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From: Jasper
Date: 9/6/03
Time: 6:08:26 PM
Remote Name: 68.73.52.125
Miss Marple,
This is the “distancing” thing I mentioned in my previous post. Fuhrman established in Murder in Brentwood that he was capable of making errors and admitting them. The “errors” he made in his Bundy notes and elsewhere in the book distance him from guilty knowledge. One of his biggest criticisms of the prosecution (page 192) was, “They covered up for the errors of the lead detectives and left other witnesses vulnerable to the defense’s allegations” You will, of course, remember the allegation that Fuhrman was a racist and therefore had a motive to plant evidence.
I think that Fuhrman wrote this book primarily as a defensive measure in anticipation of where the work of Neufeld and Scheck was leading. The book gives spin control to questions he was bound get about his role in the Simpson case. Barring the issues that arose from Neufeld and Scheck’s use of DNA to free innocent people from death row and the world-wide attention they focused on those issues, I believe that Fuhrman would have written something else.
Peter Neufeld nailed Fuhrman on the timing of his pointing-finger-photo. Barry Scheck exposed all kinds of things that were wrong with blood evidence, including the broken chain of custody, O.J.’s blood on the Rockingham glove and Nicole’s blood on the socks. However, neither of them ever came out strongly in O.J.’s defense after the criminal trial and Fuhrman’s new position on the death penalty puts him in a stronger position to argue that if anyone planted evidence in the Simpson case it wasn’t him. In fact, he said in Murder in Brentwood (page 51) that Vannatter’s handing of the blood vial, “ …showed a lack of presence of mind, and frankly I agree with the defense for questioning them.”
On page 57 of Murder in Brentwood, Fuhrman writes:
“I would like to make clear that the last thing I wan to do is tear down or discredit the work done by the LAPD in this case. The dilemma I have is that the department and the district attorney’s office ignored these obvious errors and forced me to take the blame for the failure of the case. Below I have listed what I believe to be the most prominent errors made by Lange and Vannatter.”
Fuhrman lists eight of them. On page 192 he lists prosecution mistakes His note about “covered up” errors is item 9. --Jasper