LOS ANGELES - O.J. Simpson's criminal trial is supposed to be about murder. But Monday, the issue of race again exploded on the forefront.
Defense lawyers say the detective who found a bloody glove at Simpson's mansion is a racist who talked openly about his hatred of blacks and mixed-race couples.
The defense wants all of Detective Mark Fuhrman's personnel records. Judge Lance Ito deferred a ruling until he can review more paperwork.
"This is an officer, according to his own records, who couldn't stand it anymore, who couldn't stand dealing with those minorities," defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran Jr. said.
"I'm outraged, absolutely outraged," shot back Fuhrman's lawyer, Robert Tourtelot. He added that Cochran's allegations are nothing more than "truth-be-damned tactics."
That was about as calm as it got. At one point, Ito interrupted the feuding lawyers, telling them, "Hold on. Only one person is allowed to speak at a time and right now, it's me."
"It was take-off-the-gloves time," Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson says. "Things are coming to a head because we really are about three weeks from trial."
Simpson has pleaded innocent to the knife slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and waiter Ronald Goldman. Trial is to start Sept. 19 with jury selection.
Defense lawyers contend that Fuhrman sought a disability pension from the police force in 1981, in part because he hated dealing with minority gang members.
Cochran also said Fuhrman's racial attitudes developed when the detective, now 42, was 18 and a U.S. Marine.
Describing his military career in disability requests, Fuhrman told doctors that minority Marines failed to take orders and he "got tired of having a bunch of Mexicans and niggers that should be in prison telling (him) they weren't going to do something."
Tourtelot said Fuhrman's five-year military career happened too long ago to have any bearing on the Simpson case.
And outside court, Tourtelot said Fuhrman would file a civil suit alleging defamation after he testifies in Simpson's trial.
Ito said he might be willing to look through the records and give defense lawyers some information - if defense lawyers give him some first.
One thing Ito wants is the transcript from sworn statement from Kathleen Bell, a real estate saleswoman who told defense lawyers that Fuhrman used racial terms the only time she met him, saying they should put blacks "together in a big group and burn them."
Tourtelot says Fuhrman doesn't remember meeting Bell at all and would never discuss race with a casual acquaintance. Bell's whereabouts are unknown.
Also:
-- Los Angeles police swabbed Simpson's white Bronco with Luminol - a chemical that illuminates blood traces even though the blood isn't visible to the naked eye. The chemical test revealed more traces of blood than have been so far disclosed, apparently showing that someone might have tried to scrub the car clean.
-- Ito presented lawyers with a first draft of an order ruling that any future court papers will be sealed - not made public - until the issue in question is argued in court.
Media organizations - including USA TODAY - plan to fight that ruling. Ito may issue a full gag order Wednesday preventing anyone in the case from talking to reporters.
"I think the judge is taking this extreme step because the lawyers have used their motions, faxing them to reporters, to argue their cases in the press," Levenson says.
-- Ito said he thought Wednesday's 9 a.m. PT hearing - to be carried live on Court TV - would be the right time to tell prosecutors what's inside the mystery envelope. Defense lawyer Robert Shapiro hinted he'll object. Speculation is the envelope contains a stiletto knife Simpson bought.
-- For the first time, defense lawyers indicated they might be willing to postpone the trial, but only for a few days. The offer came after Ito spoke of losing out on a vacation he'd been planning for two years to start Sept. 6.
