Opinions on King Case Are Jeopardizing Prosecutions

The images of the Rodney G. King beating have spilled from television screens into courtrooms across Los Angeles County, jeopardizing criminal prosecutions and making it difficult to find impartial jurors, prosecutors say.

They say that the reputation of police officers throughout the region has been damaged by the King attack, creating a new and troublesome dynamic in the judicial system.

“Every night we see the Rodney King videotape on every channel,” said Steven Sowders, who heads the district attorney’s Compton office. “We fear that every officer’s credibility is being called into question . . . even in cases where the defendant is clearly guilty.”

Defense attorneys are continually weaving King into their closing arguments and prosecutors are continually objecting.

“But if we object too much,” Sowders said, “it looks like we have something to hide.”

The impact of the March 3 beating of King has been felt in both the criminal and civil courts.

In the district attorney’s Torrance office, prosecutors were planning a case against a man who allegedly had wrestled with Inglewood police officers during a Jan. 31 domestic dispute. One of the officers was injured in the fight.

“Normally, we would have asked for at least a formal felony probation,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti.

But the police officers had used their batons during the scuffle, and the defendant claimed brutality. As the trial date drew closer and the King beating continued to stir outrage, Garcetti decided he could not risk bringing the case before a jury.

The felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor and the defendant got off with the time he already had served in jail.

“Frankly, that’s a disposition that, were it not for the Rodney King case, the defendant would probably not have been offered (a reduced charge),” Garcetti said. “I did not see that our case could go forward given the current atmosphere.”

The city attorney’s office this week reached the same conclusion on a police brutality lawsuit that that had been filed against the Los Angeles Police Department by the family of a 62-year-old black man who died after a 1985 arrest. The city settled out of court just before the case was scheduled to go to a jury.

An assistant city attorney familiar with the case said that the suit was settled not because it was believed the jury would find the police officers guilty, but because the jurors might try to “send a message of what they had seen on television.”

And in Van Nuys Superior Court on Wednesday a judge dismissed a black juror from a murder trial after other members of the panel said she had cited the King beating during deliberations as proof that police are untrustworthy.

Legal scholars say controversial incidents that receive wide publicity typically skew the legal system for varying amounts of time. After the McMartin Pre-School case, for example, it is widely agreed that those accused of child molestation had a harder time fighting the charges.

“All criminal cases involve the police on one side and an individual on the other,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC law professor. “The Rodney King tape had such an emotional impact. That tape builds tremendous sympathy for the people who are against the police in a case.”

Said Daniel Broderick, an associate law professor at Pepperdine University: “I wouldn’t want to go to trial right now if my case depended on a policeman.”

Almost any phase of a legal proceeding could be influenced by the publicity surrounding King, according to legal experts. For now, attorneys and judges say they are most concerned about their ability to select impartial jurors, a process known as voir dire.

“One of the standard questions is, ‘Will you believe a police officer just because he’s a police officer?’ ” said Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Judith Meisels Ashmann. “Usually people answer yes. Now you may get the opposite response.”

Los Angeles Municipal Judge Marilyn Hoffman recently found herself grappling with the problem during jury selection for a man accused of being under the influence of heroin. As in many such cases, the veracity of the police was at issue.

“Six people raised their hands and indicated they couldn’t be fair in the case,” recalled Deputy City Atty. Del San Juan, the prosecutor. “I was surprised about the number of people who were candid.”

Last week, in a downtown courtroom, Deputy City Atty. Jonathan Mandel said he asked this question of potential jurors in a prostitution case in which a police officer was the only witness: “I asked them, ‘Other than Saddam Hussein, who is on the hot seat right now? Is it Chief (Daryl F.) Gates?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ ”

Defense attorneys, for their part, consider the King controversy a fortunate and long overdue turn of events.

“The (King) tape sickens me like it sickens anybody else who sees it,” said Bill Weiss, head deputy of the Van Nuys public defender’s office. “But for years and years defense attorneys have argued that there are racial problems with the Police Department. This incident will make it easier to make that point.”

The issue is especially sensitive at the San Fernando courthouse. The officers involved in the King beating were from the Police Department’s Foothill Division and that courthouse handles Foothill cases. Marc Hentell, a San Fernando deputy public defender, will soon go to trial representing an inmate accused of fighting with a guard. His jury will come from neighborhoods near where King was beaten.

“The defendant is a 4-foot-10 guy and the guard is 6-2,” Hentell said. “I plan to make the King incident part of my closing argument.”

Legal experts offer varying estimates as to how long the King incident will resonate in court proceedings.

A defense attorney, who asked not to be named, recalled that the Don Jackson case--in which a Long Beach police officer appeared to push a police-ethics activist through a plate-glass window during a routine traffic stop--was mentionned in cases for a year afterward.

Said Broderick, of Pepperdine: “It’s a hot issue and it will be an issue for some while. It’s one of those things that can’t help but influence the system right now.”

Times staff writers Michael Connelly and Carol McGraw contributed to this story.