His Name Is Ron (33 page)

Right and wrong, good and evil, seemed to be inverted.

Blocked from using most of the inflammatory tapes, the defense decided to call other witnesses who would paint Fuhrman as a racist. As Loyola law school professor Laurie Levenson said, “If they don't get what they want behind door one, try door two.”

She was right. On Tuesday, September 5, after cooling its heels for a week, the jury was allowed back into the courtroom. The defense called real estate agent Kathleen Bell to the stand. The plump, blond witness fought back tears while telling the jury that Fuhrman had told her during their first meeting that interracial marriages were disgusting and that African Americans should be “gathered together and burned.”

Of course, we had no way of knowing what, if any, information had filtered into the jury from the outside, but this was the first time jurors had been presented with evidence of Fuhrman's alleged racism and willingness to lie under oath.

Michael was in the courtroom that day. Every time he heard the inflammatory word he looked at the jury. He thought: That's it, it's done. It's all these jurors need. You could show them a video of the killer slaughtering Ron and Nicole but, because Mark Fuhrman had used the N-word, nothing else mattered.

Near the end of the day, with McKinny on the stand, the defense played the two allowable tape excerpts. “They don't do anything,” Fuhrman said
of women police officers. “They don't go out there and initiate a contact with some six-foot five-inch nigger who's been in prison seven years pumping weights.”

“That was his voice?” Cochran asked.

“That's his voice,” McKinny answered. “No doubt about it.”

Kim was devastated. We all were.

The admission of the racial issue was, in our view, completely unwarranted. I tried very hard to look at that and say objectively, “Do I really believe that this had a place?” And I kept coming back to the answer, no. Whether or not this police officer used vile language ten years earlier was of no relevance at this moment in this trial. The judge should have made the defense team show the relevance.

The defendant was not a run-of-the-mill criminal who happened to be black. He was a celebrity who did not function in the black world. To make that leap, Judge Ito had to go beyond reason. Once he let in the issue of race, he opened the floodgates, and justice was in danger of drowning.

Here was the essence of the defense team's argument to the jury:

     
a)
  
Fuhrman said something disgusting.

     
b)
  
Therefore, he did not like black people.

     
c)
  
Therefore, he did not like the defendant.

     
d)
  
Hence, he planted evidence and engineered a widespread conspiracy, convincing dozens of his colleagues to become accessories to a double homicide, which, if the defendant were convicted and executed, could theoretically make them subject to the death penalty as well.

To that convoluted reasoning I could only add: e) Give me a break.

Clearly it was the Fuhrman trial now, and Patti's reaction to the detective's original testimony proved terribly prophetic. When Furhman had denied having used the racial epithet at any time during the past ten years, Patti knew immediately that he had lied and jeopardized the entire case. Now he was to reappear before the court, called by the defense to be asked directly whether or not he had lied. Judge Ito ordered the examination to occur outside the presence of the jury, so that he could consider its admissibility.

It was widely reported that Fuhrman, now retired from LAPD and living in Idaho, would hide behind his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
And the problem was, he could not exercise that right selectively. The Fifth Amendment offers blanket protection; a witness cannot invoke it only for selected questions. Therefore, if Fuhrman answered one single question, he would face a wide range of additional questions.

Kim went to court alone this day, Wednesday, September 6. The investigators who always escorted her from the parking garage to the D.A.'s office knew that she was beside herself with fury. They brought her in through a different hallway than usual, and Kim demanded to know why. When they would not tell her, she knew that they were hiding something from her. Indeed, Fuhrman was sequestered in a room nearby, and the investigators did not want Kim to encounter him.

In court, sitting alone in the front row of the spectators' section, Kim had to endure additional testimony about Fuhrman's obvious biases and his alleged misconduct. Laura Hart McKinny added sexism to the list of Fuhrman's “crimes,” reporting his complaint that female police officers do not support “certain cover-ups that some men on the police force are doing.”

Then came the testimony of Roderic Hodge, a soft-spoken black man, who said that, after his arrest in January 1987, he was sitting in the back of a police car when Fuhrman said to him, “I told you we'd get you, nigger.” Hodge was tried and acquitted on drug charges.

After this, the jury was excused, instructed to wait upstairs in a lounge.

A tension-filled silence spread across the courtroom. Kim turned to see Fuhrman entering, surrounded by several bodyguards, who took up stations by the doorway. Fuhrman's eyes scanned the courtroom for a moment. Then he moved forward, pausing briefly to pat the shoulder of CNN reporter Art Harris.

Marcia and Chris turned their backs. Cochran gloated and shared jubilant high-fives with the defense team. Their behavior was, as usual, inappropriate and disgusting.

Defense Attorney Gerald Uelman asked Fuhrman, “Was the testimony that you gave at the preliminary hearing in this case completely truthful?”

Fuhrman leaned over and whispered to his new attorney, Darryl Mounger. Then he answered, “I wish to assert my Fifth Amendment privilege.”

Uelman asked, “Have you ever falsified a police report?”

“I wish to assert my Fifth Amendment privilege.”

“Did you plant or manufacture any evidence in this case?”

“I wish to assert my Fifth Amendment privilege.”

By invoking his constitutional right, Fuhrman in no way admitted to wrongdoing, but he gave the defense a huge psychological boost. The entire prosecution team appeared demoralized. So were we.

Kim was unaware that by answering even one question Fuhrman would negate the blanket protection of the Fifth Amendment. She was frantic. She wanted to scream: Why can't you just answer NO?

As Fuhrman and his bodyguards left the courtroom through a private doorway, the defendant hunched over the defense table and buried his face in his hands—perhaps so that no one could see if he was crying or laughing.

Brian Hale was the only African American on the team of D.A. investigators, and we were concerned for him. He confided to us that he got “weird vibes” from Fuhrman, and we knew he had to be disturbed by all of this. It was ironic that now, when Fuhrman needed protection to come back in and plead the Fifth, it was the D.A.'s investigators who provided it.

Upstairs in the D.A.'s office, Kim encountered Chris. “Chris, I want to scream at him,” she said.

“I'll help you,” Chris replied. “Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? Do you want to be alone with him?”

“Yes,” Kim said.

Bill Hodgman approached and asked, “What's going on?”

“I want to talk to him,” Kim declared again.

“Kim,” Bill said softly, “what's that going to prove?”

Hank Goldberg joined the conversation. “Why do you want to, Kim?” he asked.

Kim felt that Chris was encouraging her, egging her on. She thought he knew that she would say the things to Fuhrman that he longed to say. But Bill and Hank cautioned, “Don't sink to that level.” It was like being pulled between a devil and an angel—revenge against restraint. Kim felt her characteristic signs of stress. Her stomach was in open revolt. An excruciating pain in her elbow moved up her arm.

Finally Kim made the decision not to confront Fuhrman. “They were right,” she told us later. “It wouldn't do any good. The damage had already been done.”

Kim sometimes regrets that decision. Her mind replays the speech she would have delivered: I don't understand the kind of arrogance that comes over someone like you. It is your fault that you're a racist. You lied and you knew you were lying. Why did you have to drag everyone else down with you? I trusted you. You are a police officer. You are what I was raised to respect and obey.

You are a despicable human being!

TWENTY-FOUR

The pressure was strangling us.

Each of us dealt with it in our own way. Emotions were more readily brought to the surface, about anything, not just Ron's loss. Tension filled the house to the point where we could almost see it hanging in the air. We either tiptoed around each other or lost our tempers over something that was totally insignificant. Sometimes a chilly silence prevailed when no one spoke at all.

There was a widespread misperception of how often I was actually in the courtroom. Perhaps it arose because of the press coverage we got whenever I chose to speak out. In truth, I had to pay attention to my work, and it was a grinding daily decision. I had been a successful salesman for most of my adult life, but my job felt increasingly irrelevant. Each morning I asked myself: Do I really have to go see that client today? Can I postpone this appointment so that I can slip into the courtroom? Can I go in the morning? Can I go in the afternoon?

Kim had no appetite. Michael saw her in the swimming pool one day and was shocked to realize how emaciated she had become. Her always slight frame now resembled pictures he had seen of girls suffering from anorexia. However, we all knew that it was useless to say anything to Kim about it. I was very concerned about her health, but whenever I encouraged her to eat more, she snapped back at me, “Leave me alone!”

Michael and Lauren were maturing into young adults, experiencing all
the new excitements and pains that they wanted and needed to share with the family, but the trial had eclipsed everything.

Lauren still had great difficulty sleeping, and was plagued by nightmares.

For months on end Patti had run through her days at full gallop, with no downtime. She complained, “I feel like a machine.” There was simply not enough of her to go around. She wished that she could clone herself. Her commitment to attend the trial had turned out to be far more grueling than she ever imagined. She wanted and needed to be there every day, to represent me and to support Kim. But Michael and Lauren needed her, too. She had always been a very “hands-on” mom, but now she was stretched to the limit.

At times she felt unappreciated and taken for granted, especially if she had to leave the courtroom early to attend one of Michael's tennis matches or to drive Lauren somewhere. If I, or anyone else, made a comment that she interpreted as questioning her priorities, she quickly lost her temper and steamed for days. When I suggested that she was doing too much, and should ask the children to chip in more and carry some of the weight, she became defensive and angry, taking it as criticism.

We did not get to bed until very late in the evening and, even as Patti dropped her exhausted head onto the pillow, she knew that morning would arrive far too soon.

Now, as she realized that this miserable trial was finally drawing to a conclusion, Patti felt a compelling need to do something for herself. She told me that she did not want to return to her part-time job at Right Start, sitting in front of a computer, answering telephones. It was not satisfying. She wanted to do something more significant.

“Great!” I said, but I had no idea what thoughts were tumbling around in her head.

Patti looked in the yellow pages for an electrology school and thought that she might enjoy the work. Without telling any of the rest of us, she made some calls, interviewed, and decided that she was interested. Because the courses began at widely spaced intervals, if she did not start now she would have to wait many months. Classes were held Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 8:30
A.M
. to 5
P.M
., and the schedule would force her to cut back on her attendance at the trial. But Patti decided to go for it.

When she told me, after the fact, I was not as enthusiastic as she would have liked.

“Where did you come up with that?” I asked. “Did you ever think of doing something else?” My attitude and the tone of my voice reminded her of some of my past conversations with Ron about his plans and ambitions. Sometimes my pragmatism can sound like criticism or disapproval, a sort-of unintentional putdown.

“No,” she said, curtly.

‘Would you like me to sit down and help you think of some other things?” I offered.

“No, I would not,” Patti replied. “I'm starting on September eighteenth.”