JUDGE RESTRICTS SIMPSON'S WITNESS LIST.

Byline: Michael Fleeman Associated Press 

O.J. Simpson won't be allowed to call Marcia Clark, Christopher Darden, other criminal trial prosecutors and Faye Resnick as witnesses in the wrongful death suit against him, a judge in Santa Monica ruled Wednesday.

Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki handed Simpson a setback in plans to show in the civil trial that he was railroaded in the criminal probe into the killings of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

The judge said the thoughts of prosecutors were irrelevant, and the other witnesses couldn't be called because Simpson failed to disclose their names to the plaintiffs on time.

Those witnesses were excluded ``as part of (a) sanction for not complying with the discovery order,'' Fujisaki said.

Among more than a dozen witnesses barred for that reason were Nicole Simpson's friend Resnick, coroner Irwin Golden and Gary Siglar, a coroner's official who found irregularities in the way police handled blood evidence.

Resnick remains on the plaintiffs' witness list.

The lawsuit scheduled for trial Sept. 17 seeks to hold Simpson liable for the 1994 knife slayings. Simpson was acquitted of murder charges last year in a criminal trial.

Simpson's attorneys sought to call Clark, Darden, Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti and Deputy District Attorney Hank Goldberg to show that prosecutors ignored evidence that could have exonerated Simpson.

Simpson's attorneys said the prosecutors waived any confidentiality by writing or planning to write books.

``The reason there are not more clues exonerating O.J. Simpson is that the L.A. Police Department in conjunction with the L.A. District Attorney's Office wouldn't investigate (them),'' said Simpson attorney Robert Baker.

Plaintiff attorney Daniel Petrocelli said the civil case should be based on only the evidence presented in Fujisaki's court and not on anything from the criminal case.

``Are we going to try the criminal case within the confines of the civil case?'' Petrocelli asked. ``I think not, your honor.'

The judge agreed.

``The testimony of the DAs based upon their books, would be collateral,'' Fujisaki said. ``They were not witnesses to the crime.''

Among other proposed defense witnesses barred from the civil trial was a man identified as a suspect in making threatening phone calls Nicole Simpson.

In other development, the American Civil Liberties Union filed papers with the state appeals court protesting the judge's sweeping gag order.

In a 15-page friend-of-the-court brief, the ACLU contended the gag order violates the First Amendment.

``The . . . order is a classic prior restraint on speech which has not been justified by any showing of a serious and imminent threat to the selection and maintenance of an impartial jury,'' the ACLU papers said.

News organizations Friday asked the 2nd District Court of Appeal to reverse the judge's Aug. 23 order barring lawyers and other parties to the case from discussing it publicly.