Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 19, 1995 TAG: 9508210055
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
The decision keeps Ito on the case and resolves an emotional conflict-of-interest dispute set off by the inflammatory Mark Fuhrman tapes.
The ruling by Superior Court Judge John Reid came as the tape-recorded Fuhrman interviews continued to rock the Simpson trial, with jurors presumably totally unaware. No testimony was heard Friday, and the jury was sent to the beach. Among the developments:
The police chief joined the police citizen oversight board in demanding immediate access to the tapes, in which Fuhrman reportedly spouts racial epithets, speaks of framing and beating suspects and derides his former supervisor, Capt. Margaret York, who is Ito's wife. The tapes are under a court order that limits access to only a few people, and prosecutors had asked police officials to wait until the trial ended before pursuing an investigation.
A 1978 police brutality case in Los Angeles appears to match elements of Fuhrman's reported description of officers taking bloody revenge on gang members suspected of shooting two policemen.
Civil rights activists called for a federal investigation into the incidents Fuhrman describes on the tapes.
At the center of the storm are a dozen hours of interviews with Fuhrman recorded sporadically from 1985 through 1994 by North Carolina screenwriting professor Laura Hart McKinny for a project on the Los Angeles police.
The defense wants to use the tapes to discredit Fuhrman and bolster its contention Fuhrman is a racist cop who planted evidence.
Fuhrman, now retired, testified in March about finding a bloody glove behind Simpson's house the morning after the June 12, 1994, knife murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson has pleaded innocent.
After it was disclosed Fuhrman made disparaging comments about Ito's wife, Reid was appointed to review the tapes and determine whether Ito's wife had anything relevant to offer at trial. Prosecutors had suggested they might need to call York to rebut some of Fuhrman's claims on the tapes, forcing Ito to step down for conflict of interest.
After listening to the tapes, Reid said he heard nothing that would warrant calling York.
``There is no reasonable expectation that Capt. Margaret York ... could give relevant evidence in regards to any issue before the court,'' Reid wrote in a two-page ruling.
As Reid ruled, police officials held news conferences to comment on the tapes and reveal that at least one of Fuhrman's most brutal tales could be partially corroborated. Chief Williams said the tapes must be handed over to police officials immediately and not disseminated in the form of news leaks and attorney comments.
``We don't need this type of hammer, this type of rock coming over the wall at us,'' Williams said.
The Police Commission, in a letter to the city attorney requesting ``all formal assistance'' to get the tapes, said police officials need to review the recordings for the good of the city.
``The disclosures this past week of excerpts from tape recordings made by former Los Angeles Detective Mark Fuhrman reveal descriptions of alleged behavior that cannot and will not be condoned by this board,'' the letter said.
Ron Regwan, McKinny's lawyer, said McKinny didn't want to make copies of the tapes for police officials.
``We don't want copies circulating,'' Regwan said. ``We would be happy to do the same thing that we offered to Fuhrman's attorney, that is, have them come to our offices and review at their leisure the transcripts and audiotapes.''
Only bits of the tapes have been revealed, based solely on media leaks and attorneys' recollections of what Fuhrman says on the tapes.
On Thursday, defense attorneys tried to expose more of the contents, but Ito sealed their offer of proof detailing the most incendiary of Fuhrman's offensive remarks. The judge must decide how much, if any, of the tapes Simpson jurors may hear.
After discussing a timetable with Ito on Friday, defense attorneys said they would not begin their courtroom presentation of the Fuhrman matter until Tuesday at the earliest. McKinny is in Los Angeles waiting to see if she must testify.
Simpson's lawyers have scheduled two forensic scientists to testify Monday.
by CNB