March 13th, 1995.
Mr. Furman's global attitudes toward race, specifically, and in particular, couples that
are racially mixed, such as Mr. Simpson and Nicole, is fair game for questioning.
Who is the real Mark Furman?
Weren't you a little bit angry that you were being shoved out for murder in your own territory?
No.
Is he a dedicated detective or an angry racist cop?
You had no conversation with Kathleen Bell about matters offensive to people who are
racially sensitive.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
Tonight, the state versus O.J. Simpson, the detective under cross-examination.
This is ABC News Nightline.
Substituting for Ted Koppel and reporting from Washington, Cokie Roberts.
It was the day avid trial watchers have been waiting for.
The detective whose life has been picked over piece by piece, both on TV and in print.
The man who says he found the famous bloody glove.
Mark Furman on the stand with the defense ready to start questioning.
After weeks of often tedious testimony, this promised to be the Perry Mason moment, complete
with a performance by the man whose name commands top billing among O.J. Simpson star lawyers,
the legendary F. Lee Bailey.
Would Bailey push Furman into losing his cool?
Could the lawyer portray the detective as a bigot ready to plant evidence in order to
implicate a black hero?
Or would Furman convince the jury and the viewers that he came upon that damning blood-covered
glove just as he said he did?
The prosecution made sure we all heard about that discovery one more time before turning
over Mark Furman to the defense.
Here's Nightline correspondent Judy Mueller.
As prosecutor Marcia Clark wrapped up her direct examination of Mark Furman, she carefully
led him through his discovery of the bloody glove at the Simpson estate.
He related that discovery in a matter of fact tone.
It appeared to be a right-handed glove.
And did it, was it, were you, what significance did you attach to it when you saw it?
Well it looked similar to the glove on the Bundy scene.
Did you immediately think it was a match?
What was your state of mind about that?
Well I didn't know at that point.
It was a dark-colored leather glove.
Today's low-key reaction differed sharply from Furman's testimony last year during the
preliminary hearing.
When I found the glove and actually realized that this glove was very close in description
and color to the glove at the crime scene, my heart started pounding and I realized what
I had probably found.
But that testimony came before the world learned that the defense hopes to convince the jury
that Furman is a racist who planted that glove at the Rockingham estate.
The prosecution is now clearly trying to downplay Furman's role, painting him not as an eager
hero but as a subordinate who willingly took directions from the more experienced detectives
at the scene, going to the Rockingham estate only because he was told to.
But the defense made it clear today that they planned to put Mark Furman on trial.
With the jury out of the courtroom, Bailey asked the judge to give him wider latitude
in asking Furman about his alleged hostility towards interracial couples.
That alleged hostility, contends the defense, is Furman's motive for trying to frame Simpson
with the bloody glove.
He is very definitively a suspect for having carried that glove from Bundy where he found
it to Rockingham where he deposited and that's what we intend to show by circumstantial
evidence far stronger than the people will ever offer against O.J. Simpson on the murders.
But Prosecutor Clark argued that the defense wanted to go on a fishing expedition to bolster
an unprovable theory.
Show us how you're going to prove that this detective planted this evidence.
They have not once, not once been able to do so.
They have refused to do so and the reason they refuse to do so is they cannot.
There will never be any such evidence because it's an impossibility.
The judge refused to widen the area of questioning on racism but that still left the defense
with a controversial incident involving a woman named Kathleen Bell.
Bell is expected to testify that Furman made racially insensitive remarks when she met
him at a Marine Corps recruiting station in 1986.
Last week under direct, Furman denied knowing the woman, something he repeated under cross
examination today.
Even when Bailey hinted that a Marine Sergeant named Joe Foss might corroborate Bell's account.
And do you have no recollection of Joe Foss being in your company and hers in the recruiting
station in 1986 or thereabouts?
I do not.
Or at any time in your life?
I do not.
So that if he were to say that he did in fact introduce the two of you, you say that can't
be true.
True?
If he said that, I do not recall ever meeting this woman in the recruiting station or anywhere
else.
Bailey also implied that another person, a woman named Andrea Terry, would also back
up Bell's portrait of Furman as a racist.
But nothing could shake the detective's denial or his relaxed demeanor.
Ever had any contact with any relative, a possible relative of Kathleen Bell in your
capacity as a policeman?
I would have no way of knowing that the name is Bell does not ring a bell.
But despite Furman's repeated denials that he knows Bell, Bailey finally got him to admit
that that did not preclude the possibility that Furman and Bell had both been in the same
place at the same time.
You may have seen Miss Bell and you're now unable to recollect that.
Is that so?
No, I didn't pay any attention to the female that came into the recruiting office.
Please listen to the question.
You may have been in the same room with Miss Bell, but you don't now recognize her.
Is that the way you want to leave it?
And that is the way they left it, at least until after the lunch break when Bailey continued
his attack on Furman.
Koki?
Well, we'll get back to that, Judy.
But first, joining us again this evening are ABC's two legal consultants, defense lawyer
Leslie Averenson, who joins us from our Los Angeles Bureau, and former L.A. District Attorney
Robert Philobocian, who's in Washington tonight.
Leslie Averenson, you are a defense lawyer, and we saw a big name from all of our childhood
even, the defense lawyer come up today in this questioning.
How did he do?
I think he did very well, actually.
It is a very difficult task to try to sell the defense theory here that this officer,
who certainly doesn't look like anybody's stereotype of a racist, I mean, this is not
Bull Connor, thank you, but that's the defense's, you know, their brief in this case to sell
the notion that this officer planted that evidence, and it's a very difficult task to do.
And I think he made a good beginning today, laying the groundwork for what may be a far
more exciting confrontation tomorrow.
Bob Philobocian, what does it mean if the jury does decide that Furman is a racist?
I mean, he could be a racist and still not have planted the glove any place.
Absolutely, and even if some jurors were to believe that Mark Furman is a racist, and
there certainly isn't any indication that he is, at least so far in this case, there
is no evidence that he planted that bloody glove.
But I think that Mr. Bailey is trying to do something else here.
I think he's trying to infect the officers involved in this case with a racism slur that
he is trying to use against Detective Furman.
If he can do that with Detective Furman, he may be able to get some of the members of
the jury to believe that some of the other police officers may be racist, and that would
tie into Mr. Cochran's theory of the rush to judgment.
What happens if it turns out that in fact Mark Furman did know this Kathleen Bell, that
he says that he doesn't know, or that it turns out that he has met her but forgot about it,
or she looks different, or whatever?
Well again, it's not going to have anything to do with the finding of the bloody glove
or the possible planting of the bloody glove.
But if it turns out that there is a witness, or more than one witness, who will corroborate
this supposed meeting, that's going to hurt Mr. Furman's credibility.
Leslie Aberson, I see you nodding there.
Yes, you know, if a witness's credibility is seriously challenged in one area of his
testimony, the jury is perfectly within its rights and in fact will be instructed that
and therefore question his believability in other and even much more crucial areas.
So if he really did meet this woman, it's very foolish of him to be denying it.
Before we talk about the other areas, which we'll do in a minute, one last thing from
this section, which is the psychiatric files.
Bailey made a case to open those files and the judge said no.
Does that harm the defense's case?
It's going to make it more difficult for the defense to try to bring forth their theory
that Mark Furman is a racist.
So it doesn't help them a bit. It does hurt them.
Okay, when we come back, we'll see Effley Bailey questioning Defective Furman about that bloody glove.
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Despite some intense grilling by F. Lee Bailey, Detective Mark Furman never appeared rattled,
as we hear in part two of Judy Mueller's report.
After the lunch break, Bailey moved from Furman's alleged racist attitudes to his alleged planning of evidence.
Bailey zeroed in on the fact that after Furman had responded to the crime scene,
he was informed that more senior detectives from outside the precinct were en route to take over the case.
Bailey referred to them as the big boys from robbery homicide.
Weren't you a little bit angry that you were being shoved out of the murder in your own territory?
No.
Didn't bother you a bit?
None.
Weren't you a fellow that had spent a good part of his career waiting for an opportunity to make, quote, the big arrest?
No.
In any event, can you explain to us what you were in fact feeling when you were told that you were out of the case and others would take over?
I was disappointed in losing a case that looked very interesting and very complex.
Okay. Now, did you decide to do something as a result of this displacement?
No.
What Bailey seems to be implying here is that Furman was so upset about being robbed of his big case that he decided to create a central role for himself,
the detective who finds the key piece of evidence and solves the case.
And he implied that Furman had plenty of time to stew about it.
What did you do between 2.50 a.m. and 4.05 when Philip Van Adder showed up on the scene?
What did you do?
I waited for their arrival on the street in front of the residence.
In other words, the whole homicide solution process ground to a halt. Is that right?
At that moment, waiting for them? Yes.
So when might Furman have taken a glove from the scene?
The prosecutor took great pains to show that Furman was always with someone.
But Bailey managed to pin down a moment when Furman was alone near the body of Ron Goldman,
albeit looking at the body from the other side of a neighbor's fence.
How long did you spend there?
Five seconds.
How long was Lieutenant Spangler there with you, if he was?
He wasn't, but when he walked over there, I think he was just there for a few moments.
The prosecution is bound to point out on redirect that stealing a glove from the scene at that moment would have been impossible.
But with Bailey making every movement by Furman seem furtive and sinister,
the overall picture of a cop motivated by racism and resentment may stick with some of the jurors.
At the very least, the defense has managed to shift the focus away from the defendant and onto a suspect of their own choosing.
Cokie? Thank you, Judy.
Joining us again, Leslie Avernton and Robert Philobosian.
So does this work to shift the, as Judy just said, to shift the suspicion away from O.J. Simpson and onto a police detective?
Well, I mean, it might work for today, but this case is months away from resolution.
The real issue here with respect to Detective Furman is to carry out the general defense theme
that someone else committed these homicides and a combination of the Los Angeles Police Department's ineptitude and corruption.
Los Angeles Police Department's ineptitude and corruption, as demonstrated by Detective Furman in their view,
has kept the world from being able to know who the real killer was.
I mean, that's the recurring theme, and that will come up again and again and again.
Do you think, Bob Philobosian, that it would be possible to prove that Furman could not have gotten that glove
while he was alone for a few seconds near Ron Goldman's body?
Well, it would be pretty difficult, but also keep in mind that other police officers,
starting with the first patrol officers on the scene, have testified there was only one glove at the scene.
So there wasn't a glove at the scene of the crime for Detective Furman to pick up.
That is something that I'm sure that the prosecutors will get back into on their redirect examination of Detective Furman.
But I think that Mr. Bailey's assertion that Detective Furman was so upset by not being assigned to this case
that he planted evidence is just plain silly. I mean, it doesn't even make sense.
Well, let me just say one thing, though. It is rather unusual, based on my experience of 25 years doing these kinds of cases,
for a homicide detective to care at all if someone else takes over a complicated homicide investigation like this.
This means tremendous hard work, and the homicide detectives that I know would not be at all disappointed or upset
if someone comes along and says, we'll take this one off your hands, I'm sure you've got plenty of other stuff to do.
So there is something unusual about Detective Furman in a lot of little ways that Mr. Bailey is pointing out.
The fact that we know he made racist remarks to his psychiatrist.
I mean, the fact that the defense can't prove it through that piece of evidence doesn't deny the fact
there is something off about Detective Furman. And the question is, how much of it can they prove?
I find that interesting, and obviously I don't know what's in the minds of the jurors,
but I'm sort of surprised to hear what you're saying, that in 25 years that you haven't seen detectives
who would be sorry to see the big case taken away from them.
It would seem to me that that would be something that a detective would want, is the big name fancy case.
Why wouldn't that be the case?
Well, why would they want to do that? I mean, they're not supposed to. I mean, I realize this gets lost in this case.
They're not supposed to be celebrities, you know. They're supposed to be solving crimes.
And I don't know too many homicide detectives that think in terms of, you know,
the big case from the celebrity standpoint or popular knowledge standpoint.
Surely, the kinds of crimes they want to solve are those where they have a dedication to protecting the community,
which good police officers have. They want to protect the public. That is very real.
But they don't lose. That desire isn't thwarted when more senior and more experienced detectives take over serious cases.
Well, what about that question of him sort of seeming to be off on his own?
That was something that Bailey kept bringing up over and over again, Bob Philobosian,
that he was just sort of taking off and not listening, calling in higher people, listening to orders.
Does that have an effect on the jury?
I don't really think so. In fact, when Mr. Bailey went so far as to suggest to Detective Furman
that he wiped the bloody glove on the car, on the exterior, on the interior, I mean, it gets even more ridiculous.
And these jurors are sitting there listening to all of that.
I don't think that the jurors are going to buy into Mr. Bailey's theories on this.
Well, there's some more theories that he brought up that we'll talk about when we come back in just a moment.
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And we're back once again with defense lawyer Leslie Abramson, former district attorney Robert Philobosian.
Bob, you said at the end of the last segment that there was this question of Bailey's deferment about taking a glove and wiping it around the bronco.
What was the point of that?
Is there something more that's going to come from that that we're going to hear more of tomorrow or the next day?
I don't think so.
I don't know where Mr. Bailey is going with it, but it seems to be more of what the defense does in this case.
That is, they promise a lot and they don't deliver.
Now, of course, the jury hasn't seen Rosa Lopez, but there was a promise of Rosa Lopez as the alibi witness, and she kind of flopped in that regard.
Then there's more promises on what's going to happen to Mark Fuhrman, and that's not coming to fruition either.
So I don't know where he's going with this bloody glove, but it's going to be up to the prosecution.
And, Cokie, this is what's important to keep in mind.
There is one central point with Mark Fuhrman and one only, and that is finding the bloody glove behind Cato Kaelin's room.
And that's what the prosecution has to come back to on their redirect examination.
The other thing that I noticed, Leslie Abramson, today that Bailey brought up and then just sort of dropped was when he asked Fuhrman why he had started walking towards the bronco when they were at the Simpson house.
And he said, well, he was just sort of walking around and then he saw something which he has described as a quarter of an inch, I mean a little bitty teeny speck of blood above the handle on the driver's door.
And then he said it was at about 5.20 in the morning, not yet dawn, and he didn't have his flashlight on.
Now, I don't know how you would see such a thing.
Is that, again, there was sort of these tantalizing little tidbits put out there without any follow-up on that.
What should we expect there, nothing or are we all just supposed to look at that and say, aha?
Well, if it were me, I would do a little videotaped experiment with an eraser-sized drop of blood on a white car at 5.20 in the morning here in Los Angeles.
And remember, we're not in the defense case yet.
But there is this little aspect of Detective Ferman, sort of the little Superman.
I mean, that's some pair of eyes that can see that sort of thing at 5.20 in the morning.
And the fact that he who is not involved in this case, he who has been relieved of his duty in this case, sets off on his own, as you pointed out before,
snooping about, fishing about, and lo and behold, he winds up being the person who discovers the glove.
Now, it may all be, you know, coincidence, but it's obviously something that the defense is capitalizing on.
Remember, Bailey has just begun with this witness.
I think things may all become a bit clearer tomorrow.
And what can we expect then?
I think what he's going to do is take every single thing that Detective Ferman has said today that somewhat compromised him.
For example, what Judy pointed out in the first part of her piece,
the fact that he is trying very hard to underplay the significance of the glove, stuff about the homicide kit.
He asked him to describe the homicide kit, which led to a description of many things that could have hidden the glove in transit.
I think all of that is going to wind up being played out against Detective Ferman, sort of boom, boom, boom, tomorrow.
And we'll get a much clearer picture of what Bailey's entire thesis of this officer is.
What about that boom, boom, boom, though, Bob Filibosian? I was watching a lot today with a lot of people who were kind of getting irritated with F. Lee Bailey as they watched.
Is it possible the jury is getting irritated too?
That's entirely possible. Of course, we can't see the jurors, and we haven't been in the courtroom to observe them.
And these jurors have been notoriously stone-faced.
They're not portraying emotion from talking to our reporters from ABC who have been in the courtroom with them.
But I think, and from my experience, jurors do sometimes get irritated with attorneys who go into areas that really aren't proving anything when it really comes down to the bottom line.
We only have a few seconds left, Leslie. Tell us tomorrow what's the main thing we should watch for.
Oh, I think what you want to watch for is for Bailey to start pulling out the counter-evidence he has to some of the things that Ferman said.
I expect, for example, he will, the best way, play the video or at least confront Detective Ferman with his testimony from the preliminary hearing.
I mean, that kind of confronting him with the impeaching evidence to the extent he can do that with Ferman on the witness stand.
Okay. Thank you very much, Leslie Abramson, Bob Filibosian. I'll be back in just a moment.
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That's our report for tonight. I'm Cokie Roberts from Washington. For all of us here at ABC News, good night.
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