Simpson Team Zeros In on Police Technicians : Courts: Judge irritated as session strays from issue of access to blood samples. Hairs in cap resemble defendant’s.

Pushing the limits of a narrowly focused court hearing involving DNA evidence, O.J. Simpson’s defense lawyers hammered away Tuesday at the procedures and qualifications of police technicians who gathered blood samples after the murders of the football legend’s ex-wife and her friend.

Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito, at the close of the two-day hearing on whether the defense should be given immediate access to the samples for independent testing, said he would rule Friday.

But by the time the judge concluded the session--which was marked in equal parts by tedium and testiness--tempers had frayed all around.

At one point, Ito grew so irritated by defense lawyers’ repeated straying from the issue at hand that he began raising and sustaining his own objections.

“Move on to something that has to do with the size of the samples,” Ito ordered Simpson lawyer Peter Neufeld after Neufeld persisted in asking questions the judge had ruled irrelevant.

“I’ve already directed you 12 times,” the judge admonished him. “Next time I have to warn you there are going to be sanctions.”

In another development, sources close to the Simpson investigation said Tuesday that FBI analysts have completed microscopic examination of hairs recovered from a blue knit watch cap found near the bodies, and have concluded that they resemble Simpson’s. A Municipal Court judge last month ordered Simpson to give investigators samples of his hair, and those were compared to the hairs recovered from the cap.

The revelation comes after court papers Monday disclosed that some new DNA tests of blood from the murder scene appear to match Simpson’s blood.

Robert L. Shapiro, one of Simpson’s lawyers, said he had not reviewed the latest hair results, but added that they are not definitive. DNA testing can be far more conclusive than examination of evidence under a microscope.

“It’s microscopic (analysis),” Shapiro said. “The best microscopic can do is say that it has basic similarities with O.J.’s hair.”

In any case, Shapiro said the handling of evidence by police investigators was so inept that it compromised any scientific testing of hair as well as blood samples recovered from the murder scene and from Simpson’s Brentwood mansion.

Indeed, the defense attorneys at every turn have tried to attack the credibility of DNA test results that in some cases implicate Simpson in the June 12 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. Defense attorneys on Tuesday contended that police bungled the collection of the blood, mislabeled a sample and assigned a trainee criminalist to the case.

Tuesday’s courtroom skirmishes over DNA testing of the blood samples indicate how crucial physical evidence will be during trial of a case that has no known eyewitnesses.

Neufeld, a DNA expert for the defense, seized on the relative inexperience of LAPD criminalist Andrea Mazzola, who collected most of the blood droplets from the door of Simpson’s Bronco parked at a curb outside his estate, from the property itself and from droplets leading away from the bodies at the murder scene two miles away.

Under questioning, Mazzola acknowledged that she was a trainee who had been on the job just six months at the time and had “zero” experience at crime scenes in which she had the primary responsibility for collecting evidence.

Earlier, another police criminalist, Collin Yamauchi, told attorney Barry Scheck, the defense’s other DNA expert, that he had mislabeled one blood sample. However, Yamauchi insisted he took pains to protect evidence, approximating measurements of some blood samples to avoid touching them with a ruler.

“I didn’t want to risk contamination so I made approximations,” he said. “I tried to avoid touching them as much as possible.”

Yamauchi, who performed some of the earliest tests on the Simpson blood samples, also acknowledged that his first experience in DNA testing was six months ago.

Long stretches of testimony Tuesday were confined to small technical details, such as how blood droplets were swabbed onto swatches of cloth, how the samples were labeled and what happened to the evidence after it was taken to a police laboratory.

The subject matter was so dry that even the most avid court watchers stayed away. A month ago, would-be spectators had lined up before dawn to get a seat, but on Tuesday--for the first time since the closely watched Simpson case hit the courthouse--there were empty seats and plenty of them.

Although the testimony was on the dull side, the rhetoric was full of fury as the hearing ended.

Simpson attorney Gerald F. Uelman accused prosecutors of trying to stymie defense efforts to conduct independent tests. He reminded Ito that the prosecution only recently informed defense attorneys of three previously undisclosed blood swatches that were about to be tested.

He suggested that the prosecution deliberately hid the swatches from the defense in a “sophisticated game plan to burn up the evidence” in DNA tests, which often consume the material being tested.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Kahn, the prosecution’s in-house DNA expert, repeatedly apologized to Ito for raising her voice while defending her office against such attacks.

“There has been nothing but good faith,” Kahn insisted, saying some of the points of contention stem from misunderstandings that have cropped up as the case moves quickly toward trial.

“I’ve never seen a (DNA) case that has had this kind of involvement at this stage,” Kahn said.

Lead prosecutor Marcia Clark also maintained that the prosecution has acted fairly.

“We’ve done everything in our power to accommodate the defense and serve the people of California,” she said.

Simpson has pleaded not guilty. His trial is scheduled for Sept. 19.

In other developments Tuesday:

* The grand jury currently hearing testimony about the events leading up to Simpson’s six-hour disappearance on June 17 called additional witnesses, including Cathy Randa, Simpson’s administrative assistant for 20 years. The panel may be asked to bring charges against longtime Simpson friend Al Cowlings for allegedly aiding his former teammate’s flight.

Attorneys for Robert Kardashian, a lawyer and also a Simpson friend, filed a sealed motion seeking to quash his grand jury subpoena.

Simpson and Cowlings were at Kardashian’s house the morning Simpson was charged with two counts of murder. The two fled in Cowlings’ Ford Bronco, surrendering that night after a nationally televised freeway pursuit.

Kardashian’s motion was filed under seal.

Another member of the defense team, forensic expert Henry Lee, is scheduled to testify before the grand jury today. Lee also was at Kardashian’s Encino home before Simpson and Cowlings slipped away from the residence. Virtually everyone who was with Simpson that morning has been subpoenaed. The only exceptions, sources say, are Simpson himself and attorney Shapiro.

* Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams, in a rare public comment on the Simpson case, praised members of his department for their investigative efforts and urged the public to rally around the LAPD.

Despite a microscopic examination of every detail of the case, investigators and others involved “have all continued to perform their duties with the highest level of integrity and professionalism that I have seen in law enforcement,” Williams said.

Williams urged members of the public to praise officers who do a good job, stopping them in the street or writing to his office to express their feelings. Williams said he would see that any letter commending an officer or other department employee was made part of the employee’s personnel file.

Times staff writer Eric Malnic contributed to this story.