Special Prosecutor Sought to Probe Fuhrman Remarks : Simpson trial: Defense wants to pursue perjury issue. Legal experts, detective’s lawyer predict motion will fail.

Ratcheting up the pressure on Detective Mark Fuhrman, lawyers for O.J. Simpson have asked that a special prosecutor be appointed to consider perjury charges against the detective who discovered key evidence in the case but who also stands at the center of the defense’s controversial police conspiracy theory.

The defense motion, filed late Monday and released Tuesday, alleges that witnesses and tapes of the detective being interviewed by a North Carolina professor and screenwriter provide “ample evidence establishing probable cause that Fuhrman has plainly perjured himself.” The evidence, the defense added, “unambiguously and uncategorically proves that Fuhrman is a liar.”

Defense attorneys launched the new attack on Fuhrman--one that analysts say is unlikely to succeed--even as they attempted to shield one of their own witnesses from prosecution questioning and sought to gain access to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Internal Affairs files to pursue the section of their case devoted to rooting out news leaks.

Simpson has pleaded not guilty to the murders of Ronald Lyle Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. His attorneys have argued that a police conspiracy--including police officials who allegedly planted evidence and then leaked details of it to the media--is responsible for much of the evidence against their client. Prosecutors say that is ludicrous and note that the defense has not produced direct evidence of any such conspiracy.

Responding to the Fuhrman motion, the detective’s lawyer, Robert H. Tourtelot, derisively dismissed the latest defense effort as “more of the Dream Team’s spin to try to make more of this than it is,” and said he did not anticipate any action against his client.

“If they’re going to do this,” Tourtelot said, “I think we ought to have a special prosecutor look at some of their witnesses, starting with Rosa.” Rosa Lopez is a housekeeper who lived next door to Simpson; she testified in his defense before being exposed to such a probing cross-examination that the jury now seems unlikely ever to see the videotape of her account.

Legal experts generally agreed that the Simpson team is unlikely to win its motion urging Ito to request a special prosecutor. But several said the defense team’s move seemed motivated by strategic considerations, perhaps in order to raise the possibility that Fuhrman would invoke his 5th Amendment right not to testify against himself if he is recalled to the witness stand, as appears increasingly likely.

“This is clearly a strategic move by the defense,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School. “They want to hold over Fuhrman’s head the possibility that he could be prosecuted for perjury. They hope that he would then assert the 5th Amendment in front of the jury, something that would be devastating for the prosecution. This gives Fuhrman and his lawyer and the prosecutors something to think about.”

Tourtelot, while cautioning that he has not heard the tapes or read the transcripts, nevertheless said he does not believe anything on them would cause Fuhrman to assert his rights under the 5th Amendment.

“I don’t think Mark has any need to do that,” said Tourtelot. “These comments were made as part of a story conference for a fictional screenplay. They’re not Mark speaking as himself.”

Los Angeles attorney John Van de Kamp, who previously served as both Los Angeles County district attorney and as California attorney general, said it is rare for a special counsel to be appointed. Van de Kamp also said it would be unusual for a judge to appoint a special counsel or convene a grand jury during a trial.

Moreover, he added, “perjury prosecutions are rare. They’re difficult to prove. To prove perjury, you have to establish that there was a deliberate misstatement about a material fact.”

Seeking LAPD Records

The Fuhrman motion was one of several filed by Simpson’s attorneys as they sought to stake out the parameters of their remaining case.

They asked Ito to limit prosecution questioning of Kary Mullis, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist whose testimony has been eagerly anticipated for weeks but who now seems unlikely to be called to the stand during this phase of the defense case. They urged Ito to prohibit prosecutors from showing the jury photographs or videotapes of Simpson wearing gloves that resemble those found at the crime scene and on the grounds of his Brentwood estate.

And they pressed their demand for Internal Affairs documents relating to the Police Department’s leak investigation, a move that Ito decided to pass along to another judge since he is married to Capt. Margaret York, the newly appointed head of LAPD Internal Affairs.

“I don’t feel that there is any actual conflict involved,” Ito said. “However, I think the appearance is such that I would feel more comfortable--and I think the parties would feel more comfortable--if another magistrate heard this motion.”

With that, Ito gathered up his things and left his own courtroom, where he was replaced a few minutes later by Superior Court Judge John H. Reid. Reid spent just over half an hour sifting through a procedurally dense legal debate revolving around at least two stories about evidence in the case--an accurate story that appeared in The Times on Sept. 15 and an inaccurate piece aired by KNBC-TV on Sept. 21.

The defense maintains that a person or people within the LAPD leaked both stories, and further alleges that the source of the KNBC story may have planted blood on a sock discovered in Simpson’s bedroom. They base that allegation--which they have never backed up with evidence--on the fact that subsequent DNA tests performed on the socks produced the results that KNBC reported on Sept. 21, even though no DNA tests had been performed at that point.

Asked to wade into a morass over whether the source of those stories was material to the question of Simpson’s guilt or innocence, Reid essentially demurred back to Ito and his knowledge of the facts of the case. As a result, the defense is to submit a written declaration this morning explaining its view of the materiality of those alleged leaks, after which Ito will read the declaration and decide whether the defense has met that burden.

If so, Reid will then re-enter the case to rule on whether the Internal Affairs report should be reviewed by Ito in chambers, which the judge would then do before deciding whether the statements contained within that file are relevant and should be turned over to the defense.

Mullis Fades for Now

Convoluted meanderings over that section of the defense case ground the trial to a halt Tuesday afternoon while the attorneys sorted through legal issues and the jury cooled its heels in a waiting room until Ito finally sent members home. It was not immediately clear when the panel would be back or who would testify when the jury returned.

The defense has hedged about whether it will call Nobel laureate Mullis to testify as part of its attack on the DNA evidence in the case. Mullis invented a form of DNA testing known as PCR analysis that has been used extensively by Simpson prosecutors. Mullis is a well-known critic of the forensic applications of his invention, and he is a flamboyant surfer with a history of admitted drug use and unorthodox views on other scientific subjects.

All that has made him an inviting target for cross-examination. Anticipating that prosecutors would raise some of those topics in their questioning, the defense team filed a motion Tuesday urging Ito to bar any questioning about his drug use, relationships, political beliefs, alleged domestic violence and unorthodox scientific opinions on subjects other than DNA testing, the area he will be asked to testify about.

The defense motion even seeks to bar prosecutors from introducing videotapes of Mullis’ “home decor, sporting and leisure activities”; Mullis, an avid surfer, sports photographs of naked and partially clad women in his home, and a TV crew videotaped some of them while there to interview him.

“Since the time of Plato, scholars have recognized that one cannot judge the merits of an argument based on the character and lifestyle of the person advancing the argument,” the motion said. “The character and lifestyle of the person advancing the argument is irrelevant to the quality of scientific reasoning underlying the argument.”

Ito did not immediately take up that motion, and outside court, Mullis and members of the defense team said he probably will not be called to the witness stand any time soon.

“It had a lot to do with the rhythm of the trial,” said Mullis, adding that two other defense witnesses effectively have covered much of the ground that he was prepared to discuss. Barry Scheck, one of Simpson’s DNA legal experts, agreed, saying that defense attorneys are pleased with the status of the evidence and do not feel they need Mullis to testify now.

Scheck said he expected Mullis to take the stand late in the trial, but Deputy Dist. Atty. Rockne Harmon, who has been spoiling to cross-examine the scientist for months, expressed skepticism.

“The jury didn’t need to see the spectacle that probably would have ensued” if Mullis testified, Harmon said. The prosecutor, who has grown a beard and offered to shave it if the defense dares call Mullis to the stand, said he reluctantly will keep it for now.

“I’m not real happy,” Harmon said, “that I have this ugly, white beard.”

Expert Holds Ground

In front of the jury, meanwhile, a defense statistical expert held his ground against a prickly cross-examination by Harmon, who fired pointed questions at the Berkeley professor all morning.

Despite the increasingly testy questioning, Harmon mainly seemed to succeed in firming up the professor’s insistence that the possibility of laboratory errors undermines the significance of statistics that prosecutors say demonstrate the importance of DNA “matches” linking Simpson to the crime scene and the victims to his house and car.

At first, Terence Paul Speed resisted directly criticizing the work of prosecution expert Bruce Weir, who presented statistics on the significance of the “matches.”

But under pressure from Harmon and defense attorney Peter Neufeld, the witness eventually toughened up his criticism.

“So you think Professor Weir misled this jury by not presenting error rates?” Harmon asked brusquely near the end of his examination.

Speed tried to duck a straight answer, saying merely that he disagreed with a portion of an answer given by his friend and colleague. Harmon interrupted, accusing Speed of not being responsive.

“You’re asking me to say did a colleague mislead a jury,” Speed said plaintively. “But if I’ve got to answer yes or no, then the answer must be yes.”

Speed’s testimony was over before noon and represented the only evidence that the jury heard Tuesday. One other witness took the stand late in the day, after the jury was gone, but was called merely to say what she had done with a phone message that Simpson left her on the evening of the murders. The message said he wanted to get together with her when he returned from his trip to Chicago.

That witness, a model named Gretchen Stockdale, smiled warmly at Simpson as he entered the courtroom and then proceeded to fend off a series of personal, probing questions by Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark, who inquired about her relationship with Simpson. At one point, Clark suggested that Simpson had made overtures to the attractive blond model about “becoming his girlfriend.”

Simpson angrily tossed his head back and forth at that comment, then smiled in disbelief as his attorneys vigorously objected.

Ito also seemed to grow impatient with Clark’s questioning, eventually intervening and taking over the examination himself. When Stockdale testified that she no longer had a copy of the message--she gave one copy to a defense investigator--Ito instructed prosecutors to ask her message service for it.

If the service no longer has the tape, Ito may order the defense to share its copy with prosecutors. But its usefulness to either side seems limited since Simpson neither admits guilt on the tape nor says anything that suggests he was obsessed with his ex-wife.

Times staff writer Henry Weinstein contributed to this story.