Jurors Rehear Testimony, View Videos Central to Defense

Looking relaxed and cheerful, jurors in the O.J. Simpson civil trial interrupted their second full day of deliberations Thursday afternoon to listen to a read-back of DNA testimony and to watch three videos central to the defense’s theory that evidence was contaminated and planted.

Meanwhile, a source close to the case confirmed that Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki has ordered an investigation of a media agent who allegedly contacted at least two civil trial jurors at home earlier in the week.

Bud Stewart, who represented three jurors in Simpson’s criminal trial, sent a letter to one of the civil trial jurors and a fax to another, the source said. As soon as they received Stewart’s pitch, the jurors reported it to Fujisaki. Furious, the judge interviewed all 12 of the jurors in his chambers Tuesday morning, with attorneys from both sides present.

Fujisaki did not take action against any of the civil trial jurors. But he did order an investigation of Stewart, who mentioned in his letter to the civil jurors that he had handled press contacts for criminal trial jurors Brenda Moran and Gina Rhodes Rossborough, the source said.

At the start of the trial, Fujisaki issued an order banning anyone from contacting jurors.

Stewart did not return a call to his pager.

By all indications, the jurors have spent their first 14 hours of deliberations focused on the blood evidence tying Simpson to the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

They listened intently as the court reporter read aloud a highly technical portion of testimony by Gary Sims, an analyst in the California Department of Justice crime lab who called the defense’s contamination argument “a pretty far-fetched idea.”

Earlier in the day, the jurors requested--and received--the DNA test strips that Sims used to analyze the blood evidence.

The jurors also reviewed a video of criminalist Dennis Fung stepping across the victims’ bodies holding a brown paper bag containing the bloody glove discovered at Simpson’s estate. The defense had cited that clip as further evidence of contamination, arguing that the glove should never have been transported into the crime scene, where it could pick up or lose critical hair and fiber evidence.

A second video the jurors watched Thursday showed Fung inside the foyer of Simpson’s home, where, out of the camera’s eye, he received a vial containing a reference sample of Simpson’s blood. The defense contends that Det. Philip Vannatter unsealed the vial and sprinkled some of the blood on key evidence before handing it to Fung in the foyer.

Finally, the jurors watched a video inventory of Simpson’s bedroom that shows no socks on the floor. The defense claims that bloody socks were planted there after the video was shot; the plaintiffs argue that the socks had already been collected by criminalists.