Your Honor, what we propose to do is first is call the following witnesses: Assistant District Attorney Lucienne Coleman, then a police officer named Arneson and then Detective Purdy.
Well, we had a proceeding in chambers where I laid out much of it, but I think it is contained essentially in the declaration of Lucienne Coleman, and we need to make this offer in order to, first of all, put on the record for the court's benefit what we believe in the course of the investigation of the allegations raised by Miss Coleman was misconduct by the Prosecutors insofar as they failed to pursue adequately the allegations herein, or if it were not by the Prosecutors, a failure to pursue it by Internal Affairs. The problem that we have is that the information contained in the Coleman affidavit and the information that we have obtained in the discussions with these officers, which as the court knows have conflicts with the Coleman affidavit--
Has appeared before this court. I'm well acquainted with her. Her affidavit essentially says certain things were said to me. I passed that information and my concerns based upon that information on to the Prosecution team here.
I cooperated and was interviewed by the law enforcement agency that is involved here. She has no direct knowledge of any evidence that relates to the issues in this case. What she merely does is raise certain issues at certain points in time. So why is it necessary to call her as a witness at this point?
Well, actually we made an offer with respect to that this morning to the Prosecutors basically saying that we would--if they would stipulate that Deputy District Attorney Coleman's statements with respect to the Prosecutors was accurate, then she would simply sign the declaration with respect to what we all know is a conflict of testimony between her and the police officers, that we would just put on the police officers. That would have been fine by us. Mr. Hodgman declined to do that. There is another issue as well that arose yesterday in the conversations we had on tape with Detective Purdy, that is not contained in the Coleman affidavit, but is something that she would testify to, and that has to do with this very critical incidents involving Detective Purdy and Mark Fuhrman where Detective Purdy indicated--told Miss Coleman that he had been involved in a case with Mr. Fuhrman, that Fuhrman had done the police report, that Purdy had testified at a preliminary hearing. Subsequently it arose that there was a conflict between--
For the record, your Honor, I'm going to object. I think Mr. Scheck is talking about a matter that relates to confidential personnel files. There is a statutory procedure pursuant to 832.5, 832.7, 832.8 of the penal code, as well as evidence code section 1043, 44, 45, 46 and 47. The Defendant has made no attempt, even though they have had Miss Coleman's--the information from Miss Coleman's declaration as far back as April, possibly even as early as February, the Defense has not made a motion pursuant to those statutes and they should not be allowed to discuss those matters in open court until such time as they do so.
Your Honor, if I just might complete, you asked me why we needed Miss Coleman to testify.
When we tried to ask Detective Purdy about these matters yesterday, his counsel raised this privilege issue and they refused to discuss it and we have to make a record here with respect to what Purdy told Coleman and then it becomes a matter for the court to pursue and we have our legal remedies under the constitution of the United States.
All right. Let me ask you this: Why was that not reduced to an affidavit from Miss Coleman?
I would like to avoid that as well, your Honor, but we did not put these incidents together as clearly until we had a conversation yesterday with Detective Purdy and were able to try to link the one incident where he was--we believe that there probably--and we don't know, because Detective Purdy wouldn't answer the questions, but it is probably the one instance where he was partnered with Mark Fuhrman. And the import of that is that we--is that there is substantial conflicts between Miss Coleman and Detective Purdy about what Detective Purdy said to her and what might have been in the diary of Detective Purdy with respect to the actions of Detective Fuhrman, a diary that he concedes he burned when he knew that it was going to be sought by either the Prosecutors or Internal Affairs, which we consider a potential obstruction of justice. Now, that reflects upon the credibility of Detective Purdy. We have to elicit from Miss Coleman the testimony about that incidents that is not contained in the affidavit because now we see what we don't have--
But let's assume the best possible scenario for the Defense. Detective Purdy comes in and says I worked with Detective Fuhrman back in 1987 at the West Los Angeles Division. The guy was a jerk. I didn't like him, didn't get along with him. He harassed me. I felt--and apparently Purdy makes the statement to Coleman that I would not put it passed Fuhrman to plant evidence. I suspect Fuhrman as being one of the persons involved in putting swastikas on my locker. I suspect him, but I don't know. All right. Is that the essence of what we are talking about here?
Detective Purdy has admitted he had a diary which he kept with respect to incidents that were occurring to him in the West L.A. Division. I think it is clear from the way he answered the questions yesterday on tape in the presence of the District Attorneys that he was afraid of Detective Fuhrman and other officers in what is known as a SPU unit, a special--
--special problems unit, that he thought that he was being ostracized because they thought he was a plant from Internal Affairs Division. He told us yesterday he never heard Detective Fuhrman or ever heard about Detective Fuhrman uttering anything sexist, anything racist or engaging in any misconduct. That is his position. He says in this diary there is seconds about the, as he recalls, the swastika incident, the incidents involving the surveillance that he did, the case he did with Detective Fuhrman that he won't answer any questions about where there was a conflict of testimony between Purdy and Fuhrman and then Purdy went along and conformed his testimony with the police report filled out by Fuhrman, got into trouble and got suspended for fifteen days because his subsequent testimony was different than his preliminary hearing testimony. Our position, your Honor, is we think you should see those records. This was never brought to the court's attention, to the best of our knowledge, because we didn't receive anything from the court in terms of the redaction and the destruction of these logs. We think Detective Purdy, despite his hatred of Mark Fuhrman, is willing, as indicated in the Coleman affidavit, not to testify against Fuhrman. That is what the Coleman affidavit talks about, that Purdy said to her, "I will not testify against the Prosecution in these matters. I will not testify about Fuhrman. I'm going to burn my diary" and indeed he burned his diary.
Let's assume that then the logical thing to do--there are two logical things to do. One, file a pitchess motion for Mr. Purdy's file, because if he got fifteen days off, that ought to be reflected in his personnel file. Secondly, you should ask for an order directing--from this court directing the District Attorney's office to go through the vaunted promise system, do a witness search in 1987 for a case where Purdy and Fuhrman show up as witnesses in the same case, and see if you can find the same information that way.
Well, most respectfully, this is a Brady motion. Our legal position is that our right to confrontation and due process under the United States constitution overrides any statutory privilege about personnel files. There was an investigation with respect to this case by Internal Affairs that presumably this court reviewed. In the redacted versions that we received from this court there is nothing in it about a destruction of logs. There is nothing in it about this situation where Purdy was in conflict with Fuhrman and conformed his testimony. We don't know whether that is true. We don't know whether Internal Affairs followed this up. We don't know if there is anything about destruction of logs which we think is a plain obstruction of justice.
Wait a second. Detective Purdy indicated last night that Miss Coleman did refer to it as a log. He is calling it a diary, but it is very plain, from what he told us yesterday, that he was keeping a diary of incidents involving Fuhrman and these other officers because he had good reason to be concerned about them. He immediately requested a transfer after this swastika incident and was sent out of that unit, but as he indicated yesterday, there was no follow-up, there was no interviews with officers as to who did it and who might have done it and who had access to that locker.
KEY QUOTEYou probably want the District Attorney's file so you can also try to backtrack that same case. Assuming you can find that file, then you can get the court file which should have transcripts of all of these things and the differences in testimony, correct?
Well, we also want as part of this, unless the court is willing just simply to accept as true this declaration, which we would hope that the Prosecutors would stipulate to with respect to what they were told and when they knew it, we think there is a serious issue here with respect to prosecutorial misconduct and charges to the jury with respect to what Prosecutors knew about Mark Fuhrman and when they knew it. We also think that--and this is something that I want to add as a grounds for relief--in looking over the pretrial--this all relates, your Honor, to the pretrial discovery efforts or the discovery efforts during the course of the trial by the Defense to find out about Detective Fuhrman and his racist comments, his willingness to manufacture evidence and break rules and also about his credibility and character. In looking back at another one of the motions filed, we sought the psychiatric records of Detective Fuhrman from the police department and the Marine Corps. I commend the court's attention to the affidavit filed by Detective Fuhrman in support of the privacy motion made by Tourtelot who was representing him at that time. I would submit to the court this was a perjured affidavit. In that affidavit Detective Fuhrman indicates that his statements to the psychiatrist with respect to his genocidal statements and his statements in derogation of African Americans and others were not, quote, intended, were not statements that were in derogation of any ethic group. What he said was these were just descriptions in a therapeutic context to my psychiatrist--to the psychiatrist. And it is my understanding that the court didn't seek those files. We want those files as well or we want certainly the court to review those files because we think there is potentially exculpatory and extrinsic evidence with respect to Mr. Fuhrman's mental state. It is going to be argued to this jury, as is evident by Miss Lewis' argument yesterday, that anything that Detective Fuhrman said in these tapes to Miss McKinny and many other statements that he made were all, you know, braggadocio and they are all boasts and things about him and that they are going to make the argument that it is not only impossible, but irrational for him to have planted evidence or covered things--or gone into the Bronco or any things of that nature. He wouldn't have possibly done that because it would be the act of an irrational person. Well, we think that in those psychiatric records as well there may be exculpatory evidence that would indicate exactly what kind of an individual Mark Fuhrman is and why he might do these things that we might be able to present as extrinsic evidence. And we are very, very concerned as to what Internal Affairs and other investigators knew about Detective Fuhrman and when they knew it, because from a constitutional point of view the Prosecutors in this case may have taken all these pieces of evidence that they got from various detectives that were then communicated to District Attorneys and were given to them and they may have said, okay, well, give to it Internal Affairs and we won't pursue it ourselves. That may have been their attitude. But from the constitutional point of view in terms of this Defendant, they are all law enforcement, and we want to find out about all of it under Brady, under our due process rights, and we are concerned that we didn't get everything or it doesn't exist, frankly, in the records that this court turned over to us. And of great interest is the credibility of Detective Purdy as to what he really knew about Mark Fuhrman, why the burning of his diary wasn't pursued, because you can call it a diary, your Honor, but every--
But your Honor, it is evidence, because from--there may be some conflicts in the testimony about what is in that diary or what he said was in that diary, but there is no conflict about the fact that, A, he revealed it to Deputy District Attorney Coleman, B, he destroyed it because he knew that that diary was going to be sought, and that diary contained information at least about the swastika incident and about this other matter that may have--involving him and Detective Fuhrman and surveillance and et cetera, et cetera and what it may, we believe, have contained. That is what we are pursuing. That is what we want to find out about. And we are very concerned that none of this was pursued. I simply don't understand how a detective can be telling District Attorneys that he destroyed a diary that contained allegations about Mr. Fuhrman in regard to at least the swastika incidents and the other surveillance incident, if not more, and he burns it rather than turn it over to him and that is the end of the inquiry. Where I come from that is an obstruction of justice, because notwithstanding the fact that it is a personal diary, it is now evidence. Any personal matter certainly would have been redacted and taken out of it and not put in a public light. But the point is, what he said about those incidents when he was carefully recording, because of these officers in West Los Angeles whom by his own statement to us yesterday he had good reason to fear, that is of serious interest and could lead to exculpatory information. We didn't know anything about it and that is what we want to establish at this hearing. In addition, with respect to Detective Arneson, he again completely conflicts in his statements with Lucienne Coleman and we think that Lucienne Coleman's testimony and the documentations that she has here in court will prove that he is lying, too. And that is also a matter of serious concern, because it concerns statements that Detective Fuhrman made about Nicole Brown Simpson and her anatomy and private information that he had that should have been pursued in terms of his relationship with the victim in this case and what he knew and when he knew it. And if he was even making these statements, umm, in another context, it goes to his state of mind, his psychiatric condition, frankly, and his bias and credibility in this case and we should have known about it. So that is what we want to pursue at this hearing. We have to make a record in this regard.
Your Honor, first of all, for clarity of the record, yesterday we made an inquiry about the court's request of the Defense last week to provide reports to the court of what the Defense has done in the last six months with regard to these various witnesses. And did the court indicate that some reports were received by the court?
No. What was asked were copies of the report that were turned over to the Defense as a result of our discussions back in February of this year. That is what has been turned over to the court.
Okay. So the court has no information about what the Defense has done in the last six months to pursue the leads which flowed from those reports which the court gave to Defense; is that correct?
Well, the information I have is contained in Miss Coleman's affidavit indicating the conversations that she has had with the Defense and what information was provided and when. I mean, there is--Miss Coleman's affidavit does contain that information.
Very well. Your Honor, I think it is important for the court and for us all to identify with some precision what relief the Defense is seeking. Now, this morning the Defense raises the notion they apparently want Detective Purdy's personnel files. Detective Purdy is here represented by counsel in that regard, because as the court well knows, there is one exclusive statutory mechanism by which a party, namely, the Defense, can get to those records, and that is a pitchess motion. We considered this once before about six or seven months ago and the court directed, pursuant to the Defense motion brought under pitchess, the court reviewed materials, determined what was relevant and what was not and provided those to the Defense. Now six or seven months later the Defense comes again complaining of their desire to get some type of discovery.
Call it five months. The point being, your Honor, and as Mr. Hadden has already pointed out to the court, but let me reaffirm, the Defense, at least as of April 17, 1995, and more than likely earlier, has had access to all the people that they wanted to interview, and yet it is only last night that they speak with Detective Purdy. So at this point in time they have an interview from Detective Purdy and the question remains do they want to call him as a trial witness? If so, well, let's obtain the appropriate discovery and perhaps we will run a 402 to see if he has any relevant testimony to offer to this jury. But the proper statutory mechanism for obtaining what they appear to desire, what relief they seek with regard to officer Purdy, is well defined, it is clear, it is the pitchess motion. Now, with regard to the People's obligation to produce material under Brady, it is a principle with which we are well aware and it has been discussed many times in this case, and I think it is prudent just to review some of the salient points of chronology which have led up to today's hearing. First of all, as the Defense concedes and Miss Coleman states in her as yet unverified declaration, the--this information about the log, diary, however we wish to characterize it, did not come to the attention of the People until early February of this year. And the court will well recall what happens after that catalytic event, if we wish to characterize it that way, occurred. I came to this court and informed the court and counsel that some information had come to light regarding Detective Fuhrman because the information perhaps or possibly involved officer misconduct, the information had been referred for investigation to the Internal Affairs Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. That is a matter of record and counsel knows it. The court I'm sure is reminded of it as we speak. Subsequent to that the court conducted an in camera review of that material, whatever it was that was gathered by the Internal Affairs Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. The court made certain determinations as to relevancy.
The court, on March the 8th of this year, directed that certain of those materials, redacted as the court found appropriate, were given to the Defense, as well as to the Prosecution. At that point in time the Defense had in its possession certain information which they were free to follow up if they so choose. Now, we can make an assumption at this point in time that as of at least March the 8th, or shortly thereafter, the Defense was aware of Detective Purdy and other information and at the very least we know from Miss Coleman's own declaration before this court, as of April the 17th of this year they knew everything with regard to what Miss Coleman had indicated to the Internal Affairs officers. So here we are five months later, it is only last night that the Defense has interviewed Detective Purdy that they come before this court and say we want Detective Purdy's personnel records. Well, I think it is appropriate for this court to ask at the very least where were you for the last five months in terms of conducting this investigation? We have--
Mr. Hodgman, do you have any difficulty in at least doing a promise computer search to see if you can find this case?
And you know, the point--well, this is part of my overall theme before the court this morning, your Honor. We have complied with Brady. Before Detective Fuhrman ever testified the court had issued its order with regard to the pitchess material regarding Detective Fuhrman. We had gone through the proper procedural mechanism so that the--in fairness to all parties, including the Defendant, the People and the officers involved, this material could be reviewed, as it was by this court, and determinations could be made as to relevancy. That has been done. As far as the remaining relief sought by the Defense, the People are well aware of their Brady obligations. We have an ethical duty to turn over information that might tend to be exculpatory to the Defense. We have done that. If we come into possession of other information, we will turn that over. It is the People's position there is no need for a further hearing on this. There is no need for live testimony. The Defense has interviewed quite a few people now. I have made arrangements to facilitate an interview with one remaining Deputy District Attorney with Mr. Shapiro. That Deputy District Attorney for personal reasons is unable to come to this court.
Well, okay. As to that point then, let's assume that Miss Coleman is willing to sign the declaration that is before the court. Do you have any desire to cross-examine Miss Coleman with regards to those issues?
Perhaps not. It is--we are--the point is with regard to the declaration--in fact, let me clear something up. It was posed to me by Mr. Scheck this morning that we stipulate that all that information is accurate.
Okay. Well, Mr. Scheck is cutting out a sub-part of the declaration and that is indeed accurate. All I can say is, and perhaps we would be willing to stipulate, is that this is what Miss Coleman would say if she were called to testify. Whether or not we would cross-examine her, we will reserve that right, depending on how this court decides to proceed with this.
Well, what I--here is how we can do this. Miss Coleman signs the declaration. You have the right to object to the filing of a declaration and demand your right to cross-examine. If you have no desire to cross-examine Miss Coleman as to the contents of her declaration, then we can just have her execute the declaration and be on her way, since I'm sure she has got other things to do today, and then we can litigate this matter further.
Well, my point to the court is, it is unnecessary to delay this trial and create the specter of yet another mini trial, which prevents this jury from receiving further evidence for some period of time, because we are prepared, as far as the People are concerned, to do, as the court directs and what our own ethical obligations tell us to do. We have complied, and as the court has asked us to check promise and see if there is a cross-over between Purdy and Fuhrman, we will do that today, we are happy to do that. As far as delving into officers' personnel files, as Mr. Hadden correctly points out, there is a statutory mechanism for that, and if the Defense wants to file a motion and take a two-week delay in order to have that heard or bring an order shortening time so that that may be heard more expeditiously. That is their prerogative, the People will not stand in their way, they can file whatever motion they want. The point is after all of that, there is no need for testimony. Let's get on with the trial, your Honor.
All right. So I take it the bottom line then is that you are willing to waive your right to cross-examine Miss Coleman?
Well, we will reserve that right for now. As yet Miss Coleman hasn't signed the declaration. I believe she will. If the court wants to have a protracted proceeding where we call police officers--
As am I, and I'm saying for now, if it will get this case to the jury quicker, we will waive that right; however, we will reserve it only in the sense if the court is going to allow further testimony from other officers for whatever purpose in connection with this hearing, then we may very well.
That's correct. But for the moment, to move these proceedings along, we will waive that right conditionally.
Now, with that again, I don't know what further relief the Defense is seeking. They have got pitchess available to them. The People have done their part. We did it seven months ago.
So I think we have to hear from the Defense what else is it they want. I will initiate the promise search today and I will provide that to the Defense.
Thank you, your Honor. As Mr. Hodgman said, and I said earlier, pitchess clearly holds sway here in regards to the personnel issues. I would just like to add or to clarify, rather, make some comments regarding what Mr. Scheck brought up. Just because Mr. Scheck wants to fantasize that this is evidence of--evidence in the diary, doesn't mean that there is any. As we--as my client told the Defense and the Prosecutors yesterday, the diary was kept as a personal matter, that predominantly it contained references to romantic events between himself and his wife which is why it was an intensely personal matter, that he keep it and destroy it. He was not interested in having his personal life exposed to the public. In addition, the incidents that he related about mark--that he had in the diary about Mark Fuhrman, he has already given those to the Defense as well. Miss Coleman's declaration doesn't really say anything to the contrary. Conspicuous by its absence in that declaration is any discussion of actual incidents of misconduct with Mark Fuhrman. She mentions only that he cited some incidents with Fuhrman that were maintained in the diary and nothing more. There is nothing in there, referring to her declaration, nothing in there that references the--any misconduct by Fuhrman in relation to the pertinent issues that have been raised by the Defense in terms of planting of evidence, racism, sexism, et cetera. And what I think the Defense is asking the court to do is to engage in multiple mini trials possibly here and to ask the court, if this were to ever to get in front of the jury, just to wildly speculate as to what might have been in the diary when there is absolutely no evidence there were any references to misconduct in that diary. Thank you, your Honor.
Briefly, your Honor. I think that there is some confusion here. This is a Brady motion. And let me make very clear that we have newly discovered evidence that has come to light in the Fuhrman tapes that puts this in an entirely different posture and has led us to more vigorously pursue what is in these logs, what is in the--the matters that were referred to you in camera from the Internal Affairs Department and what was pursued in these investigations. We now know a lot more about Detective Mark Fuhrman, his view of policing, the way he proceeded, and most particularly we know a lot more about his activities in 1985, `86, `87, most particularly `87 when he was dealing with Detective Purdy and others in West Los Angeles. We know a lot more now and that is what guides our renewed investigation of this. Secondly, and this goes to the case of United States versus Begley, which is a supreme court precedent that is the touchstone for all of this, we made specific requests for these records and what the Prosecution knew in terms of exculpatory material about Mark Fuhrman, about his misconduct, about his racist attitudes, about his willingness to falsify testimony and manufacture evidence and his psychiatric records. We were pursuing all of that with specific requests. We then received back from the court redacted copies of what had been pursued as an investigation, we take it, by Internal Affairs of the specific incidents involving the swastika, involving the remarks of Detective Arneson in this case. I want to make it very clear that as one element of relief here we are seeking further discovery of those records. As the Begley case makes clear, when the Defense makes a specific response for exculpatory material and then gets an answer from the Prosecution which is incomplete and misleading, that is a problem in terms of the ultimate exculpatory evidence that is discovered. And in fact we are supposed to be given a--an assumption that we would have found more if we pursued this without having been misled. In other words, the redaction that we got from the court contains nothing with respect to the destruction of a diary or log that contained entries with respect to Mark Fuhrman about the Swastika incident and now we know other incidents of relevance in terms of possible perjured testimony by Purdy and/or Fuhrman or falsifying of police reports by Fuhrman. Now, we didn't know about that because when we received these logs--this redaction, there is nothing in there about logs. Now, we don't know whether Internal Affairs, in questioning Deputy District Attorney Coleman, went into the log incident, although we know from her that they did, so we don't know whether the court ever saw anything about that or if you saw anything about that, fully appreciated its significance. But now, having talked to Detective Purdy, having heard the Fuhrman tapes, after pursuing this, we know it is significant and we can now particularize exactly what its significance might be in terms of Fuhrman filling out false police reports, in terms of cover-ups here. Now, our grounds are based on the due process clause and the 6th amendment of the constitution. We are basing it on Davis versus Alaska and a whole line of cases that follow that say statutory privileges with respect to personnel files, whether it be the personnel--the Internal Affairs investigation here that we have already pursued by way of a pitchess motion and we want more of that, we want to see all of that, or personnel files with respect to Mr. Hadden's client about this incident. All those statutory privileges give way to our constitutional right at this late point in the trial to get to the bottom of this. That is what we are saying. That is what we want this court to rule on. That is the record we want to make. Because we feel that this information has been hidden, and in light of the Fuhrman tapes and in light of this man taking the 5th amendment on substantial issues with respect to moving evidence and manufacturing evidence in this case, we want to find out more about it. And it also goes to the court's previous rulings with respect to his psychiatry record. We contend as well, your Honor, that in terms of the Prosecutor's Brady obligations, they can't hide behind the fact that they just dumped all of this to Internal Affairs and now say, well, it is all privileged, you can't see it. We don't think that is adequate. They had an option. They didn't have to send all this information to Internal Affairs to have them pursue it and then try to hide behind some kind of privilege with respect to these records. They could have, should have pursued it themselves. This was information that was being given to them by their own Deputy District Attorneys. They were informed. Be it in February, fine, it is in February at about the time that Mr. Hodgman came forward and mentioned that there was this swastika incident that was being pursued by Internal Affairs. He never told us, I'm sure he will concede, that there were logs that were--diary that was destroyed, destroyed because it was being sought. Because the officer knew the District Attorney's office was going to ask for the diary, he then destroyed it. Now, frankly, with all respect to Mr. Hadden, he is representing his client admirably, I am not fantasizing that Detective Purdy destroyed this diary. He told us that last night. He told us he destroyed the diary after he knew that Lucienne Coleman had brought this matter to the attention of Mr. Hodgman and Mr. Hodgman was going to pursue it. And rather than have this diary examined, and it does contain entries about Detective Fuhrman, he burned it. And it is not an adequate answer to say that it contains personal information. Of course it might have. And as a police officer I'm sure he should have recognized, as a law enforcement official, that the privacy rights with respect to that information would certainly be protected because that is not at issue.
What was at issue was what he had to say Mark Fuhrman and about incidents that were of significance. I should also add in passing, and it is not clear from the affidavit, so the court should just know it, I don't think we mentioned it in chambers, that Miss Coleman indicates in her declaration that she learned from someone, she is not sure who, that there had been reports that Detective Fuhrman had on weekends walked around in nazi uniform.
Isn't that really just another example of all the rumor mongering that goes on about all the people in this case?
KEY QUOTEBut I think that what the court should appreciate is that we have an incident here where Detective Fuhrman is alleged to have put a swastika on the locker--just hear me out for a second. My understanding of nazis is that they don't like Jews, they don't like blacks, they take law into their own hands and they engage--and they have exactly the kind of attitudes that we heard in the Fuhrman tapes. I think it is a fair statement that what we heard in those tapes were the rantings and--they weren't even rantings. Were the calm discussions, the chilling calm of somebody that held nazi attitudes. Yes, if he is the one that put a swastika or was with a group of police officers, which is even worse that putting a swastika on Detective Purdy's locker, and he held attitudes like that, yes, that is Brady material. Yes, that is an indication that he could hold racist attitudes. Yes, that is an indication that he is the kind of officer that would break the rules and manufacture evidence and do almost anything to get a guilty person--person he thought was guilty, a bad guy, the comments that he made about the posses. You know, when you look at those tapes, you know that is exactly what Mark Fuhrman might do because that is what he is talking about at length in those tapes in his own voice.
Your nazi scenario. Purdy says I suspect Fuhrman was the person who did it; I don't know. So I am supposed to allow evidence that I think it was this guy from this incident in 1974--1987?
I mean, we can offer--we can have expert opinion as to guilt or innocence of defendants as well.
Our claim here and our concern is what investigation was done and what additional evidence might be out there. We are saying that People did not pursue this. If we are given an opportunity to pursue this with all the facts, we might find evidence that they should have found.
No. What I'm saying very clearly to the court is that because the redaction that we got misled us with respect to the existence of logs and the destruction of logs and from fully learning about the relationship between Purdy and Fuhrman and this potential incident where Purdy was put in a position where he perjured himself for Fuhrman because Fuhrman falsified a police report, if that is indeed the chain of events, we were misled because there is nothing in these redactions that allow us to figure that out and pursue it, so we didn't know it. No. 2, we now have the Fuhrman tapes which puts us in a much--it is newly discovered evidence that puts us in a firm position to go forward and see exactly what Mr. Fuhrman's M.O. was and exactly what his relationship was with Detective Purdy and others of West Los Angeles. Now, it is far clearer to us and much more significant, even if we had had all that information earlier, we could have pursued it earlier, but we were misled because an inadequate investigation was done. Frankly, from what they are saying, no investigation was done about this by the District Attorney's office. Basically their attitude was either, A, get out of my office, I don't want to hear it, or B, here are some things that sound bad, let's just give it to Internal Affairs to investigate. We don't know anything more about it. The Defense certainly doesn't know anything more about it. Then we get redactions.
Your Honor, with respect to that, could we just have the declaration augmented with respect to the conversations that we had with Detective Purdy about this incident with Mr. Fuhrman?
She also has additional information regarding times and meetings with Detective Arneson which are very important and we would like those included also in the declaration.
Your Honor, as it appears the Defense wants to amend or modify or supplement Miss Coleman's log, we would appreciate getting a copy of that as well and we advise the court that depending on what is introduced by way of the supplemented declaration, we may very well be filing declarations as well.
Detective Purdy indicated last night that Miss Coleman did refer to it as a log. He is calling it a diary, but it is very plain, from what he told us yesterday, that he was keeping a diary of incidents involving Fuhrman and these other officers because he had good reason to be concerned about them.
He told us yesterday he burned it without even looking at it.
I am not fantasizing that Detective Purdy destroyed this diary. He told us that last night. He told us he destroyed the diary after he knew that Lucienne Coleman had brought this matter to the attention of Mr. Hodgman and Mr. Hodgman was going to pursue it.
Isn't that really just another example of all the rumor mongering that goes on about all the people in this case? Something the hallways of the District Attorney's office are well-known for.
I miss Coleman indicates in her declaration that she learned from someone, she is not sure who, that there had been reports that Detective Fuhrman had on weekends walked around in nazi uniform.