9 ore 30 min, 15 agos 1995 anni - Marcia Clark asks Judge Ito to recuse himself

Descrizione:

Controversy over possible conflict of interest concerning Judge Ito. Prosecutor Marcia Clark asks Judge Ito to recuse himself from Simpson trial.

ITO RECUSES HIMSELF ON TAPES RULING
By William Claiborne; Lorraine Adams August 16, 1995

"An emotional Judge Lance A. Ito disqualified himself today from deciding whether the jury in the O.J. Simpson case should hear explosive tapes of key prosecution witness Detective Mark Fuhrman uttering racial epithets and disparaging Ito's wife.

In the latest bizarre twist in the protracted double murder trial, Ito choked back tears as he confessed from the bench that he had been "wounded" by Fuhrman's criticism of his wife, Capt. Margaret York of the Los Angeles Police Department. The judge then cited the appearance of a conflict of interest and recused himself from deciding whether to allow Fuhrman's taped interviews with a North Carolina screenwriter to be played.

At one point during the arguments, chief prosecutor Marcia Clark asked Ito to recuse himself permanently from the trial, a request that would require a new judge not only to make a decision on the admissibility of the Fuhrman tapes but to preside for the rest of the defense case and the prosecution's rebuttal.

However, Clark later appeared to back away from the demand, saying the prosecution will decide what its request will be only after considering the issue tonight.

"I love my wife dearly," Ito declared. Pausing to compose himself, he continued, "And I am wounded by criticism of her, as any spouse would be, and I think it is reasonable to assume that that could have some impact."

Saying that women in a male-dominated profession learn to deal with the kind of disparaging remarks attributed to Fuhrman, Ito added nonetheless that "the appearance of a reasonable concern that this court could impartially rule on these material issues is there, and I feel I have an obligation to recuse myself. . . ."

"Just when you thought we couldn't have anything crazier happen," mused Ito, who has presided over the seven-month-long legal marathon.

Ito estimated another judge would need seven to 10 days to make a ruling. Supervising Superior Court Judge James Bascue later assigned the question to Judge John Reid and told him to clear his calendar to resolve the issue.

As the defense and prosecutors conferred in the courtroom, Bascue turned to the celebrity defendant and said, "Mr. Simpson, it looks like a huddle, doesn't it?" The former football star replied, "Yeah, but I don't know the play."

The 13 hours of tapes were compiled over a nine-year period by North Carolina professor Laura Hart McKinny, who interviewed Fuhrman as part of a screenwriting project about Los Angeles police. The tapes have not been made public but were described in detail by defense attorneys in private conferences with the judge and prosecutors Monday. Transcripts of the conferences were released today.

Besides describing "run-ins" York had with Fuhrman when she was watch commander in West Los Angeles in 1985, the tapes portray Fuhrman as repeatedly making racist remarks and discussing how police officers have to "learn how to lie, cheat and set people up," according to conference transcripts.

Defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. said in court today that the tapes contain 30 instances of Fuhrman using the racial epithet "nigger" and 17 instances in which he admits planting or manufacturing evidence and lying or covering up police misconduct.

Fuhrman was also quoted by the defense as saying in the tapes, "I am the most important witness in the trial of the century. If I go down, their case goes bye-bye."

Calling the tapes a "blockbuster" and a "bombshell," Cochran said the interviews would damage Fuhrman's credibility as a witness and support the defense contention that Fuhrman planted a bloody glove to incriminate Simpson in the June 12, 1994, murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman. During an extensive grilling on the stand by defense attorney F. Lee Bailey earlier in the trial, Fuhrman denied planting the glove and testified under oath that he had not used the word "nigger" in the past 10 years.

Citing California case law requiring a judge to be disqualified from hearing a case in which his or her spouse is likely to be a material witness, Ito said that if York is called to the stand, "the court will be required to recuse itself from further participation in the case." Ito noted that the prosecution may call York as a witness to challenge the credibility of allegations against Fuhrman.

If Ito had to recuse himself from further participation at this late date in the trial, the judge stated, "that would be grounds for a mistrial even over the defense's objections." Later, however, Ito backed off, saying, "I don't think I see a mistrial as a consequence."

Clark's motive for seeking to call Ito's wife as a rebuttal witness was not clear, and she said little that would reveal her purpose. However, defense lawyers said that either she had concluded Ito was going to allow the damaging Fuhrman tapes into evidence and was attempting to force him to recuse himself so that another judge would decide the issue, or that she realized the prosecution was losing its case and was seeking to force a mistrial in such a way that Simpson would not be protected from another trial by double jeopardy statutes. In court, Cochran objected to another judge taking over at this stage of the trial and suggested that Clark was attempting to force a mistrial because she fears she is losing the case.

"This is a ploy by the prosecution because they don't want to proceed with this case. . . . They see their case floating out the window," Cochran said. He said the defense would never agree to a mistrial because it expects an acquittal from the present jury.

In the transcripts of Monday's private conferences, Cochran said York's credibility also was at stake because Fuhrman's taped interviews contradicted her contention that she had minimal contact with Fuhrman when the two served in West Los Angeles a decade ago.

In a Nov. 21, 1994, sworn deposition to the court, York said she remembered Fuhrman as one of the patrol officers in West Los Angeles but that "I have no recollection of the nature of any interactions between then-Officer Fuhrman and me, or of any other contacts I may have had with him."

Cochran, according to the sidebar transcripts, told Ito that the Nov. 21 deposition created a problem because "the contacts he has had with {then}-Lieutenant York are the kind that are very hard to forget him." But Cochran did not disclose Fuhrman's specific remarks about York.

Clark charged the defense with injecting race into the case in hopes of swaying members of the jury, nine of whom are black, as is the defendant. "No one planted any evidence at any time," she said. "The defense wants to squirm away from that fact by playing the race card. . . . They are going all out to smear Mark Fuhrman. . . . They want to manipulate the jurors so they won't look at this evidence."

The prosecutor said the Fuhrman tapes consist largely of "a lot of puffing and blowing" and may reflect little more than an attempt by the detective to create a fictional police character. Clark said there was "definitely a lot of posturing and a lot of exaggerating for the purpose of a book of fiction."

The disclosures make for the ugliest picture yet of Fuhrman, whose testimony is crucial for the prosecution. In one instance, Fuhrman discussed "tips on how you stop niggers," Cochran said. "He says you see a nigger in a Porsche and he doesn't have a $100 suit on, then you stop him because he has probably stolen the car."

At another point, according to Cochran, Fuhrman describes how police investigating the shootings of fellow officers beat potential witnesses "until their faces turn to mush. There is so much blood on their uniform they have to come out and they have to spray themselves down with hoses."

Officer Eduardo Funes, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said he did not know which shootings were being referred to, nor could he say whether any of the tapes would prompt internal investigations. "I can tell you that based on . . . what has been released -- interpretations of the tapes and bits and pieces -- that would not be sufficient for launching an investigation," said Funes.

In another portion of the transcript, according to defense attorney Barry Scheck, Fuhrman states: "They teach you certain things in the academy, but that is not how you are a real police officer. You have to get out on the street and learn how to lie, cheat and set people up."

Clark called Scheck's account of Fuhrman's statements "a lie."

Fuhrman's personal animosity is not limited to blacks. Even Clark acknowledged in chambers that Fuhrman also disparaged women, Hispanics, Jews and Asian Americans. In a tape made in July 1994, according to Cochran, Fuhrman discussed his libel suit against defense attorney Robert L. Shapiro and the New Yorker magazine and how he wanted to "take Bob's house and his swimming pool, and he is a Jew." Clark then says, "He didn't say that," to which Cochran replies, "He refers to him as a Jew."


Sourced from:
The Washinton Post

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