Back on the record in the Simpson matter. All parties are again present. The jury is not present. Counsel, in our discussions about the discovery issues earlier this afternoon, I was trying to rack my brain to recollect the occurrences during the 1054.07 hearing that Mr. Blasier reminds the court that we did conduct with regards to a substantial number of the issues here. I have just received from my court reporters a transcript of that proceeding--of one of those proceedings--and apparently my recollection is now refreshed that we had three such in camera hearings within days of that particular hearing. I have not had the opportunity over the break to even--it is literally hot from the photocopier, so I have not had the opportunity to read this or refresh my recollection as to my discussions with Mr. Blasier with regards to this 1054.07. There are also two other transcripts that are being produced right now. So the problem I have is I'm not in a position to rule on discovery sanctions as to any of these items until I've had the opportunity to completely refresh my recollection by reading the transcript of the previous hearing.
Your Honor, also the memo I referred to was also submitted to you at that time. I have it on my computer. I will fax another copy to the court, but it should be in the file. I submitted to you copies.
Here is the problem, counsel. It might have occurred to both parties here, that I have been concentrating a hundred percent of my efforts on another issue so--but since we have this witness here, I'm now going to stop my work on Fuhrman and turn all of my staff's attention to this issue, because I've got to go through now this stack of reports and correlate it with the in camera offer, because quite frankly, this happened in March and I have no independent recollection of what occurred then.
Sure. I just want to make sure that you were aware of everything that was submitted, because there was also copies of reports with excerpts that were turned over that were provided to you in sealed envelopes that you should have somewhere back there.
I know I have a package of all sorts of things. The problem is the issue is when do you have the time to sit down and look at all this stuff? That is the issue. All right. Mr. Goldberg.
Your Honor, may I just inquire? We did not know about the in camera hearing. At this point can the People also have access to the transcript, since presumably if Mr. Blasier's representation is that the materials that were discussed herein were discussed then, I think that we would be entitled to it now since they have been disclosed to us anyway, if that is indeed the case.
You know, I don't know of any precedents regarding disclosure of 1054.07 hearings in the course of trial. Frankly, I have never heard of it. That doesn't say I won't do it, but I have just never heard of it before. Of course there are a lot of things I have never heard of before, so we are sort of at a dilemma here, counsel. I haven't had time to read this. It was just given to me.
There are two areas that I would like to get into that I will just demonstrate what they are to the court. I have described them to Mr. Goldberg. He knows what this testimony is going to be from other sources anyhow.
One issue that we wanted to go into was the next logical step, just talking about steps in forensic examination. Now, this will involve what was done at the crime scene here in terms of recognizing evidence, some discussion of that.
Let me ask Mr. Goldberg, do you have any objection to the basic suggestion of criminalistics?
I told Mr. Scheck that if it was simply a generic discussion such as certain portions of the testimony that we heard yesterday, that I couldn't object on discovery grounds, but if he is going to then relate it back to the physical evidence in this case and his examination of what he saw of that evidence and what he didn't see and what he looked for and so on and so forth and what he saw in the photographs and the like and correlate this to his investigation, or some larger issue, that that does present the same discovery problem.
Well, I mean what we intend to get into is his assessment of what they looked for at the crime scene, what they preserved, how they documented, how they collected it and how that affects the inability to do a complete reconstruction. We are going to be talking about the facts of the case. We are very eager to talk about the facts of this case, but I can't--
Well, I think it is--it is similar, but I think it is more pointed because it is going to be going into the specifics. Dr. Lee, as you can see, is going to be talking about nothing but evidence, physical evidence, in his assessment of it and what we think are scientific facts and some matters of interpretation.
You didn't answer my question. My question to you is is this the same stuff that we heard--isn't this chart exactly what we heard from Mr. Ragle yesterday only in different order?
Well, it is Dr. Lee's approach to it. It is similar. I'm not saying it isn't similar, but it is his approach. It is not that long. But it is what he need to explain why he couldn't do a complete reconstruction and to explain exactly what he could assess and what he couldn't assess and what his problems are with the way they preserved, documented and collected things.
And then after that what I wanted to do is go directly to the issue of imprint evidence at Bundy, and the bottom three photographs here that deal with pictures that he took on June 25th that were turned over to the Prosecution a long time ago, the upper left-hand photo--the bottom photograph over here is one of their pictures. The jeans are jeans--a photograph taken of Goldman's jeans I believe at--in Albany, but they went and took the same photographs. They have their own photograph of that. And then the next two pictures are the envelope and the piece of paper which are their pictures. After that, your Honor, are just their pictures. That is an imprint on the piece of paper and a close-up of that, (Indicating), and the imprint on the envelope and a close-up of that, (Indicating). And then we also have, as I have shown Mr. Goldberg, these boards. We have larger blow-ups of these pictures. This picture is this one. This picture is this one. We will do a blow-up on the elmo of their own picture. And then for this other board we have another larger version of this piece of paper and another blow-up of their picture of the envelope, so basically we are dealing with their pictures and a set of materials that were turned over to them a long time ago.
My alternative--I think we should be allowed to do all of this under any ruling or anything conceivable to me in terms of discovery issues, but if--and this is the order in which we plan it--if worse comes to worse we will just do their pictures on imprint evidence at Bundy. But I mean, I see no reason, given these photographs, that they are their photographs and they received them months ago in March, they receive these photographs of the footprints. The imprint evidence--
I'm not sure, Judge, I have all of that what we turned over and what was not turned over as do you. I'm not positive about whether notes about throws pictures were turned over, but the pictures were.
Well, your Honor, as to the first board which we've already discussed briefly, Mr. Scheck's proffer is to--by the way, may I have permission to stand here?
Mr. Scheck's proffer is not specific enough for me to be able to say whether or not we object. Obviously a very generic description may be appropriate. It may not get us into any areas where there are discovery violations, but I have a feeling he is probably intending on doing more than that, and it may be difficult for the court to rule on a question by question basis because the court hasn't had the opportunity to completely familiarize itself with this issue. As to the charts, we didn't discuss these because I didn't think we were going to get to them yet, but we had some objections to all the charts in terms of the word "Evidence." Because many of the things described, not so much on these charts, but some of the others more particularly, such as with respect to Ron Goldman's jeans, may or may not be evidence. I think it is going to be for the jury to decide, because there are possible impressions on the jeans and we can't even be sure that they are impressions. In many other cases the probative value of the evidence, if any, is concededly non-existent.
All counsel is talking about is when we had the photos. First of all, if you look at the close-up photo of the imprint on the envelope, that photo we received on the 3rd of this month. This--and what they are doing is they are linking this photo, and also the close-up of it, in with the rest of this entire board as to this imprint evidence. And we didn't receive any documentation as to the significance of an analysis and interpretation that Dr. Lee rendered. I mean, he is a forensic scientist. He doesn't just look at photos and say here is a photo. He gives an opinion, he undertakes an evaluation, and he expresses that as an expert to a jury, and that is what he is going to do.
All right. Where in this pile of reports that you gave me is the report regarding this particular item?
Well, this particular item the--the eyeglass envelope is probably going to be referred to in a number of different piles of documents, because they refer to it more than once. But let me see if I can find the specific one, your Honor.
Well, I mean, did you prepare--did you or your law clerks prepare a chart to search one of these issues and cross reference it?
Well, the only thing that would be practical for us to do, your Honor, we will do as much as we possibly can at the court's direction. Would the court like us to take their charts and for the items of evidence on their charts begin to cross-reference them?
Because we can do that, but there are many other items that Dr. Lee may be testifying to that are not on the charts.
Well, my question right now is can you proceed with this one chart marked 3 of 3 "Imprint evidence at Bundy" and the steps in forensic examination? Can you start with at least those two charts today?
Because this was one of the key ones and the most important ones that we objected to. We did not find out in discovery that they were claiming there was an imprint on the eyeglass envelope until this month.
Well, I think that Dr. Lee's report indicates it, but more to the point, here is the notes that were turned over on March 24th which describe these imprint--imprints found at Bundy by Dr. Lee. So it seems to me that what we are talking about on this first board are two pictures that they've had since March, notes concerning those pictures that they've had since March, with little diagrams of the pattern, if the court sees, their own picture from June 13, a picture of the jeans which they took--they saw themselves and they have had in their possession for all this time, and when we took a picture of it, their people were taking a picture of it, and then it is their own--everything else is their own pictures here. And it seems to me that what Mr. Goldberg is saying is they have an opportunity to have their own reconstruction experts, and they've had them, look at the same photographs, do close-ups, look at the same imprint evidence and draw their own conclusions. Basically this is Dr. Lee's interpretation of scientific fact. He has issued a report about it. All these raw materials and the notes have been long available.
Well, this is the point, your Honor, just to drive it home. We had a witness by the name of William Bodziak testify on shoeprints. If the court--the court recalls his testimony, he really didn't do anything except take all of the crime scene photographs that the Defense had access to for months and months and put overlays on them and then he generated a report regarding his findings. If I stood here and said, well, Judge, I don't need to give them the report from Bodziak as to his findings because they had the same--the same photographs for months, they had the crime scene photographs--
Mr. Goldberg, hold on. Mr. Scheck, the report that you handed me which appears to be dated 6/25/94 does not include any observations regarding prints on the envelope that I can see here.
Oh, no. That deals with the--the--the parallel line imprints on the walkway at Bundy. That is what I was--
I'm asking about chart 3 of 3 here, imprints on the envelopes. I'm trying to get something in front of the jury right now is what I'm trying to do.
Well, it is mentioned certainly in his final report and these are their pictures. I mean, I'm at a loss.
No. Answer my question. Which report mentions the imprints, the finding of imprints on these two items on your board 3 of 3? Just tell me which report.
His notes there is also observations of the imprint on the envelope on--from the Albany inspection on February 17th to 19th. There is also reference to the March 4th, 1995, visit to the LAPD crime lab where we examined the envelope, pictures were taken and Mr. Matheson and--was there. In fact, Mr. Bodziak I believe talks about imprints on the envelopes in his own reports. They were standing there while we took these pictures and made these observations. That is why I'm having trouble with all this. I thought that--
July 17th, but the point is, is that the notes were--weren't turned over until the 8th of this month.
I--I believe that they do, and there may be a sketch and I would have to go through. I mean, the point is, your Honor, this gets us right into the heart of the discovery dispute.
Well, here is the issue, though. Do you have the evidence in front of you? Are you aware of it? The answer is yes. It is the Prosecution's evidence and the Prosecution's agency that collected it. Are Dr. Lee's opinions that he is going to testify included in his report dated in mid-July that was given to the Prosecution mid-July? Apparently the answer to that question is yes. That envelope and that--apparently that piece of paper, my recollection is, that nobody bothered to pick it up, so it is off somewhere who knows where. The issue is then what is fair at this point? If Dr. Lee's observations were--and final report was made available to the Prosecution in a timely manner, which it appears to be within days of the completion of the report, then I can't find a violation at this point and I'm not inclined to do that. Preliminarily I'm going to say that the Defense can use this board today with the jury. Let's proceed.
I have been concentrating a hundred percent of my efforts on another issue so--but since we have this witness here, I'm now going to stop my work on Fuhrman and turn all of my staff's attention to this issue
That envelope and that--apparently that piece of paper, my recollection is, that nobody bothered to pick it up, so it is off somewhere who knows where.
If Dr. Lee's observations were--and final report was made available to the Prosecution in a timely manner, which it appears to be within days of the completion of the report, then I can't find a violation at this point and I'm not inclined to do that. Preliminarily I'm going to say that the Defense can use this board today with the jury.
We did not find out in discovery that they were claiming there was an imprint on the eyeglass envelope until this month.