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UPI ARCHIVES JULY 13, 1995

DA suggests O.J. was acting

By TERRI VERMEULEN

   

LOS ANGELES, July 13 -- A string of witnesses was called to the

stand Friday to testify that O.J. Simpson appeared distraught
after learning his ex-wife and her friend had been killed, with
prosecutors countering that the football legend-turned-actor
may have put on an act. In the fourth day of the defense's case,
Simpson's lawyers called three witnesses to testify that
Simpson appeared relaxed before he was notified that his ex-
wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, had been murdered. Three other
witnesses testified that Simpson appeared to be 'frantic' and
'upset' after being notified the next morning about his ex-wife's
death. Simpson, 48, is standing trial in Superior Court on two
counts of first-degree murder for the June 12, 1994 stabbing
and slashing deaths of his ex-wife and her friend, Ronald
Goldman, outside her Brentwood condominium. He could
spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted. In cross-
examination that prompted numerous objections from the
defense, prosecutor Marcia Clark suggested that Simpson tried
to sound 'frantic and desperate and upset' when he called
Hertz Corp. employee Jim Merrill from his Chicago hotel room.
'You have no way of knowing whether the frantic and desperate
manner in which he behaved was an act or for real, do you?'
Clark asked Merrill. 'I have no way of knowing,' the Hertz
employee responded. The prosecutor also suggested that
Simpson may have called Merrill again a day later because 'he
would have an interest in being very nice to someone whose
testimony could be very important to him.'

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Judge Lance Ito sustained the defense's objection to that

question. Questioning another defense witness, prosecutor
Christopher Darden suggested that Simpson may have loosely
put a bandage around a bloody cut on his left middle finger so
the Hertz worker would notice the cut. Simpson's defense team
contends that no one saw the cut on June 12, and that the
injury occurred in the Chicago hotel room after he was notified
of his ex-wife's death. Prosecutors allege that that Simpson cut
his finger while struggling with Goldman and may have re-
opened the cut later, and outside the jury's presence Thursday,
noted Simpson's contradictory account to police that he cut his
finger while he was at home in Los Angeles. In a strong attack
on Simpson, Darden suggested that Simpson put his face in his
hands in a distraught gesture only after he saw Hertz employee
approach him after he was notified about Nicole Simpson's
death. The day's testimony appeared to spur several emotional
moments for Simpson, who seemed angry at one question
posed by defense lawyer Carl Douglas and teary-eyed upon
hearing the testimony of the passenger who sat next to him on
the June 13 flight back to Los Angeles. Earlier Thursday,
Simpson's defense team had suffered a stinging defeat when
the judge barred them from questioning a defense witness
about drug use by one of Nicole Simpson's friends that could
have bolstered the theory they want jurors to hear -- that drug
dealers committed the murders. Ito ruled the defense could not
ask Faye Resnick's ex-boyfriend, Christian Reichardt, about
Resnick's drug use or any drug debts she may have run up,
saying the defense did not present adequate evidence linking a
third party to the murders. Simpson has pleaded 'absolutely
100 percent not guilty,' and his lawyers contend the pair may
have been killed by Colombian drug dealers in retaliation for a
drug debt Resnick may have run up while living briefly at Nicole
Simpson's condominium. The judge ruled that the defense can
question Reichardt about a telephone conversation with
Simpson the night of the murders, but Reichardt told reporters
late Thursday that he would not be called to the stand. In
another defeat for the defense, the judge ruled that Simpson's
lawyers had offered an inadequate foundation for the
testimony of a travel agent who spoke with Simpson after he
was notified a few hours after arriving in Chicago that Nicole
Simpson had been murdered. Lori Menzione was expected to
tell the jury that Simpson told her during the conversation that
he had just cut his finger in his hotel room. The defense had to
settle for four witnesses who testified that they did not see
anything unusual about Simpson's hands when they saw him in

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5/3/24, 7:25 AM DA suggests O.J. was acting - UPI Archives

Los Angeles, on the red-eye flight to Chicago or upon his arrival

in Chicago -- before news of the murders became public. Those
witnesses also said Simpson appeared friendly and jovial,
signing autographs for fans. Another defense witness testified
Thursday that Simpson agreed to sign an autograph for a
passenger on the flight back to Los Angeles, even though he
was very upset about his ex-wife's death. 'I thought what a nice
man to do this having heard...about the tragedy that was
affecting his life,' said Mark Partridge, who sat next to Simpson
on the plane. Clark noted that Partridge, a trademark lawyer,
had copyrighted eight pages of handwritten notes he made
several days after the flight and suggested that he might have a
financial interest in the case. Partridge said he simply did not
want anyone else to be able to use the notes. In another
development, transcripts released of jury misconduct hearings
show that one of the former jurors, Tracy Kennedy, was disliked
by many of his counterparts. Several jurors complained that
Kennedy listened in on their personal conversations while
pretending to listen to a Walkman, checked a list to see who
would visit them on their conjugal visits and kept a list with
their names and juror numbers. Kennedy, 52, was dismissed in
March after Ito found a copy of the list of jurors' names and
numbers in Kennedy's computer. Kennedy had earlier denied
having any such list, and Ito dismissed him with the warning, 'It
appears that the statement you made to me yesterday on your
oath as a juror was not correct and I may be referring this
matter to another agency to investigate.' Upon dismissing juror
Jeanette Harris later that month, Ito noted that the woman had
not disclosed that she had once filed for a restraining order
against her husband and accused him of shoving her and
forcing her to have sex with him. Harris told the judge she was
angry with her husband then and 'I put whatever I needed to
put on that paper.' Since the jury was sequestered in January,
10 jurors have been dismissed, mostly for misconduct or failure
to disclose alleged incidents of domestic violence. A panel of 12
jurors and two alternates remains to hear the case against
Simpson. Also Thursday, the judge said his in-chambers
interviews with prosecutors did not reveal 'discoverable
inconsistent statements' from controversial police detective
Mark Fuhrman during a trial preparation session. Ito had met
with the prosecutors to see if they had asked Fuhrman whether
he had used a racial epithet to describe blacks, and whether
details from that meeting contradicted Fuhrman's testimony in
March.

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