Witnesses Tell of 1989 Incident With Simpson : Courts: Jurors hear recording of 911 call. Prosecutor reopens statement and says Cochran misled the panel.

A week after they began, prosecutors in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson finally concluded their opening statement to the jury Tuesday--taking advantage of a rare opportunity to address the panel a second time--and then called their first witnesses to tell of a violent confrontation between the defendant and his wife in 1989.

Prosecutors eschewed the normal approach in a murder trial, declining to begin their case with medical testimony to establish that the victims were murdered and instead leaping immediately into a chilling description of the scene at Simpson’s house in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 1, 1989. A Police Department dispatcher said she could hear a woman screaming and being struck during a 911 call, and a police officer who went to the Simpson home described a sobbing, shivering Nicole Brown Simpson pleading for help and crying that her husband was going to kill her.

Another officer, the detective who investigated the 1989 case, testified that Simpson admitted to him that he was wrong to strike his wife and that he pledged to seek counseling. That same detective added under cross-examination that Nicole Simpson asked that the charges be dropped. Simpson later pleaded no contest to spousal battery, and he was found guilty of that crime.

Those witnesses took the stand on a day in which prosecutors pushed forward on several fronts, challenging defense theories of the case and beginning to present evidence. Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark addressed the jury for five minutes early Tuesday after Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito granted her that time to rebut three elements of the defense opening statement--a highly unusual move that the judge allowed because he found that defense attorneys had deliberately violated state requirements on evidence sharing.

Given that chance, Clark briskly took full advantage, reminding jurors that she was being allowed to speak because of improprieties by the defense team and ticking off several areas in which she said the jurors had been misled by Simpson’s lead trial lawyer, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. Although the impact of Clark’s comments on the jury was impossible to discern, legal experts generally gave the prosecutor high marks.

“I thought Marcia made a tremendous use of the great gift she was given by Johnnie Cochran and Judge Ito,” said Gigi Gordon, a Los Angeles defense attorney. “She was lean, mean and low to the ground.”

In her remarks, Clark derided a potentially important defense witness, Mary Anne Gerchas, as “a known liar and a Simpson-case groupie.” Clark also suggested that Simpson’s first attorney voluntarily let his client speak to the police while the lawyer went out to lunch--a statement that the attorney denied later in an interview. And she cast doubt on a newly unveiled defense alibi--that Simpson was milling about his estate, swinging golf clubs and making phone calls, near the time that the prosecution believes the murders were being committed.

Cochran floated that theory during his opening statement, raising a number of new questions about Simpson’s actions on the night of the June 12 killings: Simpson had previously maintained that he was asleep at the time of the murders, and Cochran told the jury last week that his client’s arthritis was so bad that he could not shuffle a deck of cards hours before the crimes were committed.

In her brief addendum to her opening statement, Clark told jurors that prosecutors would later play for them an exercise videotape and outtakes from it showing that Simpson was fit and agile just weeks before the killings. She did not play that tape Tuesday.

As they began calling witnesses, prosecutors moved immediately to the heart of their explanation of why they contend that Simpson committed the knife attacks on Nicole Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. He has pleaded not guilty, but prosecutors say he went to his ex-wife’s house that evening to kill her in a final act of control, capping a long and abusive relationship.

Goldman, according to prosecutors, was murdered because he came upon the scene of the crime and was mistaken to be a suitor of Nicole Simpson.

That theory of the crime makes the issue of domestic abuse a central one, and prosecutors wasted no time developing it. A dispatcher named Sharyn Gilbert was the first witness to take the stand, and she was questioned about the most well-documented instance of abuse by O.J. Simpson of Nicole Simpson.

Gilbert, who came to court in a civilian LAPD uniform bearing the Police Department seal, calmly told jurors that she had taken the emergency call at 3:58 a.m. and that she could hear a woman screaming and being beaten.

On her log of that conversation, Gilbert noted: “Female being beaten at loc. (location) could be heard over the phone.”

That log entry and the dispatcher’s testimony helped lay the groundwork for People’s Exhibit 1, the tape of the 911 call that morning.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher A. Darden played the tape for the jurors, who listened intently, some with quizzical expressions on their faces as they strained to hear the sounds of blows being delivered. Simpson, who had heard the tape Monday without the jury present, sat impassively as it was played.

Although Gilbert conceded that she could not be sure who was hitting whom on the tape, the prosecution’s second witness, a police officer who responded to the emergency call, described in detail the scene at the Simpson home when he arrived, becoming the first witness to portray Simpson as a violent man with an explosive temper.

Detective John Edwards said that when he got to the Simpson home on a drizzly January night, Nicole Simpson came running from the bushes seeking help, hysterically exclaiming that her husband was going to kill her and collapsing in the officer’s arms.

“She was weak,” Edwards recalled, speaking in flat tones but offering vivid recollections. “She was shivering. She was cold. I could feel her bones. She was cold. And she was beat up.”

According to Edwards, an angry O.J. Simpson first taunted his wife, saying, “I got two other women, I don’t want that woman in my bed anymore.” Edwards said he informed Simpson that he was going to arrest him, “no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

Saddled with an injured victim and a potentially powerful suspect, Edwards said he called for a sergeant to assist him at the scene. When that sergeant arrived, Edwards said he turned away from Simpson briefly. Seconds later, according to the officer, Simpson jumped into his Bentley and left. Officers took off in pursuit, Edwards said.

“Did you catch him?” Darden asked.

“No, I didn’t,” Edwards responded.

“He got away?” Darden continued.

“Yes,” Edwards said.

Cochran painstakingly cross-examined Edwards, sometimes turning sarcastic and occasionally rebuking the detective for failing to answer his questions. Under questioning from Cochran, Edwards acknowledged that he had never examined Simpson up close.

That statement may help bolster the defense contention that the 1989 fight was mutual, but prosecutors also have letters from Simpson in which he admits that he was at fault in the altercation.

During Edwards’ testimony, prosecutors also introduced three photographs of a beaten Nicole Simpson. In the pictures, she can be seen bruised and cut, but the injuries do not appear as severe as described in police reports or the officer’s testimony.

Jurors were allowed to pass the photographs around after they were displayed on a screen above the witness. Simpson, who remained impassive through most of Tuesday’s hearing, shook his head and consulted with his lawyers as those photographs were displayed.

“Do they fully and fairly and completely represent the injuries that you saw that night?” Darden asked.

“Not even close,” the detective responded curtly.

Cochran also attacked that statement, questioning how Edwards could take the photographs and then testify that they did not accurately reflect the injuries he was attempting to record. Edwards responded that he would have taken more photographs except that the camera ran out of film and Nicole Simpson wanted to return home.

The testimony Tuesday focused entirely on the 1989 incident and presaged what is expected to be a series of heated debates about the various domestic abuse incidents that prosecutors plan to introduce in their effort to demonstrate that Simpson was capable of committing the murders. But the intense focus on the 1989 incident had the odd effect of meaning that the entire first day of testimony in the murder trial went by without a single reference to Ron Goldman, whose slashed and stabbed body was found a few feet from Nicole Simpson’s.

Another aspect of Edwards’ testimony that came under close scrutiny was his allegation, revealed for the first time during Tuesday’s hearing, that Nicole Simpson had told him the argument was over her husband sleeping with another woman that same night.

Simpson rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair at that assertion, which Cochran belittled under cross-examination. The detective who investigated the battery case, Mike Farrell, said Nicole Simpson had never told him of that reason.

In his testimony and in reports about the 1989 incident, Edwards said Simpson had told him that officers had come to the house eight previous times. According to Edwards, Simpson expressed amazement that he was going to be arrested and that officers were intervening in what he called a “family matter.”

Farrell said he had been unable to find reports of any previous instances in which police had responded to domestic abuse calls from the Simpson home. Only one officer was able to cite a previous trip to the house on a domestic violence call, and that officer turns out to be Mark Fuhrman, a detective who has come under a steady barrage of defense attacks as Simpson’s lawyers have accused him of being a racist and possibly planting evidence.

The previous calls to Simpson’s home are important for several reasons: Other domestic violence episodes would bolster the prosecution’s portrayal of the Simpson marriage as a controlling and abusive one. Moreover, it would help explain Nicole Simpson’s reluctance to seek police help. And it could undercut the defense theory that LAPD officers framed Simpson if the prosecution can show that the former football star actually was on good terms with many local officers.

Farrell conceded that Fuhrman’s statement was the only previous instance he uncovered, but added that he had only reviewed crime reports, not the daily activity logs of patrol officers that might cast more light on the subject of previous beatings.

Testimony will continue today with more discussion of the domestic abuse issue. Meanwhile, however, legal experts homed in on a comment by Cochran from his opening statement that they said could create problems for the defense further down the road.

By telling the jury that Simpson was home chipping golf balls about the time of the murders, Cochran incurred at least three risks, according to legal experts. First, he promised something that he may not be able to deliver, since only Simpson could testify as to some of his actions and his whereabouts, and it still is not clear whether the defendant will take the stand.

Second, Cochran’s assertion appears to contradict what Simpson allegedly told limousine driver Allan Park. During the preliminary hearing, Park testified that Simpson told him he had overslept and that was why he did not immediately respond when Park came to pick him up and take him to the airport for an 11:45 p.m. flight to Chicago.

Moreover, one of Simpson’s attorneys, Robert L. Shapiro publicly said shortly after Simpson’s arrest that his client was asleep at the time of the killings.

Although prosecutors might attempt to capitalize on those seeming contradictions, Cochran said Simpson was hitting golf balls at 10:10 p.m. It is possible that Cochran might later suggest that Simpson went inside to take a nap after hitting the golf balls.

“This is something we have not heard before,” criminal defense lawyer Marcia Morrissey said of the contention that Simpson was practicing his golf swing near the time of the killings. “There have been statements by Mr. Simpson’s attorney that he was asleep. To the extent there is different testimony, this raises the possibility of impeachment based on prior statements by attorneys.”

Both Morrissey and New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, an evidence specialist, said it was possible that the prosecution might attempt to question Shapiro about his prior statements.

Third and perhaps most significant, by saying that Simpson was hitting golf balls, Cochran potentially eroded another part of his defense. Earlier, in the opening statement, Cochran said that Simpson had arthritis and that it had flared up so badly Sunday afternoon that he was not even able to shuffle a deck of cards.

Still, Cochran’s explanation of Simpson’s whereabouts has two potential benefits, according to sources close to the defense: It could help explain why Simpson was outside his house and made a call to his girlfriend, Paula Barbieri, on his cellular telephone rather than using one inside his house. Moreover, if there are jurors inclined to find reasonable doubt in the prosecution case, small details like this--even if they remain uncorroborated--could serve to strengthen their predisposition once jury deliberations begin.

As it has at other times since the murders more than seven months ago, a question surfaced during Tuesday’s hearing that has perplexed criminal defense attorneys across the country: Why did O.J. Simpson agree to speak to police the day after the murders?

In court, Clark alleged that Simpson’s then-lawyer, Howard Weitzman, allowed his client to meet privately with the police and actually declined their invitation to be present, saying that he was going to lunch instead.

Although he declined to discuss the events of that day in detail, Weitzman said in an interview that Clark’s portrayal was laughable.

“The information that Marcia Clark has been given,” he said, “is totally false and utterly preposterous.”

Trial is expected to resume this morning with the testimony of Ronald G. Shipp, a former police officer who was a friend of both O.J. and Nicole Simpson. According to sources, prosecutors hope to question Shipp about conversations he had with Simpson after the murders.

Defense attorneys balked, however, and are particularly interested in trying to block the prosecution from questioning Shipp about one talk he had with Simpson. In that conversation, Simpson allegedly told Shipp that he had dreamed about killing Nicole Simpson and feared that he would fail a polygraph test because of those dreams.

The conversation regarding the dreams is recounted in a new book about the killings. Shipp is not named in the book, but sources close to the case said he is the person who had that conversation with Simpson. Cochran, who is a distant relative of Shipp, will not question him for the defense.

Times staff writers Henry Weinstein and Tim Rutten contributed to this report.

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