Bailey-Fuhrman Face-Off Could Be Pivotal For O.J. Defense Hopes To Build Doubts As Detective Takes The Stand

At his beguiling best, F. Lee Bailey could make Mother Teresa look like an opportunist.

And detective Mark Fuhrman is no Mother Teresa.

That is why O.J. Simpson trial junkies eagerly are awaiting this week’s widely anticipated matchup between Bailey and Fuhrman - the fabled lawyer and the infamous witness.

“It’s going to be one of the pivotal moments in the entire trial,” predicted Southwestern University law professor Robert Pugsley.

Last week, aging lion Bailey sharpened his claws on a uniformed sergeant in preparation for Fuhrman, the principal target of defense efforts to convince jurors that police have framed Simpson for the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

But Bailey’s warm-up on Sgt. David Rossi, the first police supervisor to reach the June 12 murder scene, left some observers wondering whether the legend has lost a step since his heyday of the 1960s and ‘70s, when he defended such clients as Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo and newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.

In court last week, “he was extremely theatrical,” said UCLA law professor Peter Arenella. “If you shut your eyes, you think you’re listening to Perry Mason. “But,” Arenella added, “one might ask, `Where’s the beef?”’

Bailey insisted that Rossi had trampled evidence, failed to call the coroner promptly and neglected to pursue clues leading to the “killer or killers.”

“Why in the world did you need to go in the crime scene to begin with if you’re not a detective?” Bailey asked at one point.

But Rossi steadfastly asserted that his job had been merely to protect the crime scene until detectives arrived.

And Bailey’s sarcasm seemed wasted on the lowly sergeant. Rossi freely admitted his ignorance when asked the difference between a footprint and a foot impression and calmly answered other questions about the number of volumes in the Los Angeles police manual (four) and about what ice cream tends to do when left outside the refrigerator.

“It melts,” Rossi said.

“It was wonderful to hear Lee in action, but I thought it was like bringing in a cannon where a peashooter would do,” said famed Wyoming defense lawyer Gerry Spence, referring to Bailey’s withering attack on a witness whose duties were so limited.

“What we saw was a well-honed legal mind operating with dexterity and subtlety,” Pugsley said of Bailey’s performance. “And what it was clearly building up to was a crescendo with the arrival of Mark Fuhrman on the witness stand.”

Such a showdown, which is expected later this week, has been months in the making.

Ever since he joined the defense team last summer, Bailey has been an obvious choice to attack the white detective, whom the defense has accused of planting a bloody glove behind O.J. Simpson’s mansion the morning after the murders out of racial animus and a desire to further his career.

“My guess is, Bailey’s cross-examination of Mark Fuhrman has been prepared for weeks, maybe even months,” said Philadelphia lawyer Thomas Mellon, a former federal prosecutor.

But the task will not be easy.

Superior Court Judge Lance Ito has barred defense lawyers from questioning Fuhrman about two incidents that they contend show him to be a racist rogue cop. Ito said the incidents - a 1981 disability claim in which Fuhrman allegedly disparaged black people and a lawsuit accusing him of planting a knife at the feet of a robbery suspect in 1988 - were too remote and speculative.

But the judge has said he would allow questioning about a third incident, in 1985 or 1986, in which Fuhrman allegedly expressed animosity toward interracial couples.

“Clearly, Bailey will try to get under Fuhrman’s skin and show him to be this angry, vengeful and retaliatory type of policeman,” Pugsley said. “And I think he will be very effective if he can get a whole day’s shot at Fuhrman and really go at him in that cool, condescending way.”

Fuhrman, though, despite months of public vilification, is, like Bailey, a courtroom veteran with a practiced air of detachment that comes from years as a homicide investigator.

And, like Bailey, he has had a long time to prepare.

“What we’ll be looking at,” Mellon said, “is a classic confrontation between two well-prepared professionals. It’s going to come down to who is better able to execute their game plan.”

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