THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Billboards Give a Split Verdict : Advertising: Radio station has put up 200 placards that say ‘Guilty’ and 200 that proclaim ‘Innocent.’ A Simpson attorney complains that jurors might see them.

Hundreds of cryptic radio promotional billboards reading “Guilty” and “Innocent” in large, bold letters have popped up all over town since last week, prompting O.J. Simpson attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. to complain in court Tuesday that jurors might see them while being transported around town.

“I have seen only the ones that say ‘Guilty,’ which is troubling to me, but I understand there are also some that say ‘Innocent’,” Cochran told Judge Lance A. Ito at the beginning of Tuesday’s session. “When the jury is taken out on an outing we need to know . . . if they’re taken down routes that have signs saying one thing or the other that could be prejudicial to either side of this case.”

Ito told lawyers that, as a policy, he has regularly cautioned Sheriff’s Department bus drivers to check the jury’s route before trips. He said he will ask drivers to watch for billboards.

The 200 “Guilty” and 200 “Innocent” signs are a promotion by talk radio station KFI, which has kept its name off them. In the second part of the promotion today and Thursday, the billboards will be revised to reveal the station’s logo and new message, which officials declined to disclose.

“If you want to call it exploitative, yes it could be regarded as that,” said Bill Lewis, the station marketing manager who developed the campaign and described it as simply “what people are talking about.”

The billboards “get people talking, they get people thinking,” Lewis said. “When we roll out the second message, it will draw people to the billboards more than it would have if we had just put those up cold.”

KFI officials do admit that the boards are a direct commentary on the trial, though they say the station is not attempting to predict the outcome. They said they had not considered the possibility of jurors seeing the boards. Still, they have no plans to take down or alter the signs, saying it is the responsibility of the court to keep jurors from being exposed to messages pertaining to the case.

“We assumed that the jury wouldn’t be influenced because they’re sequestered,” said KFI program director David Hall.

The billboards did indirectly lead to controversy Tuesday, however. While covering live court proceedings, KCAL-TV Channel 9 made an inadvertent cut from a shot of Simpson at the defense table to a quick shot of one of the “Guilty” billboards, which it had stored for use in an upcoming story.

“It showed for a fraction of a second and it didn’t even come up full intensity,” said Stacey Okonowsky, the station’s vice president of media and marketing. “It was absolutely a technical error.”

The station received some calls from viewers and aired an apology, Okonowsky said.

KFI’s Lewis said the radio station’s marketing was aimed at “a broad base of listeners. I don’t market for 17 people who are not going to be able to fill out an Arbitron diary. Our intent was not to be prejudicial to the jury. . . . It’s my assumption that they are properly shielded from any prejudicial material they might see, whether it’s print, outdoor [advertising], T.V. or radio. . . . If you’re seeing an ‘Innocent’ board it’s still your responsibility as a juror to reserve judgment until you have reviewed the facts and evidence of the case.”

In some neighborhoods one billboard might cancel another out. One Highland Park street sports a “Guilty” and an “Innocent” board across from each other.