Simpson Loses Seventh Juror 5 Alternates Left; Jury Hears Expert Testify About Blood Found At Scene

O.J. Simpson’s judge failed Monday to stop the alarming exodus of jurors from the trial, releasing a 25-year-old black flight attendant who once tearfully told him: “I can’t take it anymore!”

Judge Lance Ito had tried to persuade Tracy Hampton to stay, reportedly dismissing three deputies who guard the jury in part because of her complaints. But Hampton appeared to grow unhappier by the day, sitting statue-still in the jury box, her eyes downcast.

She was replaced by a 28-year-old Hispanic woman who said on her jury questionnaire that Simpson was the only person with “a visible motive” for killing Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

The new juror is more animated than Hampton, listening intently during testimony, reading self-help books such as “The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem” and “When I Say ‘No’ I Feel Guilty” during breaks.

But she also was singled out as a source of racial tension by former juror Jeanette Harris, who met with the judge after she was ousted. Harris said the new juror once was given special use of the telephone and, along with a white juror, hit a black male juror on the head while he was watching a movie.

Hampton was the seventh juror dismissed, leaving just five alternates with months to go.

Testimony on blood tests

The reconfigured panel heard Gregory Matheson, a supervisor at the Los Angeles Police Department’s crime laboratory. The first several hours of his testimony were almost entirely defensive: Matheson, a 17-year veteran of the department, vouched for the conscientiousness of his less experienced subordinates, Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola.

As if to show how the defense’s aggressiveness has altered the usual order of things, Deputy District Attorney Hank Goldberg asked Matheson at the outset - even before eliciting the usual litany of credentials - whether he was part of either a police conspiracy or a cover-up. Matheson said he was not.

Matheson then offered explanations of why only small amounts of blood spilled at Nicole Simpson’s condominium had been tested by the police crime lab.

In conjunction with the testimony, Goldberg flashed on a 7-foot courtroom screen one of the bloodiest photos seen so far. The defense objected to the photo as overly gruesome, but it was allowed. It showed Nicole Simpson’s body huddled at the foot of her steps with a dark pool of blood around her head and bright red streams of blood flowing down the walkway.

Matheson said it was clear that the blood was coming from Nicole Simpson’s body and vast amounts of testing were not needed.

Goldberg also elicited testimony designed to answer a central defense theory - that blood evidence was contaminated to the point of uselessness. Matheson said even sloppily collected evidence is still useful and doesn’t “turn into someone else’s blood.”

Prosecutors have said Simpson’s blood was found at the murder scene.

Unsolicited prayer

In an odd twist, a woman without an admission pass made her way into the courtroom and up to the gate that separates the audience from trial participants. She knelt down about 8 feet from Simpson and prayed, “Father, in Jesus’ name, I ask you to open the heavens to give peace and strength to this court. …”

The woman quickly was ushered out; the judge and attorneys made no notice of her, and jurors hadn’t returned from lunch.

Ito angered by phone

Aside from that, Ito continued his attempt to run a tight ship and move the trial along. He reacted angrily when a cellular phone rang out.

Ito asked the phone’s owner to hand it over. When nobody stood up, Ito banned all pagers and phones from the courtroom and ordered that everyone be searched as they enter.

During a break, a Sports Illustrated reporter discovered it was her phone that had gone off and said she would confess to the judge.

“I feel like a criminal,” reporter Shelley Smith said.

‘I can’t take it anymore’

Ito, who has fought to keep the jury intact despite claims of possible juror misconduct and a rebellion last month, held a meeting with attorneys in his chambers before granting Hampton’s wish to leave.

Ito said he found “good cause” to dismiss Hampton, but he gave no reason in open court for her departure.

On April 20, a sobbing Hampton had told the judge: “I can’t take it anymore.” That afternoon, Ito dismissed three deputies who had guarded the panel, apparently in response to her complaints.

The replacement of the guards prompted a revolt by 13 panelists, who refused to hear testimony on April 21, showed up wearing black and demanded a meeting with the judge. Ito met privately with each panelist who wanted to speak to him, and he also met with the deputies who were dismissed.

Media descend on ex-juror

For the first time since she was sequestered Jan. 11, Hampton arrived at her View Park home, where she lives with her parents, and was greeted by reporters, photographers and camera crews.

Cameras and microphones were stuck in her face, coming dangerously close to hitting her on the head. When she fled her home late in the day, she left behind flower beds that had been trampled by the horde - or, in the words of her brother, the “vultures.”

The media chasing newly departed jurors during a trial is something new in the justice system.

“I’ve never heard of a case where jurors, dismissed during a trial, are being pursued by the news media while the trial is taking place,” said Terri Waller, managing partner of the National Jury Project, which studies juries and advises attorneys on the selection of jurors. “This is unprecedented.”