SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
HON. HIROSHI FUJISAKI, JUDGE
REPORTER'S DAILY TRANSCRIPT
JANUARY 27, 1997
VOLUME 49

THE COURT: Morning, ladies and gentlemen.
JURORS: Good morning.
ALL COUNSEL: Good morning, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Okay.
CLOSING ARGUMENT (continued)
MR. BAKER: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
JURORS: Good morning.
MR. BAKER: I apologize to you for taking so long. And I apologize to
you because this flu hangs on a long time and I still have it. But
we'll get through this. One of the things that has required us to
take a little longer than we anticipated is I certainly hadn't
anticipated that Mr. Petrocelli would get up here last week and tell
you -- and say to you that there was no -- absolutely no evidence of
planting, there was no evidence of contamination, and there was
absolutely no evidence of tampering. Because he says it, it doesn't
make it so. There's evidence all over the place. It's been
demonstrated to you. And we will go through it a little bit more as
the morning wears on. Just the same, when he says there's absolute
proof to a moral certainty that OJ Simpson committed these murders,
it doesn't make it so. It's his rhetoric that is, I would suggest to
you, hollow, and we are going to demonstrate that for you. The thing
that is amazing to me is that in a day and a half, the plaintiffs
never touched upon the crime scene at all. They didn't tell you how
these people met their demise, they didn't tell you about what the
police did. They totally ignored it as if this never occurred, as if
it didn't happen, as if what we do is we go from the fact that the
bodies were found at 12:10 on June 13, 1994, and we go directly to
Cellmark, SID, lab tests, and that's all the information you need to
know to determine whether or not Mr. Simpson committed these
murders. I want to -- pardon me. I want to talk about what happened
the night of June 13 as it relates to the Los Angeles Police
Department, what they did, and equally importantly, what they didn't
do, and how they went about justifying their conduct on the night of
June 13, 1994. Now, what we do know about that night is we know that
Ron Goldman was contacted after Karen Crawford was called by Nicole
Brown Simpson at around 10 o'clock. And we know that Nicole and Ron
had at least friendships before June -- June 12, 1994. He had her
phone number, and she, of course, after she talked to the manager,
Karen Crawford, had asked to talk to Ron Goldman there at the
Mezzaluna. And then what happened? Well -- I am really dry. Can you
get me some water. Pardon me. So what we know happens is that Ron
Goldman goes to his house, presumably showers, changes clothes,
comes over to 875 South Bundy. And the other thing that we know is
he's got the envelope, and he's got the glasses. We know that once
he gets there, the buzzer on the front gate doesn't work. We know
that from Lange's notes, because Lange went and tested it, and
determined that it didn't work, and put it in his notes. And so this
would necessitate Nicole coming out, opening the gate, and allowing
Ron Goldman in the front gate. So now we have both of the victims at
the front gate. When she opens it he comes in with the envelope, and
the glasses contained in that envelope. Now, what happens after that
at the front gate, where it swings open, we have showed you the
blood smears, and we'll put that picture back up on the Elmo. (Board
entitled Blood Stains From Closed-In Area at Bundy.) (Photograph
displayed on Elmo.)
MR. BAKER: Vertical or parallel line pattern on the gate post, and
interestingly enough, the hat underneath, almost as if it's placed
there, underneath the rail of the fence. How does it get there
without any dirt on it? How does it get there without being kicked?
Do you recall Werner Spitz up here on the stand, looking like he was
a rocket, trying to kick his legs saying how it kicked underneath
there. Ladies and gentlemen, that virtually looks like it was placed
there. And then, of course, you've got the glove at the initial
stage, the shoe print right there is within six or so inches of the
front gate. And we know that there are no Pautauqua shoe prints at
all on the walkway. And we remember the Pautauqua shoe prints are
the shoe prints of Ron Goldman. Now, what does that tell us in
trying to reconstruct what went on that night of June 12, 1994?
Well, one thing we know is that Nicole Brown Simpson was killed
first, because if she wasn't killed first, you'd have Chautauqua
shoe prints in the blood on the walkway. And there are absolutely
none. So she is killed. Let's examine that for just a moment. Werner
Spitz testified to you that it took 15 seconds for her to be killed.
15 seconds. Now, he did some pretty interesting physical maneuvers
up here to try to justify to you that that death could have occurred
in 15 seconds. You will recall that there are four vertical knife
marks on the left side of the neck of the body of Nicole brown
Simpson, with the blunt part of the knife up, and the sharp part of
the knife down, and I hate to remind you of this, but it's
important, and those went in a vertical line down the left side of
her neck. The perpetrator, the assailant, whoever it was was in
front of Nicole Brown Simpson -- and that took some time. And that
took some time. At the same time, concurrent with that happening,
Ron Goldman had to have been inside the closed-in area, and he had
to have been in there because we know the glasses are there, and he
brought the glasses. Then the assailant gets behind Nicole Brown
Simpson and does the final, heinous act of putting a knife through
both jugular veins. Her carotid arteries. I apologize. Through both
carotid arteries. Then what happens? The carotids are very close to
the heart. Blood is going everywhere. And superimposed upon all this
information that we have is the information that we absolutely know,
that it's quiet and sounds can be heard. And we know that because we
know that Mr. Heidstra, at 10:40, was directly opposite the
condominium of Nicole in the alley, and he heard the hey, hey, hey,
and that's all he heard. He didn't hear any other voices at all. He
didn't hear any screams. He didn't hear any shrieks. He didn't hear
any cries for help. And nobody else did. You'll recall, relating to
the noise, that after the bodies are discovered at 12:10, LAPD gets
people -- police officers, and they door-knock. They door-knock up
and down Bundy. Not one person heard a scream. Not one person heard
a cry for help. Not one person heard any kind of noise, except for
barking dogs. So we have -- we know that it took some period of time
for Nicole to be killed. And we know that Ron Goldman was there when
it occurred. And we know that not a sound was emitted. And as Dr.
Baden said to you from the witness stand, that to me says there had
to be at least two assailants. How could you keep them quiet? How
could you keep -- how can you keep Ron Goldman off of a single
assailant? If it's OJ Simpson or the biggest football player who
played in the Super Bowl yesterday? How can you keep him from
beating on him, from trying to inhibit him from doing this horrible,
horrible thing? The answer is clear. It couldn't if, in fact, there
was any truth in the accusation that one person did this and it was
OJ Simpson, of what Simpson would have looked like -- I mean Ron
Goldman if his back was turned to him while he was gouging with a
knife Nicole's neck. He have had body blows to his back. He would
have had a choke hold around his neck. He would have had -- he would
have had whatever. People would have done one of two things: They
would have run out of that gate to get help, or they would have had
a horrendous assault on this single assailant. And Mr. Simpson had
not a bruise on his body. Nothing. Not a bruise. Not one mark on his
body. The plaintiffs tried to assert that this mark underneath his
right -- on his biceps of the right arm, was some sort of a bruise.
That's been part of his physique since his football playing days.
And believe me, that's a long time ago. And let's be very clear. The
reason -- the reason Werner Spitz is here and testifying that it's a
minute and 15 seconds is because they have to have an absolute quick
double murder because there's no time -- there's simply no time for
Mr. Simpson or anybody else to commit these crimes, given when Mr.
Simpson was seen. So they've got to make them virtually instantly
occur. And the point of that is the more you do that, the more you
make them quick, the more I would suggest to you it would appear it
would have to be a professional killer or professional killers. Not
somebody who's in an uninitiated blind rage as they want to you
believe. Let's examine further the crime scene, because it has been
ignored by the police, but it can't be ignored in arriving at your
decision, which is to arrive at the truth. Not a sympathetic version
of reality painted by the plaintiffs. And we're going to get into
that in a little bit. We know that there was blood spatters all
around the closed-in or caged-in area. Have we got that other one
that shows the Bundy as well? Once you get by the gate, and you have
blood spatters at 3 feet, and LAPD took no pictures higher than
that, we don't know if there are blood spatters higher than that or
not. We certainly know that Ron Goldman was upright for a period of
time. He stepped into blood and dirt which is all in the caged-in
area, because there's not a shoe print of his on the walkway. We
know that there are an immense amount of -- of physical evidence
that indicates how long this struggle took once Ron Goldman was the
target to be killed. Blood smears at different locations. And we
have them all over. (Counsel indicates to board entitled Blood
Stains From Closed-In Area at Bundy.)
MR. BAKER: Blood drops at different locations. His blood spatters at
different locations. You've got Ron Goldman's shirt where there were
buttons yanked off, buttons pulled off, and the thread still on,
indicating that a struggle took place, and he was grabbed and his
shirt pulled. The evidence that he was upright at least three
minutes after his jugular vein was cut, the left jugular vein, that
he was upright. And, of course, he was upright because you have
blood here, the pool of blood down in this area, on the back, on the
north side, that he had to be basically upright for that blood to
have pooled there. He was there a long period of time. The cut on
his boot. Remember the cut on his boot where he had a -- it was a
fresh cut on the toe of the boot, indicating that he was kicking
around the knife? The hole that was dug. Now, that's a pretty good
size hole. Both Lange, Spitz, and Lee, agreed that that was a
product of the struggle. Now, that takes some period of time. That
dirt isn't soft. Werner Spitz says it's soft. Dr. Lee says I was out
there, that was an area that took a while to dig. And, of course,
it's right where the blood is pooled beeper is found, we have the
keys found at a different area. And ladies and gentlemen, we have 30
wounds in the body of Ron Goldman. 30 wounds. Including wounds,
defensive, to his hands, including bruises to his knuckles. Now,
where on Mr. Simpson are the results of him inflicting punishment
upon his assailant? It's not there. Doesn't exist. Doesn't exist
because Mr. Simpson, OJ Simpson, didn't do it. You've glove, got
vegetation with blood on it. You have indications that this took a
fair amount of time now. Now, Werner Spitz, interestingly enough,
said, well, I know it took a minute and 15 seconds. When we started
to cross-examine Werner Spitz, did you notice how he then started
testifying I'm not a criminalist, I'm a forensic pathologist. On
direct examination he could stand up here and he could show you
exactly what happened, and he could demonstrate with absolutely no
hesitation about how these murders occurred, about where everyone
was standing. And all of the sudden, when you start to get into the
details, when you start to press him, then he was a criminalist. He
didn't do the crime scene reconstruction because his testimony
doesn't fit. It doesn't make any sense. Sure, if nobody was fighting
back, and a hole wasn't dug, if blood spatters weren't everywhere,
if blood hadn't pooled, you could probably inflict those wounds in a
minute and 15 seconds. But you couldn't when you have two young
people who are fighting back. So how long did it take? Well, we know
a couple of things; we know that the assailants weren't in too big
of a hurry. They walk. (Board entitled Blood Drops at Bundy June 13,
1994 displayed.)
MR. BAKER: We'll have the shoe print board here in a minute. They
walked back up towards the front door, turned around, and there are
steps going back towards the bodies. They were not rushing through
the murder of these two individuals. You heard Bodziak say -- well,
that he had testified in the criminal trial, and it was his belief
that the -- let's put that one up. You can leave that one up, too --
that the assailant or assailants had walked back into the bushes to
perhaps not be seen, towards -- from the front of house, there are
steps going down here (indicating), shoe prints going back down
here, there are shoe prints over by the bodies, and there's a shoe
print four feet in front of the body of Nicole Brown Simpson; four
feet in front or east towards Bundy. There's 23 sets of unidentified
-- unidentified shoe prints. There's a shoe print that was found by
Henry Lee, back here, a parallel line pattern that was found after
the LAPD had already allowed the scene to be run amuck by the media
and Looky-loos. And Mr. Medvene would have you believe that Dr.
Henry Lee cannot tell whether or not that print was put on
subsequent to the murders. And, of course, Henry Lee is a very
honest man. He said I can't tell if it was put on after the murder
scene was released. But what he did tell you, and what he did -- put
the overlay -- that that is a shoe print, that was positive for
blood, the whole scene had been washed down, they had missed that,
that was positive for blood. So was it a shoe print that just
happened to be there as a result of somebody having blood on their
feet after the murders, or did it, in fact, occur during the
murders? Were there two assailants? And does it make more sense that
there were two assailants?
MR. BAKER: Phil, have you got that? (Photo is displayed on Elmo.)
MR. P. BAKER: That one?
MR. BAKER: I want to zero in on the shoe -- zero in on the shoe
prints. (Elmo is adjusted)
MR. BAKER: We know that, although Bodziak wouldn't agree to this one
as a shoe print, this is four feet in front of the body of Nicole
Brown Simpson, precisely the same shoe prints as he has identified
as being Bruno Magli. Now, what is -- these assailants were in such
a hurry to get out in a minute and 15 seconds, what is the assailant
doing four feet in front of the body of Nicole Brown Simpson, and
towards Bundy? And, ladies and gentlemen, there is -- then there is
another photo that turns up, and that photo turns up after the
criminal trial and it has -- shows seven blood drops out on the
walkway in an area where a dog has gone. The prosecution in the
criminal case did not -- can you zero in on these (indicating to
Elmo). Over here. There's blood -- oops, up a little bit, please.
These blood drops -- the prosecution cropped the photo. That photo
was never in existence during the criminal trial. It was. But it
wasn't in the hands of the defense. And there's seven blood drops,
vertical blood drops, going the same direction that the dog went,
same exact direction that the dog went, south on Bundy. No efforts
to ever take any of -- any smears from any of those blood drops, no
efforts to determine what is the significance of this by the LAPD.
But this indicates to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the assailant
was dropping blood out on the sidewalk. This crime -- these heinous
crimes took time. They weren't accomplished in a minute and 15
seconds. They were accomplished in 10 to 15 minutes. And why can't
the plaintiffs agree with that? Because if the plaintiffs agreed
with what is reasonable, they have eliminated OJ Simpson as the
perpetrator, and God knows, they don't want to do it, the LAPD never
wanted to do it. They had their man. They had the big fish from
basically the initial reporting of these crimes. They had the big
fish, and the big fish was OJ Simpson. Keep in mind, ladies and
gentlemen, the LAPD and the District Attorney's office, this is the
same duo, this is the same duo that couldn't win the McMartin case
after a year and a half. This is the same duo that couldn't win the
first Menendez case, even though they had a confession. And this
case they were going to win. They were going to get OJ Simpson and
they were going to get a conviction. And let's examine what happened
at 12:10 on the night of -- or early morning hours of June 13, 1994.
At that time, Riske discovers the -- and Rossi are there at the
scene. Riske goes in, as was indicated to you by Bob Blasier, picks
up a phone and destroys any last number dialed. And then what
happened? This becomes a cause celebre. Everyone in West L.
A. division has to come by 875 South Bundy. Everybody in the LAPD
has got to be a part of this double homicide involving -- involving
the ex-wife of OJ Simpson. There's one man that wants to be, more
than anybody, the linchpin of that case, and that's somebody who
you've, I'm sure, now felt there has been an effort to keep out of
this trial. Mark Fuhrman.
MR. PETROCELLI: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. PETROCELLI: Violates the Court's order.
THE COURT: Jury to disregard that comment.
MR. PETROCELLI: In bad faith. And he knows better.
MR. BAKER: I know the truth.
MR. PETROCELLI: You know better.
MR. BAKER: 12:10, 12:10 in the morning, Fuhrman and Phillips arrive,
and they're the lead detectives from West L.
A., and they walk through, they see the glove, they -- does Fuhrman
see more than one glove? Is there another glove over back by the
body of Ron Goldman that later ends up at 360 North Rockingham? You
bet. After they arrive, they are the detectives on the scene from --
approximately from 2:10 to 2:45, and they are then notified at 2:45
that robbery/homicide division is taking over, and robbery/homicide
division is Lange and Vannatter and that's the downtown group, and
they then stand down. They cannot do any investigation, they cannot
do any detective work. They then are relived of all of their duties.
This Fuhrman had to get in his car and drive home. And what happens
from 2:45 to 4:00? Nobody seems to know the whereabouts of Mark
Fuhrman. We know his jacket was off at one point. We know Spangler
says it was on at one point and we know that Lange and Vannatter say
it was off at one point at Rockingham. We also know that by 4
o'clock in the morning, still absolutely no detective work has been
done on this crime scene whatsoever. Nobody has done anything. This
is a double homicide. There are 25 LAPD detectives, sergeants and
officers at the scene, including all the brass. They're standing
outside. Not one sole is doing any detective work. Why not? Why, in
a crime scene that's rich in evidence, are they doing nothing? So
then -- so what then occurs? Vannatter gets there about 4:10 and he
takes a walk-through, and he walks through and he determines that,
yes, there is a double homicide, which has been known since 12:10,
and what then happened? Lange comes about 4:25 and he makes the same
interesting revelation, that this is a double homicide, that there's
a hat and glove that they see and that there's two bodies and
there's an immense amount of blood. And what do they then do? This
is the most incredulous thing I have ever heard. Then they decide,
with 25 -- with 25 LAPD officers, administrators, sergeants,
detectives, they decide that the four lead people -- the four lead
people are going to go to Rockingham, that is the two lead
detectives who had the job of doing detective work from 2:10 to
2:45, Detectives Phillips and Fuhrman, they're going to go, and the
two now lead detectives from robbery/homicide division, Lange and
Vannatter, are going to leave this crime, rich -- this evidence-rich
crime scene, 875 South Bundy, and they are going to go to 360 North
Rockingham. Isn't that incredible? And think of the reasons they
gave for their having to leave this crime scene and go to
Rockingham. One was personal notification. And you heard Phillips
testify. Well, we like to personally notify people of the death of a
loved one. And that sounds very good and it makes a lot of sense,
it's very considerate and it's very compassionate. So they -- do you
think any of the 21 people at LAPD who were at 875 South Bundy could
have gone to 360 North Rockingham, so that they could have
investigated that crime scene? You think one person could have? And
if they're so damn interested in personal notification, why is it
they didn't notify Fred Goldman until 5 o'clock in the afternoon on
the 13th? And then the LAPD didn't even do it. It was -- it was the
county coroner's office. Does that tell you how interested they are
in personal notification? And then the second reason. Second reason
is we wanted Fuhrman and Phillips because we may need help with the
kids, OJ may need help with the kids. That's what they testified to.
I agree with you. That makes no sense at all. And of course once
they get over there, did they give OJ any help with the kids? Did
they give Arnelle, who was there, any help with the kids? Absolutely
not. She had to call
A.C. Cowlings, and he helped her. LAPD did nothing. And I think you
can interpret and I think that you're bright people and I think you
understand that was absolute pretextual nonsense as to why they went
to Rockingham. They went to Rockingham for one reason, and one
reason alone, and that was the big fish was OJ Simpson. He was a
suspect. He was always a suspect. And he was the only suspect. And
anybody who doesn't believe that believes in the Easter bunny and
the tooth fairy. Because they went over there with one idea in mind,
and that is to get evidence and to get OJ Simpson. So let's follow
it through. They get over there -- two cars, they get over there
about 5 minutes after 5 in the morning. And what do they do? The
rogue Fuhrman's wandering off on his own, and he finds that
little-bitty speck above the left door handle and says, why, that
must be human blood. He didn't know if it was human blood. They
didn't know what it was. And they say that the Bronco is parked at
such an angle that it's just unusual, it's weird. Well, I've seen it
in the pictures. It's parked about 4 to 5 inches at an angle, which
doesn't look weird to me at all. But interestingly enough,
interestingly enough, Astin testified that it was 2 to 3 feet out in
the street. 2 to 3 feet out in the street. Which might make some
degree of sense when OJ pulled it out after dropping off his golf
clubs, he went around and got in his car before the gate was closed.
Did somebody move this? Did somebody move this vehicle? Certainly
that does not appear anything close to 2 to 3 feet. But at any rate,
there is absolutely no reason to go over the wall. Happened as a
conversation with six police officers. Fuhrman, Phillips, Lange,
Vannatter, Gonzalez, Lange and Astin. They're all there. Gonzalez
and Astin, as you recall, are in the black-and-white. Everybody
agrees that, gosh golly, gee whiz, there could be something heinous
going on inside. It could be an extreme situation in 360 North
Rockingham. And so they decide that they are justified in going over
the wall onto Mr. Simpson's property. One officer won't go along
with it. Astin. He wouldn't say it didn't occur. He wouldn't say --
he's standing right there. He says, I didn't hear no evil, I didn't
hear the conversation. And who goes over the wall? Fuhrman. Again,
the same gentleman, who is the only one to find justification for
going over the wall. Fuhrman. Fuhrman goes over the wall after
they've made telephone calls, nobody's answered the phone, they've
heard the phone ring from outside the gate. They know nobody's going
to answer the phone. They go in, they ring on the door bell, and lo
and behold, nobody comes to the door. What a shock. Nobody answered
the phone. Nobody's going to come to the door. They wander around
the back of -- they come in after Fuhrman climbs the wall, they come
in, go to the entrance. As I say, nobody answers the door, which is
not exactly a news flash. And then they go down around the north
path and around -- Phillips goes back, checking this door, the back
door on the east side, and they go and knock on Kato Kaelin's door.
Now, think about it. Two minutes before they went over the wall,
they were concerned -- at least they want you to believe they were
concerned about criminal activity, that this crime scene was linked
with the 875 South Bundy crime scene and that they were worried
about Mr. Simpson, he could be dying inside, bleeding to death. Not
one of them pulls their side arm. Not one of them. And they go
around and they get to Kato's room and they knock on the door. Kato
comes to the door. First thing Kato says, and Vannatter's standing
right there, "Did OJ's plane go down?" And of course the
significance of that will become apparent momentarily. The other
three go down to Arnelle's room, get Arnelle, and they leave Fuhrman
with Kato Kaelin, and he goes inside and he looks at Kato's clothes,
into the bathroom, and he goes and chats with him about -- does a
drug test on Kato, Kato Kaelin, wants to know what he's been doing,
because, even though Vannatter has testified here in this courtroom
that OJ Simpson wasn't a suspect when they went over the wall, OJ
Simpson was no more a suspect than Bob Shapiro, one of his lawyers,
Kato Kaelin was a suspect, they didn't even know who he was. I mean
it's absolute nonsense. So they go down, they get Arnelle, Arnelle
gets clothed, and they tell you that they all go in this door. Every
officer tells you they go in that door. And why? There isn't even a
key lock on it. When in truth and in fact, they couldn't have gone
in that door. It was locked. Kato Kaelin had set the alarm from the
night before. And they go out the north pathway and they come around
and they go in the front entrance. The reason they told you, they
want -- and lied to you on the witness stand, and Phillips did it,
Vannatter did it, and Lange did it, and the reason they did it is
because, you'll recall, they want you to believe that OJ Simpson
never asked about what happened and they want you to believe that
they have already called OJ Simpson inside the house before Arnelle
had ever been told what was going on. And it just isn't true.
Because Arnelle comes out of the driveway to get her address book to
find out exactly where OJ is. She knows her dad's out of town. She
doesn't know exactly where he is. She knows Kathy Randa will, in
fact, know exactly where he is. And so she says, I'm scared, you've
got to tell me what's going on. And they do. They say, did you know
Nicole? Of course she knew Nicole. She's been murdered along with
another victim. And she breaks down. That's viewed by Officer Daniel
Gonzalez and it's heard by him and he puts it in a report. And then
they go back in and they call Kathy Randa. They find out the exact
whereabouts of OJ Simpson and they call him and, he, ladies and
gentlemen, is given the phone from Arnelle and asked, what is going
on, what is happening. And she tells him. And they didn't want you
to know that. Do you remember Phillips right here on the witness
stand, he testifies to you, he testifies, he never asked, he never
asked what was wrong. And what is that meant to convey to you?
Consciousness of guilt. That he already knows what went on. In fact,
he didn't know what went on, and he asked. And it's even in
Phillips's report. And Dan Leonard said, did you try to mislead the
jury by leaving this out? You put it in your report. Did you try to
just mislead the ladies and gentlemen of the jury? Of course he did.
So then what occurs? I mean, think about it, ladies and gentlemen:
This is where they have just told you they want you to believe that
they, truthfully, in their heart of hearts, believe that there was
something going on in this house, and they let Arnelle walk in the
door first; they let Arnelle lead them into the maid's room. Not one
of them has their sidearm drawn. I mean, it is absolute,
unadulterated nonsense. They say they never went upstairs. No, we
didn't go upstairs. They're all by themselves, with the exception of
Arnelle and Kato, who are being taken care of, in a couple rooms.
They've never been upstairs to view -- to see whether anybody was up
there injured. Of course they didn't, because they didn't believe
anybody was up there. And then, Fuhrman, who had been interrogating
Kato Kaelin, all of a sudden says, I'm not going to interrogate him
anymore; you do it, Vanatter. I'm going to go look around. Now, here
we have, according to their version of events -- that is, the LAPD's
version of events -- we have this -- again, a possible linkage to a
crime scene, could be murderers, criminals on the premises -- what
does Fuhrman do? He doesn't ask for backup. He doesn't ask for
anybody to go with him. He doesn't ask for somebody to be right at
his side, and his partner to be there in case they meet up against
somebody with a -- armed or somebody with a knife. No. He wanders
off all by himself. And what does he find? He finds a glove back by
the air conditioner. Phil, you want to put up the picture of Fuhrman
pointing to the glove? (Mr. P. Baker displays photograph on the Elmo
screen.) That discovery can only be viewed in context of this
picture. With the hat underneath Mark Fuhrman pointing at the glove
-- it's at night; it's before they ever went back -- ever went to
Rockingham. You heard Rokahr, the photographer, 40 years, that was
taken at night. Why -- why would there be one picture out of all the
pictures taken at 875 South Bundy, Mark Fuhrman within a couple
inches of the glove, and he just happens to find another glove that
matches it at Rockingham, linking the two crime scenes. I believe in
serendipity, ladies and gentlemen, this is not serendipity. Mark
Fuhrman is the only person that is -- that is shown in any
photograph, whatsoever, pointing to any piece of evidence. And it's
a piece of evidence that he's pointing to before there is any
linkage to Rockingham whatsoever. Now, the plaintiffs brought in
somebody who said this: Well, gosh, golly. Rokahr and I were sitting
in a car. She never even saw Fuhrman. And Rokahr is a photographer
of 40 years. If he had seen this exact scene at night, he would have
been in this court telling you he had made a mistake. They twisted
everybody else, why not Rokahr? He would have been in this
courtroom. But, in fact, he took that picture at night. And it is so
telling, it's unbelievable. So what happens? To get back to 306
North Rockingham, Fuhrman sees this -- and I suggest to you it's a
glove that he sees because he has planted it there earlier, or at
the same time that he accidentally discovered it, one or the other.
That glove is wet, it's moist, it's tacky. It has absolutely no
insect activity on it, and it has not one -- not one blood spot
around it anywhere. If, in fact, that had been dropped by OJ Simpson
at 10:50 the night before, it would have been dry, not wet, not
tacky, and have insect activity all over it. It had none of the
above. And isn't it strange, ladies and gentlemen, that there is not
a blood drop around it? Here you have this bloody glove that's --
that's got blood all over it, not a piece -- piece, a drop, a
scintilla, a minute speck of blood on a leaf, on the concrete, on
nothing. And, interestingly -- interestingly, with their theory --
theory of him coming over the Cyclone Fence and running into the
wall and hitting the wall three times at 10:51, instead of at 10:40,
as Kato earlier testified to. There is not any residue, any hole in
the shrubbery about him coming through. In fact, Vannatter said, I
looked and I didn't see any. And Phillips said I didn't look. Can
you imagine this? They have all seen a glove at Bundy; every one of
them took the walk-through and saw the glove -- that's what they
testified to -- now they see a glove at Rockingham, sitting out in
the middle of a small concrete walkway on the side of somebody's
house, and they don't look to see if there is any residue from
somebody coming over that way. Ladies and gentlemen, that's
absolutely not credible. Phillips said, I didn't look. And then he
said -- he said, I didn't have any glasses on. A detective without
his glasses on. That's a pretty interesting concept. I mean, he's
there to do detective work. And Lange said, I didn't get closer than
six or eight feet; I didn't look. And we didn't have the benefit of
Fuhrman's testimony here. One thing we do know: There is not one
iota of evidence that anybody came over that wall. There's
absolutely nothing to indicate, actually, at the Cyclone Fence.
There's nothing that indicates that the hedge, which is incredibly
grown, was broken in any regard whatsoever. It just isn't there, so
it couldn't have occurred. How does this glove get back here if it
isn't planted? That's planted evidence; there's no question about
it. That's planted evidence, for one reason, to link 875 south Bundy
and 360 North Rockingham. And it's done by Fuhrman. And there's no
question about it. You think of the blood drops on the driveway that
go towards Mr. Simpson's front entranceway. How do you do this,
ladies and gentlemen? Under their theory of the case, how does it
work? We know that we -- we cut ourselves, we bleed more at the
beginning. So we have five drops at Bundy, we have eleven drops at
Rockingham, not one of them down this 180 feet or 30 feet or
whatever. There is not a single blood drop. And then of course, the
blood drops stop in the foyer; they don't go up the stairs, they
don't go into the bedroom, they don't go into the bathroom. There is
no such thing. Does he bleed and not bleed at will? It doesn't fit,
ladies and gentlemen. The evidence doesn't mesh at all. It doesn't
mesh any more than the fact that in the closed-in area at Bundy, you
have no blood of OJ Simpson. You have no prints of OJ Simpson. What
you have is, you have blood transfers from Nicole Brown Simpson to
Ron Goldman. There's her blood on his clothing and his blood on her
clothing, so they were together. But there is no blood of Mr.
Simpson's in that area. There is no blood of Mr. Simpson's that goes
up into his bathroom. There is no blood that goes up the stairs. I
guess if you were to use their theory, he can turn on and off the
ability to bleed or not to bleed. But one thing we do know for sure:
That, after the glove was discovered, Fuhrman, who already knows
it's a match -- he's planted the glove; he's put it there -- he gets
in his vehicle and he goes back to 875 South Bundy to determine
whether or not it's a match, and comes rights back and says it's a
match. And guess what? And he stays at Rockingham all day. The one
guy that discovered virtually all the evidence that's incriminating
is Mark Fuhrman. Where is he?
MR. PETROCELLI: Same objection: Improper argument, violates the
Court's order.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. BAKER: We further know, ladies and gentlemen -- we further are
well aware that when they left Bundy at 5 o'clock to come over for
this pretextual [sic] notion -- this pretextual helping Mr. Simpson
with his kids, that they never called the coroner, they never called
the criminalist; they didn't do one thing to allow the 875 South
Bundy crime scene to be processed at all. Do you think that's just
happenstance? Do you think that after five hours -- and Vannatter
gets on the stand and says, we were only going to be there five
minutes -- they're only going to be there five minutes, why don't
they call the criminalist? Why don't they call a coroner? No. No.
Vannatter called the criminalist to Rockingham. And he then, ladies
and gentlemen, after Fuhrman comes back to Rockingham, he allows the
criminalist and the coroner to be called. And then Vannatter, the
lead detective, the most senior, detective 3 for this investigation,
what does he do? He leaves the scene and he has -- fills out an
affidavit, under penalty of perjury, to obtain a search warrant for
Simpson's estate, and he lies to the judge. Do you want to put that
up, Phil? (Mr. P. Baker displays document on the Elmo screen.)
MR. BAKER: It says there appears to be what is human blood -- later
confirmed by Scientific Investigation personnel -- to be human blood
on the door handle of the vehicle. That never happened. To this day,
that has never happened. SID has never determined that what appeared
to be human blood on the door handle was, in fact, human blood. And
then he says, it was determined that Simpson left on an unexpected
flight to Chicago during the early morning hours of June 13, and he
says by interviewing Simpson's daughter and a friend, Brian Kaelin.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, that is an absolute fabrication, and
Vannatter knew it when he said it. He lied under penalty of perjury.
And you can disbelieve everything Vannatter said pursuant to the
instructions of this Court because -- think about it for a second.
If, in fact, he knows anything about OJ Simpson's flight -- which he
had to, because Kato Kaelin says instantly, did OJ's plane go down
-- he knows that it's scheduled, and he knows that he was on an
American Airline flight, and he knows that OJ went to Chicago on a
Hertz outing, or he doesn't know he got on an airplane at all. Where
did he ever come up with an unexpected flight to Chicago? The fact
is, it wasn't unexpected; it was expected for weeks. And Vannatter
knew it. And Vannatter would do whatever it takes to make OJ Simpson
the target, the suspect, the only suspect. And think about it,
ladies and gentlemen. If you go through the investigative process in
this case, there was never any effort, not an iota of effort to find
anybody other than OJ Simpson as a suspect. Consider just Tallarino,
the roller-blader who roller-blades by at 9 o'clock and sees a man
in a suspicious pose right there where the seven drops of blood
were, right there at 875 at 9 o'clock. Lange goes out, interviews
Tallarino, and does absolutely nothing with it. Doesn't follow up,
doesn't do anything. Any lead that didn't lead to OJ Simpson was
discarded. Think about the phone call to Sergeant Merrin between
10:00 and 10:30. The woman says, are you sitting on two bodies in
West L.
A.? Incredible stuff, isn't it? That's before the murders had taken
place. Somebody knew those murders were going to take place. Some
female knew those murders were going to take place before they ever
happened, and LAPD does nothing. Because it doesn't fit. It can't be
a rage killing. It can't be a rage killing. Somebody knows it's
going to take place before they ever happen.
MR. BAKER: Is this a good point, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Okay. Ten-minute recess, ladies and gentlemen. Don't talk
about the case. Don't form or express any opinions. (Recess.)
(Jurors resume their respective seats.)
CLOSING ARGUMENT (continued)
MR. BAKER: Ladies and gentlemen, we left off and before the break,
and I wanted to take you back up to where we are at Rockingham.
(Diagram of 360 North Rockingham Avenue displayed.)
MR. BAKER: Vannatter leaves Rockingham. He goes over to Bundy and
gets the search warrant, based upon the lies that I just showed you
that he put in the search warrant. Fuhrman remains at Rockingham.
And during this period of time, as we know, LAPD Detective Ron
Phillips called OJ Simpson in Chicago, and told him that his ex-wife
has been murdered and they want him back in L.
A. for questioning. Mr. Simpson then does whatever he can do to get
on the first plane that he can get on, and he gets on a plane in
about -- under an hour from the hotel to the airport. It's during
that period of time that he cuts the middle finger of his left hand.
You've seen the pictures in Chicago, you've seen the towel, you've
seen the glass in the sink, you've seen that. And you have also seen
that there is not one person who saw a cut on his hand, either hand,
before the cut that he got in Chicago when he was rushing around on
the -- phone, and half they're trying to piece together what had
happened and trying to get out of town. So OJ Simpson flies back.
He's met at the airport by Skip Taft and Kathy Randa, and he goes to
Rockingham. At Rockingham he has his duffel bag when he gets out of
Skip's car and he goes into Rockingham. And that's all he has.
Kathy's got the Louis Vuitton bag. The police won't even let her
inside Mr. Simpson's place, nor will they take the bag. So she's
there with the bag. Skip's car is locked, and subsequently that bag
is given to Bob Kardashian. The police absolutely never asked for
it. Never asked for it at all. It is subsequently brought to the
criminal trial along with the golf bag, along with the bag that Mr.
Simpson had golf balls in; not at the request of the LAPD, not at
the request of anybody else, but the request of OJ Simpson. He then
goes into the compound. Well, let me just back up one minute. If any
one of those items had any blood in them at all, you would have
heard about it. You know they were tested by the LAPD, and you know
there was absolutely not one drop of blood in any of those items, or
it would have been in this case, in the criminal case. You would
have heard from the witness stand. You didn't because there was
none. So OJ Simpson gets into the compound. Vannatter tells Thompson
to cuff him. Vannatter lied. He said he didn't tell Thompson to
handcuff him. Thompson said, yes, he did. I wouldn't have done it on
my own. You can rest assured. Why do you think Vannatter wanted OJ
handcuffed? He wanted him handcuffed so he could take the handcuffs
off and be the good guy, and he could be OJ's pal; and then we'll go
down and we'll get a statement from you, OJ, and oh, don't have to
worry about a lawyer, you don't have to worry about anything, we
just want to get through this. Remember him saying that on the tape?
We just want to get through this and let you go, OJ We just want to
get through this. This was their guy. This was their big cahuna.
This was the guy they wanted to blame for this crime. And they were
going to do it. So they get the handcuffs off of OJ Obviously, he
agrees to go down to Parker Center. He agrees to have a statement
taken without his attorneys being present; says I've got nothing to
hide. This is not the consciousness of guilt, ladies and gentlemen,
this is the consciousness of innocence. What does he say? Mr.
Petrocelli indicated to you that he never mentioned that he was cut
in Chicago. Phil, put that up. Page 158, I think.
MR. P. BAKER: You have the statement.
MR. BAKER: I thought you had one too, Phil. Sorry. (Document
displayed on Elmo.)
MR. BAKER: Put it down. (Indicating to Elmo.)
MR. BAKER: How did you do it in Chicago. Oh, I broke a glass. It was
-- I just was -- you had what -- one of you guys had just called me.
I was in the bathroom. I kind of went bonkers for a little bit. I
cut it, it was cut before. I think I just opened it. Obviously, he
isn't sure exactly where, but he certainly mentioned that he has cut
his hand in Chicago and tells him. And he is certain that he has had
blood on his little finger when he's in his house the night before,
just before he's leaving. Think about it, ladies and gentlemen. When
he has this blood on his finger and -- he sees a drop of blood and
he takes a paper towel and wipes it off, think about it for an
instance. That's just after he's gotten back in from getting his
phone equipment out of the Bronco. That is the only thing that makes
any sense to explain blood drops down the driveway, exactly what Mr.
Simpson was doing. He cut himself in the Bronco and he dropped some
blood coming down the driveway. It makes no sense, absolutely none,
for him coming over the Cyclone fence, going down the south walkway,
without any blood whatsoever, and then all of the sudden, going --
being seen going in the entranceway. There's no blood. None
whatsoever. And yet there is blood here, which is fully explained by
Mr. Simpson's cut -- going out just before he's leaving to get his
charging equipment out of the Bronco. I want to go back to Parker
Center. Back at Parker Center the interrogation without Mr.
Simpson's lawyers goes on. And you heard Mr. Simpson tell you that
they stopped and started that tape before they ever restarted it and
tape-recorded it. And the point being that they interrogated him
first, then they interrogated him again. And he told them, ladies
and gentlemen, he told them, besides the cut, he said -- although
Vannatter and Lange testified he never asked what happened, what
went on, what was going on -- Phil, put up page 23. (Document
displayed on Elmo.)
MR. BAKER: He said (reading:) You guys haven't told me anything. I
have no idea what happened. When you said to my daughter -- said
something to me today that somebody else might have been involved, I
have absolutely no idea what happened. I don't know how, why or
what. You guys haven't told me anything. Every time I ask you guys,
you say you're going to tell me in a bit. Vannatter says, well, we
don't know a lot of answers to those questions yet ourselves, OJ Of
course, they knew the answers to the questions. They were lying to
him because he was the primary suspect. But OJ had asked them, and
asked them, and asked them; and they wouldn't tell him. Then they
come in here and say it's consciousness of guilt. Ladies and
gentlemen, that is a fraud. He asked them. They wouldn't admit it so
that they could use it in a courtroom to convict OJ Simpson. It
doesn't work then. It's not going to work now. Then they talk about
blood. Phil, you'll want to go up to the same page. I guess it's
down. I'm sorry. Phil, you take mine. (indicating to document.) We
got blood on and in your car. We got blood in your house. It's sort
of a problem. OJ says, well, take my blood test and we'll see. Is
that a guilty man? Immediately they mention blood, he says take my
blood, we'll see. And so, of course, they do, ladies and gentlemen.
They do take his blood. And we're going to talk about that in a
minute. One other thing. If he has such knowledge that he had been
to Nicole's house, he had killed these two people in cold blood that
evening, and he was asked, as he was asked --I think page 22, Phil
-- about whether he had ever left any blood at Nicole's house, what
would he have said? Sure. I'm over there, the dog and I, we got in a
scuffle, and I may have dropped some blood someplace. What did he
say? Do you recall having cut your finger last time you were at
Nicole's house. "
A. A week ago. Yeah. "
A. No. Now, he could have -- if he had been the killer, wouldn't he
have conformed his testimony -- wouldn't he have said, gee, I think
I did cut my hand. I was over there picking up the dog last week and
I cut my hand. But no, he didn't. He said, no, I didn't cut my hand,
because he didn't cut his hand, and because he wasn't the killer,
and he wasn't over there. Now, let's chat just a little bit about --
let's discuss what -- you can pull that down. Let's discuss the --
oh, I'm sorry. One more thing. I apologize for going back, but page
15 -- I'm sorry, the --
MR. P. BAKER: 382?
MR. BAKER: Go to 31 on there. (Elmo adjusted.)
MR. BAKER: When they're asking about how he cut himself. I didn't --
here's a man giving his statement, had very few hours sleep,
absolutely distraught, and they ask him about the cuts. Again, I
wasn't aware -- wasn't aware that I, you know, I was trying to get
out of the house. I didn't pay any attention to it. I saw it when I
was in the kitchen. I grabbed a napkin or something that was there.
Then I didn't think about it after that. That was -- that was last
night after you got home, after the recital when you were running
around. That was last night when I was -- I don't know what I was --
I was in and out of the car getting junk out of the car. I was in
the house. I was throwing hangers and stuff in my suitcase. I was
doing my little crazy -- what I do. I mean I do it. Everybody's ever
picked me up says that OJ's a whirlwind at the end, he's running,
he's grabbing things, and Vannatter says yeah. And when they asked
him about going to the Bronco, he says, I went to the Bronco to get
my phone or whatever, that is, meaning, of course, the phone
apparatus, because he already had his phone, he called at 10 o'clock
at night right next to his Bentley to Paula Barbieri and will you'll
recall that Mr. Petrocelli had said he was in his Bronco -- he was
in his Bronco when he made that 10:03 phone call to Paula Barbieri.
And you know and I know that if he had been in the car when that
call was made at 10:03, there would have been somebody on this
witness stand who would have said, I analyzed the sound from the
tape that was on Paula's answering machine when he left the message
--
MR. PETROCELLI: Objection, zero evidence of any tape being in
evidence in this case. There is no such tape and he knows it. And he
is going way out of bounds.
MR. BAKER: That's not true, Your Honor.
MR. PETROCELLI: Your Honor, make him point to the evidence where
there's such a tape. Make him point to it.
THE COURT: Approach the bench.
MR. PETROCELLI: Point to it. (The following proceedings were held at
the bench with the reporter:) (Reporter reads the record as
follows:) . . . you'll recall that Mr. Petrocelli had said he was in
his Bronco -- he was in his Bronco when he made that 10:03 phone
call to Paula Barbieri.
MR. PETROCELLI: They didn't analyze anything Let's stay within the
record.
MR. P. BAKER: There was a tape made by Paula Barbieri's answering
machine. It was analyzed by the LAPD and they couldn't identify
whether there's a Bronco.
MR. PETROCELLI: Shhh. Keep your voice down.
MR. P. BAKER: You're the one.
MR. PETROCELLI: Can you control this guy, he's trying to make an
argument to the jury.
MR. BAKER: It's not your turn.
THE COURT: Excuse me, folks. Would you step out in the hallway.
(Indicating to jurors.) (Laughter from audience.) (Jurors leave
courtroom.) (The following proceedings resume at the bench:)
THE COURT: Okay. Go ahead.
MR. PETROCELLI: There is no such tape. There's been no evidence of
any tape. He's referring to a tape in the possession of the LAPD.
There's never been a drop of evidence in this case that they ever
had a tape, that they ever analyzed it. It's not true. And it's
certainly not in this record. They are trying to imply to the jury
that there was a tape that the police looked at it, they analyzed
it, and they determined that the call didn't come from the cell
phone. That's exactly what he's arguing. I want this jury
admonished.
MR. BAKER: Oh, be quiet.
MR. PETROCELLI: There's no evidence in this record.
MR. P. BAKER: There is a tape that was made from a 10:03 call left
on Paula Barbieri's answering machine. It was analyzed the by the
LAPD. They couldn't identify whether there were any car noises in
it. That information was leaked to CNN in October of 1994. Mr.
Petrocelli knows he gets on the stand he doesn't want to
cross-examine OJ Simpson about the letter on 732 and it's only
limited --
THE COURT: Excuse me.
MR. P. BAKER: I'm hot.
THE COURT: What's the matter with you?
MR. P. BAKER: I'm hot. There's a portion in this tape that was made,
he knows it, that was leaked to the LAPD. There was no Bronco
sounds. That evidence should be in front of the jury.
MR. PETROCELLI: Should be?
MR. P. BAKER: They talked about the other evidence which --
MR. PETROCELLI: Excuse me.
THE COURT: Excuse me. Where is such a tape?
MR. P. BAKER: The LAPD maintains the tape.
THE COURT: Was there a tape?
MR. PETROCELLI: To my knowledge -- excuse me, let me answer the
Judge's questions. If there was such a tape, I'd be all over that
tape, and I'd bring it into Court, Your Honor. I don't know about
it. But that's not the point. It's not in evidence in this case.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. PETROCELLI: And I want the jury admonished.
MR. P. BAKER: If that's his standing I want all the portions of 732
--
THE COURT: Okay. I'm ruling just on this issue.
MR. P. BAKER: Okay.
THE COURT: I going to rule that there is no tape in evidence. Bring
the jury back in. (The following proceedings were held in open court
in the presence of the jury.) (Jurors resumed their respective
seats.)
THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the end of the case. This
is closing argument, and like during the trial, even in the closing
argument phase, it is improper for attorneys to interject themselves
and make argument before you on questions that concern whether or
not something exists or does not exist. That should be done out of
your hearing because we don't know at the point they're making the
argument whether or not there is or is not -- the particular subject
matter that is being debated, exists or does not exist. So I am
admonishing both sides not to make speaking objections and speaking
argument. And even at side bench you heard voices raised. That's
improper. There are certain allowances I am making because of the
heat of the battle, but even making allowances for the heat of the
moment, the heat of the battle, these are supposed to be lawyers who
have been in practice for a long time, or even a short time, and
it's totally inappropriate to carry on in that fashion. It's getting
evidence or argument before you that ought not be before you. So
whatever you heard at the side bench or from counsel table during
the last interchange you are to disregard it. Everybody understand
that?
JURORS: Yes, sir. Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. There was an objection made with regards to Mr.
Baker's argument about some tape. There's been no evidence of any
tape. You are to disregard any argument regarding any tape with
respect to Ms. Barbieri. Everybody understand that?
JURORS: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. BAKER: There's no evidence, but the imagination of Mr.
Petrocelli that OJ Simpson was in his Bronco at 10:03 driving the
vehicle. There is testimony from OJ Simpson that he was beside his
car, in the area, hitting golf balls out of his car and chipping
golf balls, a few of them, before he went out the gate, and around
and back in his front door. That's the evidence. His figment of his
imagination that he was in the Bronco is just that. Now, let me go
back to Parker Center and to the afternoon of June 13, 1994. Now, we
know that Lange and Vannatter, detectives of 40 plus years
experience -- and they've got their guy, they've got the suspect
they want right there, they've got OJ Simpson, and they've got a cut
on the middle finger of his left hand. They questioned him about it.
They then take him downstairs at Parker Center, draw blood, and have
him photographed. Now, Mr. Petrocelli would have you believe that
these experienced detectives of 40 plus years didn't look at his
hands. They had tunnel vision. They only looked at the cut on the
hand that they could see, in the middle of the left finger. Now,
ladies and gentlemen, that is ridiculous and it's ludicrous. They
looked, as OJ said, at both of his hands, turned them inside out and
looked at them, and inspected them, and there was one cut. One cut,
middle finger, on the joint. You've seen the pictures. They posed OJ
Simpson for the pictures. And the reason, of course, that he's got
to have more cuts on his hands is because he's got no bruises. If
he's got no cuts, it's clear he didn't do it. He's got to try to
elevate you to believe that these cuts were there. It just makes no
common sense. It makes no more common sense that these cuts were
there than it makes for Werner Spitz to tell you, ladies and
gentlemen, of this jury, that none of these are cuts; they are all
-- every one of them are fingernail gouges. And it's one that's on
the inside of his hand that was there after he was arrested, the
inside of the ring finger of the left hand, which seems to go from
outward to inward. In other words, it goes laterally, or the same
direction as the finger. And Werner Spitz couldn't figure out how
grabbing like this would have (indicating) gouged that particular
cut. And the reason, of course, he couldn't, is because it didn't
happen that way. And the gouge that is down here on the hand that
Dr. Spitz says is up here, and got totally confused -- but
everything according to him is a fingernail gouge mark, and it just
isn't so, he cut his hand, the middle finger of his left hand, in
Chicago. You've seen the glass. You've seen the bloody linen. You've
seen the towels. And that's what happened. And you also heard that
that's what occurred. When he walked out of the hotel and asked to
get a band-aid, when he's trying to get a cab in his fervent efforts
to try to get back to Los Angeles. And I suggest to you, ladies and
gentlemen, the cuts as well as the bruises are a problem that the
plaintiffs' try to work around. They can't get around it because OJ
Simpson simply is innocent. At 3:30 they get the blood. They get 8
cc's of OJ Simpson's reference blood. Vannatter, who we know has
misrepresented the truth under oath on this witness stand, and to a
Judge to get a search warrant, takes the blood. He can book it right
there. He can book it in Parker Center. He takes it. He can book it
at SID which is about a mile away. He doesn't do either. He
testifies to you on the witness stand that he takes the vial, takes
it upstairs to where his desk is, and gets an analyzed evidence
envelope out of his drawer and places it in his drawer and -- or in
the envelope, pardon me. Wait a minute. Did you ever take that
envelope down to Thano Peratis? No. It's got his signature. Oh, well
I guess I made a mistake. He never seals it. Why not? Why doesn't he
seal the envelope leave it with Peratis or in the alternative book
it right there at Parker Center or take it to S.I.D. and the reason
is it's because he wants to take blood out of it and does. You know
you can get Thano Peratis after he's only done this for about 20
years because now they've got a big hole in their case. There
missing 30,000 nanograms of DN
A. You can get him -- you can twist him, come in and say gee whiz,
it wasn't 7.9 to 8.1 as I testified under penalty of perjury on two
occasions. It was really only six and a half. And low and behold, we
are now not missing 30,000 nanograms of DN
A. Ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't wash. How could in one case all
of this happen if there wasn't some effort being made by Vannatter
and Fuhrman to frame OJ Simpson? How could it have happened? How
could you have all of these problems; missing blood? How could it be
that after the autopsy, never happened before. Siglar testified
never happened before. Vannatter gets the reference vials of Nicole
Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Never happened before. And lo and
behold on those vials, unlike the reference vial of OJ, there isn't
even a semblance of how much blood was in those vials. And think of
all of the items of evidence from the coroner's office after the
autopsies are done 60, 70, every one, every one of those items of
evidence is picked up by SID except the reference vials of blood of
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman who's picked up by Vannatter.
Happenstance? I don't think so. Then what happens, ladies and
gentlemen? Then what happens? In this case, as you all know, it
seems to be like a fine wine; the evidence seems to get better as
the case goes on, for the prosecution. We have blood in the Bronco.
We have a lot of blood in the Bronco. We have blood at the most
amazing places. Back behind the console. We have blood on the
console. Drops on the console that turn into smears, and nobody's
been in it. How does that happen? It doesn't happen unless somebody
smears it. How are blood drops on the side rail of the driver's door
of the Bronco seen by Daniel Gonzalez unless he opens the door? You
absolutely can't see it. You saw where the -- like every other car
door in, there's a little seal, it goes up, then there's a little
seal so that water doesn't come directly into the automobile. Just
like every other automobile. Absolutely can't be seen. How does this
all happen in this case? And the socks, ladies and gentlemen, isn't
it absolutely incredulous that of the 32 pieces of clothes found at
Rockingham that purportedly incriminate OJ Simpson, both of them are
found, and there isn't one blood drop on any surrounding area, the
Rockingham glove and the socks. Isn't it incredulous? When you look
at those photos, there isn't one piece of clothing around them. They
sit like a sore thumb in the middle of this rug, right in the middle
of his bedroom, right aft -- right aft of his bed. Didn't look like
anybody sat on that bed to me. And I think Bob Blasier proved it to
you. Those socks were planted after Willie Ford had been in that
room. He didn't see them. How can you miss them? He never saw them.
And think about the socks. If you look at the recital tape, you'll
see OJ isn't in any Bruno Magli shoes. Goes home, changes, gets into
Reeboks, goes and gets a burger." Then he comes home and he changes
into Bruno Magli shoes. Give me a break. And he changes into dress
socks. And then these dress socks, I mean that's what you want, I
guess dress socks and then these dress socks, ladies and gentlemen,
are planted. And then to prove how much they're planted, you look at
June 22, 1994, when Baden and Wolf are there. These are two
criminalists. They have been requested to look at the evidence for
the defense. And Vannatter's standing over them and he won't let
them take them out of the cellophane holder that they're in. They
look at them. They can't find any blood. That's what they're looking
for. On the 29th, when three experienced criminalists are looking,
doing a blood search, those aren't my words, those are their words,
they're doing a blood search on those socks, Colin Yamauchi,
Michelle Kestler and Greg Matheson, "None obvious." Not any blood on
those socks. We wouldn't have held them up to the light, we're doing
a blood search, and we put them on dark carpet so we can see it or
something. I mean, come on, it makes no sense. Then, when they find
them on August 14, there is copious amounts of blood. It goes
through side 1 to side 2 to side 3, and then when it gets to side 3,
it is bonded in the fibers on side 3. And I want to talk to you a
little bit about the EDTA that's found on those socks, but I think
first we've got to talk just a little bit about more planted
evidence. And that's the back gate. Now, you went through with me
when Detective Lange was on the witness stand, and Lange had notes
of every blood drop down the walkway at Bundy, he had notes on every
one of them. He even draws a picture of the gate and indicates which
way it opens. Do you want to put that up, Phil. Here we're going
through the blood drops. Down here he puts the gate. Finds not one
drop of blood on the gate. And the next thing we know, July 3, 1994,
there's blood drops on the gate, and, ladies and gentlemen, they
have more nanograms of DNA than anything else except the socks. 16
Why is that? That is because it's planted. And so when the
allegations of planting come out, what happens? You've seen the
letter Rock Harmon writes to Roger Martz at the FBI to do a test to
determine if in fact EDTA is on the samples of the back gate and the
socks. This to me, ladies and gentlemen, is so crucial, and I want
to take my time and go through it with you. He says we want you to
determine the absence -- presence or absence of EDTA on the socks
and the back gate to refute the allegations of planting. So Roger
Martz does that. He does a test. And he finds EDTA on both samples.
That could only come from a purple-top test tube. This is obviously
absolutely devastating to the prosecution. It refutes what the
prosecution says. So what does the FBI do? Roger Martz said, I
tested my own blood, it came out with essentially the same reading.
But, contrary to FBI procedures, he erases his computer run so
nobody can come back and look, and at the time that he -- that he
says that, the time he says that, no one knows that EDTA is
undetectable in the human blood. Those tests haven't been devised
yet. So Martz believes he's got carte blanche to say, I tested my
own blood and it was about the same levels. That, therefore,
explains why there was EDTA on the back gate and the socks. They're
the same levels, so it isn't planted, okay. Now, think about it for
a minute. If he thought for one second there was any possibility of
ghosting or this cross-over effect you heard Terry Lee testify to,
if there was one second that he thought that that was, in fact, the
reason for the reading of EDTA, what would he have done? He would
have gone back and retested those items or tested some other items,
because he was 19 years in the laboratory, and he knew this wasn't
any cross-over effect, he knew that he had EDTA in these samples. It
was totally consistent with planting, because there was EDTA from a
purple-top test tube, and both of those samples are dynamite
evidence and they had to get rid of it somehow. Now, Mr. Petrocelli
-- we got that thing in opening -- there's a board in there, Phil.
This is what he told you in opening: A man named Roger Martz, a
scientist from the FBI, he has a machine called a mass spectrometer,
he can test blood samples to see if it has EDT
A. We will call Mr. Martz. He will testify he examined the blood
taken from the socks and the blood taken from the back gate to see
if there was EDTA in there that could have come from a reference
sample that had EDTA in it, that is, if there were high dosages or
high concentrations. Mr. Martz conducted these tests on his machine
and he determined conclusively, and will so testify, that the blood
on the back gate and on the socks could not have come from an
EDTA-treated test tube, and therefore could not have been planted.
Where was he? Mr. Lambert told you that he was going to bring it.
Where was he? He wouldn't come because of the fact that now it is
known that you can't have EDTA in your blood. And so his second test
relative to his blood to try to explain away the planting is
absolutely invalid. And he knows it, and he wouldn't come because he
wouldn't come in here and testify to you that a lab manager of 19
years got cross-over effect or ghosting, that is, residue from the
machine, EDTA in the machine came out on the next test. If these
people were so confident that EDTA wasn't in those samples, why
didn't they test everything? Why? They can get the FBI to jump
through hoops. We can't get them to return a phone call. Why didn't
they test everything? They didn't test everything because they
didn't want to know the answer. They figured that they could get
around this with you. They figured they could get Dr. Terry Lee to
come in here and tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that it was
ghosting, it was a cross-over effect from the machine. Remember what
he put in his notes? I thought it was very, very telling. We've got
to find a way to explain around it. That's basically what he said.
And his way to explain around it was it was left over in the
machine. Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence in this case is simply
not trustworthy. It is not trustworthy. It's not worthy of belief.
They had all the opportunity in the world to do that. They did not
do it. They wouldn't do it. And think about -- think about the
gloves for a minute. Mr. Petrocelli says, well, why didn't they have
OJ Simpson put on the gloves? You could see they were too tight. You
could see it on the video. He could have had him put on the gloves.
He didn't ask him. Those gloves are too tight. They wouldn't have
fallen off. They wouldn't have been dropped. You know, isn't it
absolutely incredible that they dropped one right at the beginning
of the crime scene so everybody can see it in Bundy. And the hat
stuck underneath the rail. And doesn't it defy credulity that the
other one just happens to be at their number one suspect's house, in
an area where nobody would be, where it doesn't belong. But it links
the crime scene. Incredible. And you didn't see any scratches on OJ
Simpson's hand. How can you pull those things off? Do you think that
some killer is going to be trying to pull off gloves or is he going
to be trying to attack. How did they come off and fall at such
convenient places, to link a crime scene? And, you know, I didn't --
I didn't have Mr. Fung say that there were cuts on both of those
gloves. He said that. When I switched subjects to the gloves, he
said, well, there were cuts on them. And then he said that the cut
was underneath this piece of stucco. And there is no cut underneath
the piece of stucco, the stucco's gone, there's no stucco, there's
no cut on the glove that's here. You look at the wear difference.
You make your own decision. But I'll tell you something, ladies and
gentlemen, the purported expert that they got in here to testify
that the gloves were solid, and that's evidence that you ought to
rely on, that man wanted to be in this case more than anybody. I
mean he flies out here, he wants to be invited to the victory party,
he wants everybody's cards, he wants memorabilia from the case. He's
not to be trusted. But the gloves do not link crime scenes, and the
reason they don't is, it's clear, it's beyond the pale, the
Rockingham glove is planted. There's just no question about it. Now,
you know, the contamination of the evidence, Bob Blasier told you
about that, and can you imagine how every bit of evidence in this
case, you take item 5823, it's got a 1.3 allele, to them that's
cross-hybridization. I mean there's an explanation for everything
that went wrong. And everything went wrong. And it went wrong
because somebody was playing with the evidence. Think about it. OJ
Simpson's reference vial, Nicole Brown Simpson's reference vial, Ron
Goldman's reference vial, these are clean samples, there is
absolutely no way contamination can get into those samples unless
LAPD contaminates them. And then you look at them, you have got OJ
Simpson's alleles in both Nicole Brown Simpson's blood and Ron
Goldman's blood. How does this happen? LAPD doesn't even have a
manual at SID. They really don't -- you know, they say the substrate
controls clear everything up. That is our defense, we couldn't have
contaminated everything because the substrate controls were all
clean. Now, isn't that incredible? Isn't that absolutely
unbelievable? This is a lab that has no set rules at all. For
example, brings OJ Simpson's reference vial out as the first thing
they work on, spills that, doesn't wash the table with bleach,
doesn't change paper, doesn't know when they change gloves. This lab
contaminated both reference vials of blood, and we've told you,
ladies and gentlemen, once it's contaminated, it doesn't matter who
tests it. I don't care if the FBI tests it, Cellmark tests it,
Department of Justice tests it, it's contaminated and it's going to
remain contaminated thereafter. And the substrate controls that they
say all were clean, they were all perfect, there was nothing on them
whatsoever. Now, can you imagine that? You saw the tape of Mazzola,
how she collects samples. You saw on the board, if there was one
substrate control, it was meaning not unlike diluted blood, and yet
everything wasn't just without any DNA, it was perfect. It was
immaculate, as if it had never been done, as if it had never been
accomplished at all, because it's their savior. And, ladies and
gentlemen, you can't trust it. If you can't trust the messenger --
and believe me, the messenger in this case -- we have one messenger
that came to testify. We have one messenger that didn't. The
messenger that came to testify is named Vannatter, and Vannatter is
not to be trusted, and he had all the blood. Every bit of it. And if
you can't trust the messenger, you can't trust the message. And
then, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm taking a lot of your time, and I
apologize, it is absolutely ridiculous to think that if Dennis Fung
is at SID and Phil Vannatter wants to get into SID and wants Dennis
Fung out of there and Dennis Fung is going to hold his ground and
protect the evidence of the People, that's absolutely ridiculous to
assume that. This evidence is contaminated, it's tampered with and
it's planted, it's not at all worthy of belief, it's not at all
worthy of belief to destroy a human being's life, and that's what
the LAPD and the plaintiffs want to do in this case. Now, one thing
you ought to put in perspective about the LAPD and the SID crime
lab, you've heard early on, within two days of these murders, OJ
Simpson makes available, at his cost, Dr. Henry Lee and Dr. Michael
Baden, two renowned criminalists -- one is a forensic pathologist,
rather, and Henry Lee, perhaps the most famous criminalist in the
world, is relied upon by the government of Taiwan, by virtually
every governor in the 50 states and by the FBI. Let the chips fall
where they may. Look at the evidence, examine the evidence, analyze
the evidence, and come to some conclusions. And LAPD turns them
away. LAPD wouldn't even let Henry Lee in the lab, wouldn't even
give him a microscope that he can see anything with. Why? Why, if
they have nothing to hide? Why? And the reason is, they have a lot
to hide. This evidence was contaminated early on. They knew it was
contaminated early on. And they didn't want anybody finding out
about it. They knew that they had tampered with, contaminated,
planted evidence. If not, why not let your lab and all of the
evidence be exposed to the light of day? Maybe they can tell you.
Now, I want to, just for a moment, talk about reality, and it may
seem somewhat harsh to do this, but this is a lawsuit. I just want
to talk a little bit about the parties in this lawsuit. Fred Goldman
is obviously a party, and you've heard that he has a wrongful death
claim and a battery claim, and the battery claim is the springboard
to try to get to the punitive damages phase or the second phase of
the trial against OJ Simpson. He stipulated that there's $100 in
damages. That is the amount of clothing that Ron Goldman was
wearing.
MR. PETROCELLI: He has not stipulated to $100 in damages on all
counts, Your Honor. That's incorrect.
MR. BAKER: On the battery count. And Mr. Petrocelli got up here and
told you in a very emotional appeal that Ron Goldman would probably
be opening his restaurant now and he would be going into his
restaurant. Let's examine reality. Fred Goldman, for reasons that he
called tough love, didn't help his son go through bankruptcy, and he
had to go through bankruptcy. Ron Goldman wouldn't have a restaurant
now. He'd be lucky to have a credit card. Don't buy into this
emotional idea, because it isn't reality. Mr. Petrocelli's well
aware that sympathy, passion and prejudice are not to be considered,
and yet he very dramatically wanted to read a poem to invoke your
sympathy. That's not part of your deliberations. I'd like to
introduce Mr. Kelly to his real client. He got up here before you
and said it was Nicole. His real client, ladies and gentlemen, as
was testified to correctly by Judy Brown on the witness stand, is
the estate of Nicole Brown Simpson. The two beneficiaries and the
only beneficiaries of that estate are Justin Simpson and Sydney
Brooke Simpson, Mr. Simpson's children. Children who he just got
back. That's who his real client is. But he wanted to talk about
Nicole and to talk about sympathy. And Sharon Rufo, Sharon Rufo
hadn't seen her son in about 12 to 14 years. She was -- and she
suffered a loss. I'm not saying she didn't. First time in the
history of my being in a trial that a plaintiff hasn't got on the
witness stand and testified. Sharon Rufo was here the other day. She
was here for final argument. She wasn't here to testify, to tell you
about her loss. She did that by way of deposition. She was here for
opening statement. But she didn't come to testify about what her
loss was. Hadn't had a phone call, talked to her son in a couple of
years. Now, those are the parties, those are the people suing OJ
Simpson. And it is interesting that -- you talk about not helping
your son through bankruptcy, not getting him out of jail, and that's
tough love. And it's interesting that you vilify OJ Simpson, Mr.
Petrocelli does, for trying to get his wife to pay her taxes so that
his ex-wife -- her house can never be taken away. That's something
to be vilified. That's just what has happened. What allows that to
occur, ladies and gentlemen, what allows that to occur is that the
media has told the world that it is politically correct to be
anti-OJ Simpson. And you, ladies and gentlemen, are the buffers, you
are justice by the people, you have the job of analyzing the
evidence in this case and weighing that evidence and whether it
makes any common sense, in determining whether or not OJ Simpson
committed these crimes. And, you know, we talked about -- we talked
about the week after the 12th, OJ Simpson is heavily medicated and
he's at his friend Kardashian's house and -- and he writes this
suicide note. And Mr. Petrocelli would have you conclude that he was
guilty, that he was trying to escape. And what I was able to
conclude from that, and you can as well, is, fortunately for Mr.
Petrocelli, he has never experienced the kind of grief that Mr.
Simpson was experiencing. It kind of wraps around your skull and it
presses on it and it's an omnipresent headache and it drops to the
pit of your stomach and you're depressed and it comes in waves and
you don't know if will ever leave and you don't know what to do and
you don't know how to do it, you don't know how to act, you don't
know what to do and you don't know if it will ever go away. And then
superimposed upon the grief from losing his ex-wife is the media,
convicting him in the court of public opinion of killing two people
that he had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with. And all of that
has been brought onto Mr. Simpson. And so he says to his friend,
take me to Nicole, and they get in Al Cowlings' Bronco and they go
down to the cemetery, and they can't get in, and OJ doesn't kill
himself, thank God. Mr. Petrocelli would have you believe that it
was Detective Lange who saved his life. Detective Lange didn't even
go upstairs to see if he was bleeding to death when he was there on
the 13th. Detective Lange didn't save his life at all. What saved
his life were two things, ladies and gentlemen: One is faith, and
two is innocence. And that's what saved his life. That was not a man
trying to escape. That was a man who was in total despair, who
wanted to end, as he told you, the pain. And, fortunately, he didn't
kill himself. I want to just discuss two final points and then --
you've indulged my speaking long enough. On the issue of motive,
which we have to go back to because they simply haven't proved any
motive, and they've taken an immense amount of your time, I want to
remind you of one other thing relative to that issue. And that is,
Nicole had close friends, she ran with them every morning, she had
nannies and housekeepers all her life, you didn't see one of them
come in here and testify to these what they would have you believe
to be seriatim abuses. And the reason that they didn't come in here
and testify is because they never occurred. They got people who
wanted their 15 minutes of fame. And we certainly would never deny
the '89 incident. But that '89 incident does not, five and a half
years later, manifest itself into a double murder, when there's
absolutely no motivation. And we have to go back and discuss briefly
-- briefly, the time line. And we have to discuss that because
before -- before it was politically correct to -- to be anti-OJ,
Heidstra testified that at 10:40 is when he was across the alley
from Nicole's condo. (Reading:)
Q. So that we're clear, Mr. Heidstra, is there any doubt in your
mind that you were in that alley and was walking parallel to Bundy
on the night of June 12, 1994?
A. No doubt. I'll never forget that.
Q. Any doubt in your mind that when you stopped behind the house, it
was approximately 10:40? Any doubt?
A. No, no doubt about it. And so from 10:40, if it took to 10 or 15
minutes, that it obviously had to take to do these heinous crimes --
you're at 10:50, 10:55, and another six minutes, and you're at 11
o'clock, to get from Bundy to Rockingham. And, of course, OJ Simpson
is seen, at the latest, 10:54, 10:55, walking into his house, after
he came down and dropped his garment bag, after he'd been upstairs
and dropped his garment bag over his golf bag. And that's when he is
seen. And there is absolutely no time -- And, ladies and gentlemen,
the car, the Blazer-like vehicle that turned right on Bundy that had
no relationship to the crime one way or the other, certainly, Mr.
Simpson would never have gone that way. And it was too early for the
crimes to have ever been completed. There simply wasn't any time
whatsoever for him to do it, because we knew, according to the
plaintiffs' theory, giving them -- we knew at 10:40, when you hear
the "hey, hey, hey," Ron Goldman's alive. The gate clangs, and he's
alive. There is no time, if it were Mr. Simpson, for him to do it,
go through all of that caged-in area and tussle, keep Ron Goldman
quiet while he allegedly murders Nicole, keep himself away from Ron
Goldman so he doesn't get a bruise on him. Not while he's murdering
Nicole and not while he's in this horrific struggle with Ron
Goldman's life, without a bruise, and then speed off in the wrong
direction, with no time to get to his house. And then, ladies and
gentlemen, follow through with -- follow with me, and let's go
through it. If he goes over the cyclone fence, and he got --
allegedly changed clothes -- what, in God's name, has he changed
into? If his clothes are already going into his bag, they're going
to be placed into the Bentley, what has he changed into, and where
did they go? Where would you leave the bag? In the direct light of
the parking lamps that were on of Allan Park? And how, in God's
name, ladies and gentlemen, did OJ Simpson, if he were the murderer,
come back from Bundy in this huge white elephant called a Bronco,
drive it up to Rockingham? And Allan Park, who is extra vigilant,
tying to find OJ Simpson, never hears the noise of that vehicle,
never hears -- never sees any lights, never hears a door slam,
nothing. How did it happen? Well, it doesn't happen, because that
car was sitting there the whole time, because Mr. Simpson had been
upstairs, taking a shower. And think about it. If he'd taken a
shower, and he had to take a shower after he came back, they didn't
find any blood in his plumbing, not one drop in the sink, no. They
took away the plumbing in his house. They did it in his wash room.
They scoured the sewers. They had every inch of the route from Bundy
to Rockingham scoured for clothing. They couldn't find any. Why not?
Because Mr. Simpson is innocent. He didn't do it. How could he have
possibly killed these people and dropped all his stuff around, got
rid of the murder weapon, the shoes, the clothes -- kept the socks,
though, kept the socks -- and how could it have happened? It clearly
didn't. It clearly didn't. And, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Petrocelli
has said to you, Mr. Goldman, Fred Goldman, can't get his son back;
he can't get his life back. That's very true. He can't. And that's
sad, and that is something we all feel for him. You can't give him
his son back. You can't give Ron Goldman's life back. But you can
give back Mr. Simpson his life. He has been ridiculed. He has been
tried in the press. And it's only the jury -- it's only justice by
the people who will listen to the facts of this case without an
agenda -- without an agenda to sell magazines, newspapers, or air
time -- that can render a verdict, like was done before, and give
him his life back, and give Justin and Sydney their dad back. Thank
you very much.
THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen -- Yes?
MR. KELLY: If we can take a five-minute break, I'll complete my
part.
THE COURT: Five minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Don't talk about the
case. Don't form or express any opinions. (Recess.)
THE BAILIFF: Quiet in the audience. (Jurors resume their respective
seats.)
MR. KELLY: Thank you. If it please the Court. Morning, ladies and
gentlemen.
JURORS: Good morning.
MR. KELLY: Right now, what I'm getting up here for is to take part
of what we call rebuttal; that is, I just want to touch on some of
the arguments that Mr. Baker has made over the course of a couple
days here. And after I touch on these certain things in a more
general sense, Mr. Petrocelli and Mr. Lambert will be getting up and
responding in kind to the comments he made, and responding in some
detail to things he put out to you during the course of his
argument. The first thing I want to touch upon is the outrage that
Mr. Baker expressed by the fact that the first time around in our
closing arguments, that we, the plaintiffs, did not address the
issue of police malfeasance. Then Mr. Baker went on to implore you
people to simply look at the evidence and use your common sense. And
the fact of the matter is that, if you do look at the evidence and
you use your common sense, there is absolutely no indication of
police malfeasance. What we did hear from Mr. Baker and his cohorts,
both during their cross-examination of a number of witnesses and
during their closing argument, you heard a lot of what-ifs, could
have beens, maybes, possibles. But that's not evidence. You people
know you are not to engage in speculation, you are not to engage in
conjecture, and you are certainly not to engage in sheer fantasy.
And that's what the defense is asking you to do. Now, a couple other
things with regard to the Flammer photographs, which the defense
claim was a fake. The other line in the sand they drew was this
issue of Vannatter, with the blood, that it is -- it has been
planted. And they felt that because he had handled Mr. Simpson's
blood exemplar, and that he had handled Nicole's blood exemplar, and
he had handled Ron's blood exemplar, that there was something
extraordinarily sinister and wrong with what he did. And Mr. Baker
then complained that while we did, right up front -- we put
Vannatter on the stand and we took this issue head on. We wanted you
to see exactly when, and under what circumstances, Mr. Vannatter
came to be in possession of Mr. Simpson's blood exemplar. And then
we moved on. And we wanted to let you know when, why. And when he
transported that blood in the evidence envelope, straight out to
Rockingham to Dennis Fung, and lo and behold, you -- and people were
treated to a video of Detective Vannatter walking into Rockingham
with that vial in an evidence envelope in front of the entire world.
Also, when he was on the stand, we put the other issues right out
there. You heard about when he picked up Ron and Nicole's blood
exemplars. You saw the logbook, exactly when and under whose
supervision he signed out both of those blood exemplars. And only
minutes later, you also saw the logbook when he signed in and under
whose supervision, those blood exemplars at SID. Now, Mr. Baker
would prefer to talk about Rockingham in terms of Mr. Vannatter in
this jumping over the wall to you people, till you people are dizzy.
But it has nothing to do with the case. Couple other observations,
also. I will agree with Mr. Leonard that he is a hard-headed
Irishman, but even Mr. Leonard could not look you right in the eye
and say those 30 photos are a fake. What he did was work around it,
punch around the edges. And he coined a catchy phrase. He said, they
came too late and they cost too much. Well, ladies and gentlemen,
they came just in the nick of time, and those pictures are
priceless. They're priceless. And in their evidentiary value to you,
that you people, as fact-finders of the case, get to consider and
weigh during your deliberations. And Mr. Leonard, himself, after all
that, indicated that if you don't believe those photos are a fake,
then you're free to conclude that it was Mr. Simpson who waded
through those victims' blood that night on Bundy. Because --
MR. BAKER: I object. That was not said at all by Mr. Leonard.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. KELLY: Mr. Baker also urged you not to be guided by sympathy,
prejudice or passion. He said we've subjected you to a ploy played
upon your sympathies. Well, you know, ladies and gentlemen, we have,
and we have in a certain sense. We have in the sense that this case
and the facts of this case are sad. They're very, very, very sad.
And it's a fact, it's a true -- true fact that, when Sydney and
Justin wake up in the middle of the night, frightened, they won't
have Nicole to hold them. And when they're sick or they're lonely or
they're having trouble in school, it's a fact that she won't be
there to touch them or stroke their hair. And Ron Goldman, what a
great kid. It's a fact that he was cut down in his prime, just
trying to protect this woman, this mother. The only sympathy being
sought in this case is by the defense for Mr. Simpson, because in
the face of overwhelming evidence -- physical evidence, forensic
evidence, and testimonial evidence -- he's asking you to simply feel
-- feel that his client did not commit these murders. They want to
you be blinded to the evidence. Another thing Mr. Baker commented
upon was that this courtroom was not a level playing field. He wants
to you believe that. Well, Mr. Simpson had his battery of talented
lawyers in here. And they brought back any witnesses they wanted.
And they put up any experts they wanted to challenge any part of our
case. Not the Flammer photos, mind you, but any other part of their
case that they wanted to challenge, they wanted those experts in.
But I'll tell you: This courtroom is a level playing field; it's
only the score that's lopsided right now. Well, Mr. Baker addressed
five specific incidents that we presented where Mr. Simpson lost his
self-control, where sometimes he was physical, other times simply
frightening to Nicole. He talked about '83, India Allen. That
wouldn't have happened because she would have called the police.
Well, I think we know by now what would have happened -- the police
came in here and testified about that -- it would have been a
conspiracy; it would have been a frame-up. And this guy would have
been lying. Because in '84, Nicole did call security, and Mark Day
responded to the house, and he did come in here. And he was lying.
In '86, on Victoria Beach, Aguilar was lying. And in '89, New Year's
Eve morning, Nicole was lying. And in '93, the tapes are lying. The
tapes are lying when Nicole says she was scared. Now, Mr. Baker did
something else. He alludes to the fact that we should have brought
in Nicole's friends or housekeepers or people to talk about other
incidents. Now, just a little aside. If you people haven't figured
out by now, I'm from New York, and Mr. Baker sort of, I think,
suggested that in itself had some sinister connotations. Yeah, I'm
from New York. I grew up in the midwest. And we had a saying there.
The saying was, you can't ride the same horse going in two different
directions. That's what Mr. Baker wants to do: He wants to tell you
two different things out of each side of his mouth. On the one hand,
he wants to say you should have brought in every witness you had,
every piece of evidence you had; you should have brought in one more
witness. But no matter how many witnesses we brought in, how much
proof, he says they were lying; they wanted their 15 minutes of
fame; it was a frame-up; it was a conspiracy. Now, if we wanted to
start with Nicole's friends that certainly where we would
manufacture witnesses if we wanted to. But it also will suggest that
if Mr. Baker was so confident that Nicole's friends wouldn't say
these things, these were other people he could have brought in. He
knew how to do that. He knew how to do it, just the way we knew how
to do it. But what did we do? We didn't bring in Nicole's friends;
we brought in Mr. Simpson's very best friend, his life-long friend.
And what did he tell you? He wasn't lying. He told you that Nicole
had told him -- this is Al Cowlings I'm talking about -- Al Cowlings
got on the stand and finally admitted -- finally admitted that
Nicole had told him that Simpson had hit her and pulled her hair.
So, once again, either Mr. Cowlings, Simpson's best friend, is lying
about that, too, or Nicole was lying, and that it never happened.
And by the way, about these -- everybody -- how everybody gets on
the stand and lies. You even heard how Judy Brown was, in Mr.
Baker's words, busted. She was busted. The mother of her murdered
child being referred to as being busted. I think that speaks volumes
of the defense's attitude in this case. But what we did, ladies and
gentlemen, is, we presented you with the most unbiased witnesses you
could hear from: Mr. Simpson's closest friend, Nicole, in her
writings, in her letters, in her diaries, in her tapes. And from her
photographs. Now, importantly Mr. Baker keeps referring to the lack
of a motive here. And Mr. Petrocelli is going to address that in
some detail in the future, too. But what I think Mr. Baker was
trying to say is, what we have here is the absence of a good reason
to kill, and that this presumes that there was a logical mind inside
the head of someone who committed a most illogical act. He's saying
there should be some sort of cause and effect. Well, I'll tell you,
we've heard of many times where Mr. Simpson was moved to violence,
was moved to frightening actions, with no reason whatsoever. In '83,
he slapped Nicole in the face. Did he have a good reason? In '84, he
cracked her windshield. Did he have a good reason? In '86, he
slapped her in the face. Did he give you a good reason? In '89, he
beat and battered her. Did he give you a good reason? And in '93, he
scared her; he frightened her. Did he give you a good reason? No, he
did not. In '93, Nicole was scared. Scared to death. And for good
reason. Keep in mind that as of June 12, 1994, Nicole was rejecting
Mr. Simpson. She was keeping the kids away from him at the recital.
She publicly embarrassed him in front of family and in front of
friends. Now, I'm not saying that you would -- I'm not saying that
he would -- you know, I'm saying -- nor am I saying that anybody
would kill for that reason. But the bottom line is here, ladies and
gentlemen. You heard it was a problem relationship with the history
of violence; that Mr. Simpson was emotionally entangled with this
woman; he was angry at her. He had a reason to be angry at her, in
his mind, and he had the opportunity to kill. And lo and behold,
Nicole was found dead. And he wants us to give you a reason. When,
since the beginning of time, has a man killed a woman with a good
reason? When, since the beginning of time, has a husband killed a
wife or an ex-husband killed an ex-wife and had a good reason?
There's not a scintilla of evidence that Nicole had any problem
relationship with anybody else, that anybody else was violent
towards her, that anybody else was angry with her. And there's only
one person that she feared, and that fear was escalating, right up
to the last days of her life. The person she feared, the person that
caused her to call a shelter, was Mr. Simpson. Now, one other thing.
I'm a little surprised Mr. Baker brought it up. But like he said, we
can't tip-toe around these things; we have to address them. This was
about this cause of action, my client -- Mr. Baker indicated that he
wanted to introduce me to my client. Well, just a little bit about
that. You'll hear from the Court that this is what we call a
survival action, meaning that if Nicole survived the battery that
night, she would have had the right to bring this action herself.
Mr. Baker's right: His client murdered my client. She didn't
survive, so she's not my client right now. That sort of reminds me
of that old story about the young man who's getting ready to be
sentenced for the murder of his parents, and he's standing before
the judge, and when asked if there's anything else to say, the one
thing he comes up with is, Judge, be lenient with me; I killed my
parents, but forgive me. I'm now an orphan. That's basically what
Mr. Baker was saying. The estate brought the action; the children
are the beneficiaries. Since the beginning of time, one of nature's
most lasting lessons has been that a mother protects her young. In
life, Nicole couldn't do enough to love, protect and cherish these
kids. And she went one step further, though: She made provisions in
the event she died or was killed --
MR. BAKER: I'll object. This is not rebuttal; this is outside the
scope.
MR. KELLY: He brought it up. He talked about the cause of action. I
have a right to explain a little. He mentioned the kids and the
estate. And I'll be done in a minute.
MR. BAKER: Your Honor, this isn't evidence, Your Honor.
MR. KELLY: The estate is Nicole's legacy. It's her final effort to
protect these children. These children will never kiss their mother
goodnight again. Mother's Day will only mean putting flowers on
Nicole's grave. And all we're asking you now is for you to give
Nicole that eternal comfort, let her rest in peace, knowing that her
children are provided for in this one small way. Just bring these
children under Nicole's wing; let them be protected by an angel.
Thank you very much.
THE COURT: 1:30, ladies and gentlemen. Don't talk about the case.
Don't form or express any opinion about the case. (At 11:58 a.m., a
recess was taken until 1:30 p.m. of the same day.) SANTA MONICA,
CALIFORNIA; MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 1997 1:40 PM DEPARTMENT NO. WEQ HON.
HIROSHI FUJISAKI, JUDGE APPEARANCES: (REGINA D. CHAVEZ, OFFICIAL
REPORTER) (The following proceedings were held in open court outside
the presence of the jury.)
MR. BAKER: Your Honor, relative to the rebuttal argument, there's a
couple boards in the back that the plaintiffs apparently intends to
use, and it says "Simpson says," and then it has certain lines in
there put in quote marks. These are not what Mr. Simpson said. There
has been no testimony in all of the thousands of pages that Mr.
Simpson said these things. They are trying to essentially, I guess,
put these words in his mouth. I would object to any new boards
whatsoever in their rebuttal argument.
MR. PETROCELLI: It's completely appropriate, Your Honor, a board
listing his defense, his argument, and there's no way anybody could
ever think he said those things. I will make it absolutely clear he
didn't say those things. Those are his seven points. I would never
tell a lie, et cetera, the things that he said that we're going to
run through in our rebuttal.
THE COURT: All right. As long as you make it clear.
MR. PETROCELLI: Absolutely.
THE COURT: There's not quotations from any testimony or any other
source.
MR. PETROCELLI: Will do.
MR. BAKER: One other thing, Your Honor. I would object to Mr.
Lambert arguing. He didn't argue at the beginning. And it seems to
me in the rules that we have from September of 1996, that only one
person can argue that did the argument in the opening argument.
THE COURT: Mr. Blasier argued.
MR. BAKER: I know. He argued in our argument. This is rebuttal.
THE COURT: It's rebuttal, I assume, to Mr. Blasier. You may resume.
(Jurors resume their respective seats.)
MR. PETROCELLI: Thank you. Good afternoon everyone.
JURORS: Good afternoon. REBUTTAL ARGUMENT
MR. PETROCELLI: We're getting there. I'm going to speak to you for a
bit. Then I'm going to have my partner, Mr. Lambert, respond to some
of the points Mr. Blasier made. Then I'm going to come back and wrap
it up and I'll be the last lawyer you'll hear from. And then the
good Judge will instruct you. Then you'll retire for your
deliberations. But hang on, we're getting there. I'd like you to
think about this question; what does a man do when his blood is
found dripped all over the murder scene? When his hat is found next
to the victims bodies? When his glove is found there? When his hair
is found there? When his clothing fibers are found there? When
carpet fibers from his car are found there? When shoe prints in one
of the victims blood are found there; his shoe prints? When his
blood is found in his car? When his blood is found dripped all over
his driveway? When his blood is found dripped inside of his house?
When his blood is found on his socks? When one of the victim's blood
is found on his socks? When the other glove is found on his
property; and when that glove has on it his blood, the blood of each
of the victims, the hair from each of the victims, clothing, fibers,
carpet fibers? When he has no alibi? When he was involved in a
deeply conflicted relationship with one of the murdered victims?
When he is seen in photos wearing the possible murder clothes? When
he is seen in photos wearing the possible murder gloves? When he is
seen in photos wearing the murder shoes that he lied and lied about?
And when he has injuries all over his left hand? Now, what does he
do? What does this guy do; especially if this man has money and
resources? What does he do? He hires an army of lawyers, experts,
investigators, consultants, you name it; he hires them all, and they
sit down, and they figure out what to say about all of this
evidence. Just like Mr. Simpson admitted on that stand that Lenore
Walker figured out his words, figured out what to say about the
night of the murders, and about his alibi. And what you have heard
in this courtroom, ladies and gentlemen, from the defense over the
last four months, and from these lawyers over the last two days, is
what a guilty man has to say in response to all of this evidence. It
was all planted. It's all contaminated. All of the photos are fake.
All the law enforcement people are corrupt or incompetent. Every
witnesses who gets on that stand and testifies against me is lying
or mistaken. There's a conspiracy the likes of which has never
before been witnessed, all to get me. That's what a guilty man does.
And what's the reason? Why? Why would there be this conspiracy? Why
would people do such a thing? Why would they all gang up and
conspire to frame an innocent man; particularly a celebrity who's
got a lot of money and who's going to draw massive attention, maybe
the highest profile case ever? And people, innocent people who are
doing their jobs, criminalists, lab technicians, patrol officers,
rookies, seasoned detectives, FBI agents, coroner, assistant
coroner; all these people have to be in on this to one extent or
another, either they're in on it by planting and fabricating and
making up evidence, or they got on that witness stand and lied.
That's what you have to believe, ladies and gentlemen. That's what
they're trying to sell you. You know there's an old expression;
necessity is the mother of invention. I'm sure you've all heard
that. What does that mean? That means when it's necessary, you'd
better come up with something. And that's what you have heard;
inventions. Inventions. They have invented argument. They have
invented defenses that have no basis in reality. They have no facts
to support them. They have no evidence. They're made up. What you
just heard Mr. Baker describe for you were police officers, planted
evidence, and gloves, and this and that. And we're going to get into
that in detail because boy, we couldn't wait to hear him try to
explain this so we could get the opportunity to let you know, once
and for all, that this whole thing that we've heard about from the
moment Mr. Baker started asking you questions in jury selection,
from the moment he made his opening statement, and all the questions
he asked charged with all this inflammatory language about planting
and conspiracy and all this stuff. We couldn't wait for the day,
finally, when we got a chance to hear him lay it out. Ladies and
gentlemen, it's a fraud. It's a fraud on you. It's a big lie. It
never happened. It's what -- it never happened. It's what guilty men
do. They've been doing it for hundreds of years. They've refined it
to a new art form because they've got the money. They got big shot
experts, fancy lawyers come in here, figure out all the little
discrepancies in the documents. Oh, they didn't pick up this, they
didn't pick up that. Let's say this, let's say that. Making it up as
they go along. In fact, I don't know if you picked up on this, but
you saw with your very own eyes one of these invented defenses being
made up right here in Court. Do you remember this business about
Dennis Fung testifying about the glove, the Bundy glove, and he was
shown a photograph that he'd never seen before? He said hum, can't
tell what that is. This doesn't look like the glove I picked up. He
was speculating on the witness stand which he shouldn't be doing. He
hadn't seen these photos before. Now, no one has questioned since
day one, nobody, since the beginning of this case, the beginning of
the criminal case, that those two gloves, the one at Bundy and the
one at Rockingham, were worn by the killer; they're the murder
gloves. Mr. Simpson is trying to say they're not his, even though we
have photos. But nobody's ever questioned that they were the murder
gloves. Mr. Blasier sat here and said to you, and I quote, "And by
the way, we're not contesting that these are the murder gloves, if
anybody implied that to you, we certainly didn't." End of quotes.
Last week, page 75. Then after a break, after he got a chance to
speak to Mr. Baker and Mr. Simpson, he comes back and he says, oh,
got to make a correction, maybe we are challenging the Bundy glove.
Maybe we are. Wait a second. How can we challenge the Bundy glove?
He must have been thinking the same number is stitched into that
glove is stitched into the Rockingham glove. They're a pair.
Planting the Bundy glove isn't helpful. The Rockingham glove is
'cause that's put on Mr. Simpson's property. What is this theory? I
don't know. Minor detail. Don't worry about it. In that little
episode we caught a glimpse of what has been going on in this case
for two and a half years. Taking a witness's testimony out of
context, taking discrepant recollections, which happens all the
time. One police officer says, well, I saw it here. Another says I
saw it there. Taking all of this and trying to build this massive,
sinister, incredibly illegal conspiracy, and trying to sell that to
you to try to get you to pretend that all that physical evidence
that I described in the beginning of this argument doesn't exist.
Throw it all away. Ignore it all. Believe me, I'm telling the truth.
Everybody else is lying. And we're going to talk about how there is
zero evidence of any conspiracy. There is zero evidence of any
planting. We're going to talk about that. Let me tell you something
else the defense does. Another one of their techniques -- and you'll
see it when you go back and deliberate and say, well, what about
this, what about that, you'll remember that this is a technique that
they employ. They say, you know, on the one hand there's all this
evidence, extraordinary amounts of evidence, and it's all planted,
faked, contaminated, it's all no good. Then they say but on the
other hand there should be more evidence if Simpson is really
guilty. There should be more. Where's the knife? Where's the bloody
sweat suit? There should be more footprints. There should be a
greater blood trail. That's another argument they left. Ladies and
gentlemen, there's no requirement in the law that there be all this
evidence. Look in your jury instructions. You won't see it. There's
no requirement. One blood drop, if it's not planted -- if you
believe the blood drop was not planted, one blood drop is enough.
One hair in his hat at the crime scene is enough. One shoe print is
enough. One of those is enough. Let me make sure you're all clear on
something, 'cause they like to be vague about this. For Mr. Simpson
to be innocent, you have to find that every single bit of evidence
that we present, every bit of it --
MR. BAKER: That's absolutely untrue, Your Honor. That's not the law.

MR. PETROCELLI: Excuse me. I have not --
MR. BAKER: I object to it.
THE COURT: Overruled. Overruled.
MR. BAKER: That is not the law.
THE COURT: Do not interrupt him.
MR. PETROCELLI: Excuse me, Mr. Baker. You have to find that every
single bit of evidence in this case that incriminates Mr. Simpson
was planted or contaminated. You have to find that, because he has
no explanation for it otherwise. He has no explanation for the Bundy
blood drops. He says he didn't put it there. This is an example. If
you don't find that those blood drops got there by planting or
somehow mysteriously got there by contamination, as Mr. Lambert will
explain, contamination doesn't turn someone's blood -- a real
killer's blood into O.J. Simpson's blood. Contamination is no
answer. That's just a word that they use. If you don't find that
those Bundy blood drops were planted or got there in some other way,
he's guilty. He's got no explanation. That's it. Same thing with the
shoe prints. And by the way, while I'm on the shoe prints, there is
no -- there is no argument that even these resourceful lawyers could
come up with to explain the shoe prints; they don't say the shoe
prints are planted. How could they possibly say that. The shoe
prints were seen, like all the other blood drops, right off the bat.
If those shoe prints matched shoes O.J. Simpson owned and wore and
lied about, he's guilty. You didn't hear any argument from Mr. Baker
about planting of shoe prints, did you? On those shoe prints, he's
guilty, because he's got no defense of those shoe prints. None.
Except he says the photos of him wearing them are fakes and we know
they're not fakes. You know 31 photos can't be fake. Eight months.
One of them was published eight months before the murders. On the
shoe prints alone, he's guilty. That's it. And they have no argument
about that. We don't have to prove why all the evidence is missing.
Isn't here because frankly he got rid of some of it. And by the way,
if we did have more evidence to present to you, let's say we had
some bloody clothes, let's say we found the bloody outfit; do you
think this defendant would say that was planted, too? Do you think
he might say that was planted? He says you don't have a nice little
neat blood trail leading from the glove down the pathway across the
driveway into the house up the stairs into his bedroom. He says
you're missing all those blood drops. Do you think if we had those
blood drops, he would say they were planted also? Of course, he
would. What if we had a photograph of Mr. Simpson at the murder
scene? What if we had a photograph of him at the murder scene on the
evening of June the 12th? If such a thing could ever exist, would
this man go so far to explain that that picture is a fake? How about
31 pictures of him at the murder scene? How about 31 incriminating
photographs? Is he capable of going so far in his zeal to get your
verdict that he would say they're all fake? What do you think? The
defense criticizes us for not having all the details. Okay. We don't
know exactly how the murders were committed; we don't know exactly
how Mr. Simpson got there, where he parked his car, when he went
inside to Nicole's condominium to the gated area, how he got away,
what all the blows were that were delivered, in what sequence were
they delivered. We don't know exactly how he got on his property to
avoid detection from the limousine driver. We don't know all these
details. But again, you know, the law doesn't require us to know all
those details. If you had to know all those details, you could never
find anybody responsible for having committed a crime. You might as
well shut down the courts. Again, one blood drop is enough, one shoe
print is enough. We don't need to know the details. Just like that
game, 20 Questions, you play where the person's thinking of
something and you have to ask 20 questions and figure out what's on
his mind. That's the kind of game they're playing here. We have to
keep trying to ask more and more questions to see if we can get the
story right. And we've tried. And we've asked 20,000 questions. But
Mr. Simpson isn't going to tell us everything; he isn't going to
tell us everything that happened, and he isn't going to tell us
everything that he knows. And we don't need to know. We're not
required to know. So don't be fooled by that. Don't get caught up
in, well, what about this, and what about that, and all these little
puzzles and riddles. We don't know the answer to all the questions.
But we sure know far more than we need to know. Far more. We have an
extraordinary amount of evidence in this case. Now, let's talk
specifically about this conspiracy theory. Mr. Simpson says, and his
lawyers say, that all the blood evidence is planted. I guess all the
victim's blood evidence is planted. The glove is planted. I'm not
sure to this day if they're saying the knit cap is planted. I don't
know. You may be more clear on -- on that than I am. But they have
no explanation for the knit cap being there with his hairs in it. Is
that planted, too? It was -- they weren't real clear on it. They
weren't real clear on the purpose because they don't have an
explanation or a theory, as bright as they are, to explain all these
things. But what they want you to believe is that essentially all of
the physical evidence was either planted or contaminated. Now, what
do we mean when we say planted, and let's stick with planted first.
What does that mean? Let's understand what we're talking about here.
We're talking about human beings, people, doing their jobs, waking
up one day, going to a crime scene, and deciding for no apparent
reason to risk their lives and engage in outrageous crimes; to frame
an innocent man for double murder. Let's understand what we're
talking about when we're talking about planting and conspiracy.
These are words that get thrown around. But you're talking about
people getting together and deciding to do things for which they
will have to spend the rest of their lives in jail if caught.
MR. BAKER: There's no evidence of that, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. PETROCELLI: These things are all highly illegal. You can't put
evidence against an innocent man and get caught and expect to go to
work the next day. You're going to jail and you're not getting out.
And you got people working in a laboratory; Dennis Fung, Greg
Matheson, Collin Yamauchi. You saw these folks. You think they're
going to engage in this grand conspiracy and plant evidence against
Mr. Simpson, a guy they don't even know? That's what you have to
believe. You have to believe that. Someone they don't even know.
Now, this business about it could have been Vannatter and Fuhrman;
we'll talk about that, too. But that's just false. Absolutely false.
Vannatter and Fuhrman could not have planted all the evidence in
this case. Vannatter and Fuhrman could not have told all the lies on
the witness stand that all of these witnesses must be telling if
they were in on it. He wants to talk about Vannatter and Fuhrman
because he will assume that you will agree that they're bad people,
for whatever reason. And so he wants to make you think that
Vannatter and Fuhrman could do everything; they could be responsible
for everything. Except he never explained how. He never explained
how anybody could plant Mr. Simpson's blood at Rockingham, for
example, in the wee -- in the wee hours of the morning of the 13th
when they didn't even have access to this blood. How does that blood
get there? He didn't explain that, did he. How was that blood there?
How was the blood at Rockingham there on the morning of June 13th
when the police arrived? And the blood in the Bronco; how did that
all get there? They didn't have his reference sample until later in
the afternoon. How did the blood get on the sock? How did the blood
get at Bundy? What they're trying to say to you is that folks broke
into the lab, pulled out Mr. Simpson's reference sample and started
planting away. Who did that? Did he tell you the name of a person
who did that? How would he get into the lab; what kind of access
could he get? How would he know what swatches had Mr. Simpson's
blood on them? They don't have his name on them. If someone were
going in with a vial of blood to plant in the laboratory, how would
they know which swatches had Mr. Simpson's blood as opposed to the
victim's blood or somebody else's blood. There is just no way you
could do it. There's a lot people involved that laid it all out and
figured it out and said, well, this is the one I think we should
plant for Simpson, no, this is Ron Goldman's blood, let's put this
blood here and that blood there. An extraordinary enterprise. He
never once explained to you or suggested to you how it could be
accomplished. The reason is it can't be accomplished. It's nonsense.
It's absurd. It's absurd. It's nonsense. They don't have an answer
to the shoe prints. I've said that. They don't have an answer to the
hat. They don't have an answer to the hair. They want to say it's
basically the blood evidence, and we're going to go through why it
can't be the blood evidence. I want to start with Rockingham. Now,
this is very important that you understand this to see what's
happened here. Mr. Simpson told the police in the afternoon of June
13, for no less than five times, that he cut his finger and dripped
blood all over Rockingham. Mr. Simpson, when he took the witness
stand in this case, recanted that testimony, in effect. He now says
he doesn't recall seeing any blood at Rockingham. He doesn't recall
seeing any blood anywhere except on his finger and on the kitchen
counter. He doesn't recall seeing blood in the Bronco. He doesn't
recall seeing blood in the driveway. He doesn't recall seeing blood
anywhere before he went to the airport, except on his pinkie. Okay.
That's what Mr. Simpson's story is now on the witness stand. He had
told the police that he had cut himself, no less than five times in
the police statement, he had cut himself before he went to Los
Angeles. No less than five times he said that. Now, why did Mr.
Simpson change his story? He changed his story because he knows how
incriminating it is to admit that he has a cut finger and is
bleeding all over his property on the night of the murders, at the
time of the murders. He knows how damning that is. So he decided,
you know what, I'd better change my story and I'd better say that I
didn't see blood anywhere. And that's what he said. I didn't see
blood anywhere. Do you remember I asked him, when you went into your
Bronco right before you left to get your cell phone or your cell
phone equipment, did you reach in with your right hand or left hand?
Do you remember all those questions? The reason I asked those
questions is to see what he was going to say. And he said, no, I
only reached in with my right hand. I didn't put my left hand in the
car. I didn't put my left hand in the door notch where the handle
is. I didn't use my left hand to open up the light -- pull the light
knob out. Did you see any blood in there? No. Did you step on the
carpet in blood? No. So the way Mr. Simpson left it with you, ladies
and gentlemen, is that there was no blood in that Bronco when he
left for Chicago, he didn't bleed in that Bronco. That's the way he
wanted to leave it with you. He also left it with you that he didn't
drip blood on the driveway. I asked him all those questions, too. He
didn't see any blood nowhere. You can't be bleeding all over the
place and not know it. That's common sense. You can't be bleeding
all over your car and all over the driveway and not know it.
MR. BAKER: I'm going to object. This isn't rebuttal, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. PETROCELLI: So Mr. Simpson wants you to believe, because he
doesn't want to say anything that could hurt his case, he wants you
to believe that he had no blood other than on his pinkie that night.
Now, we got a problem. Here's the problem for the defense. Mr. Baker
said to you earlier this morning that the reason all that blood was
in the Bronco and all that blood was on the driveway when the police
got there on the morning of the 13th is because Mr. Simpson dripped
it there. That's what he said. He said Mr. Simpson dripped it there.
Mr. Simpson said he didn't drip it there. We got a problem here,
don't we? Mr. Baker saying one thing. Mr. Simpson saying another
thing.
MR. BAKER: Your Honor, I object. That isn't what Mr. Simpson said.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. BAKER: I'll get the testimony if you want.
MR. PETROCELLI: Excuse me. Your Honor, I'd appreciate it if he'd let
me finish my argument.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. PETROCELLI: It's a big problem, because they don't have a
coherent explanation for why all these blood drops are at Rockingham
early in the morning. They could not possibly have been planted. The
real killer could not have dropped the blood at Rockingham, 'cause
the real killer would have no reason to go to Rockingham, would he?
If there was another killer involved here, and he dripped the blood
at Bundy, how did the blood get at Rockingham? He couldn't be going
to Rockingham, drip some blood, and then leave. So the Rockingham
blood is one of the crucial pieces of evidence that ultimately
exposes that this whole planting and conspiracy theory is a big lie.
They've got no answer for it. None. You have to ask yourself, why is
there blood all over his property, his blood, on the night of the
murders. How can that be? How can that be? You just have to use your
common sense. How can that be? And how can Mr. Simpson now try to
recant his statement to the police? Five times he told the police, I
was bleeding at the house, I cut myself, I cut myself, I reopened it
in Chicago. He said, I reopened it. They have no answer for the
Rockingham blood and they have no answer for the shoe prints. So I'm
going to move on. Let's talk about the glove. Now, today we heard
from Mr. Baker that it was Mark Fuhrman who planted the glove. They
like to throw around the name Mark Fuhrman. I'm sure you heard it
over and over and over again throughout the trial. I guess they
think by just invoking the name of Mark Fuhrman, you would just
automatically rule for Mr. Simpson. I guess that's the idea. See how
many times you can say Mark Fuhrman in a day. That was -- that was a
big part of the defense in this case. They said Mark Fuhrman planted
the glove. Mr. Baker, and this is a quote, said to you this morning,
"Is there a second glove near Ron's body? You bet." Mr. Baker came
up here and told you straight-faced that there was a second glove
near Ron Goldman's body. Now, let me ask you, can any of you in
those voluminous notes you've all taken, can any of you remember a
single witness who ever said there was a second glove at Bundy? He
just made it up. You know why he made it up? He's desperate. He's
got to make it up. He just made it up. There's no second glove at
Bundy. There never was a second glove at Bundy. Where is it? The
first officers on the scene, Robert Riske, Michael Terrazas, two
young patrol officers, they surveyed the scene. They said one glove.
They found all of the basic evidence at Bundy when they surveyed the
scene. They found the blood drops, they found the shoe prints, of
course the victim's bodies, blood on the back gate, which they saw
and wrote in their notes, and they found one glove. And they found
all this evidence and then they -- and the knit cap, too, by the
way. They found all this evidence while Mark Fuhrman is sleeping.
Fuhrman is sleeping when all the evidence in the case is found at
Bundy. Now, Mr. Baker told you earlier today, Mark Fuhrman found all
the evidence in the case. That's just false. What trial has he been
attending? Mark Fuhrman didn't find any of the evidence in this case
except the glove at Rockingham. He found nothing at Bundy. Nothing.
They don't have a second glove. Without a second glove, you can't
have planting. Mr. Baker said something else to you today. He said
no one can account for Mark Fuhrman between 2:30 and 4 o'clock a.m.
at Bundy. Always though Fuhrman is sort of alone. Even though he
says there's 25 officers around, Fuhrman is alone. Nobody can
account for him. He's missing. He's like invisible. That's what he
said. Is that the evidence in this case that you heard? My
statements to you are not evidence. His statements are not evidence.
His questions are not evidence. Evidence is what the witnesses say,
what's in the documents, the exhibits, the physical evidence, the
photographs. That's evidence. You can't be fooled by what a lawyer
says. He says Mark Fuhrman was unaccounted for during an hour and a
half at Bundy. That's an absolutely false statement. It was made to
deceive you into thinking that Fuhrman was looking for a glove,
plotting a big conspiracy. Do we have the testimony? Let's look at
what the witnesses said. (Transcript is displayed on Elmo.)
MR. PETROCELLI: This is Mr. Leonard examining Detective Phillips.
"Was Detective Fuhrman -- where was -- where was Detective Fuhrman,
to your knowledge, during this period of time, 2:45, 2:50, to the
time Detective Vannatter arrived at 4:05? "Standing in the street
with me." Now, that's evidence. That's the truth. Not what a lawyer
tells you to trick you. Do you have another one? (Indicating to Elmo
screen.) (Transcript page displayed on Elmo) "When you were at --
when you were standing out at Dorothy and Bundy for what was it? 1
hour 15 minute time period? "
A. 2:40 to 4:05. "You saw everything that Mark Fuhrman did, right?
"He was standing in the intersection with us. "He didn't go
anywhere" -- "No, sir. -- "with anyone? "No, sir." That's evidence.
Is that guy lying? Is he committing perjury? Is he risking going to
jail? For what reason? Do you have the Spangler -- (Transcript page
displayed on Elmo) This is another officer, the lieutenant, in fact.
He's the boss of all of these people. Spangler. "
Q. And was Mr.-- or Detective Fuhrman in your sight from that time,
around 3:05, in that vicinity on Bundy, until approximately 5
o'clock a.m.? "Yes, he was." So now you have -- we only had to call
a handful of officers. Now you have it out of the mouths of two of
them, that they were all standing together with Fuhrman from about
2:40 to 5 o'clock until the various detectives went to Rockingham.
So you see, you just can't go in there and assume that Mark Fuhrman
planted a glove, because there is no glove planted and because he
was within someone's sight the entire time he was at Bundy. And by
the way, think of the logic of this. How did -- how would Mark
Fuhrman know whether the glove fit Mr. Simpson? How did he know it
was Mr. Simpson's glove or somebody else's glove when he put it on
his property? How would he know that there would one day be photos
of Mr. Simpson wearing gloves just like the one found at the murder
scene? How would he know there would be a receipt by Nicole
purchasing two pair of such gloves? How would he know any of these
things at 2:30 in the morning, just having gotten out of bed? How
would he know there were only 200 of such gloves sold at the time
Nicole purchased them? How would he know when the victims died? How
did he know if O.J. Simpson had an airtight alibi or not? How did he
know whether O.J. Simpson was speaking to a thousand people on
national television in Europe? How would he know that? How would any
person who went to Bundy or Rockingham know whether O.J. Simpson had
an absolutely airtight alibi? Which we all know he doesn't. How
would they know? They didn't speak to him. How can you frame
somebody when you don't know if he has an airtight alibi? You can't.
How would Mark Fuhrman know whether there would be an eyewitness
found to the crime, who would then reveal the real killer?
Meanwhile, Fuhrman's trying to frame Simpson. How would Fuhrman
know, when Fuhrman and the other detectives went to Rockingham, the
police officers who stayed back on Bundy were door knocking on Bundy
to find information, to find witnesses. What if they found somebody
who saw the murders, and they said, no, so-and-so did it, I saw him.
How would the detectives have known that? We just have to use common
sense and logic here. Plus the testimony in this case is that when

Vannatter and Lange, to accompany them, they didn't know they were
going to go until the very last minute, and then they said, okay,
we'll go with you. So there wasn't any big plan to go to Rockingham
two hours earlier, giving Fuhrman enough time to concoct this
scheme. It was a snap decision. We're going to Rockingham. Let's go.
He didn't have time to go find evidence and plant it. How would Mark
Fuhrman know, or any other detectives, that O.J. Simpson would show
up the next day with a cut on his left hand? How would he know that
he would have a cut? How would any of them know that the shoe prints
would be traced back months later to a Bruno Magli Silga sole size
12, and that O.J. Simpson wore a size 12? And that there would be
photographs of Mr. Simpson wearing these identical shoes? How would
they know any of that? How did they know that the real killer didn't
spill his or her blood all over the place at Bundy? Now, think about
it. What they're saying is that Fuhrman saw a glove and said, hey,
look, picks it up, let's go plant it at Rockingham. Later, when the
criminalists come, they collect all the blood, and maybe it would
take them a day to figure out who the real killer is just by running
the blood tests. Now, Fuhrman's got a big problem. Didn't -- he
tried to frame an innocent man and he got caught in about 24 hours
and he's going to jail maybe for life.
MR. BAKER: No evidence of Fuhrman going to jail. I object.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. PETROCELLI: None of that, ladies and gentlemen, makes any sense.
And my comments that I just did to illustrate to you the absurdity
of this planting notion, they don't just apply to Fuhrman. I used
Fuhrman because he said Fuhrman was the one who planted the glove.
They apply to every person, every detective, every officer. None of
them had this information. None of them. None of them could have
planted evidence on O.J. Simpson without knowing any of this
information. It could never have happened. And if they tried to,
just think about all of the other evidence that the real killer left
behind. What about his hat? What about his hairs? What about his
blood? What about his fibers? They would have had to take all of the
real killer's evidence, eliminate it all, and substitute O.J.
Simpson's evidence. I mean even trying to explain this is somewhat
silly. But that's what they want you to believe, and this is what
you have to believe to find that this man is not responsible for
these murders. You have to accept that. Now, this is another example
of a preposterous thing that they throw out there, this Rokahr
photo. They have a picture of Mark Fuhrman pointing to a glove, and
they say, aha, see, he's pointing to a glove, he must have planted
the glove. Why would Mark Fuhrman point to a glove if he's going to
go ahead and plant a glove? Why would he draw attention to himself
and pose for, like, a portrait picture, pointing to a glove, and
then go off and plant a glove? Does that make any sense? It's just a
preposterous idea. Now, they gave you some evidence that that
photograph was taken in the middle of the morning, around 4 a.m. And
again, I really don't understand the arguments. They don't make
sense to me. But I guess the idea is that if they could say that
Fuhrman was pointing to a glove at 3 or 4 in the -- in the morning,
maybe that could mean that, you know, he planted the glove. And they
cited you the photographer's testimony from deposition, where he
said he thought that that picture was taken around 4 or so in the
morning. Well, we provided you the evidence to show that the picture
was actually taken between 6:30 and 6:45 in the morning and it was
taken -- and it was all explained to you. After Fuhrman and the
other detectives went to Rockingham, they found the glove, Detective
Vannatter asked Fuhrman and Phillips to go back to Bundy and see if
it matches the one he found at Rockingham. He drove back to Bundy.
They went and looked at the glove. Phillips asked Fuhrman to take a
photographer with him. The photographer asked Fuhrman to point to
the glove, and the picture was taken. And that picture was taken
about 6:30 to 6:45 in the morning. Completely innocent explanation
for it. Yet they want you to think there's something sinister and
mysterious about it. Page 106 of the transcript -- do we have
Riske's -- do we have Riske? Officer Riske, the young patrol
officer, first officer on the scene. Again, don't take my word for
it. Look at the testimony. Have the reporter read back. (Transcript
page displayed on Elmo) "And what time was the picture of Fuhrman
pointing at the glove taken? Your best approximation? "Between 6:30
and 6:45. "And where were you when you saw that? "Standing on the
street directly in front of the residence." So you see, it's not my
word, it's the witnesses's testimony. That's what you have to pay
attention to. Not what the lawyers said in their questions. But what
the witnesses said on the witness stand. Do we have Phillips on
that, too? Detective Phillips said that he -- explained on October
29 that he is the one who instructed Fuhrman to take a picture, have
the photographer go out, and it was between 6:30 and 6:45. We also
introduced -- to erase any doubt about this, we called to the
witness stand, this witness named Sandra Claiborne, who sat in a car
with Mr. Rokahr until the light came, so it was starting to get
light out at that point. She testified that the police officers
permitted her and Rokahr to go into the crime scene after it became
light. And that was around -- it became light at around 5:40, so we
know from that woman's testimony, who works -- works, I guess, for
the print division -- we know from her testimony, Sandra Claiborne
-- you can check your notes on this -- that Rokahr didn't leave the
car to go into the crime scene until after it was light out. And
finally -- and the reason I'm spending so much time on this -- and I
know it's very detailed -- is because you have to understand, it's
easy for them to say something, folks, but -- the glove was planted
-- he just got up there and said it. Now, I have to do a lot of work
to show you that it wasn't planted. I have to do all this stuff that
I've been doing for the last 20 minutes. He throws it out there, and
I have to work hard to show you that it's all false. And I'm trying
to do it, and I'm trying to do it by being very faithful to the
evidence in the case. Rokahr's photos are where?
MR. FOSTER: On the sheets inside.
MR. PETROCELLI: Let's get the contact sheets. What you are going to
see is that the photo of Fuhrman pointing to the glove was, like,
number 36, I think, on the roll, and --
MR. FOSTER: 34.
MR. PETROCELLI: 34. You're going to see that the sun is coming up in
the east already, long before the photo -- Why don't you point out
where the sun is going out in the east.
MR. BAKER: There's no testimony the sun is coming up in the east in
that photo.
MR. PETROCELLI: You see that, it's facing east. You can see the sun
coming up. That's -- that's -- there's a -- the sun coming up --
one, two, three, four, five six -- that's photo number 6. That's
photo 6. Now go to 8, Steve; to photo 8. Here's number 46
(indicating to Elmo) You can see the sun coming up in the east right
there. Look at that. Sunrise was 5:40, 5:42 a.m. that morning.
Here's Fuhrman way down here in frames 34 and 35, pointing to a
glove. This is long after the sun's coming up. They want you to
believe that this is taken at nighttime, at 4:00 in the morning.
Just look at photographs. You don't have to believe a word I'm
saying. Look at the photographs. Okay. (Photographs removed from the
Elmo screen.)
MR. PETROCELLI: They say, well, the glove was planted because there
was no blood around, no insect activity. This was the point I was
making in my earlier remarks, how they point to missing things. What
do you mean, there was no blood around? There was blood all over
Rockingham. There was blood dripped all over the driveway; there was
blood dripped in the car; there was blood dripped in the inside.
What do you mean, there's no blood? There's blood all over the
place. Why is there a period of time when there's drops and then
there's no drops? Who knows? He's not telling us. Maybe he had his
finger in his pocket like this (indicating) Maybe he had it like
this (indicating). There's a million explanations for why there's
blood drops. And they stop and there's more blood drops. We can't
answer all those questions, and the law doesn't require us to.
Otherwise, we'd never be able -- nobody would be able to prove up a
case. The defendant is not going to tell us. He's going to lie and
lie, and lie, and lie. So we don't know why there isn't a continuous
flow of blood. What we do know is that there is blood. And also, he
says, well, there's no other evidence that anybody came over the
wall or came over the fence at that point. There's no insect
activity; there's no debris on the fence. Again, he's pointing to
all the things that are missing. What about the noise against the
wall? What about the crash against the wall? What was that all
about? Do you know that, where that crash occurred against the back
of Mr. Kaelin's wall, is right where the glove was found on the
ground? That's pretty good evidence that somebody ran into a wall or
dropped something there, isn't it? Did they ever tell you, by the
way, who caused those noises, if O.J. was in the house -- O.J.
Simpson was in the house, as they say, taking a shower or whatever?
Did they ever give you a single explanation for those noises? No.
They never did. You won't find a single piece of testimony in this
case, by Mr. Simpson or anyone else, saying: You know what? That
wasn't me bumping into the wall. I was home. I know what happened.
Here's what happened. None of that. They don't have any explanation
for those noises. Because the real explanation is that it was Mr.
Simpson bumping into the wall where he dropped his glove. And it's
absolutely dark there, and he is frantic, and he is trying to get
into that house before that limousine driver leaves. And remember:
He doesn't know that it's a different limo driver. He doesn't know.
He thinks it's his regular driver at that point; that guy's getting
ready to leave. He doesn't know it's a new guy who's going to wait
around and who's been there for 45 minutes, because he didn't want
to be late. He didn't know that. He figured this guy was getting
there around quarter to 11:00, and he's going to split by 11
o'clock, so this guy -- this guy's got to run. He doesn't have time
to stop. He probably doesn't even know he dropped the thing, or it
came out of whatever he had. Mr. Baker says, what about the clothes,
you know, what was -- he changed into -- what clothes did he take
off, what did he put on, and all this. Again, details, details,
details. We don't know those details. You don't have to know that to
find him responsible for this. And we'll never know that. Don't get
fooled by these details. This is a ploy to make you think you have
to know everything that happened. One blood drop is enough. Now, Mr.
Baker spent an enormous amount of time in this case on the
detectives going to Rockingham that morning. And then again, it was
described to make you think that there was something evil, sinister,
and mysterious; that they were all going there to set up O.J.
Simpson. And I've already explained to you in detail that none of
the officers could have had a clue where Mr. Simpson was, and they
didn't have any of the information they would have needed to set him
up. Nor would they have been in a position to eliminate the real
killer's blood and evidence that's left at the crime scene. He tried
to spin this incredibly nefarious scheme. But think about it. What
did he really end up doing with this whole trip to Rockingham in the
morning? Basically, his case boils down to Arnelle Simpson says the
four detectives and Kato Kaelin went in the front door, and they say
they went in the back door. Big deal. What does that prove? He made
such a big point about that. What does that prove? She said they
went in the front door; they said she they went in the back door.
Does that mean they that O.J. Simpson is innocent? And if they went
in the front door, does that mean he isn't innocent, because they
didn't go in the back door? It's absurd. And by the way, I don't
want to be insensitive to Arnelle Simpson. You know, she's a loyal
daughter, and she wouldn't do anything to hurt her father. But we
know that Ms. Simpson did not tell the truth when she was on the
witness stand. I don't know if you -- if you recall that. But she
gave this testimony: That there wasn't any kind of alarm or a
40-second delay on the rear door. And then I pulled out her criminal
trial testimony, and I had to read it to her and I impeached her,
and I demonstrated, too, that at the criminal trial, she had said
exactly the opposite. For whatever reason to have Ms. Simpson come
in here and say something different. You go back and check your
notes on that. Do you want to put that on the Elmo? (Transcript
displayed.)
MR. PETROCELLI: First she told me there's no alarm that goes off.
And then I had to read her the testimony at the criminal trial, and
this is what she said at the criminal trial. (Indicating.) 40-second
delay, yes. That's her testimony at the criminal trial. She gave
totally the opposite testimony in this trial. And she's the only
witness -- Arnelle Simpson is the only witness that they relied on
to prove this extraordinary sinister fact that the detectives went
in the front door instead of the rear door. She's the only witness.
It's her word against all of the detectives and Kato Kaelin, about
which door they went into. And on that one fact, Ms. Simpson didn't
tell the truth. Mr. Lambert is going to go through with you, ladies
and gentlemen, in detail, the other items of blood evidence. I've
dealt with the glove. He's going to go through the blood evidence
and show you that there's no conceivable way any of it could have
been planted. None of it's contaminated. I'm going to let him handle
that. Let me say a few words about this other word they throw
around, "contamination." You know, I don't really know what that
word means, to tell you the truth. What does it mean,
"contamination?" I think they're trying to say that if somehow
something happens to the blood evidence, that it turns into O.J.
Simpson's blood, that if Ms. Mazzola is not following proper
procedures and she's wiping her nose or touching her glasses, that
somehow that turns the real killer's blood into O.J. Simpson's
blood. Well, that's preposterous. There's no such evidence in this
case. This whole thing about contamination -- ladies and gentlemen,
this is a gigantic smoke screen. You know, Mr. Baker spent a long
time in this case, he and Mr. Blasier, trying to show that LAPD
criminalists, Mr. Fung, Ms. Mazzola, Greg Matheson, that they don't
know how to do their jobs well. But, you know, we're not here to try
and make a malpractice case against the Los Angeles Police
Department. That's not what we're here for. We're not here to
determine if they could do a better job. We're not here to decide
whether they could improve in their job performance. We're not here
to count their mistakes. This is not a rating or a performance
evaluation of the LAPD. They would like you to believe that that's
what this case is: That the LAPD is on trial, and you have to decide
whether or not they did a good investigation. And if you decide that
they did a bad investigation, then Simpson is innocent. That's the
idea that they want to suggest to you. Well that's, again,
completely false. Whether they did a good investigation or a bad
investigation means nothing. I'm not here to tell you that they
didn't make mistakes. I'm not here to tell you that they can't do a
better job. Nobody's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes, all the
time, every day, including these people who worked on this case.
There's no such thing as a perfect investigation, just like there's
no such thing as a perfect crime. Is there? They called this
witness, Dr. Henry Lee, by videotape -- and, you know, he's got
great credentials and all that: Spent about an hour talking about
himself, I guess, before he finally got around to talking about this
case. And he said that he had a lot of comments to make about well,
maybe they should have done this, maybe they should have done that.
But, you know, ladies and gentlemen, the issue in this case is not
whether LAPD lives up to the standards of Dr. Henry Lee. That's not
the issue in this case. You know, sadly, people get killed in this
city every single day. People die every day. There are crimes every
day in this city. These crimes get processed by the same people you
saw in this courtroom. These crimes get solved by the same people
that you saw in this courtroom. What is Mr. Simpson saying to us?
LAPD's good -- good enough for all of us, but when it comes to him,
they're not good enough. LAPD is good enough for all of us, if
something happens to us or people in our family. But if it happens
to him, no, they're not good enough. They need to call in big shots
like Henry Lee, maybe even bring in people from Scotland Yard. After
all, he's O.J. Simpson. He's entitled to the best. The issue is
whether anybody did anything wrong with the evidence that affected
the quality of the evidence. It's a common-sense point. It's not
whether they could have done better photographs or taken videos or
measured things better or picked up more things. All this business
about there was an envelope and it moved, big deal. An envelope
moved. This is a crime scene; it's not a museum. Things move. People
walk. Photographs are taken. Bodies are moved. Folks are working. An
envelope gets moved. What does that mean? There's a piece of paper
missing. Oh, what are we going to do? A piece of paper was missing.
That's another point they made: A little white piece of paper is
missing. Big deal. What about his blood? That's not missing. And his
hair, that's not missing. And his shoe prints, that's not missing.
And his hat and his glove, that's not missing. Who were they -- who
are they trying to fool? A piece of paper and an envelope moved? I
mean, Henry Lee didn't -- they needed Henry Lee to tell us that? Mr.
Baker tells us that he got a kick out of this one. After the
murders, Mr. Simpson volunteered to pay for Henry Lee and Michael
Baden to fly out here and solve these crimes, let the chips fall
where any may. And that proves he's innocent? Do you believe for a
second that O.J. Simpson would pay anybody to come out here and help
put him behind bars for the rest of his life? Does that make any
sense? He brought Henry Lee and Michael Baden out here to sit in
that big room with all these lawyers and figure out how to get
around all this evidence. And pay Baden 100 grand, to boot. A big,
high-profile case. These guys hopped on the first plane to get out
here. They want a piece of the action. And he's trying to tell you
that he brought these guys out so they could find the truth? Yeah.
Mr. Baker says -- and we've heard this one -- if you can't trust the
messenger, you can't trust the message. And what does that mean? Let
me translate. If you don't like the message, shoot the messenger. Do
you think if the message that these police witnesses and
criminalists and detectives brought was, guess what, Mr. Simpson, we
found someone else's hair; we found someone else's blood; we found
someone else's hat; we found someone else's glove; we found size 6
shoe prints: They're J. C. Penney shoe prints, not Bruno Magli.
You'd never shop there, would you, J. C. Penney? Do you think Mr.
Simpson would say you can't trust the messenger? He attacks the
messenger from the people who bring us the evidence because he
doesn't like what they are bringing, because it shows that he killed
two people, and it shows that he is guilty of murder. And he will
attack, and he will attack, and he will attack. And that is the only
reason he criticizes these people who are just doing their jobs. If
he's a messenger in this case, you cannot trust -- if there is a
messenger in this case you cannot trust, it is O.J. Simpson, who has
lied and lied and lied about every important fact of this case. Mr.
Baker points to a few things in Mr. Vannatter and says, aha, we
caught him. Can't believe anything he says. Throw it out the window.
What about his own client? What about all the lies under oath right
before our very eyes we saw? Do you understand how important it is
that this man be believed? Because at the end of the case, it's all
of this evidence pointing to his guilt, all of it. There's nothing
that points to his innocence. It all points to his guilt. And then,
on the other side, there's his word that he didn't do it. And then
that's it. That's all he's got. And if he were an innocent man, he
would have taken the stand and he would have admitted like a man
that he hit his wife; and he would have admitted like a man that she
was terrified of him; and he would have admitted like a man,
anything and everything else he could. He'd be jumping and screaming
to tell the truth, because he had nothing to hide. But you know he
was lying to you about every important facts. You can't believe a
word he says. And I agree with his lawyer: You have to throw out the
entire testimony. Not one of them can you believe, not one word.
Now, I'm going to have Mr. Lambert discuss the blood evidence. And
we'll take a break, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Ten-minute recess, ladies and gentlemen. Don't talk about
the case. Don't form or express any opinions.
THE BAILIFF: Audience, we're still in session. My mistake. I was
misinformed. We are now in recess. (Recess.) (Jurors resumed their
respective seats.)
THE COURT: You may proceed.
MR. LAMBERT: Thank you, Your Honor. Good afternoon.
JURORS: Good afternoon.
MR. LAMBERT: It's been a long trial. In fact, it's been a long
closing argument, longest I've ever seen. We're actually getting to
the end here, and I appreciate very much the attention that you've
paid throughout this trial, particularly during the science
evidence, which I know, at times, is a little on the dry side, shall
we say. I can tell you were all watching it and listening to it, and
it's obviously very important evidence. What I'm going to do now is
address in a little more detail their so-called planting and
contamination defense and walk you through the evidence to show that
those defenses are completely hollow defenses that you should pay no
attention to at all. After I'm done, Mr. Petrocelli is then going to
come back and deal with a few of the other arguments that were made
by Mr. Baker, Mr. Blasier, in their closing, and then we'll finally
conclude and give you an opportunity to consider this case. Let's
start by talking about the evidence at Bundy. We've gone through
this board before, and you know that this Bundy crime scene evidence
is extremely important evidence and extremely incriminating of Mr.
Simpson. Those are his blood drops found at the murder scene. They
were fresh, red blood drops found by the police and the
criminalists. They were found long before Mr. Simpson had given any
reference blood to the police. In fact, he was still on the airplane
going to Chicago when the police found those blood drops. They
couldn't have been planted at the crime scene. That's clear. So
that's -- you can put that out of your mind. There's no way those
could have been planted. They were seen by all the police officers
earlier that morning. So what is the defense going to do about this?
Well, they did what Mr. Petrocelli told you. They rely upon
invention. Let's invent a defense. What's our defense going to be to
these? They say, well, maybe somebody tampered with the swatches in
the lab. That's their defense to those five blood drops. What they
said -- they rely upon -- they rely upon two extremely ridiculous
points. Number one, they say there was a wet transfer on the bindle
for the swatches collected for evidence item number 47, which is,
you can see right there, one of those Bundy blood drops, so they
say, oh, there was a wet transfer on that bindle there. What did
that tell us? That there was wet transfer on the bindle. It doesn't
tell us anything. Their own expert, Dr. Henry Lee, they call him the
world's greatest criminalist, he admitted that the wet transfer on
evidence item 47 simply indicates that the swatches for that
particular item were still wet when they put them in the package.
Put this up on the Elmo, Steve. It's Henry Lee's testimony. On page
19 here, Henry Lee, what he's saying in terms of what was wrong with
what you're saying is that there were -- if they were completely
dry, there was a wet transfer. Transfer and there shouldn't.
Shouldn't. That's all you're talking about? Yeah, that's all I'm
talking about. So Henry Lee says, yeah, they were still wet. Well,
if you remember how Dennis Fung described how he went about
collecting and processing these swatches, it's obvious why they were
still wet. Evidence item number 47, we had to do 7 or 8 swatches in
order to collect them they were all sandwiched together, all in a
little pile of swatches. Then, when he goes back to the lab, where
they're going to dry them overnight, remember he says he takes out
the plastic baggie with the swatches and manipulates all of them in
a group in a lump into the test tube that he sets out overnight to
dry. The next morning he takes that test tube and drops them into
the bindle and then folds up the bindle. Obviously, some of the
swatches in the middle of that little sandwich of 7 or 8 were still
a little damp. When they got switched by the bindle, some of the
blood came out. That's all he says essentially Lee said they were
still wet. There's nothing more to the swatches than that. In
addition to that, remember Henry Lee also told us that evidence item
47 (sic) wasn't the only one where he saw wet transfers. He also saw
some wet transfers on evidence item number 47 (sic). Now, evidence
item number 42, that's Nicole's blood, that was one of the blood
drops that he picked up that contained her blood. Obviously, no one
would be planting Nicole's blood, because Nicole's blood -- she's
the victim of the murder. Obviously, that's going to be -- no one's
going to be doing any planting of Nicole's blood. That just proves
that this transfer is nothing more than the innocent effect of
having some swatches that are still a little bit damp when they were
put in. That's all there is to it. Number 28, that's the second
point they make is -- these are the only two points they make,
literally, in their whole case about this theory that something
happened in the lab with the swatches. Second point they make is
that Andrea Mazzola's initials should have been on the bindles.
Remember them saying that over and over again, asking a bunch of
witnesses. Well, you remember Andrea Mazzola testified on that
witness stand to you folks and she said, I did not initial the
bindles. She testified the same way in the criminal trial. I did not
initial the bindles. So why do they say her initials should be on
the bindles? They refer to some pretrial testimony she gave where --
remember she told you she didn't have her notes, she hadn't been
prepared, she didn't have a chance to refresh her recollection about
what happened, and she confuses this crime scene with another one,
and said, I thought I initialed the bindles. They later, before the
criminal trial, before this trial, figured it out, corrected it, and
there is simply nothing to this whole story about Andrea Mazzola's
initials on the bindles. And in addition, you remember Dennis Fung,
he said, I'm the one that actually put the swatches into the
bindles. It wouldn't have been Andrea Mazzola initials anyway. It
would have been Dennis. That whole thing is a ruse and that I have
told you, ladies and gentlemen, all the evidence they have in
support of their theory that somebody did something to these
swatches while they were in a lab, that's their whole theory. Let's
take another look at what Henry Lee says about this whole subject.
Let's put page 25 up. This is his expert, Dr. Henry Lee. We're
saying to Henry Lee, what you're saying and I think we're done, yes,
is that by all means you're not saying you have any scientific fact
to show that any L.
A. police officer planted or did anything cheating with any
evidence? I did not testify. All right so that statement is correct,
correct. Their own leading expert, the great Henry Lee, he says that
there is no scientific evidence to connect any planting by the LAPD.

MR. BAKER: I object. He said there's no scientific fact. He never
said anything about circumstantial evidence.
THE COURT: Overruled. This is argument.
MR. LAMBERT: Now let's take a look at the Bundy results board
because this will show in even more detail why this planting theory
could not possibly be true. Now, you remember that Colin Yamauchi
testified that the very morning that Dennis Fung put these swatches
into the bindles -- remember Dennis comes in the day after
collecting them early that morning, puts them into bindles. Right
after he's done, Colin Yamauchi takes them out and does DNA tests on
them right that morning, starting at 10 o'clock in the morning. And
you see he got test results on 48, 50 and 52, all of those test
results showing Mr. Simpson's DN
A. He's already got a match to Mr. Simpson at 10 o'clock that
morning. That's the same results all of the other labs ultimately
got when they tested swatches later on. So when the swatches get
sent to Cellmark and to DOJ, they're all getting test results that
are just like the one that Colin Yamauchi got. So what does that
tell us? That tells us, ladies and gentlemen, that if there was any
planting, it had to be done before them, because obviously, if Colin
Yamauchi is getting O.J. Simpson's DNA test results, if their theory
is right, it had to be planted before Colin started, okay. Well, who
are they saying did it? Who possibly could have planted it? Are they
saying Colin Yamauchi did it? Or Dennis Fung? Or Greg Matheson? Are
they saying one of those people was involved in doing the evidence
tampering? It could have been the police department, we know that,
because you remember that this -- all this evidence was kept in the
evidence processing room that night. They kept making points about
oh, well, the cabinet that it was left to dry in, the test tube that
was left to dry in was unlocked. Well, the room was locked. The
whole evidence processing room is locked. As you heard from Matheson
and Fung, the only people that can get access to that are members of
the scientific investigation. They have little cards that you have
to use to access that room. And whenever you access it with a card,
a computer records your card number. So they know who went in and at
what time they went in. So we know precisely who accessed that.
MR. BAKER: I object. There's no evidence of this, Your Honor.
MR. LAMBERT: There's no Fung, there's no Fuhrman.
MR. BAKER: Wait. Why do they get to approach and I don't?
THE COURT: You want to approach. (The following proceedings were
held at the bench with the reporter.)
MR. BAKER: There was no evidence of computer records. There was no
evidence of the cards. There was nothing before this jury. He's just
making it up.
MR. LAMBERT: Matheson testified --
THE COURT: Excuse me.
MR. LAMBERT: Matheson --
MR. BAKER: Where are the computer cards? I have not seen one
computer card. (Mr. Gelblum approaches with computer screen.)
MR. GELBLUM: Scroll down.
MR. BAKER: That's fine. Where does it say there was a card that --
(Counsel and Court review transcript.)
MR. GELBLUM: The number of cards assigned to the -- this is the
whole thing about the computer cards.
MR. BAKER: He didn't say that. He said --
THE COURT: Objection overruled.
MR. BAKER: He said there is a printout. (The following proceedings
were held in open court in the presence of the jury.)
THE COURT: Objection overruled.
MR. LAMBERT: Thank you, Your honor. As I was saying, there's no
evidence that any of the police officers could have or did have
access to the evidence processing room that night. Only Fung,
Yamauchi, Mazzola, Matheson, the people that work there, the
scientific investigation department members. So there's simply no
way that any one of the people that they point the finger at,
there's no way that Fuhrman or Vannatter and the police officers
could have gotten in there and done anything. And think about it.
Even if they had gotten in, what would they be able to do? They
didn't know which one of these bindles represented Simpson's or the
supposed killer's blood as opposed to other blood. Remember Yamauchi
told you that he had to have Fung tell him which of the bindles to
process that morning? Only Dennis Fung knew which ones represented
important evidence and which ones didn't. Fung would have to be
involved in any of these massive conspiracies they're talking about.
You saw Dennis Fung. Did you think he was involved with some
conspiracy to frame Mr. Simpson? I don't think so. In addition, this
is something they never talked to you about, their own evidence
conclusively establishes that this blood from Bundy could not
possibly have been planted. Why do I say that? Remember how much
time they spent with Robin Cotton, our DNA expert, and Gary Sims,
the other DNA expert, about the fact that the Bundy blood drops were
degraded. Remember all of that? They asked both of them over and
over again: Well, isn't it true that the blood drops at Bundy were
very degraded? And Cotton and Sims said, yeah, they were pretty
degraded, which is not too unusual to crime scene blood samples. You
pick them up off the ground, there's dirt, there's debris, there's
vegetation down there, it degrades the blood. So they were degraded.
It's true they were, but we were still able to get results. But they
were degraded. And remember how they went through over and over
again with a bunch of witnesses to tell you how few the number of
nanograms were in the Bundy blood drops. Remember they kept bringing
up there were only 2 nanograms, there was -- one was only 1.7 in
this one. Teeny-tiny amount. And a drop of blood has 3,000 nanograms
in it. And remember how they even said, and it's been made clear,
that the reference vial of Mr. Simpson's blood, taken fresh out of
an arm of a living person, that's not degraded at all. So how can
they explain that? How can they explain to you that when the labs
got the swatches from the Bundy blood drops and tested them, they
all saw degraded blood? If someone had taken the blood out of the
reference vial and put it on swatches and put them in the bindles,
it wouldn't have been degraded. The labs would have seen no degraded
blood. But they saw degraded blood because they didn't see planted
blood. They saw blood collected at the crime scene, blood left there
by Mr. Simpson when he completed the murders. So you can forget
planting in the lab as well as planting at the crime scene. Those
blood drops weren't planted. Now, let's talk a little bit about the
blood on the back gate. Here at Bundy, too -- let me get this out of
the way. It's another point that they spent a lot of time on trying
to prove that blood was planted on this back gate. What do they say?
What's the evidence that they've tried to present on this point?
First they say, well, it wasn't collected until later, it wasn't
collected until July 3, putting a sinister spin on that. Secondly
they say, well, it doesn't show up in this one photograph we have
that was taken on June 13. And third, back to the nanogram defense,
they say it has more nanograms than the Bundy blood drops do. Let's
take those arguments one at a time. First, the argument that it was
not collected until July 3. Well, in the first place, you know that
at least six police officers, Riske, Terrazas, Rossi, Thompson,
Phillips and Lange, all six of those people testified on this
witness stand in front of you, under oath, that they saw the blood
on that back gate on the night of June the 13. All six of them. Are
they all lying? It's even in the notes of Officer Riske that he took
that night. Could you put up page 2 of 833, Steve. Here it is.
Officer Riske's notes taken that night describing what he sees,
blood on the west gate. He saw it. He wrote it down that night. Were
they already planning a conspiracy ahead of time when he wrote it
down that night? Of course not. They claim in defense of this, they
say, well, we can point out some -- some minor differences between
the testimony of the officers as to exactly where they saw the
blood. Remember they had them up there trying to draw circles on the
picture two years later about exactly where the blood was? Does that
prove that the officers are lying? I don't think so. As a matter of
fact, the Court is going to instruct you on this point. Can you put
up 2.21, Steve. Here's one of the instructions the Judge will be
reading you later on. There it is. "Discrepancies in a witness's
testimony or between" -- you're going to have to get it back so I
can read it -- "or between such witness's testimony and that of
other witnesses, if there were any, do not necessarily mean that any
such witness should be discredited. Failure of recollection is
common. Innocent misrecollection is not uncommon. Two persons
witnessing an incident or a transaction often will see or hear it
differently. Whether a discrepancy pertains to an important matter
or only to something trivial should be considered by you." Those
kinds of discrepancies, minor discrepancies, between actually where
somebody saw the blood, proved that the officers are telling the
truth. If there was some grand conspiracy to frame Mr. Simpson,
they'd have all gotten together and said let's tell exactly the same
story, let's all make sure that we're all putting the little circle
in the same spot. What you saw on the witness stand is honest
witnesses telling you what they remember, two years later. The fact
of the matter is, all these police officers saw that blood that
night because it was there that night. Now, it's true that Fung and
Mazzola didn't pick it up. That's too bad. It was a mistake. But it
doesn't prove anything was planted. Let's talk about the photograph.
Steve, can you put the photograph up for me. This is a thing that
they showed you all the time. You know, they showed a lot of
witnesses this, and they said, well, this photograph proves that --
proves that the blood wasn't there, because you can only see this
one drop. I can't see it. But when you look up close, I guess you
can see the one drop. But let's look at where the cops were. These
are the photographs taken on July 3, when it was finally collected.
You see the big drop, the one -- it's on the other side of the
fence. It's on the other side of this fence here so you're not going
to see that drop in that photograph. And you can see this one drop,
you can see 115. There it is, right there, 115. Look close. There it
is, 115, so you can see that one. The only one you can't see in that
photograph is this one, 116, which is up around the curve and very
hard to see. And I also point out to you in this photograph you
can't see this rust here either. That rust has obviously been there
a long time. Where is it in the photograph? It's not there. It's
because it's taken from a long distance, it's bled out in the
production of the photograph. That's why you don't see it. There's
nothing at all sinister about that. And let's talk a little bit
about why the police would even consider planting any evidence on
the back gate on July the 3. Remember, by then we already had these
DNA results. The labs had already tested. They already had DNA
matching Mr. Simpson's DN
A. Remember Robin Cotton at Cellmark got a five probe match on
evidence item 52, one of the Bundy blood drops. Five probe match.
One out of every 170 million people could have the DNA that she
found in items 52, including Mr. Simpson. They didn't need to plant
anything on the back gate. They had plenty of evidence from the five
Bundy blood drops that they already tested by July the 3. It would
be silly to plant anything else at this time.
MR. BLASIER: Objection. That misstates the evidence. 52 wasn't
tested by Cellmark until a long time after that.
MR. LAMBERT: Finally, more nanograms. All of -- Dr. Robin Cotton,
Gary Sims, and Brad Popovich explained to you that the difference in
nanograms collected at a crime scene is common and due to
environmental factors. In this case, for example, the blood evidence
that was found on the ground at Bundy and on the ground at
Rockingham, in the driveways and in the sidewalks of those two
places, was all degraded, because what degrades DNA are enzymes, and
it's in vegetable matter, it's in dirt, it's in the kind of things
that's in the ground. So all of that stuff got degraded. The blood
that was in cleaner places wasn't degraded. For example, you
remember at Rockingham, evidence item number 12 is in the foyer of
Mr. Simpson's house. And you've seen the pictures of the nice clean
hardwood floor that the blood dropped on. That wasn't very degraded.
Robin Cotton could get an RFLP test on that. Similarly, the blood on
this back gate, it was up off the ground, air dried when it wasn't
collected. You know, once it's dried, it stops degrading. So it
simply wasn't as degraded as the stuff on the ground was. That's why
they got a few more nanograms out of that. Simple explanation given
to you by the experts. You know, when you think about these -- these
arguments they're making about the blood at Bundy, you heard Mr.
Blasier say, well, our defense to all of this evidence is that it
was compromised, contaminated, you know all of these things. He's
using the wrong letter of the alphabet. That isn't really what their
defense is to this stuff. Their defense to all of this evidence
really should start with D. It's desperation. It's deception. It's
dishonesty. They don't have a defense to these blood drops. These
blood drops do prove that Mr. Simpson was at that crime scene that
night. It's his blood there. He left it there when he was committing
the murders. Now let me go on from Bundy -- from the Bundy blood for
a minute and talk about the Bundy glove. This is -- this is one of
the newest inventions out of the very inventive minds of the
defense. They, as you know, showed Mr. Fung recently this photograph
of the Bundy glove, and said gee, doesn't that look like a cut in
the glove or a tear in the glove? They didn't show him the other
photographs of course, which were close-ups of that little spot on
the glove, which clearly show that it's not a tear at all, but it's
an object sitting up on top of the glove. Steve, do you have the big
photograph? I'll just use this one (indicating to photograph). These
are all in evidence. You'll get a chance to look at them when you're
back there. As you can tell from this photograph, this is not a tear
in this glove. This is an object sitting on top of it. You can see
the shadow, as Gerald Richards, the FBI expert pointed out to you,
you can see the dirt, there's dirt all around the glove. This is
more dirt here. You can even see a blond hair intertwined all the
way through this dirt and this little object. So that clearly is not
a tear. Never was a tear. They played a little bit of a trick on Mr.
Fung. Showed him a photograph taken from further away, got him to
say, yeah, it looked like a tear. When Mr. Fung got off the stand
and had a chance to see the other photographs and had a chance to
see the close-up, had a chance to see the glove has a brown lining,
not white lining, and that it couldn't be the lining of the glove
showing through, he realized he had been tricked. There is no tear
in that glove and there never has been. Then we put on Greg Matheson
and Gerald Richards and that subject -- remember them? Gerald
Richards, the retired FBI expert, he said that was something sitting
on top of the glove, it's not a tear. Did they call a photographic
expert back to tell you it was a tear? No. Maybe they were afraid to
put Mr. Groden back on the stand. By then you'd already seen him
talking about shoe photographs, and he wasn't very believable. So I
doubt they wanted to subject him to another round of
cross-examination. But they didn't put anybody on to try to tell you
that was a tear. Moreover, you remember Mr. Matheson got up and
showed you, by comparing the crime-scene photographs of that glove
at Bundy to the glove here in evidence, he pointed out you can see
the stains on that glove at Bundy that are still on the glove right
now. You can -- you can still see them right now. Steve, why don't
you show us the Aris label. Remember this one particularly
(indicating to Elmo), this is the Aris label in that glove, and Mr.
Matheson pointed out how these stains, you can still see them today.
They're faded a little because it's been a while, but those stains
are still there, still on -- still on that glove. This is the
uncontradicted testimony. He wasn't even cross-examined on this
subject. The uncontradicted testimony of Greg Matheson. And what do
they think of Greg Matheson? Will you put up the quote, Steve,
please. This is what Mr. Blasier told you in his argument. By Greg
Matheson, who I submit to you is a very honest man and does a good
job. That's about the one thing that Mr. Blasier said in his closing
argument that I agree with. Matheson is an honest man. He is telling
the truth. And when he told you this photograph -- this glove here
in evidence is the same glove that was found at Bundy, he was
telling you the truth. Finally, on this point, remember that Richard
Rubin, the glove expert, long time ago, seems like now, he was in
here once, and Mr. Rubin told us that these gloves are absolutely a
pair, the gloves at Bundy and Rockingham, no doubt about it,
absolutely a pair. In fact, as Mr. Petrocelli pointed out, they have
numbers stenciled on the inside of the glove that are put on at the
time of manufacture that absolutely identify them as a pair. Did
they call anybody to rebut that?
MR. BAKER: I object. That wasn't the evidence, that they absolutely
identified them as a pair, the numbers.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. LAMBERT: They called no other expert. So there's really no doubt
that these two gloves are a pair. Matheson said so. Rubin said so.
They don't have anybody to rebut that. So you can put out of your
mind this newest invention that somehow the Bundy glove has been
tampered with. There's nothing to it. Now, when you're thinking
about the Bundy evidence, also take into account a lot of the
evidence that they haven't said anything about. You know, they try
to imply that this blood evidence got planted. But as Mr. Petrocelli
pointed out, they haven't said a thing about that shoe print.
There's a picture of it right up there. See that photograph? It's
item 56. Because --
MR. BAKER: Your Honor, if we haven't said anything about it, then
this is improper rebuttal.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. LAMBERT: The shoe print was photographed earlier that morning.
Is that just a coincidence, that the real killer was wearing size 12
Bruno Magli shoes? Is that just a coincidence? They admit he wears
size 12. We've proved to you he wears Bruno Maglis, although he lied
about it. That evidence alone should make you judge any of their
planting theories with a huge grain of salt, because they can't
explain that at all. Now, how about the hair and fiber at Bundy? Did
they try to say that was planted? They didn't have the temerity to
try to say that somebody went around and planted hair and fibers. So
what did they say about that? Well it's unimportant evidence; it
really doesn't matter. Neat first argument. Argument number 18: They
said, well, Doug Deedrick -- that's another FBI agent who came in to
talk about the hair and fiber -- well, he was just making subjective
judgment, that he's biased because he's got pictures of the Goldmans
in his office. Remember? That was their argument about Deedrick. And
number 38, they said, well, in any event, that they're there,
certainly, because Mr. Simpson visited Nicole's house, so it's
innocent to have hair and fiber there. If hair and fiber evidence is
so unimportant, why does the FBI have an entire unit devoted to hair
and fiber analysis? If it's so unimportant, why does Dr. Henry Lee,
the world's leading expert that they're telling us about, why does
he analyze and rely upon hair and fiber evidence if it's so
unimportant? Why do law enforcement agencies from across the country
submit hair and fiber evidence to the FBI for testing? Of course
it's important. Because this evidence is something that directly
links Mr. Simpson to the crime and is completely unexplained. As to
Mr. Deedrick's supposed bias, ask yourself, well, if he was being
subjective and he was biased in his judgment, calling all of these
matches, why didn't they put in an expert to disagree with this
supposed biased judgment? Where was their expert? Well, Mr. Deedrick
told you where their expert was. He told you that all of his
underlying materials had been made available to Mr. Simpson's
expert. And that expert didn't disagree with any of his findings;
that's why they didn't call him. And listen to what Henry Lee said
about it. This is from his testimony at page 200. (Reading:) Mr.
Deedrick is an excellent hair examiner. I'm not challenging him. I
think he always does good work. I believe him. I submit you should,
too. Henry Lee believes in him, and I think you should believe him.
Hair and fiber matches Mr. Simpson. There can be no doubt about it;
it's undisputed evidence from Doug Deedrick. How about this idea
that it was innocent transfer? Oh, he visits Nicole, So probably his
hair just happened to come off, and that's how he found it there.
Well, remember what the evidence was? Their were 12 head hairs
matching Mr. Simpson found on that cap. Nine of them, Mr. Deedrick
told us, were inside the cap. He told us that makes it primary
transfer. That means you're wearing the cap; they didn't blow on
there. They were inside the cap because he had been wearing the cap.
And two of them, he told us, were embedded in the fabric of the cap.
And remember, he said that means that they've been there for a
while, because it takes a while for a hair to work its way into the
fabric. Those weren't recent hairs that just happened to blow on the
cap that the killer left at the crime scene. They were there because
Mr. Simpson had worn the cap. And by the way, while I'm on that
subject, you heard Mr. Baker today say that there was no dirt on
that cap. Well, that's false. Take a look at your notes for November
5, the testimony of Susan Brockbank. Susan Brockbank testified on
that day that she collected dirt and debris off that cap, in
addition to this hair and fiber. Hair evidence -- Remember also at
the Bundy crime scene, we have this very rare, medium mocha carpet
fiber from Mr. Simpson's Bronco found on that same cap, completely
unrefuted. It shows their planting theory to the blood must be
wrong. How can it be just a coincidence that that mocha carpet fiber
is there? How about the blue-black carpet fibers found on Ron's
shirt? We know that very same fiber was found on the glove at
Rockingham and on the socks found in Mr. Simpson's bedroom. That
proves recent contact between those three different objects. And the
fabric which is the source of that blue-black fiber, someone was
wearing a garment that contained that blue-black fiber, and he
touched on Ron's shirt, he touched the glove found at Rockingham, he
touched the socks found in Mr. Simpson's bedroom. Only one person
could have done that: O.J. Simpson. Let me now talk, before we leave
Bundy, about this issue of Nicole's fingernails. You remember Mr.
Blasier, in his argument spent, a lot of time talking about the
testimony of Greg Matheson concerning the blood underneath Nicole's
fingernails. Now, remember, as Mr. Petrocelli pointed out, the fact
Judge Fujisaki pointed out before we all started this: What lawyers
say is not evidence, just argument. I ask you to look at the
evidence in the case on this point to see what that is. The evidence
is this: Mr. Matheson stated that, in his opinion, as a serologist
with many years' experience, the blood under Nicole's fingernails
was her blood, and that it was, when he did this AB test that we're
talking about, her BA type, under that particular test, had degraded
to a B. Mr. Matheson said he'd seen it before; it happens with this
particular test. And that is, in his opinion, is what happened here.
But that isn't all the evidence you have on this subject, because we
also had Cellmark and the Department of Justice doing DNA tests on
the blood under the fingernails. And remember, as their expert, Dr.
Gerdes likes to say, these DNA tests are extremely sensitive; they
can test down to just a few molecules. And both of those labs, when
they tested the blood under the fingernails, come up with DNA
matching Nicole's. No mixture; it's not two people's blood under
those fingernails; it's one person's blood: The blood of Nicole.
That's what all that expert testimony tells us. And do they have an
expert to contradict any of that? Did you hear one of their experts
come in and say, oh, no, that's not what it is? No. You have Mr.
Blasier arguing, but you don't have any evidence. And evidence is
all that counts. So that's just another of their false issues. And
finally, before leaving Bundy, I don't think we need to spend any
time on Detective Vannatter's delivery of blood vial to -- to Mr.
Fung that night. I just want to say that -- that you do have to
remember that what Vannatter said was, the reason he didn't seal
that envelope up was because Fung had to look in it to make sure he
was getting blood, so he could then book the blood into evidence,
and the chain of custody would be complete. And that's what Fung
said he did when Vannatter arrived: He opened up the envelope; he
looked it up; it was blood; closed it up. There's nothing sinister
to this story, having an unclosed envelope. There's really nothing
to it at all. Could we, Steve, put up the Bronco board now. I'll
help you get this one out of the way. (Board entitled Bronco
Evidence is displayed.)
MR. LAMBERT: Now, let's talk about the Bronco. They've tried to
argue that the blood in the Bronco was planted, as well, because
obviously, once again, this is extremely incriminating evidence. I
mean, even before you know whose blood it is -- and we'll talk about
that in a minute -- the very fact that the night Nicole was
murdered, Mr. Simpson would have this blood in his Bronco, is an
extremely, extremely important fact. And, of course, when it turns
out to be not only his blood, but the blood of Nicole and Ron, it's
a determinative [sic] fact. He couldn't explain in any way, shape,
or form how their blood is in his Bronco that night. So they try to
say, well, it's planted; you can ignore this, too; it's just planted
evidence. But as you remember from the testimony, numerous police
officers, criminalists Fung and Mazzola, they all testify that they
saw this blood in the Bronco in the early-morning hours, when they
first got there, during the evidence collection. You know that Fung
was there at 7 o'clock in the morning. Mr. Simpson was still in
Chicago. He hadn't given any blood sample to anybody at this point
in time. And as you know, everyone testified that came up here, that
that car was locked; no one had access to it. It was towed off to
the print shed. And the next day, Mr. Fung had to get a detective to
pop the lock open so he could get in to collect the evidence. That's
uncontradicted. There isn't any other evidence before you at all on
that point. So all of that blood that was collected by Dennis Fung
on June 14, some of which you see depicted up there. None of that
could have been planted. There's no way. So then they say, well, if
we can't prove that's planted, let's try to prove the second blood
collection was planted, the blood that Greg Matheson testified he
checked on September the 1st. Well, but what evidence do they have
that that blood was planted? Well, once again, they have one
photograph. Why don't you put that August 10th photograph up for me.
(Mr. Foster complies.) This is a photograph -- remember, they showed
a lot of witnesses this photograph, and they said, oh, look, you
can't see any blood. It's taken on August the 10th. And if you can't
see any blood on August the 10th, then obviously, whatever Matheson
checked on September the 1st, that must have been planted. Well, it
didn't look at it close enough. Because, you remember, this is the
one that I handed around and you looked at through the magnifying
glass. When you look at this one really carefully through the
magnifying glass, you can't see it here, because it's so dark. But
you can see this one here, item 23 in that notch. You can see it in
that photograph taken on August 10, even though it was taken from a
long distance away, it's kind of bled out. You can clearly see item
23 still in there. Here we go. (Indicating to Elmo.) Yeah, now you
can even see it in one -- it's here (indicating). This is item 23 in
the notch. So clearly, there was blood, the same blood later
collected by Greg, right there in that photograph that they've been
relying on, showing everybody over and over again. Plus, I then
showed you some other photographs also taken on August 10. Remember,
Matheson circled on each one of those photographs where there was
more blood that was checked. We'll go through these pretty quickly.
On this one (indicating), this is -- a lot of these, you have to use
the little looking glass -- but there's blood right here on this
one. That's this blood right here, item 222. (Indicating.) There it
is. See it right there? (Indicating.). Okay, Steve, why don't you
give me the next one (indicating to Elmo). (Photograph displayed on
the Elmo screen.)
MR. LAMBERT: This one right here, (indicating) this one, this is the
blood on the Bronco. This is important, because this is item 305.
Down here, see, this the last blood -- really, the only new blood
collected by Greg Matheson on September the 1st. And the next one,
Steve. (Mr. Foster complies.)
MR. LAMBERT: And on this one, you can see -- see right up here,
(indicating) you see this one right here (indicating), which is not
even on this chart, but it's that number there at 21, and you can
see the smear again. So here we have all of these photographs taken
on August the 10th showing the blood in the Bronco. And in addition
-- Would you now put up Greg Matheson's photograph. (Mr. Foster
complies.)
MR. LAMBERT: What are we really talking about here? We're talking
about Matheson's September the 1st collection. Well, what Matheson
has told us is, he basically was simply doing a re-collection of
what Dennis Fung had already collected. In other words, he was
collecting from the very same spots. These really aren't new spots.
Here's what he collected (indicating). He collected 296, same as
Matheson's 23. He collected -- I can't even read it. What is that?
MR. FOSTER: 298.
MR. LAMBERT: 298, which is the same as 22 here (indicating) And he
collected 299, which is the same as this one. (Indicating.) You can
barely see this one, but it's 21. (Indicating.) I think it's the
only new one he collected. On the door is this smudge here at 297,
(indicating), which is so faint, you can't even see it. So
basically, he was just re-collecting in the same spots that Dennis
had already collected. And the same thing about the console,
remember here it's a picture of the console and Matheson's serology
lab. This is a picture of the console when Dennis Fung did this --
his collection. You remember Matheson told us these here
(indicating), 303 and 304, they're the same as 30 and 31. And you
can see where Dennis had pulled the swatch through the blood. You
can see the smears where Dennis had already collected them. He was
just collecting more of the same thing. The only thing he collected
that was additional was way down here, 305, (indicating), which when
the console was seated in the car, it's obviously hard to see, and
they were able to get it when they pull the console out of the car.
That's really the only new evidence collected by Matheson on
September the 1st. Everything else is really just redundant of what
Dennis Fung had already collected. And you remember when their DNA
expert was on the stand, John Gerdes? He admitted that the test
results that they got from Matheson's collection of 303, 304, and
305, the blood on the console, simply validated the earlier test
results, that of the labs they had gotten on 30 and 31. It was
really more of the same; there was no new evidence. It was more of
the same. But it's important evidence because, as I pointed out, all
this blood on the door of the car, that's all Mr. Simpson's blood.
And that notch and that handle -- how do you get that notch in the
handle? If you're reaching with your right hand to get a cell phone
and cut yourself. Is that how he's saying that blood got on the
notch? The only way he got that blood in the notch is if you're
sitting in the car with the door closed and open the handle to get
out. But Mr. Simpson told you that that night that he went in to get
the cell phone, he never got in the car; he never closed the door.
And how about this one up here, (indicating) right by the light
switch? How do you get that blood there? Reaching in to get the cell
phone and cutting yourself. He told you he didn't turn the lights
on. So that explanation doesn't make sense. That can't be how that
blood got in there. And even if that was the explanation for how all
that blood got in there, what about Nicole's blood? How did it get
in there? Because we know that carpet right there contains Nicole's
blood. Mr. Petrocelli has just given me a portion of the trial
testimony of Mr. Simpson. And this is what he said on this point, in
case you don't believe me. He said -- we asked him: (Reading)
Q. You didn't start the car, right?
A. Correct.
Q. You didn't pull out the headlight, right?
A. Correct.
Q. You didn't close the car door, right?
A. That's correct. So he couldn't have left any of that blood there
that night. That's what they're now trying to tell you: They're
trying to tell you he didn't leave the blood there. Mr. Baker, even
though he'll tell you -- didn't Mr. Baker try to tell you he did --
in any event, there's no explanation for number 33. That piece of
carpet that's got a bloody shoe print that's in Nicole's blood in
his car that night. They have offered you no explanation for it.
Search your notes. They can't tell you how that got there. And how
did Ronald Goldman's blood get on that console? Mr. Simpson said he
didn't know him, never met him. How could his blood get there?
There's one way it could get there: It got there because Mr. Simpson
carried it with him from the crime scene. Now, while I'm on blood --
which unfortunately has been my job in the case -- let me talk a
little bit about when Mr. Thano Peratis -- they try to make a big
deal about Mr. Peratis' testimony, saying well, he, you know proved
that there's some missing blood. Well, what Mr. Peratis told you --
and you probably remembered his testimony -- he's a kind of a
charming, elderly gentleman -- he admitted that when he first was
asked and he said that he thought he took 8 cc's from Mr. Simpson's
arm, and -- he made a mistake. He said he based it on assumptions
that he had never really tested before because no one had ever asked
him, you know, exactly how much blood he drew out of somebody's arm.
And he said as soon as heard that people were making a big deal
about this, about his really top-of-the-head kind of estimates, he,
on his own, conducted some experiments to try to figure out how much
blood he did actually draw. The prosecution in the criminal case
didn't ask him to do that; we certainly didn't ask him to do that.
He did that on his own. And he told you that after he figured out
that he made a mistake and he hadn't taken out 8 cc's, but more like
six and a half, he went and told everybody -- not only told the
prosecutors, he went and told Mr. Blasier, so that everybody would
know that his testimony had been mistaken on that point. And he
explained to you how the day that he withdrew the blood, he didn't
use the normal vacutainer vial that he usually used; that Mr.
Simpson has a muscular arm; he had to use a syringe to get blood
out. And he told you how, as he was withdrawing the blood he -- the
tip of the needle hits the vein and the blood stopped coming out.
And he asked the police officers, well is this enough; and they said
yeah, so he stopped. You know, so he explained how he didn't get a
full vial, that he only got about six and a half. Now, Mr. Simpson,
he was there, obviously, when all this happened. He could have
gotten on the witness stand and said, oh, that never happened; Mr.
Peratis never said this; the police officers never said yeah. Mr.
Simpson could have refuted all of that, but he didn't. So,
obviously, Mr. Peratis is telling the truth. Do you think he had any
reason to lie? Is he one of the many, many liars? I don't think so.
Now we're going to go to Rockingham. I guess you can take that down,
if you will, Steve. And why don't you bring out the Rockingham glove
board. While we're talking about Rockingham, let me pick up on
something that Mr. Baker was saying during his argument. He said to
you, there's no blood in the bathroom, remember? There's no blood
upstairs. Well, he's wrong about that. So take a look at your notes.
Remember, evidence item 1348 collected by Andrea Mazzola is on the
floor of the bathroom upstairs. It matches Simpson's blood. And
remember, we have blood in the sink and in the shower upstairs,
presumptive positive test for blood in both of those locations.
Remember Dennis Fung explained how the LAPD does presumptive
positive tests? It's a two-step process, with first tested with
phenolphthalein and with hydrogen peroxide. That two-step process
eliminates false positives. We clearly have blood in the sink and in
the shower. Not too surprising, because he probably had some blood
on his hands when he came back from the murders. Now let's talk a
little bit about the glove at Rockingham. Mr. Petrocelli already
discussed with you, at length, why it's completely impossible for
that glove to have been planted, starting with the fact that there
were never two gloves at Bundy in the first place. So how could
there be a glove planted, or where did somebody get the glove to
plant? So there really isn't anything to this. But let's take a look
at the evidence on the glove itself. The evidence on the glove
itself shows us that it couldn't have been planted. The most
important part of that evidence is the blood evidence. They're
theory of the case is that Mark Fuhrman or one of the other
co-conspirators picked up this glove at Bundy, where it had really
been worn by the killer, and drops it on Mr. Simpson's property at
Rockingham. Well, there's a big -- real big problem with that
theory, because Mr. Simpson's blood is on the glove. How could his
blood be on the glove if it was picked up at the Bundy crime scene
and he had nothing to do with the murders? Now, I wouldn't -- I
would admit that Ron's blood and Nicole's blood could be on the
glove, because obviously, the killer got their blood on it when he
was killing them. But the only way for Mr. Simpson's blood to be on
that glove is if he's there. Planting it does not explain that
evidence. And they don't have any explanation for that evidence.
They try to speculate. They try to say, well, maybe Collin Yamauchi,
when he was doing his testing, maybe he got the blood on the glove
somehow. Well, that is distinctly contradicted by Collin Yamauchi's
testimony. You remember, Mr. Yamauchi specifically said that he
changed his gloves before he started processing this glove; that he
changed them several times during the processing of the glove; and
that he manipulated the glove in various places during his testing.
So he wouldn't have just got Mr. Simpson's blood if he was
transferring it onto the glove in that one spot; he would have
gotten them in a lot of spots. So that's no explanation. What
explanation do they have for Mr. Simpson's blood being on that
glove? And the answer is none. They can't explain it. And that
alone, I submit to you, completely disproves any planting theory.
What about the other evidence on the glove, in addition to the
blood? We know that we have on this glove that same unique Bronco
carpet fiber. We found it on the hat at Bundy, and here it is on
this glove, too. And it's a carpet fiber that Mr. Simpson has in his
Bronco. So that means that that glove came in contact with Mr.
Simpson's Bronco. How do they explain that under the planting
theory? And finally, we have again, that blue-black cotton fiber on
this glove, the blue-black cotton fiber that we find in the socks in
Mr. Simpson's bedroom, and also on Ron's shirt at Bundy. The only
way that blue-black cotton fiber can be in all those places is if
Mr. Simpson was in contact with all of those items. It completely
refutes any planting theory. So the glove itself tells us -- it's
talking to us -- it says, I'm not planted; I was left here by the
killer. I was left here by Mr. Simpson. Now, let's talk about the
socks at Rockingham. This is a subject that they spent a lot of time
talking to you about. They tried their darnedest to try to convince
you that these socks were planted. And the reason is obvious. The
evidence on the socks is overwhelming evidence of Mr. Simpson's
guilt. There are very, very, very strong DNA RFLP test results on
those socks that prove the blood is Nicole's and Mr. Simpson's.
Obviously, he could not possibly have an explanation how her blood
got on his socks in his house, the night of her murder that's an
innocent explanation. So they, from the beginning, have been
desperately trying to prove to you that those socks were planted.
And how do they try to do that? Well, first, they try to say that
the socks were planted during the police investigation. And what do
they show us for that? They say the Willie Ford video -- the Willie
Ford video shows that the socks were planted. But as you know, Mr.
Ford completely refuted that theory. Steve, would you put up --
MR. BAKER: I object, Your Honor.
MR. LAMBERT: Would you put up Mr. Ford's testimony.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. LAMBERT: Here's Mr. Ford, page 21 of his trial testimony before
you, December the 11th. (Reading:)
Q. There were no socks there when you left the room?
A. That's right.
Q. There were no socks there when you went in the room?
A. That's right.
Q. You never saw any socks on the floor?
A. Right.
Q. Mr. Fung wasn't there when you were in the room?
A. No. He had just left. He had just left because he had just
finished collecting the evident. Right -- right -- up a little more.
(Reading continued:)
Q. That, in fact was your role there that day, was to film after the
evidence had been collected, right?
A. Yes, sir. So there you have Mr. Ford telling you that his video
was shot after Dennis Fung had collected the evidence. So the Ford
video is completely irrelevant. And Mr. Blasier's argument the other
day about pictures with the straps in them, I don't know if you
could follow that; I couldn't. But he seemed to be saying, well,
here's some pictures of the socks with the strap down. Here's some
pictures of the socks with the strap up. So what does that prove?
Nothing is what it proves. Obviously, the criminalists, when they
came in, they looked at the straps: Should we collect these? No,
leave them there. So the straps got moved. So what does that mean?
It's like the envelope moving at the Bundy crime scene. So it means
nothing. There's no doubt that the socks got collected that day by
the criminalist. There's no doubt about it. When you think about it
logically, their theory seems to be that somebody planted the socks,
but they didn't put any blood on them. Remember, they had this whole
big thing that the blood didn't get found until much later. Why
would anybody plant the socks when they have no evidentiary value?
Do they plant the socks and come back later and say, oh, we forgot
we were supposed to put some blood on them, and we just planted them
without any blood on them, so now let's just put the blood on them?
Is that what they expect you to think? Do they expect you to buy
that, that the socks were collected by Dennis Fung that day? So then
their second invention on the socks is, well, if the socks weren't
planted, then it -- the blood was planted. That's what it is; we had
it wrong the first time. It's really that the blood was planted on
it. And what's their evidence for that? Well, they say that Dr.
Baden, who they -- Mr. Baker described as a criminalist -- he's not
a criminalist; he's a pathologist -- that Dr. Baden and Barbara
Wolf, another pathologist, looked at the socks and didn't see any
blood. If you look at your notes of Dr. Baden's testimony, they
barely let him look at them; he looked at them in the bag, and
that's it. So he didn't know. Then we have June 29th, where
Matheson, Yamauchi and Michele Kestler had a meeting to do an
inventory of all the items in evidence. And do you remember they
said that that was a blood search -- that's how Mr. Baker described
it -- they did a blood search that day? Well, let's put up the
inventory. This is actually the whole document that you'll see in
evidence. It's Exhibit number 1302, if you want to take a look at
it. As you can see, it's a long document. They're inventorying all
the items of evidence. They collected a lot of evidence in this
case. They're listing all this stuff. They're listing over here.
(Indicating) What are we going to do with all this stuff? And what
they said about the -- about the socks is we need to do a blood
search. We need to have somebody do a blood search on these socks.
They weren't doing it then. They were going to do a blood search.
And here's what Mr. Matheson testified about this meeting:
(Reading:)
Q. Was any actual examination of the evidence done at that meeting?
A. No.
Q. Was any testing of the evidence done at that meeting?
A. No. So this blood-search theory that Mr. Baker is trying to sell
you is simply false. What they did at the meeting is, they did an
inventory of the evidence, and they determined that they were going
to do a blood search sometime in the future. And then, you remember,
Colin Yamauchi testified that on August the 4th, he did a blood
search. And he did a blood search and found blood. But what did he
say about even the blood search he finally did on August the 4th?
Let me read you from his testimony at page 29: (Reading:)
Q. When you first took them out on August the 4th, did you notice
any blood that was apparent on the socks?
A. No.
Q. So you then did a closer examination for blood?
A. Well, yes. That phenolphthalein test I described earlier was
utilized. I basically looked at the socks, looked closely for slight
discolorations or anything that might indicate a stain. It's a very
dark surface, so it's hard to see a stain on it. And then I utilized
that presumptive test that I described earlier, and it was positive,
indicative of a presence of blood, There you have it: The blood is
very hard to see, the only way to find it on the 4th was to do a,
presumably, a blood test. They're trying to say something sinister,
that these people looked at it casually the first time and didn't
see it the first time. Gary Sims told you the same thing. He said
the socks were sent up to him to be tested. He knew there was blood
on it by then. Colin Yamauchi knew it was there. And since then, it
was hard to see. The more you looked at them under a light and under
a microscope, the more blood he was able to find. So that's the
whole story on the socks. And by the way, Greg Matheson gave you a
piece of undisputed testimony on these socks. No one has
contradicted this in any way. He told you that the serology records
indicate that between that June 29 inventory and August the 4th,
when Colin Yamauchi did his testing, no one accessed those socks.
They were locked in the freezer in serology that whole time. So who
planted the blood? They haven't given you any evidence at all about
that, because there isn't any. That's why. Now, the next piece of
evidence they try to rely upon to try to show that the blood on the
socks was planted, was Herb MacDonell. Do you remember him? He's the
criminalist who came in here to talk to you about those little red
balls, remember, the guy with the little red balls, with the area
under the -- in the socks that they cut out to do certain portions
of the test on the surface underneath? He observed microscopically
-- had to blow it up a hundred times -- tiny red balls of blood. He
said those could have been caused there by someone placing some
blood on the outside surface of what he called side 1 of the socks,
or would have leaked through to side 2 and got to 3. That couldn't
have happened if there was an ankle in the socks. That was their
theory; that, somehow, this was planted evidence. If you know -- if
you remember what Mr. MacDonell said, he said that this small ball
could also be explained if the person that was wearing the sock was
perspiring when he was wearing them, that would keep the blood more
hydrated and make it more likely to drop through. I guarantee you
that Mr. Simpson had every reason in the world to be perspiring that
night. Secondly, he said it's also conceivable that those little
balls were put on there during the testing process -- and we just
told you how Colin Yamauchi was doing presumptive blood tests on
those socks -- but to put chemicals on them to do the tests that
rehydrates the blood and takes makes it go through. Gary Sims did
the same thing. By the time MacDonell had looked at the socks, they
had been tested, tested, tested. It's no surprise that a little bit
of blood had gone through to the other side. And remember on this
point that Dr. Henry Lee didn't testify about these little red
balls. It was his photograph that MacDonell was showing you. And Dr.
Lee was there with him when all this was going on. He was there with
Mr. MacDonell. But they didn't have him testify about it. And put
page 25 back, would you, Steve? (Transcript referred to was
displayed on the Elmo screen.)
MR. LAMBERT: Now, remember Henry Lee said he doesn't have any
scientific fact to show that any police officer planted or did
anything with any evidence. So he saw the little red balls. He said
he didn't view those as evidence of planting or cheating. And then
remember we brought in Mr. Fox, and Mr. Fox conclusively showed you
MacDonell was really way out on a limb with his theory. Mr. Fox said
that, of course, these little red balls could be there from
perspiration; they could be there from the testing. He pointed out
they could be there because the socks were inside out when they were
found on the rug. And Mr. Simpson had some blood on his hand and
could have got -- put them on his socks when he had taken them off.
He showed in his own experience, when you cut out a little area of
the sock, these fibers fall through to the other surface, and they
had the little the red balls on them. He showed you the ticket. He
created the same thing by cutting it out just like the criminalist
had done. He pointed out if MacDonell really believed that these
little red balls were adhering to the actual fiber on the other side
of the sock, rather than loosely in there, he should have checked by
trying to move some of the balls. He had the ability to do so. He
could have done so, but he didn't. Ask yourself why not. Maybe he
didn't want to know the answer. But he certainly didn't do anything
with it. So that certainly doesn't prove anything. So now, let's
turn to their last-ditch stand on the socks. They struck out on
proving to you there was any blood planted on them. They struck out
with these little red balls. So they try for EDT
A. That's their last-ditch stand on this. First off, I want to point
out that, contrary to what Mr. Blasier said in his closing the other
today, Detective Vannatter, when he testified here on the witness
stand, told you that he knew that those purple-top vials had EDTA in
them. So they knew about that. So was he going to plant something on
some evidence that he knew had a chemical that could be traced back
to blood coming out of -- out of the test tube? Was he dumb enough
to do that, even though he knew it had EDTA in it? But in any event,
let's talk about their EDTA witness. They brought in Dr. Rieders.
He's their big EDTA guy. You remember Dr. Rieders testified that he
didn't do any tests himself; tests were done by a Agent Rodger Martz
of the FBI. Rieders didn't know him. Rieders also told you this
LCESMSMS machine that they were using is one that he himself hasn't
used very much, he used about 20 times after he first formed his
opinion in this case. At the time he formed his opinion, he'd never
used it. So he's reading somebody else's results on a machine that
he himself hasn't really used. He also told you, by the way, that
he's testified hundreds of times. He's a professional witness;
that's what he is. And when we asked him about some of the tests
that Agent Martz had run, he said he forgot he even ran those tests.
Steve, would you put up the negative on test results. (Mr. Foster
complies.) One of the tests that Agent Martz ran was a negative ion
test. This is one of the mass spectrometry tests. These big blocks
are the results that Agent Martz told us he got on known samples of
blood containing EDT
A. So if you take blood out of an EDTA test tube, there's the
results you get. He then ran this same test on the evidence samples:
The socks, on the back gate, got zero, no EDTA present at all.
Rieders forgot about that test. Then we did the HPLC test. This is
another test that was done by Martz. Same thing: Blood that contains
EDTA gives us this huge signal. Evidence samples, nothing. No EDT
A. Rieders had forgotten about that. Remember he said, I didn't read
my notes about that. The only thing he talked about is the third
test, the so-called positive ion test, the third kind of test that
Agent Martz did. And can you put up the next one, please Steve. (Mr.
Foster complies.)
MR. LAMBERT: Remember this exhibit? We went over this with Agent
Martz. This is --
MR. BAKER: Objection. Agent Martz?
MR. LAMBERT: Excuse me. Frederic Rieders. You remember, this is a
chart that was prepared by Dr. Terry Lee at the City of Hope. What
this chart tells us is that when you test results for blood that
contains EDTA like that out of purple-top test tubes, you get this
mountainous signal; that's what you get in the positive ion mode
test. When they tested the evidence samples, they got the mole hill.
And then, so then I said to Dr. Rieders, isn't it true that if the
evidence samples came out of a purple-top test tube, they should
look like a mountain -- they should look like a mountain, not a mole
hill? Yeah, true. Maybe I have an explanation. Then so I said, what
are the explanations? And he offered us two explanations.
Explanation number one said, well, maybe Martz made a mistake.
Maybe, when he measured the blood, he was off by 15 times T. In
other words, he puts in 15 times less blood than he thought for the
evidence sample. And then the second explanation he had was, well,
maybe the EDTA in the blood and the evidence sample was degraded, so
it was weaker and gave a weaker signal than the EDTA out of Kestler.
Those were his theories. That's all he could tell us. We called Dr.
Terry Lee -- and you'll remember Dr. Terry Lee; he's he not a
professional witness; he's not testified hundreds of times. This was
the first time he'd ever testified. What is he? He's a research
scientist. He's the head of the mass spectrometry department at the
City of Hope, one of the most important research institutions in the
country. Unlike Dr. Rieders, Dr. Lee has used the very same
equipment that Rodger Martz used to run the tests, and hundreds of
times. Unlike Dr. Rieders, he has reviewed test results of other
people running that equipment hundreds and hundreds of times. He's a
scientist. They tried to say, well, he was biased. Remember, they
read from some of his notes, and said that shows he was biased.
Well, they didn't read from all of his notes; they just read from
one paragraph. Let me read from both of those paragraphs. These are
in evidence. You can look at them yourself and judge for yourself.
Do you think this a biased person? I think when you see these notes,
you'll see this is a scientist; this is a man trying to lay out all
of the possibilities so he can analytically decide, what do those
test results show. And when he was listing possibilities, the one
that they read to you says, if not planted, convincing argument must
be found for why EDTA is present at those levels. Dirt contamination
from environment or contamination from lab during sample process.
Then the next paragraph, they didn't read to you, in which he said:
If planted, convincing argument must be found for explaining away
the levels, why the levels are so low. Where did the rest of it go?
So all he's doing is laying out the possibilities so he can then
analyze the possibilities. And he did analyze the possibilities. He
said, in his opinion, the two explanations offered by Rieders were
impossible. He stated that when running these experiments, as Agent
Martz was doing, it is customary to do exactly what Martz said that
he did. And what Martz said that he did was intentionally use more
blood in the evidence sample than he did in the known sample that he
was comparing, so that he knew he'd have more evidence, sample blood
and evidence, sample blood. Rieders tried to say he was mistaken
more than 15-fold. Even though he's trying to use more evidence
sample, he was actually using less, 15 times less. But Dr. Lee said
that can't happen. But if you dilute blood 15 times, it doesn't look
the same. It would be obvious to any operator, and would have been
obvious to Agent Martz, so that explanation didn't hold water. How
did the other suggest that EDTA had degraded? Dr. Lee said that
didn't work, either. EDTA is an extremely stable chemical; that's
why they make 50,000 pounds a year. It's very degradable. Dr. Lee
said there was zero scientific support for this degradation, and Dr.
Rieders just said there's no support. And in addition, as Dr. Lee
pointed out, it doesn't make any sense, because we have two
different evidence samples here. One of them is blood on a back gate
that was left outside for three weeks before it was collected. The
other is blood off the socks that was kept in a freezer at serology.
But they both gave exactly the same little mole hill of a signal. If
there was degradation taking place, it would have degraded at
different rates. Obviously, the rear-gate blood should have been way
more degraded than the socks that were kept in the freezer at
serology, but they were both exactly the same. So Dr. Lee said, no
that's not it; that can't be the reason. And most important, as you
remember, Agent Martz tested his own blood. He took blood out of his
own arm, tested it, and he got the very same signal. Steve, would
you but that other one back up for me. (Mr. Foster complies.)
MR. LAMBERT: He got the very same mole hill signal when he tested
his blood. And Dr. Lee told us that -- tells us what's going on.
See, because there could be no EDTA at a detectable level in Agent
Martz's blood. That's now been scientifically established. So when
Agent Martz found this little mole hill in his own blood, that meant
that the test results had a problem, because he was getting the very
same little signal here that they got in the evidence sample. As a
matter of fact, Reider said it's an identical signal. And what Dr.
Lee told us is, that's the explanation for all. That is one that's
very common to people like him that run these LCESMSMS tests over
and again. It's called carry-over. He said when you run the
EDTA-laced blood through the machine, tiny particles of it can stay
in that chamber that we use. Then, when you run fresh blood through,
it picks up a little bits of that every time it goes through. So
every time it's going through, we're just getting a little bit of
the carry-over from the big EDTA, the known sample. And what he told
us is, that is the only explanation that fits all of the evidence.
Dr. Rieders' explanation about there being a mistake made by Martz,
or Dr. Rieders' explanation about degradation, that doesn't explain
why we're getting the mole hill from Rodger Martz's blood. And you
can take a look at your notes. Dr. Rieders didn't give you an
explanation for how he could be getting a signal in Rodger Martz'
blood, his theory didn't fit that part of the evidence. Only Dr.
Lee's theories fit that part of the evidence. And a final point on
the subject of EDTA, and I think is quite an interesting and
important one: Remember from the testimony of Dr. Rieders, that
working for the defense is a person named Dr. Kevin Ballard, who was
working for the Simpson defense team in the criminal case, since the
criminal case has developed, and --
MR. BAKER: There's no evidence of that.
MR. LAMBERT: -- established in his lab --.
MR. BAKER: I'm going to object. There's no evidence.
MR. LAMBERT: Rieders testified about this, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. LAMBERT: And testified in his lab, a mechanism for testing for
and quantifying precisely EDT
A. So Ballard has a system. It's different than the system Rodger
Martz used, but he has available a scientifically established system
for testing for EDT
A. Why wasn't Kevin Ballard called as a witness? Why didn't Kevin
Ballard test any of the evidence items in this case that they say
were planted, to use his testimony to prove there was EDTA --
MR. BAKER: Your Honor, I object. There's no evidence of this, and
there's no evidence we had evidence to get it tested.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. LAMBERT: You -- and you know the answer. It's because they know
there's no EDTA in this evidence. They're not going to put a witness
up there and have us be able to prove through their own witness that
there's no EDTA in it. So they keep Ballard off the stand. They put
Dr. Rieders up here, who doesn't even use this equipment, to give us
these half-baked opinions that Dr. Lee showed were clearly wrong.
There's no EDTA in this evidence. None at all. Okay, Steve. And as
one final point on this that really finishes the story -- Okay,
Steve. Let's go back to Dr. Cotton again. Remember Robin Cotton
comes -- and she testified a long time ago. I hope you all remember.
She -- she told that you she did DNA tests on this same blood from
the back spot -- the very same spot that Dr. Rieders was doing his
testimony about EDT
A. And what did she tell you? Steve? This is her Autorad --
remember, she talked to you about autoradiographs, about when she
did the RFLP tests, do an autoradiograph, kind of like an experience
-- This one right here, item 13, that's the socks -- that's the
Autorad for the socks. This one right here, right here, is Nicole.
And what she told you is that's the blood from Nicole's reference
vial. And she also told you that this blood right here that's in the
socks, this DNA in the socks that's not degraded; it's in really
good shape. And she told you why. She said if that blood was
splashed onto those socks while Mr. Simpson was committing the
murders, and about 30 minutes or so later, he took off the socks and
left them on that rug in his bedroom, where they air-dried
overnight, that is a perfect condition for preserving the DNA in
those socks. That's just as if a criminalist had taken a swatch
right after Nicole had been slashed and put it to air-dry. That's
exactly the circumstances that she described to us. And as a
consequence, that DNA in the socks, it's not degraded. Then she
said, let's take a look at the DNA out of the reference vial. See
that dark shadow? She said that's degradation. See this? This is all
degradation. So she said the blood out of the reference vial is
pretty degraded. And she told us why. That reference vial was taken
24 hours after Nicole was murdered. It had been sitting in her dead
body until the autopsy was done. And she explained that blood
degrades under those conditions, not separately. So here you have
degraded blood in the reference vial, no degraded blood in the
socks. That's what tells Robin Cotton, says therefore, the blood on
the socks couldn't have come out of the reference vial. And that's
their whole planting theory. Their theory is that somebody got
Nicole's reference vial and took that reference vial and planted it
onto the socks. But Dr. Cotton said no way: That didn't happen. And,
ladies and gentlemen, this evidence was completely unrebutted. Then
Dr. Gerdes came to the stand: Didn't say a thing about it. Herb
MacDonell came to the stand: Didn't say a thing about it, came to
the stand: Didn't say a thing --
MR. BLASIER: I object. He didn't testify to that.
MR. LAMBERT: May.
MR. BAKER: May we have a ruling?
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. LAMBERT: All three lawyers got up and argued. You heard Mr.
Blasier, Mr. Leonard, Mr. Baker. They all argued that. Did any of
them even mention this? They all stayed as far away from it as they
can, because, ladies and gentlemen, it's unrebutted, and
conclusively establishes the blood in the socks was not planted. The
blood in the socks was splashed on those socks while they were on
Mr. Simpson's ankle while he was committing the murder. Your Honor,
could we break now?
THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, 8:30 tomorrow morning. Don't talk
about the case. Don't form or express any opinions.
MR. GELBLUM: Your Honor, we need to take something up briefly with
you. (Jurors exit courtroom) (The following proceedings were held in
open court, outside the presence of the jury.)
THE COURT: Go ahead.
MR. GELBLUM: Your Honor ordered the defendants to provide updated
financial information to us by Friday. We agreed they could get it
to us today. Apparently, Mr. Baker had some objection to providing
it to us today.
MR. BAKER: I indicated to Mr. Petrocelli, I would have it delivered
to their office by today. I would like the Court to order them --
this has not been disclosed -- there's a Time Magazine article out
that has some information relative to the financial disclosures of
February 1996. And, of course, they say, oh, we wouldn't disclose it
to anybody; we wouldn't disclose it to anybody. But it's there, and
they had it. And I want an order that they disclose it to no one or
they're in contempt of court.
MR. GELBLUM: We've never disclosed anything. We wouldn't disclose
this because --
MR. BAKER: It just happened to vaporize into the atmosphere.
THE COURT: It's ordered to be held undisclosed except for purposes
of the trial.
MR. GELBLUM: Of course. Thank you, Your Honor.
(At 4:30 p.m., an adjournment was taken until Tuesday, September 28, 1997, at 8:30 a.m.)