Week 15

May 1 - 5, 1995

Judge Lance Ito announced the latest change to the jury before chief forensic chemist Gregory Matheson took the witness stand.

The judge said he had found "good cause" to excuse the juror. On April 20, the juror had asked Judge Ito to excuse her because she "couldn't take it anymore."

The move reduces the remaining alternates to five with several months to go in the trial.

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The newest juror is a 28-year-old woman who works for the Los Angeles County assessor's office. In her jury questionnaire, the woman said she had formed no opinions about Simpson's guilt or innocence, but she wrote: "He's the only person who had a visible motive. It was his ex-wife and she was with another man. It's something most people would have a problem with."

The jury now has seven blacks, three whites and two Hispanics. There are nine women and three men.

The first part of Matheson's testimony was spent defending the work of criminalists Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola. Prosecutor Hank Goldberg asked him questions to debunk, if not belittle, many of the defense theories surrounding the work of the criminalists. For example, Matheson testified that which criminalist at a crime scene collects evidence is not an important issue. The defense tried to show that Fung and Mazzola lied about who collected the evidence in order to hide the fact that the less experienced Mazzola did much of the work.

Matheson also testified about the video played last week in which Mazzola showed how evidence should be collected. The defense used the video to try and discredit Mazzola because she was seen doing a few things that could be interpreted as sloppy. Matheson said Mazzola did not do anything on the video that would necessarily result in the contamination of evidence.

MAY 2 - The jury heard the most damaging evidence so far against O.J. Simpson as a forensic chemist testified that a sample from a bloody trail near the spot where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed was found to be consistent with Simpson's blood type.

Gregory Matheson, chief forensic chemist at the Los Angeles Police Crime Lab, testified that blood and enzyme tests revealed that blood found alongside a trail of bloody shoeprints leading from the murder scene was the same type as Simpson's blood. Only 0.5 percent of the population, or one person in 200 have that blood type.

Tests on a bloody glove found at the scene showed the blood was consistent with that of Goldman, a blood type found in about 20 percent of the population, Matheson said. The same was true of blood on the fence near where his body lay. Nicole Simpson's blood, which is the same type as 40 percent of the population, was found on the front gate to her home.

Matheson showed jury members a chart of serology test results and explained how tests had been carried out on various items found at the crime scene. The results were compared to blood taken from Simpson by police the day after the June 12, 1994 murders and to blood samples taken from the bodies of the victims.

Matheson said the crime lab examination consisted of conventional tests and not the comparatively new DNA tests, the results of which are expected to be introduced later in the trial. Matheson explained that conventional blood testing is used to exclude -- not include -- individuals as the source of the blood. By examining enzyme characteristics (also known as genetic markers) of blood samples, Matheson said police can calculate what percentage of the population has those traits. The more traits examined, he said, the narrower the search becomes as more and more people are excluded as the possible source of the blood.

Matheson also testified about the blood found under Nicole Simpson's fingernails at the crime scene. The defense contends the blood does not match either of the victims or Simpson, but a fourth person who is the real killer. But the prosecution argues, and Matheson testified, that the blood under the nails does not match Nicole Simpson's blood type because the blood already had started to degrade by the time it was tested. Degraded blood can give a false or misleading test result. Matheson said that because Nicole Simpson's hand was found resting in the blood and because damp blood degrades quickly, there's a "very high likelihood" that the blood under her fingernails was hers.

This part of the testimony included graphic photographs of Nicole Simpson's body. This was the first time in several months that the jury had seen photos of the victims, and courtroom spectators said Simpson brushed away tears when the gruesome photos were displayed.

During his testimony, Matheson conceded that minor mistakes were made in the investigation. The admission came one day after he defended the work of criminalists Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola.

The chief forensic chemist told the jury that criminalists should have collected more blood from Simpson's Ford Bronco.

"Probably, the best thing to have done was to remove more of the sample originally, on the first search," Matheson said. He said there was blood on the Bronco's console, a hard yet porous surface that would have been easy to remove initially. Investigators collected additional samples during subsequent searches of the vehicle.

MAY 3 - O.J. Simpson's lawyers were able to get a key prosecution witness to acknowledge the possibility that evidence was mishandled.

Under cross-examination by defense lawyer Robert Blaiser, Gregory Matheson, chief forensic chemist and assistant director of the Los Angeles Police Department crime lab, agreed that crime scene investigators made some mistakes and failed to follow guidelines.

Matheson said that it was wrong for criminalist Andrea Mazzola to use the same swatch on several blood samples in Simpson's Bronco and that it would have been better if she collected more evidence. He also said she made a mistake when she rolled up a section of the car's carpet because blood from one area could have been spread to another area.

But Matheson said the mistakes were merely technicalities and did not effect the integrity of the evidence. Earlier in the week, he testified on direct examination that blood taken from the crime scene was consistent with Simpson's.

Blaiser spent most of the day trying to advance the defense's theory that shoddy police work in collecting blood and DNA samples tainted the evidence and allowed for a conspiracy to frame Simpson.

This was Matheson's third day on the witness stand. Cross-examination is set to continue Thursday.

MAY 4 - Blood taken from beneath Nicole Brown Simpson's fingertips could have come from someone other than her accused killer, O.J. Simpson, a prosecution witness said Thursday under cross-examination.

Greg Matheson, chief forensic scientist at the Los Angeles Police crime lab, conceded that according to scientific literature offered by the defense, the blood was inconsistent with a genetic marker in the blood of either O.J. Simpson or his slain ex-wife.

Defense attorney Robert Blaiser produced several science articles detailing the degrading pattern of type BA blood into type B. He got Matheson to agree that the degradation route discussed in the articles would not allow for the type of degradation prosecutors claim occurred.

Trying to advance the defense's theory that Simpson was framed in a police conspiracy, Blaiser argued that a significant amount of a blood sample taken from Simpson could not be accounted for, suggesting that 1.5 milliliters of the sample was used to plant evidence.

Matheson maintained that the sample was used for testing and that he and other members of the crime lab didn't keep a strict account of how much was used or discarded.

Prosecutor Hank Goldberg pointed out, through questioning Matheson, that there are several ways for type BA blood to degrade into type B. Goldberg established that different scientific literature allows for the degradation route that prosecutors say occurred.

In a ruling later in the day, Judge Lance Ito barred defense lawyers from introducing into evidence a blood-stained knife found outside Simpson's home July 2. Prosecutors successfully argued that the knife was found nearly three weeks after the double murder and that the blood on it does not match either victim.

MAY 5 - The prosecution sought to account for a missing portion of O.J. Simpson's blood sample to debunk the defense theory that Los Angeles police framed the former football star.

Greg Matheson, the chief forensic chemist at the Los Angeles Police crime lab, said that after testifying in court Thursday he replicated the procedures his department uses. He said the tests, conducted at home, suggest that some of the missing blood may have stuck to pipettes, gloves, and other lab instruments.

The defense claims that 1.5 milliliters of blood from the 6.5 milliliter sample drawn from Simpson shortly after the double murder June 12 last year was stolen and sprinkled over evidence at the murder scene, Simpson's home and car.

Matheson said he found that .5 milliliters of blood adhered to the pipettes -- a tube-like instrument used to withdraw blood from a vial -- when he conducted a standard procedure. Repeated tests may have accounted for more of the blood, he said.

Defense lawyer Robert Blasier used a chart Thursday to show that 1.5 milliliters of the blood sample was missing.

On Friday, Prosecutor Hank Goldberg said the defense's figures are inaccurate because they are purported to be exact when they are merely estimations.

Blasier and Matheson also battled over whether FBI tests showed the presence of EDTA, a chemical preservative, in blood found on the rear gate at Simpson's home. The presence of EDTA would support the theory that detectives stole Simpson's blood from the lab.

On Thursday, the family of Ronald Goldman filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Simpson, accusing him of "outrageous savagery." The suit, which became known Friday, seeks unspecified monetary damages.

Because Friday was a half-day in court, dress was casual, as it has been on Fridays throughout the trial. Fourteen jurors and alternates wore T-shirts from California Pizza Kitchen, a local pizzeria, with the inscription, "Fourteen ethnically diverse cultures co-existing on one thin delicious crust."

The jurors have eaten at the restaurant over the past three months that they've been sequestered. The court recently began investigating charges from a former juror that the panel was wracked with racial animosity toward each other.

WEEK 16