Ito’s Rulings Set Back Simpson Defense Team : Courts: Reporter refuses to testify about socks story, citing protection of shield law. Judge won’t help get tapes containing alleged racist remarks by Fuhrman.

Increasingly desperate to put evidence of an alleged police conspiracy against their client before the jury, O.J. Simpson’s defense attorneys lashed out in four different directions Monday and met resistance at every turn.

The former football star’s lawyers sought to compel a pair of reporters--Tracie Savage of television station KNBC and author Joseph Bosco--to reveal the sources of stories on the handling of the bloodstained socks recovered from the bedroom of Simpson’s Rockingham Avenue estate.

Savage, who was forced to take the stand, refused to answer, invoking the protection of the California Shield Law. Judge Lance A. Ito, citing the issue’s complexity and the need for “careful consideration,” took the question of whether to force her to answer under submission.

Simpson’s lawyers also want to question Bosco about Los Angeles Police Department sources for an article he wrote for the July issue of Penthouse magazine. Since he was served with the subpoena during the trial’s midmorning break, Ito gave the writer until 4 p.m. Wednesday to confer with his lawyer on how to proceed.

Later in the morning, a visibly agitated Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., Simpson’s chief counsel, sought an affidavit from Ito to assist the defense in its appeal of a North Carolina ruling denying their client access to audiotapes on which LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman allegedly makes racist remarks and contradicts his sworn testimony in the Simpson trial. Ito declined to involve himself on ethical grounds, though Cochran characterized the tapes’ content as “chilling.”

Shortly afterward, Ito handed the defense still another setback, when he issued a written refusal to reconsider his order barring testimony by Christian Reichardt, onetime boyfriend to Faye Resnick and sometimes a house guest of Nicole Brown Simpson. The defense had hoped to use Reichardt to lay the groundwork for its theory that the murders of Simpson’s ex-wife and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman, were committed by drug dealers pursuing Resnick, a self-described cocaine user.

But worse was in store for the former football star shortly before testimony in front of the jury resumed. Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark suggested that she may try to introduce into evidence photographs and videotapes the prosecution says show Simpson wearing the same type of gloves as those that were lost or discarded by the murderer.

Clark’s threat was delivered during a hearing in which another Simpson lawyer, Peter Neufeld, sought to circumscribe the cross-examination of defense blood expert Herbert MacDonell by asking Ito to prohibit the prosecution from showing a videotape of Simpson wearing gloves on the sidelines of a football game. Clark argued that she was entitled to use the tape to attack the credibility of the witness, who conducted an experiment to determine the extent to which gloves soaked in blood would shrink.

In the course of the proceedings, the judge asked Clark, “Can you establish the foundation that those gloves are the same gloves?”

“Yes, I can,” the prosecutor replied, a half-smile playing across her face.

“Interesting,” Ito responded after a lengthy pause.

Although a prosecution source later said Clark’s statement meant only that prosecutors were prepared to prove Simpson had been photographed wearing the same type of gloves, defense sources said they understood her reply to mean she was prepared to prove the gloves photographed were the same pair as those recovered from the murder scene and Simpson’s Rockingham estate. In court, Clark did not elaborate on how she would prove either possibility.

But the exchange was significant since it marked the first time prosecutors have alleged they can show Simpson actually wearing the same kind of gloves as those recovered.

In fact, when Ito declined to limit Clark’s cross-examination of MacDonell, Neufeld told the court that “without the ruling that I believe we’re entitled to at this time, then the defense will not introduce that glove-drying experiment.”

Jurors, however, appeared to follow with great interest the balance of MacDonell’s testimony regarding bloodstains on the socks recovered from the master bedroom of Simpson’s Rockingham mansion. At one point, 10 of the panelists busily took notes as the scientist displayed photos he said supported his opinion that the socks were not on a foot when the blood was deposited on them. That opinion supports the defense theory that the blood was planted as part of a conspiracy to frame Simpson.

During her biting--at times, almost contemptuous--cross-examination of MacDonell--Clark suggested other explanations for what the defense expert called a “compression” bloodstain on one of the socks. The prosecutor asked MacDonell to consider the possibilities that the blood was rubbed on the sock when Nicole Brown Simpson grabbed her assailant’s ankle with a bloody hand or that Simpson put it there while removing the socks with bloody fingers.

MacDonell conceded that either sequence of events could create the stains he saw. He also admitted that he initially described “swipes” of blood on the socks rather than “compressions,” but he contended that the two words describe the same type of stain.

After Monday’s testimony, defense attorney Carl Douglas expressed skepticism that prosecutors could show that the gloves Simpson has been filmed wearing are the same kind as those worn by the killer. Prosecutors, he said, “would have used it before now if they had something this compelling.”

But sources close to the prosecution say the Simpson team is considering asking Ito to allow them to reopen their case so that Richard Rubin, who headed the company that manufactured the gloves, could testify that the gloves pictured are the ones recovered from the crime scene.

Peter Arenella, a UCLA law professor, predicted that “unless the defense makes a mistake and opens the door” to reconsider the glove issue, “jurors will never see the videotape evidence,” since it is outside the scope of the rebuttal to which prosecutors are entitled. “This may be an instance in which prosecutors will have to forgo potentially significant evidence because they didn’t put it on in their case-in-chief, perhaps because they didn’t have it ready.”

Cochran said that he is “not concerned” about the prospect of further glove testimony. “I’m concerned about getting those [Fuhrman] tapes in front of the jury as soon as possible.”

Clearly, he will have to accomplish that without Ito’s help. In an appeal that Ito give the defense an affidavit to use in its appeal of the ruling handed down in North Carolina on Friday, Cochran described how transcripts of the LAPD detective’s interviews with an unpublished writer and filmmaker contain descriptions of “framing people, setting people up and filing false reports.

“We were chilled by what we heard,” Cochran told the judge. “Mr. Fuhrman’s voice can be heard saying ‘dumb nigger,’ ‘niggers and Mexicans.’ ”

“These tapes must come to California,” Cochran told Ito. “This is absolutely critical, and we are going to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court unless [Laura Hart McKinney] comes forward voluntarily.

“Everybody sees the relevance except the court in North Carolina,” Cochran said.

But Ito refused to second-guess Forsyth County Superior Court Judge William Z. Wood Jr., saying such intervention would be “unethical and inappropriate.”

Outside the courthouse, Cochran insisted that the Fuhrman tapes are “the beginning of the end” of the prosecution’s case.

The day began when defense lawyers called Savage to inquire into the sources of an erroneous broadcast she aired on Sept. 21, 1994. She reported that the socks already had been subjected to DNA analysis, which had detected Nicole Simpson’s blood. In fact, no such tests had yet been performed. Defense attorneys believe the false information was planted by someone inside the LAPD crime lab who had doctored the socks with blood obtained during the victim’s autopsy. That alleged conspirator, therefore, would have known what the DNA tests ultimately would show.

“We have within the LAPD,” said defense lawyer Gerald Uelman, “a source confidently predicting the outcome of tests before they even have been performed.” For that reason, Uelman argued, Savage should be compelled to reveal the source of information.

“Did your sources include any officers or agents of the Los Angeles Police Department?” Uelmen asked Savage at one point.

“I respectfully decline to answer that question,” Savage said.

Uelmen continued: “Did you make any promises to these sources that their identities would be kept confidential?”

“I gave my word as a journalist that I would not reveal their identities,” Savage said.

Savage did say that her information was provided by “knowledgeable sources.”

Ito intervened to ask her to define knowledgeable.

“I’m afraid that by identifying how I define, determine what knowledgeable is, I may in fact reveal the identity of my sources,” she said. “Knowledgeable, I think in all due respect, I think the word speaks for itself.”

Asked outside the courtroom if he wanted Savage to go to jail if she refuses to comply with defense demands, Cochran said he did not, “but I want her to answer the questions.” Bosco, who obliquely refers to the same issue in his Penthouse article, seemed shaken by his subpoena.

“I’m nervous,” the writer said. “That witness stand can ruin you.”

Times staff writer Bill Boyarsky contributed to this story.