After dispensing with 30 defense witnesses in nine days, the O.J. Simpson trial was given a breather - and perhaps not a moment too soon for the battered defense, the giddy jury and one poorer prosecutor.
The defense suffered a major setback Thursday when the judge severely restricted the testimony of one expert lined up for next week and held open the possibility of barring another expert. Then the defense, trying to set forth its conspiracy theories, saw two more of its witnesses give the prosecution more help than they gave Simp-son.At the same time, the jury suffered a case of the giggles when testimony veered to panties and prayer meetings. One juror laughed so hard tears came to her eyes. The panel was sent back to its hotel for a three-day weekend; no court was scheduled Friday.
The frivolity came in spite of - or perhaps as a result of - tension that built in the early part of the day. Judge Lance Ito fined prosecutor Marcia Clark $250 for a personal attack against a defense witness and ordered a defense attorney to sit down.
Testimony won't resume until Monday, at the earliest. The judge held up the flow of witnesses to give prosecutors time to prepare for the next defense witness, a scientist whose report was turned over to the prosecution only recently.
Simpson, who says he was home alone during the June 12, 1994, murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, contends he was the victim of a wide-ranging police frame-up.
The defense's ability to press that argument hit a setback after Ito blocked most of the testimony from an expert who conducted tests on the time it takes sock fabric to dry. The defense contends the tests could prove that blood was planted on socks seized from the foot of Simpson's bed the day after the murders.
Ito agreed with prosecutors that Herbert MacDonell's experiment was flawed, partly because materials and conditions affecting the seized socks were not accurately recreated in the test.
Defense lawyers have said MacDonell's experiments suggested blood was placed on at least one of the socks when it was lying flat, not when it had a foot inside. Prosecutors contend Simpson dropped the socks on a bedroom rug as he hastily prepared for a trip to Chicago after committing murder.
Another defense witness, blood expert Fredric Rieders, was scheduled to testify next. Clark complained that the defense's late disclosure of Rieders' report didn't give her enough time for what she said would be a lengthy cross-examination. Friday's session was canceled to give her preparation time.
Rieders is expected to say that a lab preservative called EDTA was found on the socks and on a back gate of Nicole Simpson's condominium. That preservative is commonly added to blood stored at the police crime lab, and the defense argues its presence in evidence blood samples would prove that blood was planted.
On Thursday, the defense tried to use two police witnesses to support the sock-planting theory, with adverse results.
Police videographer Willie Ford, whose video shot inside Simpson's house the day after the murders shows no socks in the bedroom, explained that he only taped rooms after they were searched.
Then Detective Bert Luper testified that he saw the socks collected by criminalist Dennis Fung - before Ford even arrived at Simpson's house.
Loyola University law professor Stan Goldman said he didn't understand the defense's choice of witnesses, particularly Luper, one of the investigators on the case.
"It convinced us all, they are the gang that couldn't shoot straight," Goldman said. "I am bewildered. I don't understand why you'd put a fox in the hen house."
A rare bright spot for the defense was the testimony of Simpson's maid, Josephine "Gigi" Guarin, who held up well under a hapless cross-examination by prosecutor Christopher Darden.
Guarin deftly deflated Darden's suggestion that Simpson tried to wash bloody clothes, testifying that dark clothing found in a washing machine belonged not to Simpson, but to his daughter, Arnelle, who also lives on the estate. Among the telltale clues: the laundry included women's panties, Guarin said.
When defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. asked during redirect questioning if Simpson ever walked around the house in women's underwear, the jury started laughing.
Then, when Guarin - a Filipina - struggled with the word "prayer," one of the juror alternates blurted it out so the whole courtroom could hear. The judge remarked that the jury had an interpreter, and the panel cracked up laughing. One juror had to wipe tears from her eyes.