If the Court please, on the Siglar deposition -- oh, I don't know if Your Honor has a copy in front of you. If not we have an extra copy or possibly Mr. Leonard does. If you want, we can give our extra copy to the Court. However you'd like to proceed.
All right, sir. I wanted to briefly, if I might, go through our objections, which will make much quicker the reading, and they come basically in several groups, your Honor. The first deals with page 59, line 22, through 67, line 12, and those pages deal with a letter to William Hodgman of the District Attorney's office, from Mr. Siglar, outlining certain of Mr. Siglar's thoughts or comments with respect to the autopsy of Ms. Brown and Mr. Goldman. That's Civil Exhibit 1869, and possibly Your Honor has that in front of you. The nature of those questions goes to identifying the memorandum. There will be more questions about it later and the uniqueness or unusualness of writing such a memo. We feel none of that is relevant or material to the issues at hand, and this theme will run through our objections, that any testimony of Mr. Siglar is not relevant unless it deals with theories that have been presented in this case and things that go to the cause of death or other issues in the case, but things such as whether more security of the decedents or whether onlookers saw the decedents at the coroner's office, that sort of thing that's mentioned in Mr. Siglar's letter, are not really relevant or material unless there can be some showing of some tie-in upon and on looky-loo looking at the body and some claim that the defense is making. That's the nature of the objection to 59, line 22, through 67, line 12. And that, as I say, deals with their exhibit -- Civil Exhibit 1869. Should I go on, Your Honor?
The next, if we go to what's been marked 1870, that's Civil Exhibit 1870, that's a written list by Mr. Siglar of certain of his observations. This is the written list that becomes the letter to Mr. Hodgman in large part. Again, it talks about things like unmarked urine or looky-loos or things such as that, that are referenced in the letter to Mr. Hodgman, and we think that's not material or relevant to this case, and on that basis we're objecting to page 84, line 8 through 14, which discusses that handwritten list, and page 85, lines 9 through 25, which again makes specific reference to the document that is now marked as Civil 1870, and also page 86, lines 19 through 22. Our next objection is -- covers pages 122 through 129, and those are questions that deal with whether there was a coroner's office criminalist response team that was called to the case -- was called to the crime scene at Bundy. It deals with a few other areas such as who actually went, and we're not objecting to those questions. But the questions between 122 and 129 which deal with whether a coroner criminalist response team should have been called, we think are not relevant as we understand Your Honor's previous rulings. And Mr. Leonard and I know the designation and the areas that he wants in on those pages.
Okay. We're not seeking to exclude the fact that Mr. Jacoby or Ms. Ratcliffe were there and what their qualifications are. We're not moving to exclude that. We're moving to exclude any and all questions of whether should something else have happened that didn't happen, i.e., the criminalist coroner's response team. Next, Your Honor, goes back basically to the letter to Mr. Hodgman and/or the handwritten list, 1869, 1870, and starting at page 130, going to -- going to 131 and 132, 138, the questions there deal with particular items on the list that we don't think are relevant, i.e., did people look in and see the bodies of the decedents, and the questioner went through the various items on the list, and we object to those questions unless the defense makes some showing that some are relevant to any claim they have in this case. In other words, the fact that somebody looked at the bodies, that they're making any claim that that changed the evidence or who the murderer is, we would withdraw our objection. As I understand it, that's not their claim. They're just trying to show that procedures were sloppy.
Withdrawn, withdrawn that part, then. Anything that has to do with the looky-loos, I withdraw.
Not only looky-loos, but anything that has been designated that deals with any of the alleged deficiencies in what the coroner's office did, unless there's some tie.
No, Your Honor, I'm not offering to withdraw everything, obviously. I just -- I think I see the validity of Mr. Medvene's argument with regard to that one point. I'm willing to withdraw that one part.
That objection would generally be made with 130, line 25, through 131, line 6, with 132, line 6, through 133, line 18 be 138, line 5, through 138, line 14, 139, line 2, through 139, line 3. Those all go to that point. Next, Your Honor, there's -- counsel asked a series of questions about security and I believe the press staying in the lunch room or whatever, which we don't think are relevant, and that's page 185, line 4, basically runs through 190, line 14. And then the last thing on the first volume, Your Honor, is, there's a discussion about a draft letter that -- unless there's some significance shown to a draft letter or a letter that was never sent, we'd object on relevancy grounds. That's 191, line 14, through 192, line 13. That's the end of the first volume.
Your Honor, just to make it a little bit easier, I will also withdraw the portions that have been designated which deal with the issue of the press in the lunch room. And that would be 185, 4, to 190, 14. Am I correct in that, Mr. Medvene? Or whatever portions they are, I won't read.
Yeah, okay. Volume 2, fewer. Page 219, line 25, through 220, line 3, again discussion about an item in the Bill Hodgman letter about a media representative, we don't believe is relevant. Next, page 220, line 22 -- excuse me -- line 25.
Your Honor, that's the same point. I would withdraw that. When he said the media representative, I withdraw all those questions.
Line 22, through 221, line 8, that goes to -- 1869, which is Hodgman's letter and the letter Mr. Hodgman -- we don't think that's relevant unless they can tie it in. Next, 246, line 20, through 249, line 25, general discussion about coroner procedure discussions he may or may not have had with Ms. Ratcliffe, unless it's in some way tied in. Lastly, on this volume, page 358, line 9, through 360, line 12, that pertains to 1870, which is the handwritten list of things Mr. Siglar thought in the coroner's office maybe could have been done better, and that in particular is -- dwells with when the liver temperature was taken or things such as that. I don't think there's any question about the case. That takes us through the second volume. Now the third volume.
The third volume, page 436, line 19, through 437, line 11, deals with a letter from Mr. Siglar, Civil Exhibit 1877 or what's been proposed as Civil 1877, it's a letter from Mr. Lakshmanan and Mr. Hernandez to Sheriff Block, and we don't think that has any relevance. It talks about photography. Whatever it talks about, unless there's some tie-in, we don't think it's relevant. Next -- just one more. This is the last one, Your Honor. Page 487, line 19, through 492, line 18. This deals with Civil Exhibit 1885, which includes two things: One, a chronology, like two, three lines, a date of things of -- that Mr. Siglar did. Unless they're some way tied in -- and a separate document that's attached to it has also separately been marked 1870, which we talked about before, and that's the handwritten list of Mr. Siglar with things like looky-loos and physical security, and we don't think that should come in. In essence -- last comment. What in essence we did not object to is what we think the only relevant portion basically of the Siglar testimony is, is the turnover of the blood vial of Ms. Brown's blood and Mr. Goldman's blood to Mr. Vannatter, and whatever Mr. Siglar has to say about that, we don't -- do not object to that. But the other, in substance, Your Honor, we've objected to for the reasons that we've said. Thank you.
Your Honor, very briefly. First of all, we're not going to play -- it turns out we have another issue involving this deposition. We're not going to read it till this afternoon after Dr. Lee's videotape is played. And as I sit here and watch to some extent your reaction and -- your reaction to my --
Well, you know what my reaction is. Yesterday, you guys told me it's going to be like that (clicking fingers.)
You could have given me all this stuff yesterday so I could spend the rest of the afternoon and the evening to go through this. Now you're throwing it up to me in the morning even before we get the jury.
KEY QUOTEI don't blame you. Let me cut to the quick. I am going to go back to the drawing board over lunch, before we read this, and pick out what I think are the four or five best points that go to the following issue: Number one, the failure of the LAPD to call for the autopsy -- excuse me -- the coroner criminalist response team. That was an issue that was -- that was something that the coroner's office had a problem with. A big problem. And I would suggest, Your Honor, that that is relevant for two reasons. Number one, it goes to the efficacy of this investigation in general, number one, and of course the investigation that was done was -- was targeted to Mr. Simpson. The evidence that's presented -- been presented here, including the bases for the plaintiffs' expert witness testimony, relies in great part on the investigation which was done and particularly gathering of physical evidence at the Bundy scene and the Rockingham scene. So the -- the question of whether or not there should have been assistance, I think, is a valid one, and whether or not the efficacy of the investigation was -- was jeopardized by the fact that the -- that the criminalist response team from the coroner's office was not called. More importantly, I think, I think we have at this point a very live issue about the -- about the issue -- question of framing in this case. We saw yesterday a glove that has a hole in it and then the hole disappears somehow. And I would suggest when you want -- when you talk about a circumstantial case, I think we're building a very strong circumstantial case for framing. One of the circumstances I would suggest is that the LAPD purposely failed to call the coroner's office because they wanted to hold the scene tight. They didn't want to have interlopers from the coroner's office there who might interfere with whatever they were planning to do. So I would suggest that the fact that they failed to call the coroner's office is a circumstance that we should be able to elicit for this jury, pointing towards framing. Also, with regard to some of these specific points -- and again, I'll fine-tune this, I'm only going to bring up five or six of them or maybe four or five. The ones I can tell you right now that I think are particularly important are the -- and this also goes to the delay, is the failure for an extended period of time to get the liver temperature. That's very important in discerning the time of death, which obviously is a live issue in this case, and I -- so I would suggest that that is important, too. As far as the -- I've told you that I'm willing to withdraw a great deal of this, especially the criticisms about security and looky-loos, although I would suggest again that would have some relevance, but I'm willing to withdraw that. So what I'm suggesting, Your Honor, is that over the luncheon period or perhaps before, I'd be willing to cut this down a little bit. But basically the argument is that these criticisms -- all of these criticisms are relevant, and in particular, the failure of the coroner's office to be notified to have a criminalist response team sent out is highly relevant. And there's one other -- one of the things that Mr. Medvene was talking about was a draft letter that was signed the next day, or at least it was distributed by Mr. Siglar the next day, saying this has got to stop, we have to be able to send out these response teams. That was supposed to be sent to LAPD and the sheriff's department and so on and so forth -- excuse me -- and it was suppressed. It hasn't been sent out to this day. And I think that's relevant as well. Thank you, Your Honor.
We would say briefly, Your Honor, that the failure to call a criminalist response team, you've ruled on similar issues, what wasn't done isn't critical. What's relevant is what was done and what does the evidence show to -- there's no evidence of framing. We think that issue is very clear. There's no hole in any glove. There was a misstatement, however unintentional, about what Detective Fuhrman said. That's a red herring that's been thrown into this case. There's absolutely no evidence of any kind of any planting, as Your Honor will see from the -- from the Lee video that's going to be played. Dr. Lee, I think the testimony will be, examined the glove and whatever, says no scientific fact indicates any planting of any evidence by any law enforcement official. In terms of liver temperature, there's no issue that liver temperature wasn't taken. There's no dispute about that on either side. So we don't think these things are at all relevant, Your Honor.
Your Honor, how Mr. Medvene can stand up and say there's not an issue about planting. We've got blood on the back gate that's there and not there. We've got blood on the console that's there and not there. We've got Mr. Fung testifying yesterday that the glove that he identified and picked up at Bundy had a hole in it. The hole's not there now. How can you say that's not a live issue? I don't understand that. We've got EDTA in the -- in the socks. We've got people saying they didn't see blood in the socks at first. I don't understand -- I think it's definitely an issue, and if -- and if Your Honor were to rule at this point that we can't present that and we can't have a full explication of that issue, our defense is highly prejudiced, Your Honor.
One last comment, Your Honor. I mean, it makes absolutely no sense. There was no -- they're not talking about the Rockingham glove, where blood was found. Why in the world would anyone switch --
-- a Bundy glove? That makes no sense. There was no blood taken from the Bundy glove. There was no examination of the blood from the Bundy glove. It makes no sense. There was no hole in the Bundy glove. That will be demonstrated. There's no planting of evidence of any kind. Their criminologist says there's -- gives nothing to any planting.
Well, the only thing that was pointed out to me last evening before we adjourned were the Hodgman letter and -- letter to Mr. Hodgman and the list that was the basis on which the Hodgman letter was constructed. And I looked at those two items. I don't see the relevance of that. I'll exclude those. With regards to the remainder of Siglar's testimony, I don't quite understand the objections to the rest of the testimony.
Well, you basically covered 80 percent of what the objections were, because they dealt with that. The only other two objections, Your Honor, other than whatever's already dealt with, were the relevance of the coroner response team being called out and --
Not being called out. That's about the only objection you really haven't dealt with, because 80-plus percent of our objections dealt with the two letters you ruled weren't relevant. I take it any testimony offered, those aren't relevant. Why is it relevant they weren't called out? Unless there can be some tie-in to this case, we know what the evidence is, is it enough to show liability or not. If --
I don't think their opinion about who should be called out is relevant to what the evidence is.
Your Honor, it's relevant -- let me make one more pitch. It's relevant because that would have been the normal procedure. LAPD didn't follow it. Why? Answer: Because they didn't want anyone from the coroner's office there. That's the answer. We should be able to -- to elicit the fact that leaves that inference for the jury. That's why it's relevant.
What is your argument? That the fact that a coroner's office response team did not have access to the decedent's body for approximately 10 hours -- how did that affect the coroner's findings?
Your Honor, first of all, they couldn't -- there may have been valuable evidence, trace evidence and so forth, that was on the bodies that wasn't obtained. The taking of the liver temperature --
-- temperature was compromised by virtue of the delay. There were -- for instance, there were drops on Nicole Brown -- blood drops on Nicole Brown Simpson's back, such as -- you asked me such as -- they were never tested.
All right, Mr. Leonard, I will not permit it on your theory of conspiracy. I don't see any basis on that -- for that. I will permit it on the basis of the fact that the liver temperature was not taken and the time of death was made more difficult because of that. That's the only reason I would do that.
Your Honor, in view of the statements of counsel, pointing out how they intend to argue yesterday's testimony, I renew my request for an admonition to the jury based on questions that had absolutely no good-faith basis. I will remind the Court that Your Honor issued a written or an oral instruction to the jury regarding my questions concerning the polygraph examinations, some of which were --
-- and told the jury that my questions were not evidence. Mr. Baker's questions, which had no good-faith basis, were not evidence. I had a good-faith basis; he had none.
Would you not do that. It makes my job a lot more difficult. Bring the jury in, please. ( JURORs resume their respective seats.)
Your Honor, we'll move into evidence the photographs of yesterday: 2309, 2310, 2311, and both gloves, 2312 and 2313.
Received. (The instrument previously marked as Defendants' Exhibit 2309 was received in evidence.) (The instrument previously marked as Defendants' Exhibit 2310 was received in evidence.) (The instrument previously marked as Defendants' Exhibit 2311 was received in evidence.) (The instrument previously marked as Defendants' Exhibit 2312 was received in evidence.) (The instrument previously marked as Defendants' Exhibit 2313 was received in evidence.)
And we'll be playing the tape of criminalist Henry Lee. And that tape has some scenes that are a little disjointed because of objections that have been ruled on and had to be edited out of the -- of the videotape of Dr. Lee. With the Court's permission, may we proceed?
Yes. (Whereupon, a videotaped deposition of Dr. Henry Lee was played.) DIRECT EXAMINATION BY
One of the circumstances I would suggest is that the LAPD purposely failed to call the coroner's office because they wanted to hold the scene tight. They didn't want to have interlopers from the coroner's office there who might interfere with whatever they were planning to do.
I will not permit it on your theory of conspiracy. I don't see any basis on that -- for that. I will permit it on the basis of the fact that the liver temperature was not taken and the time of death was made more difficult because of that. That's the only reason I would do that.
Quit whining.
You could have given me all this stuff yesterday so I could spend the rest of the afternoon and the evening to go through this. Now you're throwing it up to me in the morning even before we get the jury.
We've got blood on the back gate that's there and not there. We've got blood on the console that's there and not there. We've got Mr. Fung testifying yesterday that the glove that he identified and picked up at Bundy had a hole in it. The hole's not there now.