Ex-Juror Scoffs at Prosecution, Sees Hung Jury

Predicting a hung jury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, a woman dismissed Wednesday as a juror said the prosecution’s case so far has amounted to “a whole lot of nothing.”

Jeanette Harris also said she believes Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman could have planted the bloody glove that could implicate Simpson in the killings of his ex-wife and her friend, and that she doesn’t think the football great is getting a fair trial.

In an unusual television interview Wednesday night, Harris said Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito informed her she was being dropped from the jury because she was a victim of domestic violence. But she denied to KCAL-TV that her husband ever abused her.

Harris said she was “quite impressed” with Simpson during the trial. “He’s gone through a lot,” she said. “Whether he did it or not, he presents a picture of someone who’s dealing with a lot. . . . He hasn’t been allowed to grieve. He’s got two minor children at home that he’s not allowed to comfort. . . . He sits there, and it totally amazes me that he’s able to handle it.”

Harris said that even if Simpson physically abused his wife as the prosecution alleges, “that doesn’t mean he’s guilty of murder.”

After Harris’ comments aired Wednesday night, defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. said it was a “real loss” to have her removed from the jury, and that he was encouraged by her remarks on the prosecution’s evidence on domestic violence.

“We’ve always said just because you beat your wife doesn’t mean you’d kill her,” he said.

Harris said that the prosecution so far was “just spinning wheels” and that it had “bombarded” jurors with so much complex testimony that “you kind of close down.”

“They’re not necessarily saying anything,” she said. “They’re saying a whole lot of nothing.”

Harris told interviewer Pat Harvey that “from day one I didn’t see it as being a fair trial,” and that black and white jurors may be under pressure from their peers to vote different ways.

She said she “didn’t believe” Fuhrman, who has repeatedly said that he did not plant the bloody glove that prosecutors see as a key piece of evidence against Simpson.

Fuhrman’s testimony that he “didn’t care” about accusations that he had made racial slurs against blacks bothered her, she said. Fuhrman denied during that testimony that he had ever used a racial epithet for blacks during he last 10 years.

Asked if she thought that someone who made racial slurs was also capable of planting evidence, she replied, “Yes, I do.”

She said she was dropped from the jury after Ito said he had been informed that she had once been a victim of domestic violence. Harris said she told the judge that was not true, and that she was unsure where that claim had come from.

A knowledgeable defense source told The Times that Harris in the past had sought a restraining order in a domestic abuse case against someone other than her current husband. The source said the defense attorneys and prosecutors have wrangled at length behind the scenes over whether Harris should be kept on the jury, but that Ito ruled against the defense, which had hoped that Harris would become the jury forewoman.

Harris said there have been “racial problems” between black jurors and white court bailiffs, but she did not specify what they were.

Harris said she believes that the jurors, the majority of whom are black, are capable of voting to convict Simpson. But she added that she thinks the outcome of the trial will be a hung jury.