14 St. 48 Min, 7 Sept 1995 Jahr - Defense asks Judge Ito to tell jury about Fuhrman's further nonappearance

Beschreibung:

The defense asks Judge Ito to instruct jury as to reason for Fuhrman's further nonappearance. Judge agrees, but the prosecution objects.

The question is appealed

FUHRMAN WON'T ANSWER SIMPSON EVIDENCE QUERY By William Claiborne September 7, 1995

"A tight-lipped, subdued Mark Fuhrman invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination in the O.J. Simpson double murder trial today and refused to answer when asked if he had planted any evidence against the celebrity defendant.

Appearing on the witness stand for only three minutes, with the jury not present, the retired detective refused to answer four questions posed by defense attorney Gerald Uelmen that were designed to raise doubts about Fuhrman's truthfulness when he testified against Simpson last March.

Uelmen first asked Fuhrman, a key prosecution witness, whether the testimony he gave at a preliminary hearing in July 1994 was "completely truthful." The detective's reply: "I wish to assert my Fifth Amendment privilege."

"Have you ever falsified a police report?" Uelmen asked next. Fuhrman gave the same reply.

"Is it your intention to assert your Fifth Amendment privilege with respect to all questions that I ask you?" asked Uelmen, and the retired detective replied "yes."

Darryl Mounger, Fuhrman's lawyer, then intervened, telling Judge Lance A. Ito: "Your honor, further questions don't serve any purpose. . . . Anything further can only be a show."

Uelmen, however, had one more question: "Detective Fuhrman, did you plant or manufacture any evidence in this case?" To which Fuhrman again took the Fifth. Peter Arenella of UCLA Law School said tonight that if Fuhrman had answered the one question about planting evidence, the court may have ruled that he must answer questions about planting evidence in other cases.

Fuhrman appeared somber but fatigued during the brief but dramatic appearance. It was a marked contrast to the poised and polished performance he gave as the prosecution's key witness last March, when he testified he had discovered a bloody glove behind Simpson's house that matched one found near the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman soon after they were killed on the night of June 12, 1994.

Fuhrman was the self-confident star last March, outmaneuvering the bluster of his famous cross-examiner F. Lee Bailey. But today the detective had dark circles under his eyes, and approached the witness stand tentatively, with his lawyer at his side.

Before he appeared today, the defense renewed its motion to Ito to suppress crucial evidence collected by detectives -- including Fuhrman -- on the morning after the stabbing deaths. Defense lawyers cited new evidence challenging Fuhrman's credibility: nearly 13 hours of tape-recorded interviews he gave to a North Carolina screenwriter in which he used the racial epithet "nigger" and boasted of falsifying police reports, fabricating probable cause against suspects and planting evidence. Fuhrman had testified under oath last March that he had not used the racial slur in the past 10 years.

Defense attorneys said they would also present a motion Thursday seeking to eliminate Fuhrman's earlier testimony because the prosecution had not earlier disclosed other evidence that might have raised doubts about the former detective's credibility.

Sitting at the defense table, Simpson looked stunned and upset by Fuhrman's brief appearance today, repeatedly shaking his head in apparent disbelief and mouthing words that appeared to be: "That {expletive} guy."

Ito said there would be no further questioning of Fuhrman on the issues raised today, although the judge said the detective was still subject to recall on other questions. Under California law, a witness who has decided to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege cannot be compelled to do so in front of a jury.

Earlier today, the screenwriter, Laura Hart McKinny, returned to the witness stand and further undermined Fuhrman's credibility by telling the jury that the former police detective had used the racial epithet "nigger" in interviews with her as recently as 1988. McKinny also testified that Fuhrman had suggested no changes to transcripts she gave him of interviews she conducted over nine years in which he used the epithet at least 41 times.

On Tuesday, under direct examination by the defense that was severely restricted by Ito, McKinny recounted how Fuhrman said in one 1985 interview, "We have no niggers where I grew up" and on another occasion the same year said of female police officers: "They don't do anything. They don't go out there and initiate a contact with some 6-foot-5-inch nigger that's been in prison for seven years pumping weights."

Defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. today sought to broaden the scope of his direct examination, but again was rebuffed by Ito, who ruled last week that additional instances of racial invective by Fuhrman would be irrelevant or would only inflame and prejudice the predominately black jury.

However, Deputy District Attorney Christopher Darden inadvertently opened the door to defense questions about Fuhrman's tape-recorded boasts of participating in coverups of police misconduct, including the beating of black suspects and fabricating probable cause to make arrests.

When Darden asked McKinny why she had not asked Fuhrman to stop using racial slurs during the interviews, she replied: "For the same reason I didn't tell him to stop when he told me of police procedures, coverup. . . . I was in a journalistic mode."

It was the first time the jury heard any reference to Fuhrman's boasts that he and other officers routinely covered up their official misconduct.

Another defense witness, Roderic Hodge, a black ex-Marine, testified that when he was arrested by Fuhrman in 1987, the detective turned to him in the squad car and said, "I told you we'd get you, nigger." When asked to describe Fuhrman's demeanor, Hodge replied, "Anger, hatred, just something from deep inside, if you would. Something very ugly."

Hodge described his own feelings at the time as "belittled, scared and very, very angry."


Sourced from:
The Washinton Post

Https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/09/07/fuhrman-wont-answer-simpson-evidence-query/6589a2c9-bd05-4176-849b-76130f1012bf/

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