THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Testimony on DNA Drags to a Conclusion : Courtroom: Amid repetitious, lackluster argument, attention is focused on three jurors, who sources say are under investigation.

After long, closed-door arguments Thursday about the fate of three closely scrutinized jurors in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, the full panel returned to court to hear final testimony in the main portion of the prosecution’s DNA case.

As they conducted the last rounds of questioning of a prosecution DNA witness, lawyers on the two sides jockeyed for every possible advantage, seeking to wring value out of the tiniest shreds of testimony. The result: a tedious session that broke virtually no new ground in the case and that at times seemed to bore the judge, the lawyers and some of the jurors.

Simpson, who has pleaded not guilty to the June 12 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman, took some notes during Thursday’s session. But he mostly seemed to occupy himself by staring at the ceiling or by chatting with his attorneys.

With the testimony of state Department of Justice criminalist Gary Sims winding down, most attention was focused on the status of the jury, three of whose members have come under investigation in recent days, according to sources. Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito met behind closed doors with lawyers and with deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for 90 minutes before Thursday’s court session, a wait that contributed to the mounting tension surrounding the jury.

But when Ito and the attorneys emerged, the expected announcement did not materialize. Two of the jurors said to be under investigation--a 28-year-old Latina real estate appraiser and a 43-year-old black man who works as a marketing representative--were with the rest of the panel when the jurors filed in and took their seats at the opening of the court session. The marketing representative, according to sources, is being investigated for an alleged incident involving domestic violence. Sources added that a third juror has been accused of intimidating a fellow panelist.

Outside court, lead Simpson trial lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. said he expects a ruling today on what he called the “juror issue.” Cochran would not elaborate, but sources said that while accusations have been leveled at all three panelists, most attention has focused so far on the young real estate appraiser, who is under scrutiny for allegedly passing a note to another juror to warn her about still another juror investigation.

The juror who allegedly received the note, Francine Florio-Bunten, was bounced from the panel last week after Ito received a tip warning him that she was writing a book about the case. Florio-Bunten denied it but she was still excused.

The dwindling panel and the continuing rash of allegations against the jurors has caused both sides to wonder whether enough panelists will remain to see the trial to its conclusion, an increasingly iffy prospect given that only four alternates remain. Cochran said Thursday that prosecutors were expecting to conclude their case in June, and he predicted that the defense could present its case in six to nine weeks, depending on whether Simpson testifies.

Those estimates are more optimistic than previous ones and would have the case ending in August or early September. Nevertheless, even if Cochran’s schedule holds, the rate of jury attrition that has marked the trial so far would have to drop off precipitously in the coming weeks for a full panel of 12 to be on hand when it comes time to deliberate.

“I’m always concerned,” Cochran said of the disappearing jurors. “I want to finish this case. . . . I think we will.”

DNA Evidence

With the jury issue on hold at least for the moment, the two sides settled in Thursday for one last exchange over DNA test results and the reliability of the evidence subjected to that analysis.

As they have in previous sessions, attorneys focused largely on two items of evidence, a pair of socks found in Simpson’s bedroom and blood drops found on a gate near the scene of the June 12 crimes.

Simpson attorney Barry Scheck returned to the defense’s oft-floated conspiracy theory, while Deputy Dist. Atty. Rockne Harmon posed a final series of questions intended to belittle that theory.

Where Scheck attempted to suggest that the lack of degradation of DNA in samples from the back gate suggested that those bloodstains were planted sometime after the murders, Harmon responded by eliciting Sims’ testimony that foliage appeared to be different in the area of the gate. Foliage and dirt can contain bacteria that contribute to the deterioration of DNA.

The degradation of those samples is potentially important because they were not collected until July 3, three weeks after the murders, yet they contained more DNA than the samples retrieved just hours after the killings. Defense attorneys say that is because the blood on the gate was planted by police; prosecutors attribute it to bacterial contamination aided by poor packing of the original samples, which were temporarily stored in plastic bags and placed in a hot truck. Those storage conditions could have fostered the growth of bacteria and degradation of the samples.

In an increasingly nasty exchange Thursday, Scheck suggested that contamination of the other samples could not by itself explain the discrepancy. After all, dirt, leaves or berries could have blown up against the gate if the blood had sat outside for weeks before being collected. Sims at first conceded that, but when it was again Harmon’s turn, he asked whether any wind could account for a berry striking one of those bloodstains found high up on the gate.

“It would have to have been a very strong wind,” Sims said with a laugh.

Both the issues and the battle lines were familiar, and the two attorneys drilled Sims for the fourth and fifth time about certain topics. Jurors for the most part seemed attentive, but some took noticeably fewer notes than they had earlier in the case.

“This could go on forever,” Scheck said at one point, objecting to a series of questions by Harmon. Ito overruled the objection, however, and the questioning continued until the trial broke for lunch. Ito then sent the jury home for the evening because at least one of the attorneys scheduled to present the next part of the case was not available to start until today.

Scheck and the other DNA lawyers have occupied center stage in the trial since late April, and Scheck’s reputation for long-windedness has made him the butt of a growing body of good-natured jokes from reporters and other courtroom spectators. As members of the audience waited to enter Ito’s courtroom Thursday morning, one reporter, Dominick Dunne, told another spectator that he had been seated next to Scheck on an airplane flight recently and that the two had talked until nodding off.

“I think [Scheck] kept talking after you fell asleep,” responded Barbara Bosson, an actress visiting the courtroom Thursday to pick up pointers for her upcoming role in a television series in which she is to portray a prosecutor.

Although other witnesses are expected to testify later in the prosecution’s case about scientific evidence--analysis of hair samples, for instance--Sims’ testimony concluded the major portion of the DNA case. Many commentators praised that phase of the prosecution’s presentation, contrasting the smooth choreography of that section of the case with other aspects that have been sharply criticized.

“As this stuff started to mount and mount and mount, you could see that this was the core of their case,” said Harland W. Braun, a criminal defense lawyer and former deputy district attorney. “I think they’re back on track. Their DNA evidence seems overwhelming to any rational person.”

Autopsy Evidence Next

Prosecutors will shift gears today as they open a potentially dicey phase of their case: the presentation of evidence regarding the autopsies performed on the two victims.

County Coroner Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran is expected to take the stand this morning, and is likely to testify about mistakes made by one of his deputy medical examiners, Dr. Irwin Golden. Some of those mistakes are considered trivial, but the defense has raised serious questions about others, including Golden’s failure to save Nicole Simpson’s stomach contents.

According to the defense, that failure eliminated one means by which Simpson experts could have double-checked the prosecution’s estimate of the times of the murders. Golden also failed to note some of the victims’ wounds in his autopsy reports, and an internal coroner’s office memorandum listed a number of other potential problems regarding evidence-handling.

Prosecutors acknowledge that Golden’s work was far from perfect, but they say that none of the mistakes compromised the ultimate conclusions of the coroner’s office.

To bolster its argument that Golden’s mistakes were harmless, the prosecution intends to show the jury dozens of autopsy photographs, some of which both sides acknowledge are grisly, graphic depictions of the wounds to Goldman and Nicole Simpson.

Those photographs are not likely to be introduced today, however, since Golden will not take the stand until next week.

Publisher Subpoenaed

On the margins of the Simpson trial, another development Thursday further emphasized the relationship between the trial and its abundant literary spinoffs.

Michael Viner, president of Beverly Hills-based Dove Books, said he was subpoenaed by Judge Ito, and Viner said he planned to meet with the judge this morning. Last year, Viner’s company published a book by Faye Resnick that caused Ito to interrupt jury selection, and now the firm is pressing ahead with plans to publish a book by excused juror Michael Knox.

A source close to the publisher speculated that Ito may be concerned that Knox’s upcoming book may reveal the identities of jurors. A court order protects the jurors’ anonymity.

Nevertheless, Viner said he did not plan to be accompanied by a lawyer when he visits Ito this morning. “I feel no need for counsel,” he said. “I’m going voluntarily.”

In addition to those two books, Viner said, Dove is preparing still another account by a central player in the case. Mark Fuhrman, the Los Angeles police detective who testified that he found key evidence in the case but who also has become the centerpiece of the defense conspiracy theory, is preparing to release a selection of letters sent to him in recent months.

Titled, “In Praise of Justice: Letters to Mark Fuhrman,” the book will present highlights from about 8,000 letters the detective has received, along with responses from him, Viner said.