📄 Administrative matters: street lighting — Thursday, August 17, 1995
Address:
C:\DEPT103\CRIMINAL\1995\AUG\17\ADMINISTRATIVE-MATTERS-STREET-.DOC
TRIAL
▲ Day 138 of 167

Administrative matters: street lighting

Date: Thursday, August 17, 1995 • Utterances: 53
A pre-trial administrative session covering four loose ends before resuming jury testimony: the status of a street lighting investigation at Bundy, concerns from the Dershowitz team about high-speed tape duplication distorting the Fuhrman tapes, witness scheduling gaps that will leave the defense without witnesses for most of the week, and a back-and-forth negotiation over a stipulation about latent prints lifted from OJ's Bronco on June 14th.
1 (The following proceedings were held in open court, out of the presence of the jury:)
2 THE COURT:

All right. Back on the record in the Simpson matter. All parties are again present. The jury is not present. Mr.--what happened to Mr. Douglas and Mr. Hodgman? There's Mr. Douglas. Mr. Douglas, did you have the opportunity to confer with the gentleman from the department of street lighting?

3 MR. DOUGLAS:

We did, your Honor. Thank you. Following our discussions, Mr. Hernandez, who was quite cooperative, was unable to confirm specifically that the two lights in both locations are in fact identical to as they were on June the 12th. As the Court will recall, we were informed by the police that a specific order was made to change the lighting given the problems that was attendant to the influx in traffic with tourism and foot traffic, and though he was able to check and verify a certain number on the outside of the lightbulb, he did not actually remove the casing and check the bulb. He will do that today and he will be available on Friday. Assuming we go back out to the scene and if in fact there was a change, it's been agreed, though we still reserve our objections, that he will then make the appropriate changes.

4 THE COURT:

All right.

5 MS. CLARK:

We don't have the representative here, your Honor. I didn't know you were going to address it with Mr. Douglas now. But the representative from our office that talked to Mr. Hernandez with Mr. Douglas is not present. So we don't--

6 THE COURT:

Oh, I accept Mr. Douglas' representation that the bulb will be checked to see if it matches what's supposed to be there, and if it's different, it will be changed to what it was supposed to be. I just said I accept your representation, Mr. Douglas, is what I just indicated.

7 MS. CLARK:

I was only indicating to the Court that we can't offer any further information.

8 THE COURT:

All right. So it's one more thing I have to hold until tomorrow. All right.

9 MR. COCHRAN:

There's one other thing if I might that I just want to point out. That we got a number of calls--this is from Professor Dershowitz--regarding this high-speed tape reproduction. And these are supposedly experts in the field who stated that if one does a high resolution, high-speed tape reproduction, the very likely result would be significant distortion in voice inflection, word loss, et cetera, et cetera, and this is not the necessary method to duplicate these tapes. And so I raise this because, Judge, we've gone to a lot of trouble, this is very important and I don't want to have these tapes altered or--

10 THE COURT:

Your technical expert, Mr. Bailey, wanted to say something to you.

11 MR. COCHRAN:

Sure. Sure.

12 (Discussion held off the record between Defense counsel.)
13 MR. COCHRAN:

I understand apparently it's been worked out. I wanted to make sure it wasn't done by people who didn't understand. Apparently they've worked it out now and it's going to be okay. Thank you, your Honor.

14 THE COURT:

All right. Thank you. We'll leave it to the experts in their respective fields. All right. Anything else we need to discuss before we resume with the jury?

15 MR. COCHRAN:

No your Honor.

16 THE COURT:

All right. Let me ask one other question. What is the possibility of having witnesses available tomorrow?

17 MR. COCHRAN:

Your Honor, I'm glad you asked that question, your Honor. We've thought long and hard and tried to do everything we could in this connection, but the Court I think is aware that we're at the point of the tapes quite frankly. The witnesses after that, the Court knows who those witnesses are. There are several witnesses in Chicago and there's Mr. Weitzman, as I indicated, all of whom are not available at all this week. We just could not get them. So we have Mr. Aguilar for--hopefully we can finish him by lunch time.

18 THE COURT:

How about Mr. Ragle?

19 MR. COCHRAN:

Mr. Ragle--as the Court is aware, Mr. Ragle is being handled by Mr. Blasier. As part of our order, he will come right before Dr. Henry Lee. And Mr. Blasier, as you know, because of a previous commitment, will not be here this afternoon or tomorrow either, your Honor.

20 THE COURT:

Well, I could change that.

21 MR. COCHRAN:

You certainly could, your Honor. But I think we're not ready yet. He will come right before Dr. Lee if the Court pleases. And that's the problem. So we have tried very hard not to have any downtime, but we need the time for the tapes. We're at that point in the case, and we did lose some time by the People's motion. So I wanted to let the Court know as soon as possible so perhaps the jury can have some type of diversion tomorrow where they won't have to come in. And we've done everything we could as far as getting witnesses, but we're at that point where we're going to be able to do Mr. Aguilar today, hopefully resolve the tape matter on Monday and then finish our case hopefully next week.

22 THE COURT:

All right. Then I will tell the jury when we break today that we have run out of witnesses at this point, that there's a significant legal issue that the Court needs to attend to and that we'll reconvene with the jury hopefully Monday morning.

23 MR. COCHRAN:

That's fine. And we'll be in touch with your Honor regarding these tapes and what happens with the--

24 THE COURT:

Because I still have not received a redacted set of the tapes.

25 MR. COCHRAN:

Right. Well, we're going to make sure you get that. Hopefully we'd like to give you a redacted set that's been enhanced. You know, you have the--and it'll make it easier with all the tapes. It is a lot more work than I thought, doing those verbatim tapes.

26 THE COURT:

All right.

27 MR. COCHRAN:

Transcripts rather.

28 THE COURT:

All right. I'm sorry. Miss Clark, you have something that we need to do?

29 MS. CLARK:

Yes, your Honor. Mr. Douglas had given me a handwritten statement as to the stipulation that he wanted, and that was acceptable to me, but I had asked for a stipulation in response to that with respect to prints lifted from the Defendant's Bronco by latent print investigator finch.

30 THE COURT:

Mr. Cochran.

31 MR. COCHRAN:

I'm sorry. I wasn't listening.

32 MS. CLARK:

Mr. Douglas had asked that I stipulate to the lifting of latent prints from the location at Bundy, which I agreed to do, and I'm only asking that in response, the Defense stipulate to the lifting of latent prints from the Defendant's Bronco on June the 14th.

33 MR. COCHRAN:

Well, the only problem--I have no problem with that except that part of my examination today, your Honor, I want to go into the Bundy crime scene. So that with respect--limited to that. This is our case and that's how we choose to call it. So I have no problem with the foundational stipulation, but we would object to beyond the scope of our direct examination, because we're only limiting it to Bundy as the limited portion.

34 THE COURT:

Are you--excuse me. Miss Clark, are you going to be calling Mr. Aguilar as one of your witnesses with regards to the fingerprints in the Bronco?

35 MS. CLARK:

If we have to, we will. You know, sure. Let's waste some more time. Great idea. You know, we have the witness on the witness stand. We all know he lifted prints from the Defendant's Bronco. We all know that the latent print person was there on the 14th at 1:30, lifted the prints, compared them.

36 THE COURT:

What do they say?

37 MS. CLARK:

The prints on the Bronco? The Defendant's, the Defendant's prints.

38 THE COURT:

That's hardly surprising.

KEY QUOTE
39 MS. CLARK:

I felt the same way, your Honor. But it is important that--all we're asking is that the Defense stipulate that on June the 14th between 1:30--excuse me. I'm sorry--between 1:30 and 3 o'clock, that latent print investigator finch responded to the Bronco and dusted it for--lifted latent prints from the door, the driver's side door. That's all we're asking.

KEY QUOTE
40 MR. COCHRAN:

I have no problem with that as I indicated. The problem is, as I said many times, and counsel knows it--

41 THE COURT:

Well, she's asking you at this point, are you willing to stipulate to that while this witness is here.

42 MR. COCHRAN:

I'm willing to stipulate to that, yes, your Honor, but I still object to any testimony about the Bronco. I'm limiting my examination to Bundy. I think that's what's relevant.

43 THE COURT:

Well, you're giving me an inconsistent answer here, Mr. Cochran. Are you willing to stipulate to that with this witness here today?

44 MR. COCHRAN:

Yes, I am.

45 THE COURT:

All right. Thank you. You're right. You are entitled to present your case. But since this guy's here--

46 MR. COCHRAN:

Yes.

47 THE COURT:

And it's--all right. Miss Clark, you heard Mr. Cochran's response?

48 MS. CLARK:

I did. May I have one moment, your Honor?

49 THE COURT:

Sure.

50 (Discussion held off the record between the Deputy District Attorneys.)
51 MS. CLARK:

If I understand Mr. Cochran correctly, he wants to stipulate to the foundational issue of the latent prints having been taken as represented in the report. I would ask that counsel stipulate to the information on this report as being true and accurate, which is a page labeled L99, as I have agreed to stipulate to similar pages for their witness today. And we will--

52 (Discussion held off the record between the Deputy District Attorney and Defense counsel.)
53 THE COURT:

It would just help if we tried to do these stipulations beforehand, counsel.

KEY QUOTE

Temperature

procedural

Key Quotes (5)

Marcia Clark
Let's waste some more time. Great idea.
Sarcastic frustration at Cochran's resistance to stipulating Bronco fingerprint evidence that Clark considered obvious and uncontested.
Lance A. Ito
That's hardly surprising.
Ito's dry reaction to learning that the prints on Simpson's Bronco were Simpson's — a rare moment of judicial editorial.
Marcia Clark
I felt the same way, your Honor.
Clark's deadpan agreement with Ito's comment, underscoring how mundane the Bronco print stipulation should have been.
Johnnie Cochran
We've gone to a lot of trouble, this is very important and I don't want to have these tapes altered or--
Cochran flagging concerns about the integrity of the Fuhrman tape duplication process, citing expert advice from the Dershowitz team.
Lance A. Ito
It would just help if we tried to do these stipulations beforehand, counsel.
Ito's exasperated closing note as the parties failed to resolve a straightforward stipulation without on-the-record wrangling.

Evidence (4)

L99
Latent print investigator Finch's report documenting prints lifted from the driver's side door of Simpson's Bronco on June 14th between 1:30 and 3:00 PM
discussed as subject of proposed stipulation
Informal
Street lighting at two locations near the Bundy crime scene — under investigation to confirm whether bulbs matched conditions on June 12th
discussed; investigator Hernandez to physically check bulbs and report by Friday
Informal
Fuhrman tapes — high-speed duplication process under review after Dershowitz team raised concerns about voice distortion and word loss
discussed; defense counsel resolved the duplication method issue off the record
Informal
Latent prints lifted from Bundy crime scene
subject of a stipulation Clark agreed to in exchange for the Bronco stipulation

Notable Exchanges (3)

Marcia ClarkJohnnie CochranLance A. Ito
Clark requested a reciprocal stipulation on Bronco latent prints after agreeing to stipulate to Bundy prints. Cochran agreed to the foundational stipulation but objected to any broader Bronco testimony. Ito called his answer 'inconsistent' before Cochran clarified he would stipulate while maintaining his scope objection.
tense/procedural
Johnnie CochranLance A. Ito
Cochran raised Dershowitz team concerns about high-speed tape duplication causing distortion in the Fuhrman tapes. Ito redirected him to confer with Bailey off the record; Cochran returned reporting the issue was resolved.
strategic
Johnnie CochranLance A. Ito
Cochran explained the defense had no witnesses available for most of the week beyond Aguilar — key witnesses were in Chicago and Blasier (handling Ragle) had a prior commitment. Ito said he 'could change that' before accepting the scheduling gap.
procedural

Light Moments (1)

Lance A. Ito / Marcia Clark
After Clark explained that prints found on the Bronco were Simpson's, Ito deadpanned 'That's hardly surprising.' Clark immediately replied 'I felt the same way, your Honor.'

Objections

1 objections (0 sustained, 0 overruled)
Proceeding 7350 • 53 utterances
Criminal Trial
Department 103
⚖️ Start
📂 AUG 17, 1995 📄 Administrative matters: street
AUG 17, 1995 KRT DvH TD