Simpson Defense Charges ‘Sinister’ Rush to Judgment : Trial: Cochran says in opening statement that police overlooked and manufactured evidence. He suggests that blood found on Nicole Simpson points to different killer.

O.J. Simpson’s lead trial lawyer, rising Wednesday to rebut allegations that his famous client committed a brutal double murder, accused prosecutors of waging a campaign of character assassination and charged police with a “sinister” rush to judgment that caused them to overlook and manufacture evidence.

Speaking confidently and casually, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., one of Los Angeles’ most respected criminal defense lawyers, told jurors in his opening statement that witnesses will challenge key elements of the prosecution’s case, including what Cochran said were holes in the physical evidence implicating the former football star.

Cochran’s comments electrified the courtroom Wednesday, but the trial was rocked again when Deputy Dist. Atty. William Hodgman complained of chest pains in an early evening meeting of prosecutors and was hospitalized. Although officials said he had not suffered a heart attack, his sudden illness could cause a delay in the trial.

Cochran’s opening statement was highlighted by new disclosures about blood. Most notably, he said that blood found beneath Nicole Brown Simpson’s fingernails and on her thigh did not match that of either victim or of Simpson, suggesting that another assailant could have been the culprit.

In one of the most dramatic moments of his three-hour presentation, Cochran summoned his famous client to stand before the 12 people who will decide his fate and asked him to display his scarred left knee--evidence, the lawyer said, that Simpson was too infirm to have committed the stabbings.

Simpson is charged with the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman, both of whom were knifed to death in Brentwood on June 12. He has pleaded not guilty and has vigorously protested his innocence.

“The evidence in this case, we believe, will show that O.J. Simpson is an innocent man wrongfully accused,” Cochran said in a speech that quoted Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln and Cicero. “This case is about a rush to judgment, an obsession to win at any cost and by any means necessary.”

Cochran’s address to the jury, widely praised by legal experts as an effective debut of the defense case, marked the first time that the Simpson team has outlined its evidence in court. Many of the details were previously unknown, and the new disclosures, combined with Cochran’s silky-smooth delivery, held the courtroom’s rapt interest the entire day.

The jurors appeared attentive throughout. Some took notes, others sat forward, listening intently as Cochran stood just a few feet away from the jury box. Simpson stared directly at the jurors through most of the presentation, while eight members of his family crowded onto the courtroom bench reserved for them.

“Now,” said Carmelita Durio, one of Simpson’s sisters, “we’re hearing the truth.”

As Cochran presented the outlines of the defense, prosecutors interrupted again and again, charging that their opponent was engaging in argument, not merely previewing the evidence, as is required in opening statements. At the conclusion of the hearing, prosecutors erupted in anger as they were presented with statements from more than a dozen defense witnesses never before disclosed to the prosecution even though some had been interviewed months ago.

Hodgman accused Simpson’s lawyers of deliberately hiding evidence from the prosecution and only unveiling it in the midst of opening statements, after prosecutors had delivered their initial comments to the jury.

“I don’t think in the history of jurisprudence have we ever had anything occurring like what happened today in this courtroom,” Hodgman said.

Carl Douglas, one of Simpson’s lawyers, acknowledged the mistakes and took responsibility for them, but he denied that any bad faith was intended. “Both sides have made mistakes,” he said. “We are human.”

Judge Lance A. Ito took the issue of the late disclosures under submission and asked prosecutors to report to him today on what remedy they would request. At a news conference late Wednesday, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti suggested that prosecutors would seek a delay in the trial both because of the late witness disclosures and because Hodgman suddenly fell ill after the court session.

The issue of the late disclosures was argued outside the presence of the jury, but while the panelists were present, Cochran held the floor, and he appeared unfazed by the frequent prosecution interruptions. As he spoke, he publicly signaled for the first time how defense attorneys expect to undercut the prosecution’s theory of how and when the crimes were committed.

The defense case, Cochran said, will rest on the testimony of nationally renowned experts and on a number of witnesses who have received little public notice up until now.

According to Cochran:

* Nicole Simpson had type B blood under her fingernails and on her thigh. Neither she, Goldman nor Simpson had that blood type. A row of blood drops across her back was never tested, Cochran said, adding that some fingerprints and palm prints from the murder scene did not match either victim or Simpson.

* Only traces of blood were recovered from Simpson’s Ford Bronco, far less than would be expected if Simpson had committed the crimes--which Cochran said experts will testify would have drenched the assailant in blood--and then fled in his car.

* One couple will testify that they walked by Nicole Brown Simpson’s condominium at 10:25 p.m., about 10 minutes after prosecutors believe the murders were committed, but saw no bodies on the walkway.

* Another witness, identified in court as Mary Ann Gerchas, will testify that she saw four men--two Latinos and two Caucasians--rushing away from the scene of the crime about the time it was committed, but that police never took a statement from her. The men appeared to be in a hurry and at least some were wearing knit caps, Cochran said. A blue knit cap was found at the crime scene.

* Still another witness, Rosa Lopez, will say that she saw Simpson’s Bronco parked outside his house when prosecutors believe he was at his ex-wife’s house killing her and Goldman. If true, that would strongly bolster Simpson’s alibi that he was home asleep at the time of the murders.

The defense opening statement went to great lengths to undercut what prosecutors maintain was the motive for the murders. In their statements to the jury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark and Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher A. Darden portrayed Simpson as a jealous, controlling man who manipulated, harassed and stalked Nicole Brown Simpson during their 17-year relationship.

Authorities have amassed a litany of alleged abuses by O.J. Simpson of Nicole Simpson, most notably violent episodes in 1985 and 1989. In the 1989 case, Simpson slapped and punched his wife and later pleaded no contest to spousal battery.

Cochran conceded that the 1989 incident was an ugly one, but he stressed that Simpson had apologized in letters to his wife and had offered to void their prenuptial agreement if he ever hit her again. According to Cochran, there is no evidence that Simpson ever hit his wife after that time.

For much of the time Cochran was speaking, jurors faced an enlarged photograph of a smiling Simpson with his daughter on the day that the murders were committed. And in contrast to the prosecution view of Simpson as a jealous and controlling ex-husband, Cochran described him as a philanthropist who encouraged his wife’s independence and who gave generously to her family as well.

Darden had described Simpson’s abuse of his wife and subsequent apologies as part of a cycle of violence; Cochran countered by portraying his client’s generosity as a “circle of benevolence.”

“These people don’t know O.J. Simpson,” Cochran said, gesturing dismissively toward the prosecution table. “When you hear about theories, I’m going to tell you about facts.”

Cochran also struck back at another central theme of the prosecution’s case.

On Tuesday, Clark described in detail what she called a “trail of blood” leading from the crime scene to Simpson’s car and back to his house. DNA tests show the blood of both victims in Simpson’s car and at his house, Clark said in her opening statement, adding that those tests are corroborated by hair and fiber analysis.

Cochran, who was able to study the prosecution opening statement overnight, struck directly back at that contention, saying that samples were contaminated by sloppy handling. He said he intends to call Kary Mullis, the controversial Nobel Prize-winning inventor of a type of DNA testing known as PCR analysis.

He also argued that the trail of blood was, in fact, an incomplete one. The dearth of blood in Simpson’s car is inconsistent with the nature of the murders, Cochran said. And where Clark called the blood trail “devastating proof” of Simpson’s guilt, Cochran turned those words back on his opponent.

“The fact that there is no blood where there should be blood is devastating evidence of innocence,” Cochran said.

Moreover, Cochran asserted that blood is missing from the sample that Simpson gave police, a claim that defense sources say suggests authorities may have taken some of that blood and used it to stain certain items of evidence.

One potentially important piece of evidence is a pair of dark socks that police say they found at the foot of Simpson’s bed. In September, KNBC-TV and CNN erroneously reported that DNA tests of those socks had been completed and indicated Nicole Simpson as the source of blood drops on them. At that point, only conventional tests had been performed.

Defense sources say the timing of those reports suggest that tests were rigged by authorities who they maintain stained the socks with blood from both O.J. and Nicole Simpson.

The KNBC reporter appears on the defense witness list, and sources in the Simpson camp say they hope to put her on the stand to confirm that she believed her report was accurate when the station aired it. The defense would then argue that police or other authorities leaked the story knowing that they had intentionally stained the socks; as a result, they were able to predict what the results of subsequent DNA tests would show, those defense sources said.

Cochran did not spell out that theory in court, but he alluded to it.

“We’ll be talking about the fact that blood voluntarily given by the defendant mysteriously disappears when it should be there is devastating evidence that something is wrong,” Cochran said. “And finally, it seems to me that the fact that blood mysteriously appears on vital pieces of evidence, and it’s predicted what the results will be regarding DNA when that evidence is still in the police lab, is evidence of something far more sinister.”

As expected, Cochran also hinted at alternative explanations for the crime, at one point suggesting that Goldman, not Nicole Simpson, could have been the intended target. Later, he took aim at the drug use by one of Nicole Simpson’s friends, Faye Resnick--a tactic that defense sources say underlies the Simpson camp’s contention that the killers could have come to Nicole Simpson’s condominium that night in order to collect a drug debt from Resnick.

Prosecutors objected both times Cochran began to stray into alternative explanations of the crime. After they objected, he cut that line of argument short.

Cochran did point out, however, that Goldman had cuts and bruises on his hands, suggesting that he fiercely fought back against his attacker. The defense then displayed photographs of Simpson, dressed only in briefs, taken shortly after the murders and noted that while he had a few cuts and scratches on his hands, particularly one deep one to the middle finger of his left hand, the rest of his body appeared unbruised. During his appearance in front of the jury box, Simpson displayed not only his knee but the scar on his finger.

Defense attorneys attempted to bolster their contention that Simpson could not have committed the crimes by saying that doctors will testify that he suffers from severe arthritis, a condition that sometimes disappears but other times flares. On the morning of the killings, Simpson played golf, but Cochran said that by afternoon, his hands hurt so badly that he could not shuffle a deck of cards.

Seeking to show Simpson’s infirmities, Cochran also had the former football star display his scarred left knee to the jury. Simpson recently filmed a workout video, which prosecutors have suggested they will introduce to debunk his contention that he was not fit enough to commit the murders.

Although Cochran did not spell out who else might have committed the crimes--defense attorneys have all along stressed that they have no obligation to solve them--the suggestions of other killers, along with the doubts that Cochran raised about the prosecution evidence, impressed many legal observers.

“Today, O.J. Simpson got his money’s worth in hiring Johnnie Cochran to defend him,” said Prof. Charles J. Ogletree of Harvard Law School. “Johnnie Cochran had the kind of control over that jury that the government suggested O.J. Simpson had over Nicole Brown Simpson.”

Cochran held the limelight all day. His statement was carried on live television because Ito, after threatening to cut off television coverage of the proceedings, relented after meeting with media attorney Kelli Sager and representatives of Court TV. The network had inadvertently broadcast a brief shot of an alternate juror Tuesday, and Ito had angrily halted the proceedings after Court TV officials notified him of the mistake.

The threat of pulling the plug on the television coverage had sent media organizations into a frenzy, but after sleeping on the idea overnight and hearing from the news organizations, Ito concluded that Court TV’s broadcast had not been intentional.

In court Wednesday, the Simpson team briefly displayed the much-discussed mystery envelope that sources have long said contains a knife resembling one sought by prosecutors. Outside court, the attorneys declined to discuss the contents of the envelope but said they hope to offer it to demonstrate that police, despite two intensive searches of Simpson’s home, overlooked the item they had come to seize.

The envelope will not likely be opened today, but defense sources said Cochran will take aim at the police in other ways, lambasting the quality of their evidence collection and suggesting that they skewed evidence in order to implicate Simpson.

As they left the courtroom, defense lawyers, clearly buoyed by the day’s events, promised to continue their onslaught when Cochran returns to the lectern.

“Mr. Cochran did a wonderful job today,” Simpson attorney Robert L. Shapiro told reporters on the courthouse steps. “Wait until you see the conclusion.”

More Trial Coverage

* PROSECUTOR ILL--Deputy Dist. Atty. William Hodgman is hospitalized late Wednesday after complaining of chest pains. Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti says it is likely that the prosecution will ask that the case be delayed. A23

* THE SPIN--Images of O.J. Simpson’s body show the power of images to persuade, Bill Boyarsky writes. A21

* INTO THE SPOTLIGHT--Slip-up shows Court TV executive Steven Brill that being on the other side of the camera “ain’t no fun.” A21

* ADDITIONAL STORIES, PICTURES, COCHRAN TEXT: A20-A23, B3