Victim Didn’t Hurt Killer, Simpson Case Detective Says

Injuries to murder victim Ronald Lyle Goldman do not suggest that he inflicted any wounds on his attacker, a Los Angeles police detective testified Tuesday in the trial of O.J. Simpson, a comment that could undermine one of Simpson’s defenses.

In his testimony, Detective Tom Lange, one of two lead investigators in the case, also dismissed a number of other defense theories about the case and explained many of the factors that led to Simpson’s identification as the suspect.

Lange said a single assailant appeared to have committed both killings, and he denied that the June 12 murders bore any of the earmarks of a drug-related homicide. He also said Simpson has large hands and that large gloves were connected to the crimes, and he testified that a test of blood from beneath one victim’s fingernails did not lead him to believe another assailant was responsible for the crimes, as the defense has suggested.

After the jury had left for the day, prosecutors told Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito that DNA tests of the blood found under Nicole Brown Simpson’s fingernails suggest that the blood was her own, not that of her attacker.

Ito criticized prosecutors for not sharing that information earlier with the defense, but witnesses can be expected to take the stand and testify about that blood later in the case--testimony that could undermine a provocative aspect of Simpson attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.’s opening statement, in which he alleged that the blood did not match Nicole Simpson’s.

Goldman and Nicole Simpson were slashed and stabbed to death June 12. Simpson was arrested and charged with the crimes five days later. He has pleaded not guilty.

Simpson’s lawyers have shown the jury photographs of Simpson taken shortly after the murders showing that--with the exception of a cut on the middle finger of his left hand and another less serious cut on his hand--the former football star had no obvious cuts or bruises. The defense team has said that suggests that Simpson could not have been the killer because of the struggle that authorities believe ensued between Goldman and his attacker.

But Lange said the injuries to Goldman’s hands were more consistent with flailing about than with punching his killer.

“It indicated to me that he was probably involved in a defensive struggle,” Lange said of the wounds. “That he was attempting to fight back and that he was flailing his arms and his hands, very possibly running them into the tree and perhaps the metal-rung fence or one of the stumps, sustaining those wounds. I observed very little abrasions or contusions directly over the knuckle. . . . If one had abrasions or contusions directly over the knuckles, that would indicate to me that perhaps that person struck their assailant with a closed fist.”

Lange’s testimony came as Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark attempted to rehabilitate his stature in the eyes of the jury after a painstaking cross-examination by Cochran. During that cross-examination, Cochran raised a number of questions about the competence of the investigation and the integrity of the evidence.

Under questioning from Clark, however, Lange knocked down a number of defense arguments, at one point telling the jury that a DNA test of blood found underneath Nicole Simpson’s fingernails showed that it had come from her--not from the assailant, as Cochran has suggested. Lange did not perform that test, and Cochran succeeded in having his answer stricken from the record after the jury heard it.

Lange was allowed to answer Clark’s next question, however: “Did the results of the tests of the nail scrapings under Nicole Simpson’s nails cause you to conduct an investigation into any other suspect?” she asked.

“No,” he responded.

Outside the presence of the jury, prosecutor Rockne Harmon told Ito later in the day that DNA tests performed so far on the fingernail scrapings point to Nicole Simpson as the probable source of the blood. The scrapings are being subjected to additional testing by a second laboratory, which will forward its results to the court by the end of the week, another prosecutor disclosed.

None of those test results have been compiled into reports and shared with the defense yet--although a defense expert has been allowed to observe the testing--and Lange’s disclosure renewed the vigorous debate over evidence-sharing that has gone on throughout the trial.

Barry Scheck, one of the defense DNA experts, accused prosecutors of eliciting the statement from Lange without first sharing results with the defense, in order to gain strategic advantage over Simpson’s team.

“That was wrong,” Scheck said. “That was in bad faith.”

Clark responded by saying prosecutors had done nothing wrong and that the point of her questioning was to rebut defense charges that the police had conducted a sloppy investigation and had ignored important clues. Moreover, she said prosecutors could not be blamed because defense lawyers failed to communicate with the scientist they have hired to observe the testing.

“If they don’t communicate with their own expert,” Clark said, “the people can’t help them.”

Although Ito said he was convinced that prosecutors had not acted in bad faith, he agreed to tell the jury to disregard the disputed portion of Lange’s testimony. He allowed Scheck to draft a proposed instruction, which Ito could read to the jury as early as today.

While seeking to bolster Lange’s credibility, Clark also had him acknowledge that neither the detective nor his colleagues are perfect. Lange admitted that he had made some small mistakes in the investigation--noting in a report, for instance, that there were two dimes and two pennies recovered from the scene when in fact only one of each coin was found.

“You’re a human being?” Clark said rhetorically.

“I hope so,” Lange responded, over Cochran’s objections. “I do make mistakes.”

Sitting at the defense table, Cochran muttered: “Sure do.”

Ito overheard that remark and scolded Cochran in front of the jury. Cochran denied saying anything, but Ito pointedly said several times, “I heard the remark.” The judge then instructed Clark to continue her questioning.

Clark methodically reviewed with Lange the topics that Cochran had used to challenge the detective’s handling of the investigation. On the subject of trying to pin down the time of death, for instance, Cochran had suggested that Lange failed to contact the coroner promptly and that his failure complicated the task of trying to determine when the victims died.

Clark tried to rebut that insinuation by asking Lange whether it would have made any difference if the coroner had arrived on the scene earlier. Her questioning ran into repeated objections from Cochran, however, who complained that Lange should not be allowed to speculate on what might have happened under different circumstances than those that exist in the Simpson case.

As she neared the end of her questioning, Clark took aim at the defense’s alternative explanations for the crime, notably its contention that the murders could have been drug-related, that multiple assailants were responsible for the killings and that the police focused so much on Simpson as their suspect that they ignored other plausible scenarios.

In response to Clark’s questions, Lange said police filed their case against Simpson only after receiving tests of blood from the crime scene and from Simpson’s car, as well as conducting other tests and making observations that they believed linked the suspect to the crime.

Lange described examining two gloves, for instance, one recovered at the murder scene, another allegedly found at Simpson’s house. Hours later, Lange interviewed Simpson, and the detective said he took that opportunity to look at Simpson’s hands.

“How big did the defendant’s hands look?” Clark asked.

“Large,” Lange said. “Much larger than mine.”

As Lange testified about that, Simpson put his hands in his lap beneath the defense table. Lange did not appear to notice but added that he later determined that the gloves were extra large, and said that discovery was one of the factors that led to his decision to file the case against Simpson. Another factor, he said, was noting that Simpson had a cut on the middle finger of his left hand and that a left-handed glove was found at the crime scene.

Authorities have said they believe Simpson lost the glove in his fight with Goldman and then cut his hand. According to prosecutors, five blood drops with genetic characteristics resembling Simpson’s were found to the left of a line of bloody footprints leading from the bodies to the alley behind Nicole Simpson’s residence.

During his questioning of Lange, Cochran elicited the detective’s acknowledgment that police had only superficially considered that it might have been a killing over drugs, and had not followed up because no evidence supported the hypothesis. Cochran suggested that was the result of a police rush to judgment against his client, but Lange elaborated Tuesday on why police did not consider the June 12 killings drug-related.

Most drug crimes, Lange said, are committed with guns, and most produce evidence of drug use or sales--drug paraphernalia such as scales. Most crime scenes in drug-related murders are ransacked by killers trying to make sure they do not leave clues that could point to them, and most are done in areas where they cannot be easily observed, Lange added. None of those criteria fit the killings of Nicole Simpson and Goldman.

Lange also attempted to dismantle the defense argument that multiple attackers committed the killings. Only one set of bloody footprints led away from the scene, he said, both victims were killed in the same way--stabbed and slashed, with their throats cut--and a drop of blood on Goldman’s boot contained a mixture of blood from both victims, Lange said.

Lange described that drop as a “castoff” from the murder weapon and said it suggested to him that a single knife was used to kill both Goldman and Nicole Simpson.

Lange’s testimony has been the most exhaustive of any witness in the case, and has stretched over nearly three weeks, with a long interruption while the two sides grappled with the testimony of Rosa Lopez, a Salvadoran housekeeper who testified in support of Simpson’s alibi but whose credibility came under sustained attack by the prosecution.

But Lange’s time on the stand is expected to finally conclude today. If so, the next witness will probably be Goldman’s stepmother, who is expected to testify briefly about a shopping list recovered with her stepson’s clothing. That should not take long, and prosecutors said Tuesday that the next witness will be one of the case’s most eagerly anticipated, Detective Mark Fuhrman.

Defense attorneys have waged an intense investigation into Fuhrman’s background, arguing Tuesday for access to more Police Department files relating to the detective. Those files include two Internal Affairs inquiries into Fuhrman--one probing his possession of a cartoon by Paul Conrad that depicted the ominous rise of fascism in Germany and another regarding allegations that he commented on Nicole Simpson’s anatomy. Police sources have said that Fuhrman was cleared of wrongdoing in both investigations, but defense attorneys want to review the files.

The third file that Simpson’s lawyers would like to see involves an internal Police Department inquiry into whether Fuhrman could have removed a bloody glove from the murder scene and taken it to Simpson’s house. Sources have said department officials concluded that it would have been all but impossible.

Ito read the Police Department files in chambers Tuesday but did not immediately rule on whether the defense could look at them as well. The judge reviewed other personnel files relating to Fuhrman last year but concluded nothing in them was relevant to the Simpson case, so he did not turn them over to the defense team.