Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 7, 1995 TAG: 9507070062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LINDA DEUTSCH ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
``The people rest,'' Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark said.
The defense opens its case Monday and is expected to take weeks, not months, before leaving Simpson's fate in the hands of a jury that already has lost 10 of the original 24 jurors and alternates and had a new scare as late as Thursday.
It still is uncertain whether Simpson will take the stand to defend himself against charges of slashing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman to death in a jealous rage June 12, 1994.
The prosecution built its case on blood and fibers and the mournful wailings of a barking dog but in the end still had no eyewitness, no murder weapon and no definite motive.
Just before resting, the prosecution changed its mind by dropping plans to call Nicole Brown Simpson's mother, Juditha, as its final witness.
Simpson maintained his calm but bit his lip as Clark displayed once again the bloody pictures that were part of a gruesome display that sent two jurors fleeing from the courtroom earlier in the trial.
Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr., and Simpson himself, made it clear outside the jury's presence they would put on a defense, planning to call their first witness Monday. The defendant acknowledged he had been told that he could rest on the evidence and present nothing, but he had rejected that option.
Prosecutors called 58 witnesses and offered nearly 500 pieces of evidence, all of it circumstantial, to make a case with no eyewitness, no murder weapon and no killer's bloody clothes.
After 92 days of testimony designed to portray Simpson as jealous wife-abuser driven to murder, the defense was expected to begin resurrecting his image as a charismatic national celebrity, with testimony from friends, family members and golfing buddies.
Instead of calling Juditha Brown as the final witness, Clark read to jurors a stipulation about what her testimony would have been. The stipulation recounted her last dinner with her daughter and a search for lost eyeglasses that, in a twist of fate, led Goldman to Nicole Brown Simpson's condominium - and to his death.
Goldman, a waiter at the restaurant where the family had dined that night, was returning the glasses when the killer attacked.
Cochran objected to Clark's display of the autopsy photos at the end of her case, but the judge ruled them relevant and allowed them to be flashed in front of jurors for five seconds.
The last witness for the prosecution was FBI hair and fiber expert Douglas Deedrick, who told jurors about the strong hair and fiber evidence collected in the case.
On another front, Cochran's associate, Carl Douglas, appeared in court in Chicago, where a judge approved California court subpoenas for six Chicago-area residents to appear as defense witnesses. Douglas said the six had contact with Simpson during his trip from Los Angeles to Chicago or the return trip, several hours after the bodies were found outside Nicole Brown Simpson's condominium.
Douglas said five of the six have been contacted and won't fight subpoenas.
Thursday's trial session, delayed by 90 minutes, began under a cloud as the judge revealed he had been questioning the jury behind closed doors about possible improper communications from an ousted juror. Judge Lance Ito said the juror ``had been dismissed for misconduct for communicating and writing notes to other jurors.''
by CNB