King Jury Sees Key Videotape; Prosecutors Rest

Jurors in the Rodney G. King civil rights trial finally saw the videotaped testimony of Theodore J. Briseno on Tuesday after prosecutors prevailed in a hard-fought battle to introduce the tape as evidence against the police officers who beat and arrested King.

Immediately after the tape was shown, federal prosecutors surprised defense lawyers by resting their case without calling another witness. The lawyers for the officers also concluded their cases Tuesday, leaving only a debate over jury instructions and final arguments before the case is handed to the jury, probably by this weekend.

As the final witness left the stand, U.S. District Court Judge John G. Davies grinned at the jurors and announced: “That’s it, ladies and gentlemen. You’ve heard all the evidence.”

It took days of argument and an unsuccessful emergency defense appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals before prosecutors were allowed to play the Briseno tape--an edited version of his testimony given during last year’s state trial of the same four officers.

Once it was played, defense lawyers responded by briefly recalling Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, the only defendant to testify, to the witness stand. Koon acknowledged that Briseno’s version of the incident does not square with the one he told jurors. But Koon attributed the discrepancies to the fact that he and Briseno saw the incident from different angles.

Koon was the final witness of the trial, now in its sixth week in a city tense with anticipation over the verdicts.

The Briseno tape was the final major piece of evidence introduced by either side, and it climaxed the prosecution’s case by casting doubt on several points that are key to the defense. Briseno was the only one of the four defendants to break ranks during last year’s state trial, and the two-hour, 25-minute videotape featured Briseno’s sharp criticism of his fellow officers.

“I couldn’t understand,” Briseno said of the baton blows that Officers Laurence M. Powell and Timothy E. Wind administered as Koon watched, directing their actions. “I was trying to look at and view what they were looking at, and I couldn’t understand it.”

Briseno said he yelled at Powell to “get off” King and that he intervened at one point to block a blow by Powell. Briseno said many of his actions were intended to “stop Officer Powell,” and he added that he complained to his partner about the way Koon had handled the incident.

“I was very angry, very upset, very frustrated,” Briseno said. “I was upset with the sergeant.”

Jurors watched the tape curiously, occasionally glancing at Briseno, who followed along with a transcript. Briseno rarely looked up at the videotaped image of himself testifying a year ago about the same incident for which he and the other defendants are again on trial.

Much of the tape featured Briseno wielding a pointer as he described events on the videotape of the King beating. That placed jurors in the federal trial in the unusual position of watching a defendant on one videotape describe yet another videotape.

“They’ve got to be perplexed,” said Harland W. Braun, Briseno’s lawyer.

The videotaped testimony represents some of the prosecution’s most powerful evidence in its case against the four officers. Recognizing that, defense attorneys waged the most spirited legal challenge of the trial in their efforts to block the tape from being admitted.

Davies wrestled with the issue, appearing to waver time and again. When he finally ruled against defense lawyers, they moved for mistrials.

“All right,” Davies responded. “All those motions are denied.”

Powell, Wind and Briseno are charged with stomping, kicking and beating King with batons during the March 3, 1991, incident in Lake View Terrace. Those officers, according to the prosecution, violated King’s civil rights by intentionally using unreasonable force during the arrest.

Koon, the senior officer at the scene, never struck King, but he is accused of allowing officers under his supervision to administer an unreasonable beating.

The four officers presented a unified--if sometimes strained--defense in the federal trial, a marked difference from last year’s state proceeding.

Although Briseno and Powell testified during the state trial, as part of the joint defense in the federal case, Briseno, Wind and Powell all chose not to take the witness stand. That deprived prosecutors of the chance to question Briseno directly, so the government lawyers instead relied on the videotape of the testimony he gave in Simi Valley.

They were forced to delete some sections of that testimony, however. In the state trial, Briseno was allowed to venture his opinions about the other officers’ conduct, but rules of evidence generally do not permit witnesses to describe other people’s states of mind.

In the state case, for instance, Briseno testified that “I thought the whole thing was out of control,” and he described the officers’ actions as “wrong.”

Neither of those statements were played Tuesday but, by taking the stand to rebut the tape, Koon opened himself to further questions about it. In conducting his cross examination, Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven D. Clymer asked Koon about Briseno’s description of the incident as “out of control.”

Koon conceded that Briseno had described the incident that way in state court but said that Briseno “had a different perspective than I had.”

Even in its edited version, the videotaped testimony included a number of passages that could hurt Briseno’s co-defendants.

In one section, Briseno said that he did not believe King was resisting when many of the blows were delivered, an account that contradicted the testimony by Koon and a defense expert on the use of force.

“What were you thinking that night about those blows?” Briseno was asked during the state trial by his lawyer of the time, John Barnett. “Did you perceive that Mr. King was a threat at that time?”

“No, sir,” Briseno responded.

Later, in the videotape, Briseno was questioned by Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry White and again attacked his fellow officers.

“You saw misconduct by Officer Powell and Officer Wind?” White asked

“Yes, sir,” Briseno said.

“And you saw misconduct by Sgt. Koon, too, didn’t you?” the prosecutor continued.

“Yes, sir,” Briseno responded.

During the state trial, Briseno also was questioned about his explanation for why he did not report the incident, even though he said he believed it had been an excessive use of force. Briseno testified that he had returned to the Foothill police station to report the beating, but that he had seen a computer message from Koon.

That message, which has been introduced as evidence in the federal trial as well, was from Koon to Lt. Patrick Conmay. In it, Koon said that there had been a “big-time” use of force.

Briseno said he saw that message and determined that he did not need to file his own report because Koon had already done so.

Federal prosecutors have long charged that Briseno’s explanation was false, and they have publicly accused him of perjuring himself during the state trial. They had said they would call witnesses to prove that Briseno had lied about the trip to the police station.

But when the time came to present those witnesses Tuesday, the government lawyers instead chose to abruptly rest their case.

Briseno’s lawyer was jubilant.

“They presented nothing damaging about Ted (Briseno) at all,” Braun said. He asked Davies to dismiss the case against his client. Davies declined, saying he would consider the request, which Braun has made previously, but would not rule on it immediately.

Ira Salzman, the lawyer representing Koon, said the prosecution’s decision not to challenge Briseno’s credibility reflects its willingness to see Briseno acquitted in exchange for his damaging testimony about Koon and Powell.

“It appears that the government was not truly intent on prosecuting Mr. Briseno,” Salzman said. “It’s clear that the government’s strategy was that Briseno was to be employed to get at my client and at Mr. Powell.”

As is their practice, prosecutors left court without commenting to reporters.

Although Briseno’s videotaped testimony was the highlight of the prosecution’s rebuttal case, the government attorneys had previously called as their final live witness LAPD Deputy Chief Matthew V. Hunt, the highest-ranking police officer to testify in the federal trial.

Hunt, a well-liked senior officer in the department, was called to rebut a defense use-of-force expert. The expert had maintained that Hunt once told him that batons could be used to “beat suspects into submission.”

Asked whether he had ever made such a statement, Hunt responded, “Absolutely not.”

At the conclusion of Tuesday’s session, Davies informed jurors that they would be given today off so that lawyers can discuss the instructions that jurors will receive at the end of closing arguments. Those arguments will begin Thursday morning, and Davies told jurors that he believes they will begin deliberating Friday afternoon.

Others close to the case said the case more likely would be submitted to the jury Saturday.

ARTISTS RENDER VERDICTS: With cameras banned, the King beating trial has presented an opportunity for artists. B1