Word: ito
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Ruling on new evidence in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, Judge Lance Ito said jurors could hear only two relatively tame snippets--out of at least 41 instances--in which ex-L.A.P.D. detective Mark Fuhrman used the word nigger on a screenwriter's interview tapes. The decision enraged Simpson's defense lawyers, who had been counting on the tapes to bolster their contention that Fuhrman--who denied on the stand that he had used the epithet--is a racist who planted the famous bloody glove at Simpson's home in order to frame him. Earlier in the week, with...
Frustrated in their attempts to wind up the Simpson defense with Mark Fuhrman on the stand, and uncertain as to whether Judge Ito will allow the introduction of a new mystery witness, O.J. Simpson's attorneys have now turned to an appeals court in a last-ditch effort to conclude their case with a bang. The defense claims that the new, last-minute witness -- whose identity the prosecution does not know -- can offer "startling" information. James Willwerth reports from the trial that rumors have been circulating that the witness would undermine the credibility of the prosecution team. "It allegedly concerns...
...after Judge Ito decided not to allow the jury to hear most of the Mark Fuhrman tapes, Johnnie Cochran let his frustrations out. In a tense exchange, the lawyer angrily asked that Ito clarify and reconsider his ruling. "With all due respect, there are some parts that are incoherent," the Simpson defense attorney said. Huh? "Cochran is really on the edge of contempt," reports James Willwerth from the trial. "Ito's decision really angered him -- he has lost his normal sweet-talking, mildly blustery salesman's pose. But you don't call a sitting judge's writing's incoherent." Testimony...
...Judge Ito emerged from his chambers this evening with a middle-ground solution to the Mark Fuhrman problem: allow the Simpson jury to hear just a smattering of the former LAPD detective's racially-charged, taped remarks. Among them are two instances in which Fuhrman says the word "nigger," despite having testified that he had not used the slur in a decade. But Ito barred the defense from using any of Fuhrman's 18 statements about police misconduct and attacked the defense theory that Fuhrman had moved a glove from the murder scene to Simpson's house to engineer...
...LAPD detective. "This is simply a matter of trying to get away from the taint of Fuhrman," says Monroe. "But it's a bit disingenuous. All of these people, from Marcia Clark to the Los Angeles Police Department, knew about Fuhrman, no matter how surprised they now appear." Judge Ito, meanwhile, spent the day in his chambers to decide, sentence by sentence, whether the Simpson jury would hear portions of the tapes...