THE CASE IS MADE, FOR NOW

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

It's over. it's just begun. last week the prosecution in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson rested its case -- appropriate terminology since the whole drawn-out affair has been exhausting. This week Simpson's so-called Dream Team of lawyers begins its defense, and jurors and trial watchers can only pray they don't live up to their name in the soporific sense. In half-time analyses, legal pundits have seized upon the numbing numbers the trial has generated: so far, there have been 92 days of testimony, 58 prosecution witnesses and 488 exhibits. Ten jurors have been dismissed and 12 books published (one by an ex-juror). Los Angeles County has spent $5.69 million on the case, and that's just through May 31. But the most important number is still 4013970-Simpson's prison ID. Will he have to continue to wear it? Will he be found guilty or not?

"Prosecutors across the country -- and I've talked to them -- have not seen such an incredible amount of circumstantial evidence in a long time,'' says Jeanine Ferris Pirro, the district attorney in New York's suburban Westchester County, who has never lost a felony trial. And yet many O.J. watchers agree with an L.A. deputy district attorney not assigned to the case that "the presentation was herky-jerky. The prosecutors are the filter through which the jury 'gets it,' and this case just didn't have continuity.'' Says veteran criminal defense lawyer Don Wager, who has covered the case for the cable sports channel espn: "This jury has to pan for gold. The gold is there; they just have to look for it.'' The problem, he believes, is that Marcia Clark and her colleagues didn't know when to leave well enough alone. "I mean, spending eight days with the coroner?''

Moreover, some defense experts believe the defense team, led by Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., has already succeeded in establishing a reasonable doubt and should rest its case right now. Day after day, Simpson's lawyers slyly undermined the evidence not simply by poking pinholes in the testimony but also by conjuring several alternate crime scenarios-that the police are framing Simpson, that police incompetence tainted evidence and/or that drug hit men committed the crimes. "Basically, the majority of our case has been presented through cross-examination of prosecution witnesses," says Simpson's attorney Robert L. Shapiro. "They [prosecutors] have been required to go on the defensive." And that, says veteran defendants' lawyer Gigi Gordon, has "taught lawyers all over the country how to do it if they have the resources. Now they should know when to sit down. My motto is, if you don't stand up, they can't shoot at you.''

Team O.J., however, is hoping for the big score: an outright acquittal. Without one, Simpson must remain in jail awaiting a second trial, and his expensive lawyers must weigh the image costs of abandoning the case once they've depleted O.J.'s fortune. But to get one, Simpson may have to testify. "The thinking of lawyers is that he can't get acquitted unless he takes the stand,'' says Los Angeles defense attorney Andrew Stein. The risk is that he would then have to withstand cross-examination on every piece of circumstantial evidence, but Stein for one believes he might pull it off because "he has such presence.'' Gordon disagrees: "If he were my client, I'd be standing there with duct tape. I'd be saying, 'If you want to commit suicide, do it on your own nickel.'''

But since Simpson, by all accounts, remains the boss of his legal team, they are ready with a complete defense, which should take about six weeks to complete. Said Simpson lawyer Cochran in court last week: "We want this case to be over.'' Though the sequence is still in flux, Phase 1 is likely to consist of the "demeanor'' witnesses, who will attest to O.J.'s loving nature, his devotion to Nicole and his behavior on the airplane flights to and from Chicago the night of the murders. Says defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey: "It will be very powerful." Simpson's daughter from his first marriage, Arnelle, is expected to lead off this group, and nine-year-old daughter Sydney may also be called. But private investigator Anthony Pellicano received a subpoena last week demanding his presence in court Monday morning. Since Pellicano, who was involved in the Michael Jackson child-molestation case, has most recently been working on Detective Mark Fuhrman's behalf, the defense may visit the race issue sooner than originally planned.

According to sources close to the defense, the team is split on this matter. Bailey wants to call as many as 10 witnesses he hopes will attest to Fuhrman's alleged racism and his use of the N word, which Fuhrman denied on the stand; Shapiro and Cochran feel two or three will suffice. Kathleen Bell, who figured so prominently in the defense's plans with her recollection of Fuhrman's rant about "niggers gathered together and killed,'' is at best a problem witness. Pellicano reportedly has gathered evidence that she is lying, and Bell has written a letter to Judge Lance Ito stating that she believes O.J. is guilty and does not want to take the stand.

Phase 2 or 3, depending on where Fuhrman slips into the lineup, will involve Bundy neighbors who may have heard dogs bark at different times or can otherwise cast doubt on the murder "time line" created by the prosecution. Again, one of the witnesses Cochran brandished so proudly in opening arguments, Rosa Lopez, will probably be dropped. Her videotaped testimony is an embarrassment, and the defense knows the prosecution has other witnesses available to discredit her.

In Phase 4, the defense would attack the prosecution's dna evidence. But since one of the prosecution's own expert dna witnesses admitted to errors on the stand, Simpson's lawyers may choose to limit testimony here. Also, Nobel laureate Kary Mullis, the team's star witness on flaws in the dna-testing procedures -- which he partially invented -- is a loose cannon who might say anything.

The next to last act would be Simpson himself. And at least one defense watcher argues that letting him testify is a win-win situation for Cochran. If O.J. does well and nails an acquittal, Cochran is a hero. If he fumbles and gets convicted, Cochran can say it was because Simpson took the stand against his advice.

In any case, the defense is not counting on Simpson for a grand finale. That role is currently reserved for Connecticut state police forensics expert Henry Lee. Besides being highly respected for his intelligent forensic theorizing, Lee is a great courtroom showman. "Henry works with a slide projector,'' says Joseph Bosco, a New Orleans author who agreed to write a book about the O.J. trial chiefly because Lee was involved. "He likes to get the lights way down so you can feel like you're right inside the crime scene. It'll be like a tunnel ride into the crime scene itself.'' Lee's reading of the crime scene will not rule out Simpson as a possible killer. But he will argue that short of being a trained assassin, no one man could have done that much damage-or suffered no more than a cut finger from the amount of fighting that must have taken place.

At that point, in the opinion of Andrew Stein, the only hope for a conviction will be for prosecutor Marcia Clark to make a world-class closing speech-to "get up and paint a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh.'' Even then, she must go up against the formidable oratory of Johnnie Cochran.

But Gigi Gordon believes the "12-headed monster,'' the jury, often defies all predictions. "Everybody presumes what those people are thinking, but it's not an objective process,'' she cautions. "In other cities, black juries convict black people all the time. It's so remarkable that everybody asks, 'What is enough for this jury?' They are getting a strong circumstantial-evidence case. Many people have been given the death penalty for less. It's a weird kind of racism to assume this jury won't convict.''

--Reported by Elaine Lafferty and James Willwerth/ Los Angeles

With reporting by ELAINE LAFFERTY AND JAMES WILLWERTH/LOS ANGELES