Ito Limits Defense Evidence of Alleged Police Frame-Up : Simpson trial: Judge curbs testimony on bloody socks. It is week’s fourth ruling against defendant’s lawyers.

With their alternative-killer theory already in trouble, defense lawyers in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson suffered a blow to an even more significant prong of their case Thursday as Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito limited their ability to present evidence of an alleged police conspiracy.

In a written order, the fourth this week to crimp defense efforts, Ito ruled that Simpson’s attorneys may not elicit testimony from an expert who they said is prepared to tell the jury that blood on socks found in the defendant’s bedroom appeared planted, not splattered during a knife fight.

“The court previously ruled, at the behest of the defense, that testimony regarding the presence of blood based upon presumptive tests must be corroborated by some confirmatory test,” Ito wrote. “The defense has failed to conduct any confirmatory testing.”

Ito also ruled that the expert, Herbert MacDonnell, could not tell the jury about an experiment in which he estimated the time it would take for blood on the socks to dry. That experiment, Ito ruled, was performed on different socks than the ones recovered from Simpson’s house, and thus its conclusions were not based on conditions of “substantial similarity” to those the test was intended to mimic.

Ito’s ruling was his latest to favor the Simpson prosecution, and the defense team struggled in court with its witnesses as well. Nevertheless, when Ito’s patience--which by his admission had been tested all morning--finally broke, his anger was directed toward Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark. She had suggested that a proposed defense witness could not be relied upon to testify truthfully, prompting Ito to interrupt.

“I’ve warned you already,” Ito said despite Clark’s apology. “Sanction is $250. Don’t leave court without writing a check.”

From the start of the trial, Simpson’s attorneys have suggested that police planted evidence in their quest to build a case against the former football star, who has pleaded not guilty to the June 12, 1994, murders of Ronald Lyle Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. Police and prosecutors have vehemently denied any evidence-tampering, and the government team in the Simpson case has painstakingly tried to knock down those allegations every time they arise.

The bloody socks form the centerpiece of the defense’s conspiracy theory for several reasons: Police who collected the socks did not initially report seeing blood on them, for instance, and one test performed on the socks produced an ambiguous result that a defense expert is prepared to say suggests that the blood was laced with a preservative.

That preservative was used in vials that contained the samples of blood taken from Simpson and the two victims, and the defense has argued that if the preservative was in the blood on the socks or in other samples taken from the scene of the murders, it would bolster their theory that evidence was planted.

Prosecutors dispute those conclusions and say tests run by the FBI did not turn up evidence of such a preservative.

Ito’s order does not bar the defense from exploring the issue of the preservative, but it does mean that, at least for now, Simpson’s lawyers cannot ask one of their experts for his opinion as to whether the socks were smeared with blood, as the defense alleges.

Defense lawyers still could elicit that testimony if they conduct further tests on the socks to confirm that a reddish substance inside one of them was indeed blood. In fact, Ito suggested that course in his ruling, writing in a footnote that “the socks are in the custody of the court as a prosecution exhibit and remain available for confirmatory testing by either party.”

Nevertheless, the ruling angered members of Simpson’s family and defense team.

“How many more [expert witnesses] can they preclude?” Simpson attorney Barry Scheck asked angrily outside court. “I’ve never heard rulings like this in my life. I’m shocked.”

Lead Simpson trial lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. directed his comments toward prosecutors, who he said “sure do want to hide a lot of things.” Still, Cochran said the defense is trying to move along quickly and hopes to rest in early August, barely a month after beginning its case.

Ito Snaps at Attorneys

Inside Ito’s courtroom, meanwhile, defense attorneys pressed forward with their case in front of the jury, eliciting the mixed bag of testimony that has characterized many of their witnesses since the defense began presenting its case last week.

Cochran spent most of the morning questioning a police photographer about what he saw inside Simpson’s house on the afternoon after the killings. As he did near the end of Wednesday’s session, photographer Willie Ford said he did not see the socks when he walked through Simpson’s bedroom at 4:13 p.m.

“Did you at any time ever see any socks at the foot of Mr. Simpson’s bed when you were in that room at about 4:12 or 4:13 on June 13, 1994?” Cochran asked.

“No, sir,” Ford responded without hesitation.

A criminalist previously testified that he did not collect the socks until about 4:30 p.m., so the photographer’s testimony is potentially valuable in the planting theory.

To ensure that no juror missed the point, Cochran returned again and again to the time of the photographer’s observations. Jurors seemed attentive to the testimony, writing diligently in their note pads as Ford described the time he had passed through the room--which he figured out by calculating that the code on the videotape he was shooting was one hour off--and as he repeatedly asserted that there were no socks on the floor at that time.

Under cross-examination, however, Ford provided an explanation for his failure to see the socks or to record them on his videotape of the Simpson home. His response came during a rapid-fire series of questions by Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher A. Darden, who was undaunted by frequent objections from Cochran.

“You were there to document the way the house looked after the LAPD completed a search,” Darden said. “Is that correct?”

Ito turned down two objections to that question, and then Ford responded: “That’s correct.”

Just as Cochran hammered on Ford’s failure to see the socks, Darden emphasized his point again and again.

“Did you videotape the property to show the way it looked after the search?” Darden asked.

Cochran, seeking to blunt the suggestion that Ford had not seen the socks because they already had been collected, objected again, but to no avail.

“Yes, sir,” Ford answered.

The exchange and Cochran’s frequent objections seemed to irritate Ito, who snapped at both attorneys and whose testiness was so evident that he mentioned it to the jury when the panelists returned from their morning break.

“When we concluded this morning just before we took our break, it may have seemed to you that I was a little annoyed with the lawyers, and I want you to know that it is just an expression of my being in a bad mood today,” Ito said, smiling apologetically at the panel. “You should not consider that as my expression of any difficulties with the lawyers themselves, and you should ignore any expressions of what appears to be judicial attitude on my part.”

Jurors smiled amiably at that advice, and testimony continued, with Ito keeping the pressure on the attorneys to move their questioning along. When Cochran finally announced that he had no more questions for the photographer, Ito smiled broadly and turned to the witness.

“Mr. Ford,” he said. “Whew. Thank you.”

‘We Have an Interpreter in the Jury’

The repetitive questioning and Ito’s admittedly short temper cast a tense pall over Thursday’s proceedings, and it erupted during a vitriolic exchange outside the jury’s presence. Prosecutors repeatedly have protested the late disclosure of evidence from the defense side, and on Thursday, Clark asked Ito to delay the testimony of an expert whom Simpson’s lawyers want to call to the stand to talk about the presence of preservatives in the blood on the socks.

That expert, Fredric Rieders, reviewed results of tests performed by an FBI agent but reached different conclusions than the agent. Citing the complexity of the issue and the fact that defense attorneys turned over a report from the expert only this week, Clark asked Ito to block him from taking the stand until she had a chance to study his work and prepare a response.

Robert Blasier, one of Simpson’s lawyers, responded by saying that Clark was being disingenuous since she was willing to question the FBI agent immediately but wanted a delay in order to prepare for the defense expert.

“That’s ridiculous,” Clark responded. “Agent Martz is going to be an honest witness who’s going to testify truthfully.”

Although the jury was not in the room, Clark’s suggestion that the defense witness could not be trusted to tell the truth infuriated Ito, who ordered the $250 fine, the latest sanction in a case that has seen most of the attorneys socked with penalties. It was Clark’s first such sanction, but she accepted it without comment.

Despite the boiling tempers Thursday, the afternoon session was lightened by a rare outburst from a juror that left attorneys and members of the audience giggling.

When Josephine Guarin, the housekeeper for Simpson, was testifying, she said Simpson’s girlfriend had left the house one evening to attend a prayer session. But Guarin speaks with an accent, and Simpson attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. kept asking her to repeat the word prayer, which he could not understand.

Finally, a 72-year-old alternate juror, a normally serious man who keeps to himself and takes careful notes, burst out in a loud voice: “Prayer.”

“We have an interpreter in the jury here,” Ito remarked with a smile. Members of the audience laughed loudly, and Cochran himself was briefly overcome by giggles. After apologizing to Ito, the defense lawyer regained his composure and continued.

Housekeeper, Detectives Testify

Advancing on several fronts Thursday, the defense elicited testimony from Guarin that the defendant was friendly and outgoing when she talked to him on the telephone a few hours before the murders.

“It was the same O.J. that I’m used to,” said Guarin, who smiled nervously but answered questions directly and made frequent eye contact with the panelists. “Same voice, same everything.”

She also told the jury that while Simpson often ran late--testimony that bolstered the account of his daughter--he was extremely fastidious and never left clothes lying around his room, even when in a hurry.

That was intended to raise further doubt about the description of officers who have testified about finding the socks in the bedroom. But another witness, Los Angeles Police Detective Adalberto Luper, told the jury that the socks were lying on the rug near Simpson’s bed when he participated in a search on the day after the murders.

Luper was called by the defense to offer details about the search of Simpson’s home and to describe evidence turned over to the LAPD by the Chicago Police Department, which found a bloody towel and broken glass in Simpson’s hotel room. Luper could not describe those items in detail, however, because he said he had never looked at them himself.

In contrast, Luper did say that he was at Simpson’s house the day after the murders and that he spotted the socks in the bedroom. According to Luper, those socks were at the foot of the bed shortly after noon, when he made his first walk through the house.

That testimony supports the account of other officers and, if the jury believes it, undermines the defense contention that the socks were placed there sometime after Ford made his videotape of the house.

On another defense theme--that sloppy techniques compromised important evidence--Simpson attorney Scheck briefly questioned LAPD Detective Kelly Mulldorfer, who investigated the garage where Simpson’s car was stored after it was seized from outside his home. Mulldorfer said the garage had failed to keep a log to note who had entered the vehicle in the weeks after it was seized--testimony that could help the defense contention that the opportunity existed for anyone to break into the car and tamper with evidence inside.

Also on Thursday, defense lawyers filed a motion urging Ito to reconsider an earlier ruling that precluded them from questioning a former boyfriend of Faye Resnick’s about her drug use--which the defense says could have supplied another motive for the murders.

At the same time, prosecutors urged Ito to limit the defense’s questioning of an LAPD lab director, partly because the prosecution believes the director may be asked about whether she leaked information that was the basis for a false television report about the bloody socks from the bedroom. And the defense responded to yet another prosecution effort to limit testimony, specifically the attempt to block the appearance of witnesses whom the Simpson team wants to call to impeach the account of Detective Mark Fuhrman.

Ito has not yet ruled on those issues.