O.J. Simpson: Week-by-week



Week 1
January 23 - 27, 1995
JANUARY 23 - Opening statements were delayed a day because of a flurry of pre-trial arguments and motions.

O.J. Simpson asked Judge Lance Ito for permission to speak with jurors before his attorney's opening statement and to show jurors his scars, injuries and physical limitations while attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. delivers his remarks.

The defense surprised the prosecution with a list of 34 new witnesses and a videotape of police walking through blood at the murder scene. The judge barred the defense from mentioning many of the witnesses during opening statements, and the defense agreed not to use the video.

The defense offered evidence of an alibi for the first time -- a witness (Rosa Lopez) who said she saw Simpson's white Ford Bronco outside his home at a time when the prosecution alleges he was two miles away committing murder. The defense claimed that police detective Mark Fuhrman suppressed the information.

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Judge Ito ruled the defense could cross-examine Fuhrman about allegedly racial comments he made to Kathleen Bell in 1985 or 1986.

JANUARY 24 - Opening statements began after Judge Lance Ito rejected an unusual motion from O.J. Simpson's defense team to allow the football legend to address the jury.

Deputy District Attorney Christopher Darden was the first to speak for the prosecution. He said that beneath Simpson's image as a star athlete and actor was a jealous batterer and ultimately a murderer.

"He killed her (Nicole Brown) out of jealousy," Darden told the jury. "He killed her because he couldn't have her." He called Simpson "an extremely controlling and possessive man" driven by obsessive love. He then described 17 years of physical and emotional abuse that culminated in the murders.

Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark then described the evidence against Simpson, saying there was a path of "blood where there should be no blood," leading from Nicole Brown's condominium to Simpson's home. "That trail of blood from Bundy through his own Ford Bronco and into his house in Rockingham is devastating proof of his guilt," she told the jury.

But as the trial finally got underway, Judge Lance Ito suddenly pulled the plug on live coverage after Court TV inadvertently televised the face of an alternate juror. Judge Ito announced that he would decide Wednesday whether to allow continued televised coverage of the trial.

The judge rejected Simpson's request to address the jury after Clark denounced the idea as "a blatant attempt to impress the jury with his charisma and star appeal."

"The motion to allow the defendant to directly address the jury will be denied," Ito ruled. "The motion to allow him to exhibit to the jury his knee injuries or the result of the scarring and the surgeries will be allowed."

The scars on his knees, which Ito is letting Simpson exhibit, would presumably illustrate how old football i...

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