Deliberating, Simpson Jury Reveals Little Of Its Intent
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Behind closed doors, with a scattering of the curious and an army of reporters and photographers hanging outside the courthouse, the jury in O. J. Simpson’s second trial put in its first full day of deliberations today. At one point the panel of seven women and five men sent out for a magnifying glass used in closely studying photographs, and for a photograph of a test tube like the one used to store a sample of Mr. Simpson’s blood. Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki gave the jurors the magnifying glass but refused to give them the picture, saying they did not need it. Throughout the trial, many photographs were entered as evidence, including those of the crime scene, of spattered blood in Mr. Simpson’s home, of his vehicles and of Mr. Simpson, apparently wearing shoes like the ones that left bloody footprints at the slaying scene. It was not clear from the jury’s requests where the jury was headed or how long it might take to get there. The panel — which includes a postal worker, a bank employee, a stage manager, an unemployed cement finisher and several homemakers — was handed the wrongful-death civil suit late on Tuesday. It remained closeted for more than six hours today as it tried to determine whether Mr. Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson, his former wife, and Ronald L. Goldman, her friend, and, if he did, how much he should pay the surviving families, the plaintiffs. The families did not ask for a specific amount in their court papers. In Mr. Simpson’s criminal trial for murder, the jury, after little more than three hours of deliberation in October 1995, found the former football star and entertainment personality not guilty of charges that he fatally slashed Mrs. Simpson and Mr. Goldman outside her condominium on the night of June 12, 1994. The nation was transfixed by that trial, with its undertones of spousal abuse, unrequited love, police racism and high living in the fast lane. And to isolate it from the intense national focus, the criminal jury was sequestered throughout the nine-months trial. Though national interest in the case remains high, it has somewhat abated, and the civil judge has not sequestered this jury throughout the four-month second trial. But the civil case is significantly different from the criminal one because it involves only money claims, and not the possibility of a prison sentence. Much of the legal ground covered in the first trial also was covered in the second, including accusations by the plaintiffs that Mr. Simpson was a cold-blooded, lying murderer and counter-accusations by the defense that he was framed by corrupt police investigators. But the jury in the second case is applying a different, lesser standard of culpability as it determines Mr. Simpson’s fate. Source : query.nytimes.com |