Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 12, 1995 TAG: 9503140066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
``The defense does not have to prove it was a Colombian cartel that killed Nicole thinking they were killing Faye Resnick, that Mark Fuhrman planted the glove or that a conspiracy existed. They just have to raise doubt in these areas and let the jury decide,'' veteran defense lawyer Barry Levin said.
``I think they're doing what they have to do: find, explore and explain the weaknesses in the prosecution's case.''
The danger in this tactic, however, is that the defense could lose the points with the jury if it perceives the theories as too strange or if the defense fails to back up its theories with any evidence.
Said Southwestern University law professor Myrna Raeder: ``The defense has to take care because they can lose credibility with the jury if they go off on tangents that get shot down by the prosecution.''
The defense laced its questions of prospective jurors with various theories and arranged well-placed media leaks, including the widely publicized New Yorker article suggesting Detective Mark Fuhrman planted the bloody glove on Simpson's estate.
Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr.'s opening statement focused on a ``rush to judgment'' theme, saying authorities were so intent on nailing Simpson that they ignored leads that could have exonerated the former football star, who's accused of killing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
He alleged police also botched the physical evidence, including blood and fibers, so badly that test results will be useless.
After hammering on those themes during the cross-examinations of several police officers - including a detective who acknowledged he miscounted the dime and penny found at the crime scene - the defense took its boldest gambit so far: floating the theory that the murders could have been committed by Colombian drug killers to send a message to Nicole Simpson's friend, Faye Resnick.
Without offering any proof, Cochran suggested during his questioning of Detective Tom Lange that Resnick lived with Nicole Simpson for several days last June, free-based cocaine in her house, and had no job for which to make money to pay drug bills.
The killings, Cochran said, were carried out with the telltale ``Colombian Necklace,'' which he defined as the slitting of the throat from ear to ear. Meanwhile, an arthritic Simpson was hitting golf balls, the defense maintains.
Lange rejected a drug-kill theory, saying it instead had all the hallmarks of a rage killing or ``overkill,'' and parts of Cochran's theory were ridiculed outside the jury's presence.
Nobody in U.S. or Colombian law enforcement, for instance, had ever heard of a ``Colombian Necklace,'' which Cochran apparently confused with another form of vicious killing called the ``Colombian Necktie.'' And nobody had heard of a ``Colombian Necktie'' killing occurring outside of Colombia or Miami.
Either way, the drug-hit idea, under the defense scenario, dovetails with the police frame-up theory, in which Simpson was victimized by rogue cops.
Enemy No. 1 in the Simpson camp's mind is Fuhrman, and the conspiracy theory likely will take full shape this week during Fuhrman's cross-examination by attorney F. Lee Bailey, who sounds almost giddy with anticipation.
Asked if the Fuhrman cross-examination will be the greatest character assassination ever mounted, as Fuhrman's lawyer has predicted, Bailey answered: ``Hopefully.''
As with the drug-hit idea, the defense likely will be trying to instill reasonable doubt, rather than present a well-supported theory, and the pointed suggestions that Fuhrman is a racist probably will be accompanied by little evidence.
Legal analysts said such questioning is not unusual and shouldn't hurt the defense. The problem, some analysts said, will come if the defense - or the jury - tries to merge the drug-hit theory with the rogue-cop theories, a combination that doesn't quite work.
``No doubt the defense is floating as many theories as it can. That's not typical. It is typical for lawyers to pick one theory of the case and then follow up that theory with as much evidence as it can produce,'' Loyola University law professor Stanley Goldman said.
``It does suggest,'' he said, ``that perhaps they do not have one concrete theory that they can rest reasonable doubt on so they raise several theories with hope that one of them resonates with one or more of the jurors.''
by CNB