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From: Jasper
Date: 4/26/03
Time: 2:49:32 PM
Remote Name: 68.73.57.225
Kari,
The word “partner” can be used to describe any relationship involving mutual interest, cooperation and trust. That’s how Phillips could get away with saying that he and Fuhrman were partners and then saying that they weren’t.
I don’t think that the defense backed away to leave the impression that Phillips was lying because it wasn’t evident at the time that he was lying. It looked like a simple misinterpretation of a word, which Phillips cleared up himself during the course of cross-examination. You have to go back through the transcripts looking specifically for references to partners to see the lie for what it was.
The defense was looking for lines of responsibility to box in Fuhrman for his testimony, not to impeach Phillips. I think that they were just taken off guard by the sudden turnaround and didn’t want to get bogged down on a point that they considered trivial. They did not see Fuhrman as a murder suspect, only as an opportunist who took advantage of his role in the investigation and weaknesses in police procedures to frame Simpson after the fact. That’s what all of their questions to Phillips were geared to.
I tried without success to find out who Fuhrman was partnered with at various points in his LAPD career. He had several white partners, one Hispanic partner, one or two black ones and one woman.
Fuhrman became a Robbery detective in 1987 following the shooting incident with Joseph Britton. I could not find out who his partner was when he shot Britton or who his partner was when he first became a detective.
Fuhrman became a Homicide detective in 1990. He was, therefore a Homicide detective in West LA working in the same station with Phillips when he wrote his ’89 letter. That’s where the five years of “partnership” came from and why nobody challenged it. Phillips did not become the West LA Homicide Coordinator, the man responsible for all homicides committed in West LA, until 1993. He was never a member of the so-called elite Robbery/Homicide Division. He tried to join RHD shortly before the Bundy murders but didn’t make it. –Jasper