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From: Jasper
Date: 6/10/03
Time: 2:37:39 PM
Remote Name: 68.73.197.225
Rose,
Poor MF was in a tight spot, literally and figuratively. Sandwiching him between the two lawyers was like making a giant arrow pointing straight at him. What could he say?
Let me be Mark Fuhrman for a moment, explaining the situation to his fans…
There I was trapped between these lawyers talking about The Fifth. It was déjà vu all over again. I didn’t take The Fifth in the O.J. case because I was guilty of anything. I did it because I simply didn’t recall using the n-word and when the tapes came up I was backed into a corner. If you take The Fifth on one question you have to take it on all of them. Gerry Uelmen knew that when he asked me that long series of questions. This was not a normal situation. The defense was playing the race card. Judge Ito allowed them to do it and I was put into a position that I should never have been in.
You know that I only used that terrible word as a composite character I was playing for Laura Hart to put more of a gritty edge into the screenplay we were trying to develop. It had nothing to do with my role in the Simpson case. That’s why F. Lee Bailey’s question caught me off guard. In retrospect I can see that I used inexcusably poor judgment and I am profoundly ashamed at having done so. At the time I was only play acting for the benefit of Laura Hart with no idea that anyone would take that word out context and use it to turn the Simpson trial into the Fuhrman trial. What happened to me was unique.
Of course Fuhrman couldn’t say any of those things. That’s what the smirk was about. All intelligent, unbiased people knew that he was a cop at the time, not a criminal, and that his relevant testimony was unimpeachable. His momentary amnesia on a collateral issue just made it appear that he was lying. Even if he did lie it didn’t change the mountain of evidence against O.J. Simpson or the facts that proved he was the greatest detective in the world. As Dominick Dunne put it, “…one of the great detectives of all time.”
It’s different with true criminal defendants. The case is supposed to be about them. If THEY take The Fifth it is, of course, an indication of guilt. That’s just commons sense. –Jasper