Police Chemist Reconstructs Blood Loss During Testing : Trial: Little if any of sample taken from O.J. Simpson is missing, he says, attempting to refute defense theory.

In a painstaking, repetitive attempt to convince jurors in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson that none of the defendant’s blood is unaccounted for, a prosecutor Friday guided a police chemist through a reconstruction of when blood was tested and how much was used each time.

Responding to defense allegations of a police frame-up carried out with a vial of Simpson’s blood, Gregory Matheson, chief forensic chemist and assistant director of the Los Angeles Police Department crime lab, described an experiment he performed to measure how much blood is discarded when it is transferred between containers.

That experiment, he said, demonstrated how much might have been lost in the testing of Simpson’s blood vial and suggested that little if any of the blood is missing. If all of the blood can be accounted for, that would head off the defense contention that some of the blood was removed and used to stain items of evidence, including cotton swatches later subjected to DNA testing.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Hank Goldberg trumpeted Matheson’s testimony and said it explained away the defense’s allegation that some of Simpson’s blood was removed from a vial and used to stain items of evidence--a central plank in the Simpson team’s attempt to demonstrate that police conspired to frame the former football star.

Simpson has pleaded not guilty to the June 12 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Goldberg also tried to signal to the jury that FBI analysis of bloodstains found no evidence of a preservative in the samples; that is an important aspect of the prosecution’s rebuttal to the conspiracy theory because blood vials used to store the blood of Simpson and both victims contain that preservative.

If none was found in the evidence, prosecutors say, the bloodstains could not have been drawn from the vials, as the defense has alleged. Outside the presence of the jury, Goldberg told Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito that the FBI had tested the items and found no evidence of the preservative, known as EDTA.

Defense sources told The Times on Thursday, however, that their experts found traces of the preservative in at least two sets of stains, those from the back gate of Nicole Simpson’s house and those found on a pair of O.J. Simpson’s socks. According to one source, the amount detected in those stains was less than that which analysts consider definitive for the presence of EDTA, but it could provide enough grist for the defense to argue that the stains were planted.

In court Friday, defense lawyer Robert Blasier made that point to the judge, implying that the conclusion of the defense experts was based on the FBI’s own analysis: “Our experts have looked at the FBI results and have said it’s present,” Blasier said.

Jurors Appear Bored

Matheson concluded five days on the witness stand Friday, but not before a defense lawyer accused him of violating his professional code of ethics--a claim he firmly denied--and not before the questioning seemed to lose the attention of audience members and jurors alike.

During one break, Ito warned Goldberg that jurors were “rolling their eyes” at the examination.

“I don’t know if you’re watching the jury at all,” Ito said. “But they’re rolling their eyes every time we get to the fifth or sixth question that’s been re-asked and asked again.”

In his effort to push the lawyers to finish with Matheson, Ito interjected frequently Friday, sometimes sustaining objections even before they had been posed.

When Goldberg tried to argue one point, Ito cut him off: “Don’t argue with me, counsel.”

Ito’s more assertive role in pushing the case forward has been on display since late last month, with mixed results. Although it took a week to complete Matheson’s testimony, that still was far less time than the two sides expended in questioning Matheson’s underlings, criminalists Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola.

Despite the efforts to speed up the case, jury members appeared to lose interest in the dueling examinations of Matheson. Goldberg at one point tacitly acknowledged that some of Matheson’s testimony had been exhaustive and even boring, a description Matheson confirmed with a short chuckle.

For their part, the 17 jurors and alternates, a majority of whom inexplicably arrived for court Friday in matching California Pizza Kitchen T-shirts, largely eschewed their normally prolific note-taking, instead staring straight ahead as Matheson wound up his time on the stand.

Some courthouse observers, desperate for clues as to the jury’s well-being, searched the T-shirt display for signs of a message. When most of the panel arrived wearing black two weeks ago, it marked the beginning of a jury revolt that brought the proceedings to a halt.

Friday’s message seemed far less ominous, if it had any meaning at all. Each of the T-shirts worn Friday by 13 panelists featured the popular restaurant’s slogan: “14 ethnically diverse cultures coexisting on one, thin delicious crust.”

Ethics Breach Alleged

Although Matheson’s testimony covered little new ground Friday, Blasier used his penultimate round of questioning to launch his most aggressive attack on the chemist’s credibility.

Unlike other police witnesses, the defense has not tried to show that Matheson is part of a conspiracy to frame Simpson or to cover up for the misdeeds of others, but Blasier instead accused Matheson of intentionally shading his testimony to favor the prosecution and of violating his professional ethics in the process.

Matheson, who never raised his voice or displayed any anger during five days on the witness stand, nevertheless flushed red when Blasier accused him of tilting his scientific analysis to favor the prosecution. After displaying two sections of the criminalists code of ethics that bars such shading, Blasier, a wiry man with a thin voice, looked directly at the burly Matheson and nearly shouted: “Do you agree that there is no scientific support for your testimony” regarding blood underneath Nicole Simpson’s fingernails?

“No,” Matheson said sternly, “I do not.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing in this case, Mr. Matheson, violating this code of ethics?” the defense lawyer continued. Even as Matheson sputtered an indignant “no,” prosecutors objected, and Ito sustained their objection, calling the question argumentative.

Blasier then yielded the questioning to Goldberg, who attempted to show the jury that Matheson is a scrupulously careful and respected professional for whom adherence to the code of ethics is a matter of personal pride.

“This code of ethics comes from (the) California Assn. of Criminalists?” Goldberg asked, his soft tone in marked contrast to the defense lawyer’s.

“Yes,” Matheson replied.

“And you are one of the former past presidents of that organization, is that correct?” the prosecutor asked.

“That’s correct,” said Matheson, who also pointed out that he was wearing an association pin on his lapel--the latest such decoration sported in a case where many of the witnesses have come bearing tokens of their professional or personal allegiances.

“Have you ever tried to present any testimony in this case in such a way as to favor one side or the other?” Goldberg asked.

“No,” Matheson answered. “I have not.”

Next Week: DNA

Ito recessed court Friday without resolving a lingering legal issue that has tugged at the margins of the case for weeks--the defense’s demand that prosecutors be sanctioned for failing to turn over promptly a page out of a police report and the prosecution’s counter-request for sanctions against the defense.

Defense attorney Barry Scheck reiterated the defense’s request Friday, reminding Ito that part of his cross-examination of criminalist Fung was based on the assumption that Fung had destroyed a page from one of the reports involving evidence collected from the crime scene and Simpson’s house. Moments after Scheck leveled that accusation, prosecutors discovered the missing page, deflating the argument in front of the jury.

Prosecutors conceded that they had not turned over the original document, but said they did not know they had failed to do so--a position they bolstered in part by noting that the document turned out to be a blank Police Department form, and therefore one that was not carefully inspected. Defense attorneys, the prosecution said, waived their right to make an issue out of the document by choosing not to pursue it more aggressively and instead electing to spring the charge on the witness while he was testifying.

Ito said he would review transcripts of the session before deciding how to rule. Simpson’s lawyers have asked him to tell the jury that the prosecution failed to turn over the document and to say that the failure to do so may raise questions about the witness’s credibility.

When court resumes next week, testimony is expected to shift to the prosecution’s DNA evidence. Although the jury has heard snippets of that topic in recent days, the DNA experts called by the government are expected to testify about tests that prosecutors say will show that Simpson was at the scene of the crimes and that he tracked the victims’ blood into his car and back to his estate.

Simpson’s lawyers have challenged the DNA results by questioning the reliability of the evidence, which they say was sloppily collected, and by suggesting that some of it was planted by police officers eager to build their case against Simpson.