Angry Prosecutors Seek 30-Day Delay in Simpson Trial : Courts: They accuse defense of deception and say co-prosecutor Hodgman’s illness has also set them back. Cochran calls complaints about disclosure stalling tactics.

Reeling from the late disclosure of more than a dozen defense witnesses and the sudden illness of one of their colleagues, prosecutors in the O.J. Simpson murder case bitterly accused their opponents of deception and asked for a 30-day delay in the trial to regroup and research the latest developments.

Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito took the request for a delay under advisement after noting that defense attorneys had already acknowledged that they did not disclose details about some witnesses whose identities and statements they have had for months. Prosecutors said they first learned of some of those witnesses when Simpson lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. stood before the jury and began his opening statement Wednesday.

State law requires that both sides in a criminal case exchange information about witnesses they intend to summon to court.

Although Ito did not seem inclined to grant the prosecution’s request for a long delay, he canceled today’s court session and said he hoped to rule on the request for a postponement and other sanctions against the defense by the end of today.

He ordered both sides to be back in court Monday.

In addition to the delay, prosecutors are asking Ito to instruct the jury to disregard some of Cochran’s remarks and to force the defense to push the new witnesses to the end of their case. They also have made an unusual request for permission to reopen their statement to the jury in order to correct what they say were inaccuracies in Cochran’s presentation.

Meanwhile, prosecutors stridently attacked the credibility of some of the newly disclosed defense witnesses, suggesting that they were unreliable and accusing one unidentified witness of being a “court-certified pathological liar.”

The last-minute disclosures of the witnesses--which the defense attributed to human error--stunned prosecutors, whose effort to react to the new information was hampered by the sudden absence of Deputy Dist. Atty. William Hodgman. After a particularly tempestuous day in court Wednesday, Hodgman was rushed to a hospital complaining of chest pains. He was reported in good condition late Thursday.

In court Thursday morning, Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark, her voice thick and husky, said prosecutors had been up until 1:30 a.m. preparing their response to what she called the “egregious misconduct by the defense.”

“Behind it all is a willful desire to flout the law,” Clark said. “Legally it’s a violation of this court’s direct order to counsel, and morally it’s a violation of a juror’s right to the truth. They’ve been lied to, they’ve been deceived, they’ve gotten half-truths from counsel.”

Hodgman’s illness and the evidence debate sidetracked the trial just after opening statements had gotten under way and threatened to derail it for as long as a month. Impassioned arguments dominated the court day outside the presence of the jury, isolating the panel after it had heard only two days of opening statements. It also left witnesses hanging; some have been on call for days, but the beginning of testimony has been pushed back again and again by the continuing delays.

Simpson, who has pleaded not guilty to the murders of Ronald Lyle Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson, sat impatiently through the long arguments Thursday. Observers trickled out of the session as it dragged on, and the day lacked the emotional wallop that has characterized opening statements in the case.

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Still, the courtroom wrangling came on a day in which key players on both sides struggled with an array of problems, some reflecting the enormous stress of the case and others highlighting the enormous scrutiny of anyone who drifts into its path.

Among the developments Thursday:

* LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman, a potentially important prosecution witness, was reported to have gotten into a shoving match with a photographer in Spokane, Wash., on Wednesday. Defense attorneys have portrayed Fuhrman as a racist and have suggested that he may have planted a bloody glove at Simpson’s house. Although police questioned Fuhrman in connection with the outburst, legal experts said it is unlikely to have any bearing on the Simpson trial.

* Mary Anne Gerchas, a jewelry store owner who Simpson’s lawyers said was prepared to testify that she saw four suspicious men fleeing the crime scene, turned out to have a long history of lawsuits against her. According to public records reviewed by The Times, she has been sued at least 34 times in Municipal and Superior Courts, often losing major judgments.

In court, Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher A. Darden accused Gerchas of defrauding a hotel of $23,000 and suggested that the defense witness who calls herself Gerchas may even be an impostor. He did not elaborate. Cochran later said Gerchas’ lawyer called him to complain about Darden’s remarks.

* Darden accused another defense witness, Ron Fishman, of ducking a prosecution subpoena. According to Darden, Fishman ran inside his house when he was served with a subpoena. If Fishman were to testify truthfully, Darden said, he would report that Simpson turned to him at the conclusion of a dance recital June 12 and said of his ex-wife: “I’m going to get her. I’m going to teach her a lesson.”

* Prosecutor Hodgman, the senior district attorney’s official on the Simpson case, remained hospitalized as doctors concluded that although his chest pains were stress-related, he was not suffering from heart trouble. Hodgman was said to be in good condition, and doctors predicted that he might be released from the hospital today.

Hodgman’s wife, Janet, attended an afternoon news conference and occasionally became emotional as she described her husband’s dedication and devotion to the case. “He’s a phenomenal lawyer, you all know that,” she told reporters.

The careening developments brought the trial to a halt in the midst of Cochran’s opening statement, which he began Wednesday and which contained a series of stunning defense contentions. Cochran, a longtime colleague and admirer of Hodgman, said he was willing to temporarily halt the proceedings for a short time while his counterpart recuperates, but he urged Ito not to permit a long delay.

“I have the highest regard for Bill Hodgman,” he said. “We wish him a speedy recovery.”

Cochran balked at the prosecution’s demand for a delay in order to research the newly disclosed witnesses, however, suggesting that the request was a stalling tactic to buy them time to react to his opening statement.

“They were severely wounded by the defense’s opening statement,” Cochran said. “They need to regroup.”

In addition, he accused them of using their complaints to try to gain unfair access to the defense case.

“They want to get in our briefcases,” Cochran said. “They’d like to come home with us if they could. Well, they can’t do that. The law does not require that. . . . This is a stall, your honor.”

Although prosecutors asked for the monthlong postponement to conduct background checks of the new witnesses, in just 24 hours they dug up material implicating at least some of them. Based on that quick investigation, they portrayed the latest batch as an unreliable collection of rogues, misfits and worse.

“Had we known about some of these witnesses, we could have informed counsel that they are heroin addicts, thieves, felons,” Darden said. “One of these witnesses, one of their so-called material witnesses, is the only person I’ve ever known to be a court-certified pathological liar.”

Darden, in a long and stinging attack on the defense team, dismissed the defense attempts to minimize the significance of the late witness disclosure as an attempt to whitewash what he called their deliberate and outrageous misconduct.

Derisively referring to the defense as the “dream team,” a term some pundits have applied to the high-profile collection of lawyers, Darden asked Ito for the postponement and suggested that the judge tell the jury that defense lawyers had violated court rules and state law.

“Tell the jury that the defense, the dream team, America’s finest defense attorneys, have committed misconduct,” Darden said. “They have deceived the court.”

Darden also called Simpson a “dream defendant.” Cochran later bristled at that remark, saying it was unfair to suggest that anyone would enjoy being a defendant, famous or otherwise.

Tempers flared often during Thursday’s hearing. At one point, defense lawyer Carl Douglas tried to interject a comment as Darden was speaking. Darden gripped the lectern with one hand and swung another at Douglas. “Don’t talk to me, OK?” he said brusquely.

When it came his turn to respond, Douglas said he would not dignify some of Darden’s remarks with a response. Douglas described Darden’s comments as “vile” and “insidious,” among other things.

Darden shook his head in disbelief as Douglas spoke. In contrast to his dismissiveness toward Douglas, however, Darden took pains to emphasize his friendship with Cochran even as he fiercely criticized his conduct.

“I love him,” Darden said of Cochran. “I just don’t like going up against him.”

Darden said defense attorneys had not only hidden the identities of material witnesses, but had also failed to disclose reports and conclusions by experts. In his opening statement, for instance, Cochran referred to experts such as Dr. Henry Lee and Dr. Michael Baden, two nationally renowned criminalists. But prosecutors say they have not received any material summarizing the conclusions of those experts, as is required under discovery rules.

Cochran and the rest of the defense team, according to Darden, have willfully and deliberately violated rules and laws requiring them to turn over statements and other information about potential witnesses.

“Apparently they think that they’re above the rules,” Darden said. “This conduct is outrageous.”

To punish the defense team, Darden and Clark proposed first to delay the trial for 30 days--time they said they needed to investigate the newly disclosed witnesses. They also asked Ito to tell jurors that the defense had committed misconduct, to strike from the record any of Cochran’s remarks based on the disputed witnesses and to allow the prosecution to reopen its initial statement to the jury.

Cochran called that ridiculous, particularly the proposal for a 30-day delay: “That is far, far too long.

“Let’s stop all this posturing,” Cochran added. “Let’s get this case going.”

Legal experts said prosecutors had made a compelling argument that Simpson’s lawyers violated discovery rules by turning over so much material to their counterparts so late in the case.

“I think the prosecution set out a case of egregious misconduct by the defense,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC law professor. “I think the prosecution is understandably outraged by this.”

But most doubted that Ito will agree to the 30-day delay sought by prosecutors. Analysts noted that such a long postponement would create an enormous hardship for jurors, who are sequestered and who would have nothing to do while prosecutors researched the new witnesses. Moreover, even the most conservative estimates suggest that it will take at least a month for the prosecution to present its case, and Ito suggested in court that they could use that time to do their investigation as well.

In response to the prosecution request that he admonish the jury to disregard some of Cochran’s opening statement, Ito asked both sides to draft proposed language. Prosecutors suggested that idea, but Cochran said it was not necessary.

The only statement that he would recommend Ito read, Cochran said, was one that read: “Please proceed with the opening statement, Mr. Cochran.”

Cochran repeatedly told Ito that he was eager to return to his interrupted opening statement. Defense sources have said Cochran will take aim at the Police Department when he resumes.

Among Cochran’s most surprising disclosures so far was the revelation Wednesday that Nicole Simpson had blood under her fingernails and on her thigh that did not match the type of either victim or of O.J. Simpson. A prosecution source said, however, that Cochran’s comments were misleading and that he took a line in a government report out of context.

Prosecutors did not discuss that blood evidence in court Thursday, and no jury was present in any case. But sources said that if they are granted permission to reopen their remarks, they hope to explain their version of the blood test results that Cochran mentioned.

Community correspondent James Benning contributed to this report.

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