-: |7, IU i NewsD gest Friday, September 29, 1995 Page 2 -■ . ■; * - ” ? ■'*. ■ ‘ i - . Cochran to jurors: ‘Do the right thing’ President concerned about trial's racial implications LOS ANGELES — In a thunder ing summation that rocked the court, Johnnie Cochran Jr. exhorted O.J. Simpson’s mostly black jury Thurs day to “do the right thing” and acquit Simpson as a message against racism andpolice misconduct. At the end of Cochran’s passion ate, final presentation to jurors, the judge said prosecutor Marcia Clark would conclude her rebuttal Friday, clearing the way for the case to be placed in their hands in the after noon. In the fevered style of a revival preacher, Cochran invoked biblical texts, referred to two key detectives as “the twin devils of deception” and told the spellbound jurors that fate had given them a chance to change history, “Maybe there is a reason why we ’re here,” he said. “Maybe you’re the right people at the right time at the right place to say: 'No more!’” “Stop this cover-up! Stop this cover-up!” Cochran bellowed. “You are the consciences of this commu nity.” Far from Los Angeles, President Clinton said he was uneasy about the racial implications of the trial. “I’m concerned about it, and I hope the American people will not let this become some symbol of the larger racial issue in our country,” he told NBC-TV in Washington. In his final words to the jury, Cochran implored jurors acquit Simpson, as he stood before a wall size blowup of Simpson and his small daughter, Sydney, and spoke of a father’s love. “Someone has taken these children’s mother,” he said. “I hope your decision doesn’t take their fa ther.” Cochran ’ s impassioned appeal was followed by the cooler, scientific analysis of defense attorney Barry Scheck, who told jurors: “There is a cancer at the heart of this case.” Scheck insisted they could not trust any of the DNA analysis of blood because the samples were contami nated and tampered within the “black hole” of the Los Angeles Police De partment crime lab. “Somebody played with this evi dence,” he said. “There’s no doubt about it.” Cochran’s emotion-packed dis course — often focused on Detective Mark Fuhrman — clearly was de signed to rouse feelings of racial soli darity among the nine black mem bers of the 12-person jury. The jury sat mesmerized through Cochran’s arguments. “A racist is someone who has power over you,” he told them. “This man would lie and set you up because of the hatred he has in his heart.” Comparing Fuhrman to Adolf Hitler and stressing the images of genocide, Cochran said the former detective targeted Simpson after learning in the 1980s that the black football star was married to a white woman. During Cochran’s summation, Goldman’s father, Fred, sat tapping his foot in agitation. At the break, he went before TV cameras and lashed out at Cochran. “This man is sick,” he said. “This man is a horror walking around amongst us.” “We have seen a man who perhaps is the worst kind of racist himself,” Goldman told reporters, “someone who shoves racism in front of every thing, someone who compares some one who speaks racist comments to Hitler, a person who murdered mil lions of people. This man is the worst kind of human being imaginable.” Those comments spurred the nor mally silent Simpson family to re spond on camera with their own news conference. “We have waited all this time, and now ... the attorneys are telling my brother’s story. And it’s very shock ing that once Johnnie gets up and starts telling what we feel happened that this has rocked somebody’s world,” Simpson’s sister Carmelita Durio said. In court, the panelists began to take notes during Scheck’s methodi cal recounting of the flaws in physi cal evidence. He said it was clear that a pair of socks found in Simpson’s bedroom had been soaked in blood after they were found — not before. And he showed evidence pointing to the planting of blood on a back gate of Ms. Simpson’s condominium. Scheck suggested that Ms. Simpson’s dog, Kato, may have played a larger role in the investiga tion than suspected. The dog’s wail has been credited by the prosecution as sounding the alert that led to the bodies. News in a Mlnuti Student slain studying prostitutes PONTIAC, Mich. — A student who descended into the underworld of prostitution for a research project was found slain, and a drifter she had met through an escort service was charged Thursday with her murder. The Oakland Press of Pontiac quoted unidentified detectives as saying that the victim, Tina Biggar, the 23-year-old daughter of a Coast • Guard commander, had been working as a prostitute. At his arraignment, Kenneth Tranchida, 42, declared, “I’m guilty.” But no plea was entered, and Judge Stephen Cooper urged him to speak to a lawyer. Tranchida, who was arrested Monday, was jailed without bail. Biggar, an undergraduate psychology student at Oakland Univer sity, was working on a research project on prostitutes and AIDS, funded by the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Preven tion. Reynolds gets five-year sentence CHICAGO — Rep. Mel Reynolds, his promising political career ruined by his conviction for having sex with a teen-age campaign worker, was sentenced Thursday to.fi ve years in prison by a judge who told him bluntly, “You blew it.” . “I think of all those things you could have done for education, for those kids ... who will join gangs because you weren’t there to help,” Judge Fred G. Suria told the 43-year-old lawmaker. “...You threw it away.” Before the sentencing, Reynolds accused the prosecution and media of racism. “When they shackle me, like they shackled my slave ancestors and take me off to jail, nobody in this room will see me crawl,” the black congressman said. Suria sentenced Reynolds to the mandatory minimum four years in prison for criminal sexual assault, a concurrent four year term for child pornography and one year for obstruction of justice. Court delays cutting down old tree ALBANY, Ga. — A 300-year-old oak tree threatened by a road widening project will remain standing in the middle of a busy intersec tion, after the Georgia Supreme Court granted it a temporary reprieve Thursday. The high court ordered a delay in cutting down the tree to give justices time to rule on an appeal by tree supporters, whose efforts to save the tree were rejected by a lower court judge. 1 I i1 s1 i