Ito Maps Out Jurors’ Night Trip to Scenes

Has the shrubbery grown?

Will the moonlight be similar?

Fourteen months after the slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman, will the scene from the sidewalk in front of 875 S. Bundy Drive be reminiscent of that on June 13, 1994, when neighbors discovered the bodies just after midnight.

These are some of the questions Judge Lance A. Ito has had to resolve in planning for the jury in the O.J. Simpson murder case to take a nocturnal tour of the murder scene and of Simpson’s nearby Rockingham Avenue estate in Brentwood.

Ito has scheduled the tour for Aug. 20, a Sunday, the same day of the week as the murders. And it is to be between the same hours--10 p.m. to midnight--that prosecutors contend an enraged O.J. Simpson attacked his ex-wife and Goldman with a knife, an accusation Simpson denies.

The jurors got their first look at the Bundy and Rockingham scenes in February during a daylight tour in which they were allowed to see and examine at close range where evidence was found.

The nighttime tour is designed to allow the same thing, only under conditions in which panel members can determine what witnesses might have been able to see in the dark.

In an effort to come as close as possible to duplicating the conditions on the night of the murders, Ito has, as usual, done his own research.

“He’s looked at weather, the position of the moon, and he’s checked the grounds to make sure they are in a similar state,” said his clerk, Deirdre Robertson.

Ito has not made public his findings, but he may have hit upon a good date with Aug. 20.

Although the moon will be in a different phase than on the night of the murders, when it was in its first quarter, Ito may have concluded that the last quarter moon of Aug. 20 will cast about the same amount of light.

The difference in seasons--the murders occurred in the last days of spring, while August is the height of summer--also was a challenge the judge may have overcome.

Curtis Brack, a meteorologist for WeatherData, the firm that provides weather information for The Times, said there is a good chance the high 50s to low 60s temperatures and foggy conditions on June 12, 1994, will be duplicated Aug. 20, 1995, given the average August temperatures for that area at night. Night fog, Brack said, is not uncommon even in summer so near the Pacific Ocean.

There has been disagreement about whether other details will be close to the same.

Defense lawyer Carl E. Douglas said Friday that his team has complained to Ito, to no avail, that the greenery outside Nicole Brown Simpson’s condominium is significantly different from what it was on the night of the murders.

The defense team, he said, also is concerned that security lighting outside the home has been changed since June 12 of last year.

“We just want to make sure [the current conditions] are duplicative to that day,” Douglas said.

That is Ito’s aim as well, Robertson said.

She said the judge persuaded a next-door neighbor at the Bundy address to postpone removing a hedge on his property until after the jury’s tour.

Ito also plans to walk through the Bundy scene with lawyers from both sides to examine the lighting, but that excursion is yet to be scheduled.

In an order issued Thursday announcing the night tour, the judge noted that he will order adjustments to the lighting if he deems them necessary.