THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Ex-Juror Kept List of Panelists’ Names in Violation of Ito’s Order : Transcripts: In addition, the Glendale man was accused by colleagues of eavesdropping. Records also show that neighbors told police Jeanette Harris had been a victim of domestic abuse.

One of the jurors bumped from the O.J. Simpson trial because Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito suspected he was writing a book was discovered to be keeping a list of juror names in what Ito considered a possible “felony crime,” according to transcripts released Thursday.

Sheriff’s investigators discovered that Tracy Kennedy of Glendale was keeping the list in violation of Ito’s order after other panelists told Ito they believed Kennedy was writing a book. The other jurors complained that Kennedy was spying on them and playing a divisive, destructive role on the sequestered panel.

Although prosecutors initially resisted Kennedy’s dismissal, they agreed with defense lawyers that he had to go after the list was found in his room. Kennedy, 52, was dismissed on March 17.

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The transcripts also reveal that neighbors anonymously tipped the police, who then told Ito, that juror Jeanette Harris had been the subject of domestic violence. Sheriffs’ investigators working for Ito subsequently discovered that Harris in 1988 had obtained a restraining order against her husband after filing court papers stating that her husband had forced her to have sex on two occasions--a crime in California, according to Ito.

When Ito confronted her with this evidence--which she had not disclosed on her juror questionnaire--Harris, a 38-year-old job counselor, denied that her husband had ever laid a hand on her and tried to remain on the jury. Ito dismissed her on April 6.

The transcripts include a lengthy discussion between Ito and the lawyers about how to keep Harris away from the news media--including a suggestion by prosecutors Christopher A. Darden and Marcia Clark to stash Harris in a hotel for a few days in hope that news organizations would lose interest.

Defense lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. retorted that this would be a vain effort: “That’s not going to help, you know, with the press, judge. This is hot. I mean if we put her up for a few days. As soon as she leaves, Ted Koppel is going to be out there [at her house].”

Indeed, on the evening she was dismissed, Harris, an African American, granted a live interview on KCAL Channel 9, where she alleged the deputies were giving preferential treatment to white jurors.

The transcripts also show the attorneys, particularly Cochran, urging Ito to be careful about dismissing too many jurors too soon for fear of running out of panelists and then facing accusations that the county had spent millions on a trial that would have to be retried.

The revelations about Kennedy and Harris were contained in the second set of sealed transcripts--about 200 pages--released by Ito in response to requests from the American Civil Liberties Union, several news organizations and one dismissed juror, all of whom contended that the judge should make records of the closed-door sessions public to clear the air about why 10 jurors have been kicked off the high-profile panel.

The transcripts show that several jurors complained to Ito about Kennedy, telling the judge that he attempted to provoke arguments, spied on them in the telephone room, inspected the conjugal visitor list and asked sheriffs guarding the jury to keep journals that could aid him in writing a book after the trial.

“He seems to like to agitate, keep things stirred up,” a 60-year-old woman juror lamented to the judge. “He seems to tempt, to use problems between other jurors. He doesn’t like to be challenged or questioned or opposed. . . . He has some strange personal habits,” including putting his feet on furniture and gargling at the dinner table, the juror said.

“I feel like I have to hide something because he’s always listening to our conversations or pretending to be on the telephone when he’s really listening in on what we are saying or what the other jurors are saying,” juror Farron Chavarria, who eventually was dismissed, told Ito during one session in his chambers.

Two panelists told Ito they concluded that Kennedy was eavesdropping on them when they saw him scrutinizing them while wearing a headphone stereo that had no cassette in it.

Ito’s interviews with the jurors about Kennedy provide an inside look at a climate that sometimes verged on paranoia.

The transcripts also show that the panel was under considerable stress and in need of relief from constant confinement and surveillance. At one point, Chavarria complained to Ito that it took too much time for the jurors to have requests granted--for example, a month to get a trip to the beach.

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“You know, it really helps us to get out. . . . It is uplifting to our morale because it is very difficult to be in this type of situation, and it makes a difference just to get out and be able to see nature and be surrounded by something other than just this concrete jungle that we are in,” Chavarria said.

At another point, she said tensions among the jurors were a result of “just having to live with each other for an extended period of time, just cabin fever, just having to be around these people day in and day out.”

The transcripts show Ito frequently trying to mollify the beleaguered panelists, asking them about the quality of their exercise equipment and the merits of a magician and a juggler he sent to entertain them. At one point, he told Chavarria that he has a clerk working full time on activities for them.

Ito initially received complaints about Kennedy in a letter signed by a cross-section of jurors. During the probe, a truck driver who sits in the front row of the jury told Ito that he first noticed Kennedy’s juror list when they were visiting the crime scene in February.

Ito conducted seven closed-door hearings on Kennedy. During the fifth, on March 15, Cochran first asked for Kennedy’s removal, citing a variety of reasons, including his being “a disruptive force.”

Initially, Darden resisted, saying, “I think the evidence at this point . . . may establish that he is some form of a jerk . . . but he’s done nothing that constitutes misconduct.”

Ito then called Kennedy in and the Amtrak manager denied that he had a list, saying that it had been given to him by another juror who was dismissed earlier and that he had gotten rid of it.

Kennedy conceded that he was thinking about writing a book on his experiences in the case. “I haven’t really made up my mind yet, and I certainly haven’t talked to anyone about it except just in passing. I think it would be interesting to write a book about it.”

Kennedy then granted Ito permission to have sheriff’s officials search his laptop computer for any evidence that he was writing a book. During that search, sheriff’s deputies discovered the juror list, which included their names.

On March 17, Ito told the lawyers of that discovery and both sides agreed Kennedy had to go. Kennedy briefly apologized to the judge after Ito dismissed him.

The discussions about Harris were considerably more heated among the lawyers than those involving Kennedy. Simpson’s attorneys attempted to downplay the incidents of alleged spousal abuse, stressing that Harris steadfastly maintained that her husband had never beaten her.

Harris told the judge that she and her husband were having difficulties and that she had written whatever was necessary to get him out of the house in 1988. She told Ito that when she filled out her juror questionnaire, the 1988 incident “hadn’t crossed my mind.”

Harris also expressed considerable concern to Ito, as she did in subsequent media interviews, that her husband would be unfairly tarred as a wife beater and that this would have an adverse effect on their children, as well.

But prosecutor Clark asserted, “We have a real, obvious effort to hide and deny prior experience that is proven by documentary proof.” At another point, Clark asserted that Harris committed perjury by failing to disclose her experience with domestic violence on her questionnaire. There are 22 pages fully excised from the Harris transcript, without explanation.

The debate over Harris manifested some of the same racial acrimony that has been evident in the courtroom. Darden accused the defense lawyers of trying to keep Harris, who is black, on the jury even though she was a victim of domestic violence, whereas they earlier argued in favor of dismissing a Latina woman from the panel for the same reason.

Ito then interjected, “Mr. Darden, forgive me for interrupting you, but I don’t see a racial component in any of these issues.”