16 h 30 m, 7 jul 1994 ano - Judge upholds the legality of the search of Simpson's home

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JUDGE UPHOLDS SEARCH AT SIMPSON'S HOME
By Christine Spolar July 8, 1994

"LOS ANGELES, JULY 7 -- A judge ruled today that police acted legally when they entered O.J. Simpson's estate without a search warrant, allowing as evidence a bloody glove and drops of blood that they found there a few hours after Simpson's ex-wife and a male friend were slain.

Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell denied a motion by the former football superstar's attorneys to suppress the evidence, rejecting their argument that police had conducted an improper, warrantless search in the early morning hours of June 13. Powell said the officers reacted to what they believed was an emergency situation that justified their entry.

"In my mind, the Fourth Amendment is alive and well," the judge said, concluding that police had not violated the constitutional protection against warrantless searches. In this case, she added, "there are exigent {emergency} circumstances that on occasion justify a warrantless entry and a limited search."

Kennedy-Powell's decision was seen as a key victory for the prosecution, which is seeking in a preliminary hearing to have Simpson tried on double murder charges. O.J. Simpson has pleaded not guilty in connection with the June 12 stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman.

Nicole Simpson's father, sitting in the courtroom, leaned over and silently wept after the judge spoke. Detectives watching the hearing on television at police headquarters reportedly cheered.

The ruling opened a day that prosecutors devoted to establishing more of the physical evidence that figures prominently in their case.

They introduced a police photograph of a cut on the middle finger of Simpson's left hand, found when Simpson was questioned the day after the murders. They also displayed photos of two bloody leather gloves that police said they believed had been worn by the killer and separate photos of drops of blood found near the murder scene.

Two lead detectives in the murder investigation later in the day added intriguing details about that evidence. Detective Philip Vannatter told the court that no cut or slash appeared in the left-hand glove, retrieved from the slain woman's home.

His partner, Tom Lange, testified that five drops of blood not belonging to either victim were found on the walkway of Nicole Simpson's town house in Brentwood, an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood.

Lange also testified that when officers, who had been summoned by neighbors, arrived at her home the night of the murders, they found the front gate standing open and her body near it. Bloody footprints led from the body down the walk, and police found five drops of blood that did not match that of either victim.

In the back of Nicole Simpson's town house, Lange said, the gate to the alley was unlocked but not standing open.

Since the hearing began last week, the prosecution has built its case on two foundations: a time-line that could place Simpson at the scene and physical evidence.

No persons who have testified have placed O.J. Simpson at or near the murder scene, but prosecutors have used some testimony to try to establish a time frame that undermines his alibi that he was at home preparing for a business trip to Chicago or on his way to the airport at the time of the deaths. Prosecutors also are relying on the physical evidence of bloodstains at O.J. Simpson's estate that could link him to the crime.

Defense attorneys have sought to weaken both foundations by challenging the memories and credibility of the witnesses -- most notably the detectives -- and seeking to suppress the most damaging physical evidence.

The fifth day of the preliminary hearing began with the judge's detailed 20-minute statement about the police entry and search of the Simpson property. During two previous days of arguments, police had contended they jumped a fence and entered the grounds without permission after leaving the bloody crime scene and unexpectedly finding a small bloodstain on the door handle of Simpson's white Ford Bronco parked on the street outside the estate.

Kennedy-Powell said she believed police went to the home because they felt obliged to inform Simpson that his ex-wife had been killed and that his two young children, who had been asleep inside the town house during the murders, were in police custody.

Kennedy-Powell said she also accepted the police claim that they feared Simpson or other residents at the estate could be in danger from the same unknown assailant who had slashed Nicole Simpson and Goldman to death outside her town house about two miles away. The officers had testified that they were unable to rouse anyone at the Brentwood estate, although they could see two lights shining inside the main house, one upstairs and one downstairs, and several cars in the driveway.

Once on the grounds, police said, they found more bloodstains on the driveway and a bloody glove on a leaf-strewn path at the rear of the estate behind a guest house. The judge accepted the detectives' account that the search behind the guest house was in response to a concern expressed by Brian "Kato" Kaelin, a house guest who told detectives he had been frightened by a series of loud thumps on his wall earlier in the evening.

When a detective went to check a darkened path sometime after 5 a.m., the judge said, he was looking "to see if there's a body there."

Instead, the detective came upon the glove and concluded it was similar to a glove he had seen at the murder scene. Once he made that conclusion, the judge noted, police sealed off the area as a crime scene and proceeded to obtain a warrant.

Defense lawyers Robert L. Shapiro and Gerald Uelmen had sought to chip away at the police version of events, contending detectives were intent on searching the grounds for evidence and used other issues as a pretext. Kennedy-Powell said today she respected the defense argument, but she could not concur.

"This would be a very easy decision for me if, in fact, these officers went in there like storm troopers, fanning out over the property, examining every leaf, every car, every closet, every nook and cranny of this location," she said. "But the testimony ... show{s} this was not what happened."

The defense had sought to suppress three main pieces of evidence: the bloodstain on the Bronco's door handle, the bloody glove and the bloodstains on the driveway. The defense originally had challenged other evidence as well, but the prosecution said the bloody evidence found outside the home was the only evidence from Simpson's estate that it intended to offer during the preliminary hearing.

Uelmen, during a court recess, said the defense would appeal the judge's decision if the case goes to trial in Superior Court, but such an appeal would be limited to contending the judge made legal errors in her reasoning. Uelmen minimized the significance of the loss at this early stage in the trial process, saying, "It limits our options very little."

Uelmen said he and defense attorney Shapiro planned to pursue legal means to suppress other pieces of bloody evidence that were found at Simpson's estate on Rockingham Avenue after the search warrant was issued.

The defense contends the search warrant was obtained improperly after officers wrongly said in an affidavit that Simpson had taken an "unexpected trip" out of town that night. Uelmen described the affidavit by Vannatter as "a fabrication" because police were aware that Simpson had gone to Chicago on a long-planned business trip.

Powell-Kennedy refused to hear arguments about the warrant because the prosecution said this week that no evidence obtained through the warrant would be used in the preliminary hearing. But it is certain to be another area of detailed contention if Simpson faces trial.

Detective Vannatter today took the witness stand for the third time in the hearing to discuss evidence. He said he first saw Simpson about 11:30 on the morning after the murders after the Pro Football Hall of Famer returned to Los Angeles from Chicago.

Simpson had been handcuffed by a patrol officer, and Vannatter released him. As he did, the detective said he noticed Simpson wore a bandage on the knuckle area of his left middle finger. He took Simpson to police headquarters and had the area photographed. On the same finger, Vannatter said, Simpson also had suffered a smaller cut. There have been strong suggestions that the murder victims put up a struggle and may have injured their assailant.

Defense attorney Shapiro questioned Vannatter closely about the nature of the cut and asked if the detective had made any attempt to find out how Simpson suffered the cut. Vannatter testified that medical personnel cleaned the cut but no one sought to determine its cause or time of occurrence. Shapiro quickly switched his attention to police photos of the right-hand glove that was found at O.J. Simpson's home and the left-hand one found at the murder scene. He asked if Vannatter believed the gloves were linked to the crime.

Vannatter said he believed one of the gloves was dropped at Nicole Simpson's house at the time of the murders during a struggle, while the other was dropped at O.J. Simpson's house "by the same person."

But did Vannatter find a slash in the left-hand glove, Shapiro asked. "Not that corresponded" with the cut suffered by Simpson, the detective replied.

Simpson's attorneys have said he suffered a cut on his hand when he smashed his fist on a glass in a Chicago hotel room when he was told about his ex-wife's death.

In other testimony, Detective Lange, Vannatter's partner, said the five drops of unidentified blood found at the murder scene appeared to have dripped from the left side of whoever walked away from the scene, leaving footprints in blood. Crime specialists were still in the process of examining the blood and the footprints, he said.

As the hearing recessed today, a blood expert was about to say whether Simpson's blood was the same type as the five droplets found at the crime scene."


Sourced from:
The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/08/judge-upholds-search-at-simpsons-home/d6eec3d6-28cd-41cb-a683-ac261bced516/

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