Judge Refuses Evidence of King Marijuana Use : Trial: The defense may not disclose results of the drug test. The prosecution is told not to reveal Officer Wind’s police experience.

Testimony concluded Wednesday in the Simi Valley trial of four police officers accused in the beating of Rodney G. King after the judge rejected motions from both sides, including one from the defense seeking to show that the motorist had marijuana in his system.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg ruled that the urine test showing traces of marijuana was irrelevant because the defense had not proven that King was under the influence of the drug March 3, 1991, the night he was beaten.

Weisberg also disallowed a prosecution request to introduce evidence that Timothy E. Wind, one of the officers on trial, was not a naive rookie when he took part in the King beating, but had worked seven years as an officer in Shawnee, Kan., before joining the Los Angeles Police Department in 1990.

In addition, the judge ruled that an LAPD training manual and seven training bulletins could not be shown to the jury. Aside from portions quoted during testimony, Weisberg ruled, the manual’s remaining chapters are irrelevant.

Wind, officers Laurence M. Powell and Theodore J. Briseno and Sgt. Stacey C. Koon are charged with assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force under color of authority. Koon and Powell also are charged with filing false police reports.

Wind’s attorney, Paul DePasquale, had argued that King’s urine test was relevant because it showed King had reason to resist arrest and be combative with the officers.

“As a parolee, King knew he would be sent direct to prison because the presence of cannabis is a misdemeanor,” DePasquale argued, using the drug’s scientific name.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Alan Yochelson countered that the presence of chemicals derived from marijuana in King’s urine did not prove that he had obtained and consumed marijuana in violation of his parole on a 1989 robbery conviction.

“It could have been from before the conditions of parole arose and could have been in his body several months,” he said.

Weisberg agreed.

“You have presented nothing other than an argument that King possessed marijuana during a time when he was on parole,” the judge said. “I have no evidence of what this test means in connection with violations of parole.”

But Weisberg rejected Yochelson’s effort to introduce evidence showing that Wind was an experienced police officer and not, as the prosecutor put it, “an innocent babe in the woods.”

Powell was Wind’s training officer that night, and DePasquale has often suggested during the trial that Wind--an LAPD officer for only four months at the time--was acting on orders of his superiors.

Unlike the other defendants, Wind did not testify during the trial. When the prosecution sought to have the former officer’s resume admitted into evidence, Weisberg rejected the motion, saying that Wind’s “background, personality, and character did not come before the jury.”

The trial will continue today as prosecutors and defense attorneys argue what instructions Weisberg should give the jury, which has been excused until Monday when final arguments are scheduled to begin.