Powell Decides Not to Testify in King Case

Laurence M. Powell, the Los Angeles police officer who delivered the majority of baton blows to Rodney G. King, rested his case Wednesday without taking the witness stand, a surprise development that rocked the civil rights trial of the officers.

Powell’s lawyer, Michael P. Stone, had said for weeks that Powell would take the stand in his own defense and announced as late as Tuesday afternoon that Powell would be a witness. But lawyers for the other officers have expressed misgivings about Powell testifying, and during a meeting Tuesday night, the attorneys agreed that, despite Powell’s strong desire to testify, he should not take the stand.

Before resting his case, Stone consulted briefly with Powell in court. Stone rested one hand on Powell’s shoulder and asked him if he was comfortable with the decision not to testify. Powell nodded nervously.

Powell said afterward that he and Stone have discussed the issue for months and did not reach a final decision until Wednesday morning. In fact, Powell said he was studying with a drama coach late Tuesday, going over videotapes of his testimony during last year’s state trial and talking about how to improve it this time.

“It’s always a roll of the dice when your client decides not to testify,” Stone said outside of court. “But this is all a gamble. I’d rather not be at the gambling table, but we’re here.”

The decision not to call Powell strongly increases the likelihood that neither Timothy E. Wind nor Theodore J. Briseno will testify, meaning that the trial, which had been expected to last well into April, could be sent to the jury next week.

Powell’s last-minute decision reflects at least two important defense considerations: That putting Powell on the stand would subject him to difficult cross-examination, and that the testimony of Sgt. Stacey C. Koon may be enough to speak for all four of the officers. Koon spent three powerful days on the stand, and he took responsibility for every baton blow and kick that King received.

But not calling Powell poses possible pitfalls as well. A California Highway Patrol officer, Melanie Singer, testified that she saw Powell strike King six times in the head with a baton during the 1991 incident. Now Powell will not have the opportunity to answer that allegation directly.

After court adjourned for the day, Powell acknowledged that he had some misgivings about forgoing his chance to take the witness stand. But he appeared relaxed, speaking to reporters as he leaned against the marble wall of a courtroom corridor.

“Now we have to worry about whether it’s the right thing,” he said. “I’ll be worried up until the day I hear the verdict.”

The medical evidence about the baton blows has been conflicting, with two doctors testifying for the prosecution that there were direct hits to the head and two medical experts testifying for the defense that the facial injuries were the result of a fall to the ground. Stone said he was confident that the defense experts raised sufficient questions about the the issue that Powell did not need to testify.

“All of the tears of Melanie Singer in the world will not make head blows to Rodney King,” Stone said, referring to Singer’s tearful testimony.

Powell, Wind and Briseno are accused of kicking, stomping and striking King with batons, depriving him of his constitutional right to be safe from the intentional use of unreasonable force. Koon, the senior officer at the scene of the incident, is charged with allowing officers under his supervision to administer an unreasonable beating.

It was Koon’s testimony last week that played the key role in the decision not to call Powell, according to Stone and other defense attorneys.

On the witness stand, the sergeant strongly defended the actions of all four officers. He took full responsibility for all of the blows and said he never saw any officer violate police policy during the incident.

Defense attorneys believe that Koon’s testimony was so compelling that there is little need for any of the other officers to take the stand.

“If the jury doesn’t believe Sgt. Koon, we’re all in trouble,” Stone said. “If the jury does believe Sgt. Koon, we’re not.”

Although Powell had long said that he wanted to take the stand in this case, some of the other defense lawyers expressed concerns that his credibility might have been damaged by the grueling cross-examination that they expected Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven D. Clymer to deliver.

“I’m not afraid of the answers that my client might give,” Stone said. “I’m afraid of the questions.”

Powell was the lead defendant during last year’s state trial of the officers, and he was grilled by Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry White. Powell was the only one of the four officers not to win complete exoneration in the state trial, as the jury failed to reach a verdict on one count against him.

Stone conceded that his client might have some difficulty on the stand again, not so much because of the substance of his testimony as because of the way he might deliver it.

“Some people are natural witnesses,” Stone said. “Larry Powell is not that kind of a witness.”

Harland W. Braun, the lawyer for Briseno, said he and the other defense lawyers were confident in the strength of their case and believed that calling Powell would only expose them to additional risks.

“Every time you put a witness on, you take a risk,” Braun said. “So why take the risk?”

Braun said all four of the defense lawyers had met Tuesday night and had discussed the “cost-benefit analysis” of Powell taking the stand.

Although each of the lawyers stressed that there was no pressure on Powell, they all endorsed his decision not to testify. The final choice, Stone said, was left to Powell himself.

Before resting Powell’s case, Stone called his chief medical experts, Dallas Long and Carley Ward. Both testified that the injuries to King’s face and skull were caused by a face-first fall to the pavement, not by baton blows, as the prosecution has alleged.

Ward concluded her testimony Wednesday, telling jurors that a series of full-force baton blows would have inflicted far more damage to King than he suffered. Ward said such strikes would have at least rendered King unconscious, and could even have killed him.

“All of the facial fractures were caused by the fall,” Ward said in response to a question from Stone.

She maintained that position despite a penetrating cross-examination by Alan Tieger, a Justice Department lawyer who is one of the prosecutors in the case.

Tieger challenged Ward’s qualifications and competence, introducing evidence that a California appeals court once reversed a conviction in a case in which Ward testified for the prosecution. The court in that case found “flagrant loopholes in the acceptability of the procedures and calculations” that Ward used in that case, Tieger said.

Stone fought against allowing jurors to hear that evidence, but U.S. District Judge John G. Davies ruled that Stone had raised the issue of Ward’s prior testimony during his questioning of her. Among the qualifications that Ward listed in response to questions from Stone was the fact that she has testified in numerous trials, including the one that was the subject of the appeal.

Davies criticized Stone for raising that issue and allowed Tieger to question Ward about it.

“It’s the price you pay for gilding the lily,” Davies scolded Stone. “You’ve spread too much butter on the slice of bread.”

Ward conceded that the appeals court had overturned the verdict and had criticized her methods, but she said the court misunderstood her approach. The case was argued in the early 1980s, and Ward said the techniques that she used were less widely recognized in those days than they are today.

The abrupt close of Powell’s case shifted the spotlight to Wind, whose lawyer, Paul R. DePasquale, called one of King’s passengers as his first witness. The passenger, Bryant Allen, testified as a prosecution witness during the state trial, and he repeated some of the account that he gave in that case.

In particular, he testified that he pleaded in vain with King to heed the police car chasing them at high speeds through the San Fernando Valley.

“I got louder each time I told him,” Allen recalled. “I said, ‘Rodney, why don’t you pull over?’ ”

But Allen refused to confirm many details he offered in the first trial, saying, “I’m not quite sure,” and “I was probably guessing.”

Allen’s testimony contradicted King’s account on some points, including the question of whether the officers taunted King with a racial epithet during the incident. King said he thought he heard the epithet, but Allen said he had not heard it.

Times staff writer Paul Lieberman contributed to this report.