Writer Must Testify About Fuhrman

O.J. Simpson’s defense lawyers won ground Monday in their effort to prove retired Los Angeles police Detective Mark Fuhrman is a racist and liar with a reason to try to frame Simpson with a bloody glove.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that a professor who recorded hours of interviews with Fuhrman for a screenplay she was writing must testify at Simpson’s trial in Los Angeles. The tapes are sprinkled with racial epithets, words Fuhrman testified he had not used in a decade.

Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. “was ecstatic about the ruling,” said Kenneth Spaulding, one of Simpson’s lawyers in North Carolina.

The appeals court said a lower court judge had erred in ruling that professor Laura Hart McKinny was not a material witness and that enforcement of a subpoena to testify would cause her undue hardship.