THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : An Explosion’s Resounding Echoes

The O.J. Simpson team has been promoting the Fuhrman tapes to the media for days, but not even the ever-hopeful Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. could have estimated the intensity of the explosion they caused Tuesday.

Cochran’s pitch over the last two weeks was so relentless it made me skeptical. Nothing could deliver such a shock to Cochran, who has fought memorable legal battles against the worst of our area’s gun-happy racist cops, I reasoned.

But the tapes, recording Detective Mark Fuhrman’s conversations with a screenwriter, exceeded Cochran’s promise. That was clear from a transcript of a discussion between Judge Lance A. Ito, the prosecutors and the defense attorney.

Not only did Detective Fuhrman use the “N word,” he voiced the “J word,” referring to a defense attorney’s Jewish religion in what appeared to be a derogatory manner.

And, in a section that choked Ito with emotion, the detective was quoted as making insulting comments about Ito’s wife, Los Angeles Police Capt. Margaret York, once his watch commander at the West L.A. police station and now in charge of the department’s Internal Affairs Division. Cochran told Ito that in the tapes “this guy is pretty, pretty graphic and . . . a lot of this is devoted to [then] Lt. York.”

That revelation threw the Simpson trial into complete disarray, prompting Ito to disqualify himself from holding a hearing on whether the tapes can be admitted as evidence and casting a pall over the greatest experience of his judicial career.

Ito’s decision sent the trial’s cast of characters scurrying four floors up to the 13th floor of the Criminal Courts Building, where James A. Bascue, supervising judge of the court’s criminal division, found himself unexpectedly presiding over the “Trial of the Century.”

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It was emotionally moving watching Ito reluctantly turning over the tapes issue to Bascue. As it stands, Ito will preside over the Simpson trial when the tapes issue is decided. But nothing is certain in this case and as the judge spoke, I got the feeling he was worried that this might be his farewell to what he calls “the Simpson matter.”

Even the most hardened reporter--and that’s not me--would have been touched by the way Ito talked about his wife, whom he met while he was a prosecutor and she was a detective assigned to investigate the same crime.

“I love my wife dearly,” Ito said as he sat high on the bench that is supposed to separate judges from the rest of humanity. Suddenly, he was a husband more than a judge, a spouse who’d heard his wife insulted. His voice broke. He sounded as if he was going to cry. Then he continued. “And I am wounded by criticism of her.” His voice broke again. He paused for a few long seconds before he could finish his sentence. . . . “As any spouse would be.”

But we reporters quickly put our emotions aside when Judge Ito ordered the case upstairs to Bascue’s court. Hot on the trail of the story’s latest twist, I hit the stairs near our 12th-floor pressroom and pushed my way to the front of a growing crowd of journalists. The pack grew, covering the hallway outside the courtroom. Some journalists were talking to their bosses on cellular phones, evidence that this was big.

We elbowed our way into the court to watch what should have been a routine matter. All Judge Bascue had to do was transfer the tapes issue to another judge for study and a hearing. But, as we’ve learned, nothing in the Simpson case is routine.

I watched Judge Bascue with interest. I’d spent an afternoon in his court a few weeks ago, watching him preside over a hearing for Roger Sandler, a photographer who had been kicked out of the Criminal Courts Building. He struck me that day as a stern, businesslike kind of judge. There was none of the Ito laid-back quality in his courtroom.

But Bascue, so tough in the Sandler case, was afflicted with the Simpson trial virus, an ailment marked by symptoms of slowness, inappropriate attempts at humor and fascination with celebrity.

That was clear when the lawyers asked for a sidebar conference, one of those interminable judge-attorney chats that have slowed the Simpson trial to a crawl. “We don’t usually do that,” Bascue said. “I’m not versed in it. But I’m sure you can show me.”

There was an even stronger symptom of the virus after the sidebar when the lawyers conferred, the prosecution on the right side of the room, the defense on the left. Bascue found himself face-to-face with Simpson, who was sitting alone at the defense table.

Referring to the groups of conferring lawyers, their heads together, Bascue said, “It looks like a huddle, doesn’t it, Mr. Simpson?”

“Yeah,” Simpson replied. “But I don’t get to play.”

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Judge Bascue moved ahead quickly after that, turning the issue over to Judge John H. Reid.

But that didn’t end the impact of the explosion. The contents of the tapes make that impossible.

The tapes will surely be made public, whether or not they are admitted as evidence in the Simpson trial. Every racist, sexist word will resonate through the community, grist for the talk-show mill, sparking arguments in barrooms and workplaces all over the country.

The City Council can’t ignore them. Neither can Mayor Richard Riordan.

Even if the Fuhrman tapes don’t make it to the screen, they are guaranteed a long, long run.