Victim's Sister Details O.J. Simpson's Rage

LOS ANGELES - O.J. Simpson's face was contorted with rage the night he kicked his wife, sister-in-law and her date out of his house a decade ago, his former sister-in-law testified today.

"At that time he got very upset, and he started screaming. . . .," Denise Brown said in her second day on the witness stand. "His whole facial structure changed; everything changed about him. . . .

"It wasn't as if it was O.J. anymore."

She said the incident took place after the four had dinner at a Mexican restaurant sometime in the early 1980s.

Tears streaming down her cheeks, she said she had never seen Simpson as angry.

Prosecutors are trying to convince jurors that years of jealousy and rage led Simpson to kill his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and a friend of hers, Ronald Goldman, on June 12.

Brown, Nicole Brown Simpson's older sister, testified that she, her sister and Brown's date, Ed McCabe, went to the Beverly Hills Hotel where McCabe was staying and spent the night.

Brown said her sister returned to Simpson's home the next morning.

"She shouldn't go back"

"I told her that she shouldn't go back," she said. Nicole Brown Simpson said she was only going to pick up some things and return. But she didn't come back, Brown said.

And she said she never considered reporting the incident to police.

The jury was sent out of the courtroom when the prosecution showed a Polaroid photograph of Nicole Brown Simpson that Brown said she found in a bathroom drawer.

Attorneys then argued about the admissibility of the photo.

The picture was found by police in Nicole Brown Simpson's safe-deposit box in December. In the box were newspaper clippings about a 1989 beating, for which Simpson was arrested and Nicole Brown Simpson was treated at a hospital.

Simpson later pleaded no contest to charges of beating his wife.

The photo, which was shown to jurors before the admissibility argument erupted, shows Nicole Brown Simpson with a black eye.

Defense attorney Robert Shapiro asked for sanctions for "misconduct" against the prosecution for showing the photo. Prosecutor Chris Darden said showing the photo didn't approach misconduct.

Limit to cross-examination?

The prosecution, meanwhile, filed a motion today seeking to limit defense cross-examination of Denise Brown.

"A trial court should exercise vigilance in protecting the rights of the witnesses from character assault and from cross-examining a witness in inherently prejudicial areas which have limited or no probative value on credibility," the motion said.

In particular, the motion sought to restrain the defense from questioning Denise Brown about alcohol or narcotics use on occasions other than on the days she testifies to under direct examination.

On Friday, Brown broke down as she talked of Simpson throwing her sister against a wall.

Simpson's lawyers suggested the timing of Brown's appearance was calculated for dramatic effect.

Nearly a dozen witnesses were called last week to testify about Simpson's troubled relationship with his ex-wife. But her sister's time on the stand was the most dramatic.

She testified that Simpson once grabbed Nicole's crotch in a crowded bar and, on another occasion, threw her against a wall and out of his house.

After the June 12 murders, Brown initially had said she didn't believe her sister was battered. By November, she had changed her views and declared that Simpson had killed her. Defense lawyers are sure to pounce on her contradictions.

Further DNA testing

Also today, prosecutors were to update the judge on how and where further DNA testing of some blood evidence may be conducted.

The defense had suggested in opening statements that police might have planted Nicole Brown Simpson's blood inside his house in order to frame Simpson. Prosecutors denied that, and offered to submit samples for retesting.