13 St 11 Jan 1995 Jahr - Hearing for admissibility of abuse evidence

Beschreibung:

A hearing is held on admissibility of domestic-abuse evidence.

SIMPSON JURORS TO HEAR EVIDENCE OF PRIOR ABUSE By William Claiborne January 19, 1995

"Judge Lance A. Ito ruled today that the jury in the O.J. Simpson case will be allowed to hear allegations that the former football star physically abused, intimidated and stalked his wife, Nicole, for a dozen years before her murder.

Rejecting assertions by defense lawyers that the allegations were irrelevant to the case and highly prejudicial, Ito ruled that many of the domestic abuse incidents prosecutors alleged to have occurred were "relevant to motive, intent, premeditation and identity" and should be heard by the jury.

The prosecution will also be permitted to refer to the incidents during opening statements, which Ito said would begin Monday. Opening statements had been scheduled to begin Thursday but were delayed as Ito spent today ruling on a series of motions.

In his most important ruling, Ito said he would admit as evidence 19 of the domestic violence incidents that had been contested by the defense and 10 others that were unopposed. He said he would not allow evidence of 12 incidents, most of them supported by a diary Nicole Brown Simpson maintained to support her 1992 divorce.

Calling the diary, or journal, hearsay evidence, Ito said that while the relevance or probative value of such evidence might be obvious and compelling to "the man or woman on the street," appeals courts have held that it is reversible error to admit hearsay statements by a murder victim who expressed fear of the defendant.

Ito said he would not allow evidence that Nicole Simpson contacted a Santa Monica battered wives shelter five days before her death, saying that her former husband was stalking her.

Apart from those exceptions, however, Ito upheld the prosecution's right to present evidence of most of the domestic abuse incidents dating to 1982 that prosecutors say form one of the main pillars of their case against Simpson, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Nicole Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman last June 12.

Next to DNA testing of bloodstains found at Simpson's home and in his car shortly after the murders, which will be admitted as evidence, allegations of past spousal abuse and obsessive jealousy are regarded by the prosecutors as the most important element of their case. The incidents of abuse, prosecutors have said, illustrate a pattern of violent behavior by Simpson that culminated in the knife attack in front of his former's wife town house condominium -- as one prosecutor called it, "a murder that took 17 years to commit." Prosecution lawyers had been particularly eager for the jury to hear evidence about four incidents that Ito today ruled admissible. They are a 1985 incident in which Simpson smashed in the window of his wife's Mercedes with a baseball bat; a widely publicized New Year's Eve fight in 1989 that resulted in his pleading no contest to a spousal battery charge; and an episode in which Simpson kicked in a door to his wife's house and shouted threats while she talked with a police 911 emergency operator. Ito also allowed evidence of allegations that Simpson grabbed his wife by the crotch in a bar in 1989 and later that evening pushed her from their moving car. Also allowed was an incident in 1988 in which he threatened her and said he had a gun in his right hand.

Meanwhile, Simpson's defense team went to great lengths today to demonstrate that they have patched over a simmering feud that erupted over the weekend between two of the three principal lawyers, Robert L. Shapiro and F. Lee Bailey. Shapiro had said in several interviews that Bailey had jeopardized Simpson's case by leaking damaging material to the news media.

Shapiro, who had referred to Bailey as a "snake" and said he would no longer talk, ride in the same car or be seen in photographs with Bailey, arrived at the courthouse in a limousine accompanied by the smiling Boston lawyer and co-counsel Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who mediated the dispute.

As the defense team headed into the building through a phalanx of television cameras, Shapiro put his arm around Bailey and said, "Lee, get in the shot."

During a break in the morning session, when asked by reporters how he had resolved the feud, Cochran replied, "I'm going to be receiving the Nobel Peace Prize very soon."

At a news conference later, the three lawyers said they had held a "prayer meeting" with former pro football lineman Roosevelt Grier, an evangelist preacher and friend of Simpson, and had resolved their differences.

Declaring that it is "time to stop posturing," Cochran called Shapiro a "team player" and vowed that Simpson's legal "Dream Team" will not break up. For his part, Shapiro said Cochran, "the best lawyer on the planet," will take charge of overall strategy in the case. Bailey, when asked about Shapiro's derogatory remarks over the weekend, replied, "That's history."

Ito rejected a defense motion seeking to restrict the courtroom presence of the victims' families. Ito ruled they could be present except during testimony about "discrete incidents" in which they were involved and on which they would testify. He ordered family members not to watch testimony on those incidents on television.

Defense lawyers had argued that "clucking and sucking noises over rulings favorable to the defense," if they continued when the trial begins, could influence the jury.

Gloria Allred, a lawyer for the Brown family, told Ito that excluding family members would "dehumanize and depersonalize" Nicole Simpson.

In another ruling, Ito revoked the special jail-visiting privileges of more than 50 people who had been classified as "material witnesses." The special status has allowed them longer and more frequent visits with Simpson in a private lawyer-client meeting room.

Ito's ruling appeared to be prompted, in part, by the disclosure that one such "material witness" was free-lance writer and producer Lawrence Schiller, who coauthored a book with Simpson during 15 visits to the jail. Schiller, who lived across the street from Simpson in Bel Air in the 1960s, is not on any list of potential witness lists in the case.

Ito ruled that Simpson's lawyers must submit evidence of the "materiality" of each visitor on the list, which includes the defendant's friends and relatives, before he lifts his order.

Simpson's book, "I Want to Tell You," is the former football superstar's response to more than 300,000 pieces of mail he has received since June. Ito today also dismissed two jurors who had been questioned about possible conflicts. They were a 38-year-old female Hispanic letter carrier who said she was in an abusive relationship and a 48-year-old black employee of the Hertz car rental company, who on a questionnaire had said he had never met Simpson, who did promotional work for Hertz. Another employee subsequently reported that the juror may have met Simpson at a function.

The dismissed jurors were replaced by a 63-year-old white legal secretary and a 43-year-old black marketing representative. The changes leave the jury with a racial composition of two whites, one mixed-race native American, eight African Americans and one Hispanic."


Sourced from:
The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/01/19/simpson-jurors-to-hear-evidence-of-prior-abuse/ac51fccd-3630-4aca-a5a9-e5eb8b3293ca/

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