Among the many memorable things the O.J. Simpson trial has wrought is a large and varied cast of characters with an overblown sense of their own importance. Starting with a few lawyers and moving on down through some of the dismissed jurors to the Kato Kaelins and Faye Resnicks, members of this new American gothic have milked the mikes, signed book contracts and chatted on Larry King Live with abandon. But one person whose self-image may be right on target is former detective Mark Fuhrman. "I am the most important witness in the trial of the century," Fuhrman purportedly said during a tape-recorded conversation with screenwriter Laura Hart McKinny. "If I go down, their case goes bye-bye."
Judging by the eruptions in and out of Judge Lance Ito's courtroom last week, Fuhrman may have a point. While the weary jury continued to hear dry-as-fingerprint-dust technical evidence, out of their presence a titanic battle was under way over what has come to be known as the Fuhrman tapes. Between April 1985 and July 1994, Fuhrman and McKinny, who was writing a movie script about policewomen, had a series of tape-recorded conversations about police technique, Fuhrman-style. Though the tapes do not specifically offer evidence of Simpson's innocence, they could have a shattering impact not only on the prosecution's case but on the already troubled L.A.P.D. as well.
According to partial transcripts and comments by the lawyers in court, Fuhrman describes engaging in police misconduct of the most damning kind: beating suspects bloody, coercion and badgering minorities. Contrary to his sworn testimony last March that he had not used the word nigger in the past 10 years, Fuhrman's blustering talk on the tapes is laced with that word and contains other terms offensive to African Americans, Hispanics, women and Jews. In a portion of the transcripts obtained by TIME, for instance, he tells Martha Lorrie Diaz, a friend of McKinny's, that women cops are ineffectual "because they don't do anything. They don't go out and initiate a contact with some 6-ft. 5-in. nigger that's been in prison for seven years pumping weights." And in a twist almost unbelievable even in Simpsonland, he discusses-using derogatory language-run-ins with Ito's wife, police captain Margaret York, which suddenly raised the issue of whether Ito should continue to preside over the trial. In the words of a key prosecution source who has listened to portions of the tapes and who is usually prone to understatement, "The tapes are a disaster."
The mood inside the district attorney's office is one of desolation. At best, Fuhrman appears to have lied on the stand, undermining his credibility as a prosecution witness. Even prosecutor Marcia Clark was willing to stipulate, in return for keeping the tapes out of court, that he used the word nigger on three occasions in the past 10 years. And at worst, depending on what portions of the tapes, if any, Ito permits the jury to hear, Fuhrman has breathed life into the defense's pet theory: that Simpson is an innocent victim of a racist police conspiracy. Former Los Angeles district attorney Ira Reiner explains: "It is not that the tapes should influence the case by any objective standard. The issue is subjective importance. They will overwhelm the jury. If those tapes come in-and they are as advertised-acquittal is a probability. A hung jury becomes a mere possibility."