Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 8, 1995 TAG: 9508080051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that Laura Hart McKinny, a screenwriting professor, must surrender tapes and testify about her interviews with Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman, who testified he found a bloody glove on Simpson's estate.
The defense says the taped interviews, laced with racist remarks, prove that Fuhrman lied under oath. He testified at Simpson's trial that he had not used a racial epithet in the last 10 years.
Whether the tapes will be admissible at Simpson's trial remains for decision by Superior Court Judge Lance Ito.
Myrna Raeder, a professor at Southwestern University School of Law, called the ruling a ``major victory'' for the defense.
``This is something real,'' Raeder said. ``The problem for the defense has been that their potential witnesses to impeach Fuhrman all have problems. On the other hand, tapes in which we can all hear Fuhrman's own voice using words that he said he didn't utter can have a very dramatic effect on the jury.''
McKinny, who teaches screenwriting, said she interviewed Fuhrman and other Los Angeles police detectives for a screenplay. Cochran, who has heard portions of her tapes, said Fuhrman can be heard referring to blacks as ``niggers'' and discussing methods of police harassment based on racism.
Meanwhile, defense DNA expert John Gerdes conceded that two kinds of DNA testing on blood evidence, performed at three separate laboratories, failed to exclude Simpson as a source of blood at key locations, including the gory scene of the two killings.
But Gerdes held fast to earlier testimony that the sloppiness of police technicians who collected and packaged the blood samples made the results meaningless.
When prosecutor George ``Woody'' Clarke suggested defense attorneys should have retested the evidence if they wanted to challenge results, Gerdes bristled.
``I'm not aware of any evidence that hasn't been handled by the LAPD that can be retested,'' he told jurors.
Shortly afterward, with the jury out of the courtroom, defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran complained bitterly that jurors were being told the defense was obligated to test evidence when, in fact, ``The defense doesn't have to prove anything.''
Contamination of physical evidence is a central focus of the defense, along with a theory that police planted evidence to frame Simpson for the June 12, 1994, deaths of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
by CNB