THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL

UCLA law professor Peter Arenella and Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson offer their take on the O.J. Simpson trial. Joining them is defense lawyer Gigi Gordon, who will rotate with other experts as the case moves forward. Today’s topic: The DNA contamination war continues.

PETER ARENELLA

On the defense: New RFLP test results showing a mixture of O.J. and Ron Goldman’s blood in the Bronco pose a serious problem for the defense if the jury gets to see them. The defense will argue that Judge Lance Ito should exclude these results because prosecutors have sandbagged them by delaying testing of this stain. Having already excluded evidence about carpet fibers, Ito may not jettison more incriminating evidence unless prosecutors have behaved egregiously.

On the prosecution: Woody Clarke’s theme for the day: John Gerdes is an expert wearing blinders. He ignores conventional blood testing results that undermine his cross-contamination story and exaggerates the risk of cross-contamination going undetected. Even if the jury missed some of Clarke’s more subtle points, they saw a witness with such a strong agenda that Ito had to admonish him for failing to give responsive answers to Clarke’s questions.

LAURIE LEVENSON

On the defense: The glass is always half empty for Gerdes. Although he won’t back down from his opinion that there was a risk of contamination at the LAPD lab, it is now clear that he interprets any questionable test result as contamination--even if there is a benign explanation. No wonder Gerdes’ findings were so impressive. They overstated the contamination problem at LAPD by more than 32%.

On the prosecution: Slow but steady. Clarke clearly did his homework. He methodically dragged Gerdes through specific DNA results to show how Gerdes had slanted his findings. Clarke then raised questions about Gerdes’ credibility. Did he really read 40,000 dots? Finally, prosecutors let it be known that their final response to Gerdes may not come until rebuttal when they seek to introduce RFLP results confirming O.J. and Goldman’s blood in the Bronco.

GIGI GORDON

On the defense: Barry Scheck has let the cross-contamination genie out of the bottle and Clarke can’t put it back. Gerdes has been a fantastic witness. The attack on his being a hired gun flies in the face of the tenor of this trial where you have teams of lawyers on both sides and experts by the yard. The jury is smart enough to figure that out: They only see Clarke and Rock Harmon when there’s a DNA issue, so in this case the attack is of no moment.

On the prosecution: The prosecution couldn’t lay a glove on Gerdes. The problem is that Clarke hasn’t demolished the fundamental premise of Gerdes’ testimony: Cross-contamination equals unreliability and unreliability equals reasonable doubt. Without imploding that fundamental premise, they’re nowhere, because the fundamental premise is true: Cross-contamination does equal unreliability. They can’t destroy the premise. They’re in trouble.

Compiled by Henry Weinstein / Los Angeles Times