Judge Undercuts Defense Strategy In Simpson Trial

The O.J. Simpson civil trial opened Tuesday with a flurry of rulings that significantly limit the defense’s strategy of attacking the Los Angeles Police Department as a group of inept bunglers and corrupt, racist cops who sought to frame Simpson for murder.

A few demonstrators preened for the TV cameras that swarmed the lawn of the Santa Monica courthouse, but inside, Superior Court Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki served notice that he will not tolerate what he considers distractions.

He sped through a stack of pretrial motions several feet thick in just two hours on the bench.

Fujisaki made clear he intends to keep the trial tightly focused on the key issue: Did O.J. Simpson kill Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman in a nighttime knife attack on June 12, 1994?

He agreed to allow the plaintiffs to introduce at least some evidence that the Simpsons’ 17-year relationship sometimes flared into violence.

But the defense, he said, will not be allowed to swerve into topics he deems irrelevant or speculative. That means Simpson’s lawyers will not be able to argue to jurors that the LAPD failed to examine all the blood from the crime scene, or that Colombian drug lords could have been behind the killings.

More importantly, Fujisaki blocked them from introducing evidence that former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman is a racist - a linchpin of the defense theory that police conspired to frame Simpson.

“The point to be addressed to the jury is whether the evidence that was collected tends to prove Mr. Simpson’s culpability or not,” Fujisaki said. “This is not a case about did the LAPD commit malpractice.”

With just that one statement, Fujisaki dealt a blow to the defense effort, since Simpson’s lawyers have long tried to turn the case into a referendum on LAPD malpractice. His lawyers in the criminal trial successfully beat back murder charges by charging that police officers botched the investigation; contaminated, compromised or planted evidence; and rushed to judge Simpson as a vicious killer without considering alternatives.

Goldman’s parents, Patti and Fred, and his sister, Kim, looked pleased as they chatted with their attorneys after the hearing. O.J. Simpson and relatives of Nicole Simpson could not attend the hearing in Santa Monica because they were fighting for custody of the couple’s children in an Orange County court.

Among his most significant rulings Tuesday, the judge:

Ordered the defense not to refer to Fuhrman’s allegedly racist attitudes, including his repeated use of ethnic slurs during taped interviews with an aspiring screenwriter.

Decided that jurors will not be told Fuhrman invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked whether he planted evidence against Simpson.

Decided that jurors will not go on a field trip to the Brentwood crime scene or Simpson’s house.

Allowed the plaintiffs to bypass some of their weakest witnesses - criminalists Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola - in introducing physical evidence. Although Fung and Mazzola collected most of the blood, fiber and hairs from the crime scene, the plaintiffs will not have to put them on the stand. Instead, they can call other criminalists who handled the evidence - and who made far fewer mistakes, making them less vulnerable to cross-examination.

Blocked Simpson’s lawyers from criticizing the LAPD’s evidence collection techniques. Fujisaki said lawyers can attack specific actions if they can show that sloppy procedures contaminated evidence. But they can’t use their experts, including Lee, to disparage the LAPD in general.

“I’m not going to permit the defense to argue that there were better collection techniques,” Fujisaki said.

“The argument should be directed to the evidence that was in fact collected - why it’s good or why it’s not good.”