Simpson Juror Released; Just 5 Alternates Left

The attrition-plagued jury in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson heard Monday about bloodstains that prosecutors say will link the defendant to the June 12 killings, but the release of another juror meant that only 17 jurors and alternates were left to consider the latest testimony.

The newly excused juror, 26-year-old flight attendant Tracy S. Hampton, was one of those who raised the fiercest criticism of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, complaining at one point, “I can’t take it anymore.”

She was replaced by a 28-year-old real estate appraiser who works for Los Angeles County. That woman, a Latina, has been one of the most copious note-takers among jurors and alternates, but some of her comments during jury selection made defense lawyers nervous about her leanings.

Although Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito ordered the transfer of three deputies in part because of the concerns Hampton raised, he announced Monday that he had found “good cause” to excuse her as well. Sources said that while Ito’s decision to oust the deputies removed one problem that Hampton, who is black, was having with her service, she remained distraught and begged to be removed.

The latest switch is the seventh of the trial and it again alters the racial composition of the jury. A series of changes in recent weeks has diminished the number of African Americans on the jury from nine to seven. With the latest change, the jury now also includes three whites and two Latinos.

Simpson, who is black, is accused of murdering two white victims--his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman--a combination of circumstances that has brought particular focus onto the jury’s racial and gender composition. Simpson has pleaded not guilty.

In addition to its effect on the racial composition of the jury, the latest shift also leaves just five alternates for a case that is expected to last through the summer, raising anew the fear that the current jury will never reach a verdict.

Since late January, jurors have been leaving at a rate of roughly one every three weeks. At that pace, the panel almost surely would be exhausted before both sides finished presenting their cases.

“Having only five alternates remaining is not good for where we are in this case,” said Santa Monica defense lawyer Gigi Gordon. “You can lose five jurors in a short trial. Some of these people can’t take the sequestration.”

Monday morning, the former juror returned home to find the Crenshaw-area View Park residence where she lives with her parents swarming with dozens of reporters and photographers. Asked how she felt, Hampton responded: “I’m fine now that I’m home.”

She holed up inside the house all day Monday, declining requests for interviews. Hampton left the home late in the afternoon, escorted by her father as she snaked her way through the mass of journalists. Her brother, Vincent Hampton, told reporters: “She’s not going to be talking to anyone tonight.”

Defense attorneys had fought the removal of the juror, who some defense sources had believed was a potential Simpson supporter. And their dismay at losing her was deepened by the juror picked to replace her. The new juror made a remark during jury selection that troubled Simpson’s attorneys and heartened prosecutors.

“He’s the only person who had a visible motive,” the real estate appraiser said of Simpson. “It was his ex-wife, and she was with another man. It’s something most people would have a problem with.”

Nevertheless, that woman said she had not formed opinions about Simpson’s guilt or innocence, and both sides accepted her as an alternate juror.

The newly added panelist was one of those criticized by excused juror Jeanette Harris--among other things, Harris accused her of hitting another member of the panel--and has attracted attention for her selections of reading material. One recent book that she carried to court was a self-help work titled “When I Say No, I Feel Guilty.”

Conspiracy Denied

Despite the dwindling supply of alternates, prosecutors forged ahead with their case Monday, laying the groundwork for scientific test results that they say will show that Simpson was at the scene of the bloody double homicide.

Gregory Matheson, a chief forensic chemist and assistant director at the Los Angeles Police Department laboratory, confidently and calmly opened his testimony by telling the jury that he was not part of any plot to frame Simpson.

The defense has alleged a broad conspiracy and has accused a number of witnesses of either participating in it or covering up for officers who might have. Deputy Dist. Atty. Hank Goldberg has taken to asking witnesses about the conspiracy theory directly, part of his effort to belittle the notion.

“Are you part of any conspiracy in this case to frame the defendant?” Goldberg asked Matheson just after he had taken the stand.

“No,” Matheson replied without any hint of irritation. “I’m not.”

“Or a part of any cover-up for the purposes of framing the defendant?” Goldberg continued.

“No, I am not,” Matheson said.

After meticulously describing his credentials and qualifications, the witness testified that while some mistakes were made in evidence-collection, none of them could have compromised the results of the blood tests he performed.

Goldberg, who has taken the lead role in presenting the prosecution’s physical evidence, returned to that point several times, eliciting testimony from Matheson intended to blunt various defense challenges to prosecution evidence. With previous witnesses, the defense has tried to show that samples were collected sloppily or were improperly packaged, and has suggested that those techniques compromised the evidence so badly that jurors should not rely on it.

Matheson testified, however, that if samples were badly collected, subsequent tests would fail to yield any results, not produce false results implicating Simpson.

“It’s not going to change it in any way,” Matheson said of incorrect evidence handling techniques, such as using bare hands or dirty tweezers to collect bloodstains. “It’s not going to change what’s already there.”

A collector who used improper handling, he added, “would get no result as opposed to the changing of the type.”

Anticipating another line of defense criticism, Goldberg also questioned the chemist about various defense theories regarding how evidence could have become contaminated.

With a series of sometimes sarcastic questions, Goldberg asked, for instance, whether DNA evidence could “migrate” from one blood drop to another, whether taking a glove to the crime scene inside a paper bag could contaminate it or other evidence and whether a blanket placed over the body of Nicole Simpson could affect results of tests conducted on blood drops at the scene.

Each time, Matheson said the situation described by Goldberg was impossible or would not compromise the evidence. Matheson answered most of those questions with a straight face, but occasionally smiled and uttered a soft chuckle, mannerisms that squared with Goldberg’s attempt to suggest that the defense theories are ridiculous.

Throughout his testimony, Matheson often turned to face the jury, speaking directly to the panelists. Most of them appeared to share his interest, watching intently as he testified all day--the first of several that Matheson is expected to spend on the stand.

Cats and Criminalists

In addition to its charges of a police conspiracy, the defense has accused the LAPD and its employees of conducing such a sloppy investigation that jurors should not rely on the results of its scientific evidence. Monday, Goldberg tackled that issue head on as well, in part by asking the witness to evaluate the work of criminalists Andrea Mazzola and Dennis Fung--both of whom were subjected to long and pointed cross-examinations by defense lawyers.

Matheson generally backed up the criminalists, gently criticizing their failure to collect a piece of paper from the scene but supporting their decision not to collect every single drop of blood and otherwise indicating that they performed well. At Goldberg’s request, Matheson watched a videotape of Mazzola demonstrating her technique; Matheson said she made no mistakes that would have affected any test results.

As he has before, the prosecutor also suggested that the collection of blood evidence is not nearly as delicate and complicated as defense attorneys have tried to suggest. Could blood found on the bottom of a person’s shoe still be tested and produce results? he asked. Matheson said it could.

Goldberg then attempted to amplify that point with a whimsically hypothetical question.

“Let’s say you had a situation at a crime scene where a cat walked into the crime scene and collected some of the blood by stepping in it with its paw,” Goldberg said. “Could you collect the evidence off the cat’s paw and still test that?”

“Yes, we could,” Matheson said. “I would want a control collected off a clean paw to see if the cat contributed anything to it, but you could test it.”

“OK,” Goldberg responded. “So if evidence at a crime scene could be collected by a house cat, do you think that the criminalists Andrea Mazzola and Dennis Fung were qualified to collect the evidence in this case?”

Robert Blasier, the eighth member of Simpson’s legal team to take charge of questioning a witness, objected to that query, calling it argumentative and “silly.” Ito laughed, as did Goldberg, who withdrew his question.

Blasier, a significant behind-the-scenes player in the defense camp, was a feisty courtroom adversary Monday as Goldberg attempted to conduct his examination of the witness. The defense lawyer objected repeatedly, sometimes firing his objections so quickly that he did not bother to sit down between them.

The objections slowed the proceedings and forced Goldberg to plod through some aspects of his questioning. Nevertheless, Ito remained steadfast in his determination to hold down the number of sidebar conferences; although Monday’s session was a contentious one, it was interrupted only once by such a conference, and Ito refused a prosecution request for a second.

Slowed by the objections and by his need to establish a number of foundational points, Goldberg did not reach the point of asking the chemist about the results of testing that he performed on some of the evidence.

At last summer’s preliminary hearing, Matheson said a blood drop leading away from the two bodies contained markers found in only about 0.43% of the population. Both victims could be excluded from the group of people that could have left that drop, Matheson said, but Simpson could not.

Since that time, more items have been tested, and much of the blood has been subjected to DNA analysis as well. Although Matheson will not testify about DNA tests, he is expected to tell the jury about conventional analysis performed on some of the evidence.

Both sides expect that testimony to be offered this morning. If so, it will mark the first time the jury has heard specific test results linking Simpson to the crimes.

Ringing and Praying

After months of criticism for overseeing a meandering trial, Ito has displayed a new, sterner temperament in recent days, determined to bring new focus and speed to the case. He has moved legal arguments about exhibits to the end of the court day, for instance, and has imposed strict new rules on the courtroom conduct of the lawyers.

But the Simpson case seems to abound in interruptions, and almost every day brings some new quandary for the judge.

Monday, Ito first was faced with a recurring pet peeve, the interruption of beepers and cellular phones, whose persistent ringing he has attempted to thwart by confiscating the devices when they go off.

During Monday’s morning session, a cellular phone began ringing, drawing an angry glare from Ito and briefly interrupting Matheson’s testimony. Just before the trial broke for lunch, Ito brought the proceeding to a halt, demanding that the person whose telephone it was confess to the violation and turn over the offending device for confiscation.

When no one budged, Ito grew visibly more angry. Convinced that someone in the audience was refusing to come forward, he banned all telephones and pagers from his courtroom henceforth and ordered sheriff’s deputies to search spectators, journalists and family members every time they entered his courtroom.

During the lunch break, however, a mortified reporter from Sports Illustrated acknowledged that it was her phone. The reporter, Shelly Smith, had left the courtroom before Ito demanded the phone, so she had not defied his command that it be turned in.

“I feel like a criminal,” she said before heading off to Ito’s chambers to throw herself on the mercy of the court.

That settled one disruption, but no sooner had court resumed after lunch than Ito was confronted with another. As the lawyers haggled over a few details before the jury was brought back into court, a woman approached the gate separating the audience from the players in the trial and dropped to her knees.

“Father, father,” she said, her eyes cast toward the ceiling, “I’m asking you in Jesus’ name to open the heavens and give the peace and strength to this court.”

Without waiting for word from Ito, two sheriff’s deputies removed her from the courtroom.

Times staff writers Edward J. Boyer and Eric Malnic contributed to this article.