Robert Kardashian has reasonable doubt about O.J. Simpson's innocence. Mark Fuhrman feels ashamed but insists he's no racist.
Two important players in the Simpson saga broke their long silences just in time for the delicate phase of picking the least-biased jurors possible in the trial of the wrongful death lawsuit against Simpson.A new book based heavily on the diary and recollections of Simpson's close friend Kardashian shows his loyalty began to waver toward the end of last year's criminal trial. Simpson was acquitted in the 1994 slayings of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
"Bob started out believing in O.J.'s innocence," journalists Lawrence Schiller and James Willwerth write in "American Tragedy: The Uncensored Story of the Simpson Defense."
"But over the months he has begun to doubt - quietly at first, then more insistently."
Now, according to the 720-page tome due out Oct. 14, "Kardashian knows his doubts will never leave him, his friendship with O.J. will never be the same. He has learned a great deal. He wonders if Simpson has."
In an interview scheduled to air Friday on ABC's "20-20," Kardashian tells Barbara Walters: "I have doubts. The blood evidence is the biggest thorn in my side; that causes me the greatest problems. So I - I struggle with the blood evidence."
Former Los Angeles police Detective Mark Fuhrman tells NBC's "PrimeTime Live" in a show airing Tuesday night that he was "ashamed" of using a racial epithet in taped interviews with a screenwriter and apologized "from the bottom of my heart." But he denies he framed Simpson.
"I know what I am. I'm not a racist," says Fuhrman, who pleaded no contest last week to felony perjury for lying about never using the word "nigger" in the past decade.
"What they call me a liar for had nothing to do with the case about two people being hacked to death with a knife. Nothing."
The Fuhrman fiasco from the first trial resonates in the second trial here in Superior Court. Many jury prospects - nearly all of them black - said they suspect Fuhrman may have planted the bloody glove found at Simpson's house.
Along those lines, Simpson's lawyers fought Monday to present evidence of a police frameup, arguing in court papers that all they need is the "barest of speculation" to present that theory to jurors.
The defense said it was up to those suing Simpson - the families of Nicole Simpson and Goldman - to prove police didn't plant blood or gloves in the investigation.
"There are, of course, no eyewitnesses to evidence tampering, just like there are no eyewitnesses that Mr. Simpson committed these crimes," wrote lead defense lawyer Robert C. Baker.
Meanwhile, plaintiffs revealed in court papers that they have FBI exhibits to prove a photograph shows Simpson wearing the kind of shoes that match bloody prints at the crime scene.
Sources said the dozens of photographic exhibits were prepared for Simpson's criminal trial. They were to accompany the testimony of FBI shoe expert William Bodziak and the videotaped testimony of sports photographer Harry Scull.