Flesh and Blood

By Richard Lacayo

After weeks in which most episodes in the O.J. Simpson case have taken place just about anywhere but in court -- on the freeways, in the headlines, on the Sunday-morning talk shows -- it was something of a relief when the preliminary hearing started last week in Los Angeles. Even when prosecutors and the defense engaged in scholastic squabbles -- like the one over how many hairs are needed for a forensic test -- it was difficult to turn away. As millions who tuned into the all-day network and cable coverage discovered (there was scarcely anywhere else to go), in those meticulous proceedings were the stuff of life and death, flesh and blood.

From the start, no one doubted that the prosecution could accomplish the simple goal of this hearing: to convince Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell that there is sufficient evidence to justify bringing Simpson to trial. Yet for most people, the real point was to learn precisely what evidence the prosecution had assembled. As it turned out, there was plenty. In the first two days of a hearing expected to continue at least through this week, it became apparent that lead prosecutor Marcia Clark and her team had gathered some devastating material, including enough scenes of blood to splice together a horror film.

Whether all of it finds its way to trial depends on Clark's getting past the determined lawyering of defense attorney Robert Shapiro. With one challenge in particular -- the admissibility of bloody evidence gathered at O.J.'s home by police before they obtained a warrant -- Shapiro could deprive the prosecution of some of its deadliest persuaders. As the face-off continues this week between a confident prosecution and a relentlessly counterpunching defense, much of the struggle will center on these issues:

THE WEAPON. Though they went to court without a murder weapon, prosecutors left no doubt that they believe they know what it was. The owner of a Los Angeles cutlery shop and a salesclerk testified that five weeks before the killings, Simpson bought a 15-in. stiletto with a 6-in. folding blade; before paying, he had it sharpened. To help the courtroom visualize such a knife, co- prosecutor William Hodgman displayed glossy photographs showing a duplicate of the stiletto that he said Simpson had purchased. This was followed by hints that a coroner would offer testimony to prove that the knife wounds on the victims came from the stiletto. Said Hodgman: "Stay tuned next week."

THE WITNESSES. How persuasive the knife-purchase testimony might be in court will depend on what jurors think about the fact that Jose Camacho, the cutlery-store salesclerk, was paid $12,500 by the National Enquirer to repeat his story to them, money that Camacho will split with his bosses. Though Shapiro failed in an attempt to get Judge Kennedy-Powell to suppress the testimony, he could argue to a jury that Camacho and one of his bosses had embellished their story or invented it to make it more salable. "How can you trust an individual when he or she has a financial interest in juicing up a story?" asks Los Angeles criminal lawyer James Blatt, who watched the proceedings.

THE BLOOD. Police say they went to Simpson's home after midnight on June 13 to tell him of his ex-wife's murder. On arrival they spotted bloodstains on the outside of the driver-side door of Simpson's Ford Bronco and a trail of blood leading from the driveway to the house. When it turned out that O.J. was not at home, one of the officers entered the grounds by climbing a wall, then admitted the others, who proceeded to search the house and grounds. In all, police found 13 places where blood was splashed around the car, including a bloodstained footprint on the driver-side mat. Inside the house, there was blood in the foyer and on the master-bathroom wall. Police also found a bloodstained right-hand leather glove that closely resembled a left-hand glove -- also covered in blood -- that was found at the murder scene.

All that evidence could be decisive if the prosecution is permitted to use it at a trial. It came to light only because of a defense motion to suppress 34 items collected by police. Shapiro maintains that they were gathered illegally because detectives searched Simpson's house for nearly six hours before obtaining a warrant. Even the warrant is illegal, he says, because in their effort to get it, police claimed that Simpson had fled when in fact he had taken a long-planned business trip. Under some circumstances -- say, for instance, when police fear that evidence will be destroyed -- warrantless searches are permissible.

THE ENVELOPE. With a lawyerly touch, Shapiro produced a sealed envelope containing evidence that he would not identify. When he objected to having it opened at that moment, Judge Kennedy-Powell ordered both sides to submit briefs on how they think it should be unsealed. What's inside -- Simpson's stiletto?

; THE TIME. Using some theatrics of her own, prosecutor Clark had earlier produced an envelope containing telephone records that could settle a controversy over the time of a phone call between Nicole Simpson and her mother Juditha Brown -- though Clark did not immediately disclose the contents. A coroner's report says the mother reported that they spoke at about 11 o'clock on the night of the murder. On the Sunday-morning talk shows, that point had been seized upon by F. Lee Bailey -- the famed defense attorney who is advising Shapiro -- to bolster the claim that when the killings took place, Simpson was at home waiting for a limousine that would take him to the airport for his 11:45 p.m. flight to Chicago. Nicole Simpson's father says the conversation took place closer to 10 p.m. If this is true, the prosecution could argue that Simpson had time to commit the killings shortly afterward, and still return home in plenty of time for his ride to the airport.

It was mostly to settle the time issue that prosecutors spent much of Thursday and Friday constructing a wrenching sequence of events that led to the discovery of the bodies. One neighbor testified that he heard the "plaintive wail" of a dog beginning around 10:20 on the night Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed. Another told how he was led to the murder scene by Nicole's agitated dog, which had blood on its paws. A third spoke of seeing blood trailing down from Nicole Simpson's body. "I remember," said Bettina Rasmussen, "it was coming down like a river."

As the hearing played itself out to adjournment last week, police continued to collect evidence, at one point leaving Simpson's house with three grocery bags of material and towing away his Bentley. The prosecution said it will not produce at the hearing what most people expect to be the crucial evidence -- the results of DNA testing of bloodstains that could prove whether Simpson was at the scene of the crime or whether blood from the victims was found in his car or at his home.

Shapiro has hinted that he might try to frustrate the introduction of DNA test results. Expect it. Last week he threw himself into the path of virtually anything that might go before a jury, even demanding to see the resume of one witness, Michele Kestler, assistant director of the police crime lab, after he challenged her authority to say the prosecution required at least 100 of Simpson's hairs to match them against hairs in a wool ski hat found at the ^ murder scene. The defense offered one hair; the judge ruled that prosecutors could have between 40 and 100.

If either the DNA tests or the police discoveries at Simpson's house are admitted into evidence, Shapiro may have to rely on other strategies. Defense adviser Alan Dershowitz, the ubiquitous specialist in appeals (Klaus von Bulow, Leona Helmsley and Mike Tyson), suggested one possibility during an appearance on PBS's Charlie Rose Show. "Now you're going to see the defense brutally attacking these victims," he said. "By the end of this trial, nobody's going to have a kind thing to say about the two dead people." Last week Dershowitz insisted to TIME his words were "a general comment" that could be applied to any trial. If they become specific defense strategy, the next stage of this trial may move from the relative niceties of court procedure to the less orderly tactics of the world outside.

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante and Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles