Simpson’s Lawyers File Allegations of Mistakes by Judge

Seeking a new civil trial for O.J. Simpson, lawyers Friday filed legal papers arguing that Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki made sweeping errors that allowed hearsay and inadmissible evidence to taint a jury that ultimately sought to destroy the football legend.

Simpson’s attorneys also contend that jury misconduct--including an allegation that a juror failed to disclose ties to the district attorney’s office--prevented Simpson from getting a fair trial.

The resulting multimillion-dollar verdict, the lawyers state, was spawned by “passion and prejudice” among jurors bent on ruining Simpson financially.

“California law makes it abundantly clear that an award of punitive damages may sting but not destroy a defendant,” defense attorneys wrote in the court filing.

The civil trial jury found Simpson liable for the June 12, 1994, deaths of Ronald Lyle Goldman and his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson. He was acquitted of murder charges in an earlier criminal trial.

The attorneys filed the 44-page legal brief to buttress a motion seeking a new trial and asking Fujisaki to reduce the verdict, which included $25 million in punitive damages.

In the document, Simpson’s legal team contends that Fujisaki erred on a number of evidentiary fronts, including a decision allowing plaintiffs’ attorneys to question Simpson about a polygraph test he had failed. Testimony about polygraph results is banned from criminal trials in California and is rarely admitted in civil cases because the tests are considered unreliable.

Simpson’s lawyers also objected to Fujisaki admitting evidence of marital discord between Simpson and Nicole Simpson, including a violent 1993 incident in which she called 911. Such evidence of past troubles was irrelevant, prejudicial and only served to inflame the jury, the lawyers contended.

In addition, Simpson’s attorneys questioned a ruling allowing testimony about an anonymous call placed to a battered women’s shelter hotline from a woman who identified herself as “Nicole” and who spoke fearfully of her ex-husband threatening to kill her. The caller was never conclusively determined to be Nicole Simpson.

The attorneys also objected to the judge permitting Nicole Simpson’s personal writings to be read to the jury.

At the same time, Simpson’s lawyers argued that Fujisaki should have allowed certain issues to be aired at the trial, including taped testimony by former Los Angeles Police Det. Mark Fuhrman, whose racist comments became a linchpin of Simpson’s defense in his criminal case.

Fujisaki also should have permitted evidence about sloppy and inept work in the LAPD crime lab, an issue that went to the heart of a possible frame-up, Simpson’s attorneys said.

A lawyer for Fred Goldman, the father of Ronald Goldman, said his client still believes that the verdicts were just and insisted that the trial proceeded without any errors.

“There are no valid grounds for a new trial,” said the lawyer, Peter Gelblum. “These things were all adjudicated before Judge Fujisaki. He made the right decisions.”

Trial observers said they do not expect Fujisaki to reopen the case. “It’s very rare at this stage that they can convince the judge that he made a mistake,” said Larry Feldman, a prominent civil trial lawyer in Los Angeles. “Generally the judge has considered those arguments and rejected them.”

But Feldman and other civil litigators said they believe that Simpson’s defense raised several issues involving hearsay and the admissibility of evidence that--taken together--could provide grounds for appeal. Among the issues they mentioned were the lie detector test, the call to the women’s shelter and the Mark Fuhrman criminal trial testimony.

“They are solid and important appellate issues, which may jeopardize the verdict,” said Brian Lysaght, a civil attorney. “There is no doubt about that.”

Lysaght and others also predicted that Fujisaki would reduce the $33.5 million in damages awarded to Ronald Goldman’s parents and the estate of Nicole Simpson.

Simpson’s lawyers raised several objections in their legal brief to the amount of the damages. They complained that jurors arrived at compensatory damages for Fred Goldman “by chance.”

The lawyers’ jury consultant, Richard Gabriel, found in post-trial interviews that jurors each computed an amount they thought was proper compensation for Goldman, the attorneys said. The panelists then divided the total by 12 and arrived at $8.5 million, according to the brief.

In the punitive phase of the trial, Simpson’s lawyers argued, the judge erred by failing to instruct jurors that they were merely supposed to punish Simpson and could not destroy him financially. The result was a “grossly excessive verdict,” the brief states.

The attorneys added that Simpson cannot afford to pay the damages, stating that the amount awarded . . . “bears no reasonable relationship to [Simpson’s] financial condition and will result in his financial destruction, thus raising the presumption that the awards were the result of passion and prejudice.”

Simpson’s attorneys also aimed some criticism at the plaintiffs, arguing that Fred Goldman’s attorneys systematically used challenges during jury selection to keep African Americans off the panel.

The attorneys also state that alleged jury misconduct should have provided grounds for a mistrial.

The lone African American juror on the trial was dismissed during deliberations after it was learned that her daughter worked for the district attorney’s office.

The juror was replaced with an alternate and the panel was supposed to start deliberations anew. But Simpson’s lawyers say jurors wrongly picked up where they had left off, a violation of their instructions.