Judge Delays Trial in Denny Case Until July : Courts: Attorneys for defendants in the beating of a trucker say they need more time to prepare. The postponement removes the possibility that the proceedings will overlap federal trial of four LAPD officers.

The trial of three defendants in the Reginald O. Denny beating case was postponed Wednesday until July, removing the possibility that it will overlap with the federal trial of four officers accused of violating Rodney G. King’s civil rights.

Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk delayed the trial until July 7 or 8 after defense attorneys argued that they need more time to prepare. Prosecutors did not oppose the postponement, acknowledging that to go to trial with defense attorneys on the record saying they are unprepared would be grounds for reversal on appeal.

Defendants Damian Monroe Williams and Henry Keith Watson readily agreed to Ouderkirk’s 13-week delay. But Antoine Miller answered, “Certainly not,” when the judge asked him if he agreed to put the trial off that long. Miller’s attorney, James R. Gillen, said after the hearing that Miller had conferred with his mother and is now reconsidering.

The trial had been scheduled to begin Monday, with jury selection set to start Wednesday. Closing arguments in the King beating trial will begin today, and that case is expected to go to the jury Friday afternoon.

While pushing the Denny beating trial back 13 weeks, Ouderkirk denied a motion by the defendants to delay a potentially volatile pretrial hearing that began Wednesday and that they see as important to their defense.

Defense attorney Edi M. O. Faal said during his opening statement at the hearing that the defendants will attempt to prove they were victims of discriminatory prosecution by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. He alleged that prosecutors routinely file more serious charges against blacks than against whites arrested under similar circumstances.

Williams and Miller, both 20, and Watson, 28, were originally charged with aggravated mayhem, torture and attempted murder, among other felonies. Those charges carry life sentences. Torture charges have been dropped against all defendants. Only Williams is now charged with aggravated mayhem--the intentional infliction of permanent disfigurement or disability. All three still face attempted murder charges.

“I certainly have the sense that they have identified something that is a real issue,” Southwestern University School of Law professor Isabelle Gunning said of the discriminatory prosecution motion. “When white defendants come up, I think prosecutors tend to see more humanness. Those who are poor, black and brown are going to get the hardest overcharging.”

In legal papers and comments to reporters, Faal, who represents Williams, has made it clear that he intends to contrast the charges filed against the Denny defendants with those brought against the four Los Angeles police officers accused of beating King.

Outside court Wednesday, Faal said he plans to call Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, a defendant in the federal civil rights trial, to testify during the hearing, which is expected to last several days. “I want to know if he intended to cripple Rodney King--break his bones,” Faal said. “If Koon intended to do so, why was he not charged with aggravated mayhem?”

Although evidence presented to the district attorney should have indicated “a specific intent to maim and permanently disable” King, prosecutors chose not to try the officers for attempted murder or aggravated mayhem. Instead, he said, the officers were charged with assault with a deadly weapon, a charge carrying a sentence of five to 10 years.

The conduct of the officers toward King is “very similar to the alleged conduct of the men accused of beating Mr. Denny,” Faal said in court. He said he believes prosecutors were fully aware that Officer Laurence M. Powell intended to inflict a “sadistic beating”--an element of torture--on King, yet he was not charged with torture.

Faal said he has subpoenaed former Dist. Attys. Ira Reiner and John K. Van de Kamp because they will be unable to justify the “disparity of treatment” of the officers in the King beating and the men charged in the Denny assault.

Faal also plans to call Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry White, who prosecuted the officers in state court, former Los Angeles Police Detective Bill Pavelic and attorney Stephen Yagman, who has frequently sued law enforcement agencies over abuses by police.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Janet Moore, one of two prosecutors in the Denny beating case, argued that the defense seems to be attempting to retry the four officers. “I don’t feel that the comparison between the two cases is relevant to discriminatory prosecution,” she said.

UCLA criminal law professor Peter Arenella agreed, criticizing the analogy between the King and Denny cases. He said in an interview that the comparison “ignores the fact that the officers were justified in using those batons for the first 30 seconds. There is no justification possible for the Denny defendants hitting Denny or anybody else with bricks or fists for any amount of time.”

Arenella said that “since we live in a racist society, it comes as no surprise that that racism will and does infect the criminal justice system. That is true in general, and one can point to all too many examples.

“Having said that, I do not believe that the prosecution decision to bring charges as serious as attempted murder reflect an obvious example of that racism.”

Prosecutors commonly bring the most serious charges possible to enhance their plea bargaining positions later on, Arenella said, but prosecutors do not “necessarily believe conviction on those charges are necessary to do justice.”

USC law professor Charles Weisselberg noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has said that “while prosecutors generally have broad discretion on who and how to prosecute, they can’t base that on race. The defense has to show that others in a similar situation have not been prosecuted or were prosecuted differently. They have to show that prosecution is based on an impermissible motive. That’s the hard part.”

In recent weeks, there had been wide speculation that the Denny case might end in plea bargains. The speculation was fueled, in part, by Judge Ouderkirk’s suggestion that the parties explore that option.

During Wednesday’s proceedings, in his request for a delay, defense attorney Gillen said Ouderkirk’s “public urging through the media of plea bargaining” had prejudiced the potential juror pool against the defendants.

The judge, however, called that suggestion “a glaring inaccuracy” and described his own comments as “a suggestion that all the parties get together and talk.”