Tapes Continue Focus on Simpson’s Medical Status

Jurors in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson watched impassively Tuesday as prosecutors played for them videotapes of the defendant apparently joking about spousal abuse and telling a group of health-food distributors that their product had helped him eliminate the pain of arthritis.

On the tape, Simpson told a group of distributors selling a product known as Juice Plus that after first battling arthritis so debilitating that he could not open a door, he had found that the product seemed to help him.

“I don’t know if it was mind over matter or a mental thing,” he said in a speech delivered 10 weeks before the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. “But almost immediately, I started feeling better.”

Simpson said that after a while he stopped taking his other medicine altogether, a comment that drew loud applause from the audience during his speech, even though he did not attribute his improvement entirely to Juice Plus.

Simpson’s comments place the defendant in a difficult position no matter how they are viewed: Either the former football star was a huckster embellishing to an audience about the effects of a product he was helping to hawk, or he was telling the truth, in which case his comments cast doubt on the defense’s argument that his arthritis was so bad that he could not have committed the brutal knife attacks.

Nevertheless, outside court, Simpson attorney Robert L. Shapiro stressed that his client, who has pleaded not guilty to the murders, was making a paid appearance and noted that Simpson never directly suggested that the product was responsible for the improvement of his arthritis.

“He got $250,000 for that spot,” Shapiro said. “Listen closely to what he says.”

The defense fought introduction of that tape and of another set of clips from an exercise videotape that features Simpson performing a gentle workout and at one point appearing to joke about spousal abuse, but jurors did not seem particularly moved by that evidence when it was introduced Tuesday.

They watched the tapes as they were played but for the most part did not take notes, even as Simpson shadow-boxed and seemed to joke about spousal abuse.

“I’m telling you,” Simpson says on the tape as he jabs with his left and right hands. “You just gotta get your space in if you’re working out with the wife, if you know what I mean. You could always blame it on working out.”

Other people appearing on the video can be heard in the background laughing at Simpson’s comment, which was not edited out of the final version of the tape.

Prosecutors argue that the offhand, unscripted remark demonstrates Simpson’s cavalier attitude about domestic violence, but only one juror, a white woman in the back row of the jury box, seemed to note the comment when the tape was played. The rest of the tape was of mixed benefit for the prosecution: It shows Simpson’s strong build and features him exercising, but it includes his frequent comments about his injured knee and does not depict him as particularly limber.

Prosecutors introduced the tape, which was shot less than three weeks before the murders, both for the comments on spousal abuse and because they believe it will undercut the defense’s argument that Simpson’s arthritis rendered him incapable of carrying out the murders. But defense attorneys insisted that they do not believe the tape hurt their case because the exercises are so gentle that they do not compare to the violent actions needed to knife the two victims to death.

“It’s inconceivable why a prosecutor would ever play that videotape,” Shapiro said outside court. “It’s like square dancing.”

Doctor Regrets Earlier Testimony

The tapes were played during the closing hours of the testimony of Dr. Robert Huizenga, who spent three days on the witness stand, the bulk of the time weathering a cross-examination by prosecutors attempting to chip away at the value of his testimony about Simpson’s arthritis.

On Tuesday, Huizenga spent one last session grappling with Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Kelberg in a wide-ranging dispute that touched on the doctor’s credentials and qualifications to render opinions on some subjects.

Huizenga acknowledged that he wished he had not testified a day earlier regarding the apparent stress that Simpson was under three days after the murders. In response to a hypothetical question Tuesday, the doctor conceded that murdering two people might cause a person to feel stress, but on Wednesday he said he regretted giving that answer because he does not know exactly how committing such a crime would affect the perpetrator.

Throughout the remaining cross-examination, Kelberg tried to suggest that Huizenga was offering opinions that he was not entitled to give. But when the prosecutor pushed the generally amiable doctor too far, Huizenga lashed back at the insinuation that other experts were more qualified than he to offer certain opinions.

Reminding Kelberg that he was a Harvard Medical School graduate, Huizenga archly noted that when he was in school, colleagues used to joke that “an expert is a bastard from Boston with slides.”

True medical expertise, Huizenga said, demands more than a long resume. It takes knowledge of the patient and caring about his or her health, he said--points that the prosecutor again raised to suggest that the doctor was biased in Simpson’s favor.

Ito’s Patience Grows Thin

Kelberg has acquired a reputation for long-winded questioning, which Shapiro tried to remind the jury of during his last rounds with the witness. Several times, Shapiro referred in questions to the prosecutor’s belabored cross-examination.

Each time he did, Kelberg objected, and Ito sustained all those objections.

But Ito’s patience with the attorneys grew thin, and he too urged the prosecutor to move along. At one point when Kelberg was shuffling through a stack of notes to find a particular document, Ito dryly interjected: “That’s what we have Post-its for.”

Later, Ito’s anger was far more pronounced when he tried to mediate a dispute between Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher A. Darden and lead Simpson trial lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., a pair of onetime mutual admirers who in recent months have become locked in an escalating series of sometimes personal arguments.

Their latest spat began when Darden tried to question a police officer, Donald Thompson, about his observations on the morning after the murders. Cochran objected, and Ito called the attorneys to the sidebar. After a spirited conversation there, Ito headed back to his bench and asked the jury to leave the room.

Once the panelists had filed out, Darden argued that he should be allowed to ask the officer, who had put Simpson in handcuffs when the defendant arrived home from Chicago, about what probable cause the officer had for concluding that the former football star was a suspect in the murders.

Ito seemed skeptical and suggested that if he allowed Darden to go into that line of questioning, it would be for only a brief foray.

“I could do that in three questions,” the judge said.

Smiling, Darden responded: “It’d be more dramatic if we did it in 15.”

“But we’re not here for drama, are we Mr. Darden?” Ito responded icily.

“I’m not anymore,” said Darden, prompting Cochran to lob a wisecrack from the defense table.

“Yeah,” said Cochran, “after the gloves,” referring to a much-criticized demonstration in which Darden had Simpson try on a pair of gloves in front of the jury, only to find that they did not fit him well.

Ito overheard Cochran’s comment and glared at the defense attorney. After a pause, Darden asked: “Did Mr. Cochran apologize?”

“Not yet,” Ito responded. “But he will.”

When it was his turn to speak, however, Cochran refused to offer an unqualified apology, saying he did not consider his comment a “cheap shot,” as Ito had characterized it. In fact, Cochran seemed to bait Ito as well, reminding the judge that “Your Honor’s no longer in the D.A.’s office” when discussing how far the prosecution could go in questioning the police officer.

Faced with Cochran’s adamant posture, Ito abruptly stormed off the bench, pointing to the defense lawyer and ominously ordering: “Mr. Cochran, you think about it.”

Suspect’s Handcuffing Described

When he returned, the judge ordered Cochran and Darden to his courtroom at the end of the day, a summoning to the woodshed that did not seem to inhibit the attorneys for the balance of the court session. The expected meeting did not materialize because the court day ran long.

Near the conclusion of the officer’s testimony, Cochran had asked him about how certain of Simpson’s bags had been handled when the defendant returned home that morning. When it was his turn to question the officer, Darden homed in on that point.

“Officer,” Darden began, “normally when you come home from a trip, you don’t give your luggage to your criminal defense attorney either, do you?”

Cochran jumped up to object. Ito sustained the objection, and Darden, grinning slyly, moved to his next question.

Thompson, senior lead officer, was the first LAPD employee called by the defense, but his testimony benefited prosecutors as well as offering support for one aspect of the Simpson team’s theory of the case. From the start, defense attorneys have argued that authorities were guilty of a “rush to judgment” in the Simpson case, focusing on clues that might tend to implicate him and ignoring other avenues that could have led them toward someone else.

As a result, Thompson was called to tell the jury that he had been told to handcuff Simpson as soon as he arrived home. Thompson gave the jury that account, saying he put Simpson in handcuffs within a minute of the defendant’s arrival at his Rockingham Avenue estate.

But Thompson also testified, under cross-examination, that Simpson did not appear despondent on arriving home. Moreover, he said he had led Simpson away from the driveway gate so that he could handcuff him discreetly, away from the media outside.

“It really didn’t matter to me,” said Thompson, a strapping 6-foot-7-inch officer who is African American. “I just wanted to do it for the dignity of the defendant.”

In addition, Thompson noted that the handcuffs were quickly taken off Simpson, that the detective leading him off the property did not insist that Simpson walk in front of him--the normal procedure--and that he had never seen a defendant taken away in a police car without a partition. Thompson even recounted seeing Simpson’s lawyer briefly embrace one of the detectives.

That testimony, as well as Thompson’s assertion that he saw no evidence of a police conspiracy against Simpson, mitigated whatever benefits his account gave the defense and left some observers puzzled by the decision to call him--an increasingly common criticism of the still unfolding defense case.

“Every time you call a witness, you have to think of the downside risk,” said Harland W. Braun, a defense attorney and former prosecutor. “It sounds to me like they’re paying too high a price.”

Hairdresser Talks of Dandruff

Conspiracy and corruption are part of the defense case, as is the persistent theme of mishandling of evidence, which Simpson’s lawyers had advanced to urge the jury to disregard the prosecution’s self-proclaimed “mountain of physical evidence.” That defense challenge was in play Tuesday as well, surfacing at several different points in the testimony.

Simpson’s hairdresser, for instance, testified that Simpson occasionally battled dandruff and never dyed his hair--two pieces of testimony that could help raise questions about the prosecution’s hair and trace evidence. An FBI expert testified, for instance, that the hairs consistent with Simpson’s found at the crime scene showed no evidence of dandruff and that some of the hairs found at the scene were dyed.

But the hairdresser, Juanita Moore--who listed other well known clients, including Ray Charles and LAPD Deputy Chief Bernard Parks--acknowledged that dandruff can be controlled and that Simpson did not always suffer from it.

The defense seemed to make greater headway on the subject of blood, eliciting the testimony of a tow-truck driver who said he saw no blood in Simpson’s Ford Bronco when he towed it from the Rockingham estate to a police garage.

“Did you see any blood on that steering wheel?” Cochran asked the driver, John Meraz.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

Jurors appeared taken with the discussion of blood in the Bronco, taking careful note of it when it surfaced during the police officer’s testimony--Thompson said he did see bloodstains--and again paying close attention when Meraz relayed his observations. Meraz did not complete his testimony Tuesday but is expected to return to the stand this morning.

Outside the jury’s presence Tuesday, the two sides waged another debate on the topic of evidence sharing, a dispute that has shadowed the trial since it began. Although Tuesday’s issues were familiar, they foreshadowed a line of argument that the defense will raise in the coming days and weeks.

One defense expert witness, a prosecutor revealed Tuesday, has performed tests on a pair of socks discovered in Simpson’s bedroom and concluded that they could have been stained with blood while not being worn. That would suggest evidence-tampering and would bolster the defense argument that DNA test results from the socks indicating that blood on them almost certainly came from Nicole Simpson should be disregarded by the jury.

Prosecutors belittled that argument and complained that the report of the test was delivered late to them. Ito did not rule on that issue but said he would take it up when court resumes this morning.

* BOLD PROSECUTOR: Brian Kelberg uses unusual theatrics to make his point. B1