Simpson Defense Team Confronts Blood Evidence Dna Evidence Piling Up Against Simpson

Sometimes there was a brief smile, sometimes he jotted notes, sometimes he seemed on the verge of sleep. But mainly O.J. Simpson sat stoically day after day as a mountain of potentially damaging DNA evidence piled up against him in court.

As the defense Thursday began its effort to refute what appeared to be the most incriminating evidence against their client so far, they faced a daunting task.

In the wake of the genetic evidence laid out over the last week, legal experts said Simpson’s lawyers may have to wait until they start their own case to counter the damage that may have been done to their client.

Among the questions they will have to deal with were:

How did Ronald Goldman’s blood get inside Simpson’s Ford Bronco, when there was no evidence that the two men were acquainted?

How did a substantial amount of Nicole Brown Simpson’s blood get splattered on the pair of socks found next to the former football great’s bed on the morning after the June 12, 1994 slaying?

How did blood that DNA testing showed was almost certain to be Simpson’s come to be spattered at the murder scene?

“There is no doubt that this was the heart of the prosecution’s case and they came on like gangbusters,” said Myrna Raeder, a professor at the Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles.

Throughout the trial it has been clear that prosecutors believed that the complicated and sophisticated science of genetics would provide them with the smoking gun they needed to prove Simpson’s guilt. Lacking a murder weapon and eyewitnesses, they had to depend on DNA testing to link Simpson to the double homicides.

Many legal experts said the prosecution had done an excellent job in doing just that and had dealt a blow to one of the defense’s main theories about the murders, namely that there was a conspiracy among police officers to frame Simpson.

Nonetheless, some legal observers said the defense is likely to continue pressing its claims that police framed Simpson. “There is room to pursue the conspiracy theory,” said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola law school professor. “It’s not dead yet. It’s pretty ill.”

Creating doubt in jurors’ minds about the staggering statistical evidence and continuing to challenge the handling of the blood and tissue samples by Los Angeles police now have become the focus of the defense’s case.