All right. The record should reflect that--everybody be seated, please. All right. The record will reflect the jury has withdrawn from the courtroom. Mr. Blasier, what is the relevance of 118?
Your Honor, 118 is a knife that was found outside of Mr. Simpson's estate on July 2nd and was turned over to the police at that time. It was a knife that was not there on the 13th. It had obviously been planted there by somebody. It had blood on it. That blood was tested and it came back as an EAP type B which is the same type of blood as the blood under the fingernails of Nicole Brown Simpson, according to Mr. Matheson's own test results. Therefore, it is relevant as it may be a knife--and I would also indicate that the size of the knife is consistent with the wounds on the victim. And I would argue that it is relevant on the issue of possibly having blood of a perpetrator other than Mr. Simpson on it. Your Honor, I ask Mr. Matheson to step out, please.
No. 1 thing, your Honor, is that the whole area was swept with metal detectors on June 28th. The second thing is that this was discovered, what, one week thereafter on July 2nd or 3rd, by Detective Payne pursuant to a tip concerning the people that allegedly found it there. And those people turned it over wrapped in a blouse. What is ridiculous about the Defense position is that the areas of the knife that were tested and turned up in EAP type B was on the tip, the end of the blade of the knife. That is not going to be the blood of the perpetrator; that is going to be the blood of the victim. So what Mr. Blasier is a saying is that that is inconsistent with a true type B and not a BA, then this knife is completely irrelevant, because as we know for sure, none of these victims was a type B. Now, if what Mr. Blasier would like to argue is that this is actually the blood that is a BA type degraded to a B, that is fine. I don't know what he does with his inconsistent argument that the type B found under her fingernails was actually not a BA degraded but a real B. That becomes internally inconsistent. So their position is revealed, by their insistence on this piece of evidence, to be both logically and scientifically ridiculous. There is no relevance because it was obviously not there at the relevant time. It was planted there by someone else. We also have a situation in the testing of this item that reveals that there is no PGM obtainable. Obviously what we have is very degraded blood on this knife. The EAP came back B in one spot and--excuse me, your Honor. I'm talking fast because I know you want to get this done. And B inconclusive on the EAP marker, but there was no PGM obtainable from it at all, showing how severely degraded this blood is. So that all of those factors put together reveal how irrelevant this piece of evidence, quote-unquote, really is. I would like for Mr. Matheson to address further the scientific issues, if the Court would like to hear that, concerning the significance of the degradation, the loss of the PGM marker. What is interesting in contrast is that the fingernail scrapings from underneath Miss Brown's fingernails reveals we do have a PGM type that is consistent with her which tends to further buttress the blood type EAP is a degraded BA, but on this knife we have nothing. All we have is an EAP that shows a B and a B inconclusive, no PGM activity on the blade of the knife, which would be the blood of the victim, so what does that have to do with this case at a point in time after the metal detectors have swept the area? It is more nonsense red herring is what it is, and under 352 it would be unduly misleading, confusing and time consuming to this jury to chase down yet another dead-end that the Defense wants to shove in their face. May I confer one moment, your Honor?
Yes. Mr. Darden points out further that it would take about five witnesses to resolve this. We would need the searches, who did the metal detector sweep. We would need Detective Payne who received the tip. We would need the persons who found the knife. That is another three people who found it. And then the analysis of the knife by Mr. Matheson. We are talking about quite a lot of time to chase down something that is completely not only irrelevant, but ludicrous in this trial.
Your Honor, I resent the notion that we planted this evidence. There were four people that have nothing to do with this case that we've talked to who found that knife.
They say it is not relevant because they don't want to believe it. It has blood on it that is consistent with the blood under the fingernails. That makes it relevant. Whether they like it or not, that is relevant evidence and everything she said goes to weight; it should not go to admissibility.
All right. I will make, for the purpose of this particular item, the package of reports, Court's exhibit no. 10.
All right. Let me read it and we will take a recess and we will see what we do with it.
Your Honor, before we do that, I would like to make a record on the exhibit, if I might.
Your Honor, I don't think we did it on the record and I apologize if I have missed some step here, but I don't like to play a guessing game, but I don't know what you want. I thought we had covered everything that we had talked about and I'm asking as a courtesy for some guidance. That is all.
It was a knife that was not there on the 13th. It had obviously been planted there by somebody.
Their position is revealed, by their insistence on this piece of evidence, to be both logically and scientifically ridiculous.
It is more nonsense red herring is what it is, and under 352 it would be unduly misleading, confusing and time consuming to this jury to chase down yet another dead-end that the Defense wants to shove in their face.
It has blood on it that is consistent with the blood under the fingernails. That makes it relevant. Whether they like it or not, that is relevant evidence and everything she said goes to weight; it should not go to admissibility.