unique for every individual.”

Among those 48 people excused, however, the percentage of DNA believers was higher. A solid majority of 29 people still said they were reserving opinions about the genetic testing, but 19 people said they believed it was somewhat or very reliable.

“Very reliable, that’s what I heard,” wrote a 68-year-old unemployed woman from South Pasadena. Wrote a 56-year-old South Bay woman who makes graphic charts, “When a DNA analysis is sent to a lab, the information received back is very reliable, that’s the reason for having it sent to the lab for testing.”

Among those rejected was the only juror to say in a questionnaire that she had actually met Simpson. The 37-year-old Whittier woman, an assistant to an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service, said she met Simpson “very briefly” when he was “kind enough to say hello and give us his autograph.” She said she has a “positive” opinion of Simpson overall, but doesn’t know whether he is innocent or guilty--although her friends believe he is “probably guilty.”

As a group, the jurors who have been excused are also more educated than those who remain, with 29.5% having attended two or more years of college. Of the jurors who cleared screening, 12.5% attended college.

Bonora said it is not unusual to see more highly educated people and professionals excused from a case, many times at their request.

“You see what happens when you’re in the courtroom, that the computer programmer who has a good job and promotional opportunity coming up, there’s no way he’s going to be missing from work,” she said. “He finds a way to get off, whether it is through his opinions” or some other way.

Also significant to Simpson’s defense team is the removal of potential jurors who have been crime victims, who may have unpredictable reactions to graphic testimony and exhibits, said Bonora.

“You may end up with a juror who has a deep emotional scar in connection with a violent crime that occurred,” she said. “You have to wonder what is going to be turning around for a juror as they listen to the hard part of the testimony (and) they have to look at the photographs. . . . Sometimes as a defense attorney you say, ‘God, is this person going to be able to handle this?’ ”

The Simpson Case

* Profiles of the attorneys, Judge Lance A. Ito and other key figures in the Simpson case can be found on the TimesLink on-line service.

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