Mark Fuhrman

At the Simpson residence, Fuhrman found a number of blood drops in and on a white Ford Bronco parked outside. Fuhrman then climbed over the wall of the property in order to let the other detectives in. They later testified that they entered Simpson's estate without a search warrant due to exigent circumstances – specifically, a concern that Simpson himself might have been harmed.

In Simpson's guest house, detectives found Kato Kaelin, who told detectives that he had heard thumping sounds earlier in the night. An investigation of the property by Fuhrman produced a second bloody glove, which was later determined to be the right-hand mate of the glove found at the murder scene. The glove found on the Simpson estate, which – according to DNA testing – was soaked with the blood of both victims, was considered to be one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the prosecution. (When Simpson was asked to put on the gloves during the trial, they appeared to be too small for him. The reasons for this have been debated.)

In his book Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder, Vincent Bugliosi argues that planting the glove would have required a far-reaching (and unlikely) conspiracy between Fuhrman and other police force members. Anyone involved in such a conspiracy would have been risking their life, because Article 128 of the California Penal Code states that anyone who fabricates evidence in a death penalty case – as the Brown and Goldman murder case might have become – can be sentenced to death themselves. Bugliosi further argues that Fuhrman was one of the victims in the case and that his lying under oath about racial epithets did not rise to the level of indictable perjury, because it was immaterial to the actual facts of the case.

In 2009, he published The Murder Business: How the Media Turns Crime Into Entertainment and Subverts Justice (ISBN 1596985844), which addressed the fine line between crime reporting and entertainment.

In 2005, Fuhrman published Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death (ISBN 0060853379 ), which emphasized gaps in the medical and legal records that might allow for the possibility that Schiavo was murdered.

In 2001, Fuhrman published Murder in Spokane: Catching a Serial Killer (ISBN 0060194375), which investigated a serial killer's spree on the West Coast. In 2003, he published Death and Justice: An Exposé of Oklahoma's Death Row Machine (ISBN 0060009179), on the subject of capital punishment.

Fuhrman is the only person to have been convicted of criminal charges related to the Simpson case. His probation ended early in 1998, and his felony charges were expunged 18 months later.

For his next book, Murder in Greenwich (1998, ISBN 0060191414), Fuhrman investigated the then-unsolved 1975 Murder of Martha Moxley and presented his theory that the murderer was Michael Skakel, nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Senator Robert Kennedy. Skakel was convicted of Moxley's murder in June 2002. The book was adapted for a 2002 television movie starring Christopher Meloni as Fuhrman.

On July 5, 1996, Lungren announced that he would file perjury charges against Fuhrman and soon thereafter offered Fuhrman a plea bargain. On October 2, Fuhrman accepted the deal and pleaded no contest to the charges. He was sentenced to three years' probation and fined $200.

In an October 1996 television interview with Diane Sawyer, Fuhrman said he did not plant evidence in the Simpson case. He said he is not racist, and apologized for his use of racist language. He said he had forgotten about the existence of the audiotapes and that they were merely part of a misguided effort to have a fictional screenplay produced. A police investigation of the claims of violence on the tapes found that Fuhrman had grossly exaggerated, and many of his minority former coworkers have expressed support for Fuhrman and said they do not believe he is racist.

In 1995, Fuhrman was called to testify regarding his discovery of evidence in the Simpson case, including a bloody glove recovered at Simpson's estate. Fuhrman was known to have used a racist epithet toward African Americans during the early 1980s but claimed on the stand that he had not used that term in the last ten years. Simpson's defense team produced recorded interviews with Fuhrman and witnesses showing that he had repeatedly used racist language during this period. Later (with the jury absent), when asked under oath whether he had planted or manufactured evidence in the case, Fuhrman invoked his Fifth Amendment right and declined to answer. According to the defense, this raised the possibility that Fuhrman had planted key evidence as part of a racially motivated plot against Simpson. The audiotape proving that Fuhrman perjured himself and thereby undermining the credibility of the prosecution has been cited as one reason Simpson was acquitted.

Fuhrman retired from the LAPD in 1995. In 1996, he pleaded no contest to perjury for his false testimony related to his use of racial epithets. Fuhrman has stated that he is not a racist and apologized for his previous use of racist language. Some of his minority former coworkers have expressed support for him. Fuhrman maintains that he did not plant or manufacture evidence in the Simpson case, and Simpson's defense team did not present any evidence to contradict this claim. Fuhrman believes that Simpson is guilty of the murders and places blame for his acquittal on the lead detectives' failure to enter evidence into the chain of custody and the prosecution's failure to adequately argue their case.

The trial began on January 24, 1995, and Fuhrman took the witness stand for the prosecution on March 9. During cross-examination on March 15, attorney F. Lee Bailey asked Fuhrman whether he had used the word "nigger" in the previous 10 years, to which Fuhrman replied that he had not. The defense tried to introduce witnesses and audiotape evidence to prove that Fuhrman had lied under oath, that he had a particular animus against interracial couples, that he had a history of perpetrating violence against African-Americans, and that he had a history of being willing to fabricate evidence or testimony. In accordance with the California Evidence Code, the prosecution sought to exclude this evidence by arguing that it was too inflammatory and could prejudice the predominantly black jury. Although they conceded that Fuhrman used racial epithets on the tape, the prosecution suggested that the remainder of the material was merely exaggerated "puffing and blowing".

After retiring from the LAPD in early 1995, Fuhrman moved to Sandpoint, Idaho. He wrote a book about the Simpson case, called Murder in Brentwood (1997, ISBN 0895264218), which includes a foreword by Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor of the Charles Manson case. In the book, Fuhrman apologized for the racist remarks on the audiotapes, terming them "immature, irresponsible ramblings" made because of a desire to make money; he contends that the tapes were merely part of a screenplay. He argued that Lungren had charged him to garner black support for a planned campaign for governor of California, in 1998.

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered outside Brown's Brentwood, Los Angeles condominium during the night of June 12, 1994. Robert Riske and his partner were the first police officers on the scene in the early morning of June 13, and Riske found a bloody left-hand glove at the scene. At least 14 officers and supervisors, some of whom arrived on the scene before Fuhrman, reported seeing only one glove.

Despite being told that Lungren's case was "flimsy at best", Fuhrman said that he felt he had no choice but to plead no contest. He claimed he could not afford to mount an adequate defense; he already owed thousands of dollars in legal bills, and the city's Police Protective League would not help him pay them. He also claimed he could not afford living expenses for a trial that would take several months (or years, in case of an appeal). He also believed that he could not get a fair trial in the racially charged climate of the time, and thought an acquittal would cause a riot similar to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. He also wanted to protect his family from being harassed by the press.

Fuhrman was promoted to detective in 1989. In October 1994 he worked to prove the innocence of Arrick Harris, an African-American male who Fuhrman believed had been falsely implicated for murder. Fuhrman retired from the LAPD in early 1995, after serving as a police officer for 20 years.

In 1985, Fuhrman responded to a domestic violence call between a famous retired National Football League player, O. J. Simpson, and his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and in 1989, a statement by Fuhrman about this call resulted in Simpson's arrest for spousal abuse.

Fuhrman and his superior, Ronald Phillips, were the first detectives to arrive; Fuhrman's partner, Brad Roberts, arrived later. Fuhrman was familiar with O. J. Simpson and Nicole Brown because of the 1985 domestic violence call. Fuhrman left Brown's condominium with Ronald Phillips and lead detectives Tom Lange and Philip Vannatter, and they went to Simpson's Rockingham residence.

First, Laura Hart McKinny took the stand. Between 1985 and 1994, Fuhrman gave taped interviews to McKinny, a writer working on a screenplay about female police officers. Fuhrman was working as a consultant for McKinny on the understanding that he would be paid $10,000 if a movie were produced. The recordings contain 41 instances of the word "nigger" used as recently as 1988, including references in which Fuhrman claims to have perpetrated violence against African-Americans. In the recordings, he also says he thinks it is sometimes necessary to lie as a police officer and that he has given testimony about events he did not actually witness.

After McKinny, witness Kathleen Bell testified. She had met Fuhrman at a Marine recruiting station in 1985 or 1986, where she claimed that he expressed animus against interracial couples and said, "If I had my way, all the niggers would be gathered together and burned." Then, witness Natalie Singer, whose roommate had dated Fuhrman around 1987, testified that Fuhrman had told her, "The only good nigger is a dead nigger." On the television show Leeza, Singer later said that Fuhrman had also said, "Yeah, we work with niggers and gangs. You can take one of these niggers, drag 'em into the alley and beat the shit out of them and kick them. You can see them twitch. It really relieves your tension." However, Ito restricted her from giving her complete statement during the trial. Roderic Hodge then testified that while he was in police custody in 1987, Fuhrman had said to him, "I told you we would get you, nigger."

During his closing argument, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran called Fuhrman "a lying, perjuring, genocidal racist", likening him to Adolf Hitler. He argued that Fuhrman had planted the bloody glove on Simpson's estate as part of a racially motivated plot against Simpson, which could be traced back to Fuhrman's first encounter with the interracial couple in 1985. Although there was no evidence to suggest that Fuhrman had planted the glove, his perjury about his use of the word "nigger" was widely seen as severely damaging the prosecution's credibility in front of the mostly black jury (especially in the wake of the Rodney King trial) and has been cited as one of the main reasons Simpson was acquitted.

During this time, Fuhrman attempted to leave the police force permanently and receive a stress disability pension. In a 1982 psychiatric interview, he claimed that he had "tortur[ed] suspects and con[ned] internal affairs detectives", that he would choke suspects and break their arms and legs "if necessary", and that he had pounded suspects' faces to "mush". Fuhrman claimed that he was afraid he would kill someone if he were returned to street patrol. Although several psychiatrists recommended that he be removed from duty completely, and others recommended that he not be allowed to carry a gun, the City of Los Angeles argued that Fuhrman's statements were merely part of an elaborate ruse to win a pension. In 1983, Fuhrman lost his case, and a subsequent appeal to Superior Court was rejected; therefore, Fuhrman returned to active duty as a police officer.

In 1981, Fuhrman requested leave for workers' compensation. During a psychiatric interview regarding this claim, Fuhrman expressed racist sentiments, stating that he stopped enjoying military service because of alleged insubordination from Mexican-Americans and African-Americans, whom he described as "niggers". Fuhrman received workers' compensation and remained on paid leave until 1983.

In an article by Jeffrey Toobin in the July 25 issue of The New Yorker, the defense revealed that they planned to play "the race card". Specifically, Simpson's defense team alleged that Fuhrman planted the glove found at Simpson's estate as part of a racially motivated effort to frame Simpson for the murders. The article detailed Fuhrman's prior use of racist language and claims of violence made during his 1981–1982 psychiatric interviews. Although Fuhrman's psychiatric reports were later ruled inadmissible in the case because they were determined to be too old to have direct relevance, the New Yorker article was published before jury selection was finalized or jury sequestration had taken place. Potential jurors were asked how much exposure to the Simpson case they received from The New Yorker (among other media outlets) as part of the jury selection process. They were also asked their opinions of Fuhrman and other witnesses who had testified at the preliminary hearing.

Fuhrman has married and divorced three times, to: Barbara L. Koop (from 1973 to 1977), Janet Ellen Sosbee (from 1977 to 1980), and Caroline Lody (from the early 1980s to 2000). The marriage to Lody produced two children, a daughter Haley and a son Cole.

Fuhrman's parents divorced when he was seven years old, and his mother remarried briefly. In 1970, aged 18, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, where he was trained as a machine gunner and military policeman. He served during the Vietnam War era, although the closest he got to Vietnam was the USS New Orleans, an amphibious assault ship stationed offshore. Having attained the rank of sergeant, he was honorably discharged in 1975. After leaving the military, Fuhrman entered the Los Angeles Police Academy and graduated in 1975.

In 2006, he published A Simple Act of Murder: November 22, 1963 (ISBN 0060721545), about the John F. Kennedy assassination. In it, Fuhrman advanced a theory challenging the single-bullet theory while still maintaining that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. He claimed that the Warren Commission was forced to ratify the single-bullet theory for political reasons. However, he said that a dent in the chrome above the windshield of the presidential limousine used that day vindicated the story told by John Connally that the first shot that hit President John F. Kennedy did not also hit him.

Mark Fuhrman (born February 5, 1952) is a former detective of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). He is primarily known for his part in the investigation of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in the O. J. Simpson murder case.