Legal Battles Loom in Riot’s Aftermath : Jurisprudence: Thousands of court cases as diverse as the violence still wait to be heard.

From Rodney King to Reginald Denny, the violence that rocked Los Angeles before and during its deadly riots have left behind thousands of court cases as diverse as the violence itself.

Curfew violations, looting and arson crimes, assault and attempted murder charges have embroiled thousands of residents in legal battles--chief among them four police officers whose brutality trial set in motion a legal juggernaut from which the city has yet to escape. They were indicted recently by a federal grand jury on civil rights charges and face a new trial in the fall.

The four white policemen were charged in state court with using excessive force on King, a black motorist whose beating on March 3, 1991, was captured on videotape and broadcast worldwide.

Their three-month trial in suburban Simi Valley ended April 29 with the officers acquitted on most charges. Rioting erupted instantly in South-Central Los Angeles and spread across the city. When it was over three days later, 53 people were dead, scores injured and nearly $1 billion in damage done.

TV cameras broadcast images of mobs assaulting motorists, looting and burning stores and beating truck driver Reginald Denny nearly to death.

Municipal Judge Larry Fidler, who held Damian Williams and two co-defendants for trial in Denny’s beating, expressed what many felt in viewing the attack.

“The one act, more than any other, that is seared in my memory is Mr. Williams braining Mr. Denny,” the judge said. “It is vivid. It can’t be forgotten. It is horrible.”

Williams, Henry Watson and Antoine Miller, accused of acting as part of a criminal street gang, were scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 25. Their trial, with 35 charges, is expected to be long and complicated.

Four other men, Lance Parker, Lewis Foster Jr., Anthony Brown and Gary Williams, face separate charges in the assaults at Florence and Normandie avenues--the intersection that has come to symbolize the riot’s first explosion of violence.

Their charges are among 4,402 cases filed by the district attorney’s office. Of those, 3,294 charged felonies--mostly second-degree robbery--and 448 involved juveniles.

John Lynch, head of the district attorney’s Central Trials Division, said statistics have yet to be tallied on how many cases are complete.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner has said his investigators continue to work toward identifying and arresting assailants seen on TV riot broadcasts.

The city attorney’s office, which handled riot misdemeanors including curfew violations, has disposed of most of its cases in the four months since the riots.

“We have a lot of experience in handling mass arrests,” said Maureen Siegel, acting chief of the city attorney’s criminal operations. “We have a pretty well oiled machine. . . . For us this was a blip on the screen.”

She said the office felt a greater effect from Operation Rescue abortion protest arrests than from the riots.

Alice Hand, a supervising deputy city attorney who keeps statistics on riot arrests, said the office filed 1,577 misdemeanor cases, of which 1,030 were curfew violations.

Only 41 of these cases remain unresolved, with trials pending. An additional 96 defendants failed to show up in court, so bench warrants were issued for their arrests.

The majority of curfew violators pleaded guilty, she said, and those with no criminal histories received sentences of about 10 days in jail. Some looters with no records received 30-day sentences.