Trial Highlights

Some of the key events Tuesday in the O.J. Simpson murder trial:

* SUMMARY: In their long-awaited opening statements, prosecutors portrayed Simpson as a violent, abusive husband who killed his ex-wife when he could no longer control her. They urged jurors to ignore Simpson’s public persona and to analyze volumes of evidence --including allegations of spousal abuse and scientific test results of blood, hair and fibers--that they say implicate Simpson in the June 12 killings. Defense attorneys had been scheduled to deliver their opening statements Tuesday, but they were delayed when a controversy erupted over a mistake by Court TV that allowed a juror’s face to be briefly broadcast.

* SURPRISES: Prosecutors unveiled the results of more than a dozen DNA tests that they say link Simpson to the crime. Most had previously been reported, but prosecutors have never before officially confirmed them, and jurors heard them for the first time. Prosecutors also said they will play a tape of a 1989 emergency call in which Simpson can be heard striking Nicole Simpson.

* COMING UP: Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito, furious over the broadcast of an alternate juror’s face, has threatened to discontinue televised coverage of the case and has asked a media lawyer to meet with him this morning. Defense attorneys are scheduled to begin their opening statements at 10 a.m. today and have asked Ito at least to allow that to be broadcast because the prosecution’s statements were carried on television.

“The results of the analysis of that blood confirms what the rest of the evidence will show, that on June the 12th, 1994, after a violent relationship in which the defendant beat her, humiliated her and controlled her, after he took her youth, her freedom and her self-respect, just as she tried to break free, Orenthal James Simpson took her very life in what amounted to his final and his ultimate act of control.”

--Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark