King Jurors Hear Appeal for Powell : Trial: Attorney urges them to look at beating from point of view of an officer confronting danger. Closing remarks near an end, and deliberations may begin this afternoon.

With the Rodney G. King civil rights trial drawing to a close, the lawyer for the officer who delivered the majority of the baton blows to King concluded his case Friday with an impassioned appeal for jurors to see the incident through the eyes of a policeman under pressure.

Officer Laurence M. Powell “could have preserved his own safety,” said his lawyer, Michael P. Stone. “He didn’t do that. He chose to stand his ground. He chose to do his duty.”

Stone spoke for almost four hours, sometimes shouting, pacing and wielding a baton, other times leaning on the lectern and speaking in a soft, pleading voice. He accused King of lying on the witness stand and analyzed the prosecution’s medical evidence in detail.

But he began and ended with poignant descriptions of the difficult choices faced by police officers in violent situations.

“It was Officer Powell who stood between Rodney King and his escape into the woods of Hansen Dam Park,” said Stone, who spent 15 years as a police officer and sergeant before becoming a lawyer.

Powell “was faithful to his charge on March 3, 1991. He was faithful to his duty,” Stone added. “He deserves to be acquitted. It is right. It is just. He is innocent.”

Stone’s closing argument came on what probably will be the second-to-last day of one of the most closely watched criminal trials in American history. U.S. District Judge John G. Davies has scheduled a rare Saturday session today, and closing arguments are expected to conclude this morning at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles.

Davies is then expected to instruct the eight-man, four-woman jury and turn the case over to them for their deliberations. Jurors probably will get the case this afternoon, and they are scheduled to deliberate again on Easter, beginning at noon.

In addition to Powell, Timothy E. Wind and Theodore J. Briseno are accused of stomping, kicking and striking King with batons, depriving him of his right to be safe from the intentional use of unreasonable force. A fourth defendant, Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, did not strike King, but he was the senior officer at the scene and is accused of willfully allowing officers under his supervision to administer an unreasonable beating.

If convicted, the four men face up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.

Stone’s argument reached into virtually every aspect of the six-week federal trial, but he returned again and again to the dangerous challenge of police work. At one point, he asked the four defendants to stand, and told jurors they form the “thin blue line” that protects honest citizens from criminals.

Stone said King was a violently resisting suspect who the officers believed was under the influence of PCP, a powerful drug. The officers tried twice to subdue King using an electrical device known as a Taser, but King tossed off its effects, Stone said.

“Imagine what these officers thought, looking at this huge man getting up, his face convulsing,” Stone said. “They thought: ‘Uh-oh, it’s not working.’ ”

At the conclusion of Stone’s presentation, Paul R. DePasquale, the lawyer for Wind, delivered his closing argument, echoing many of the same themes about police work. He also guided jurors through the videotape of the beating, pointing out spots where he said Wind was pausing to consider his actions and take orders from Koon.

“Wind is in no frenzy,” DePasquale said. “Wind is not out of control. He’s a policeman following the direction of his sergeant.”

Koon is the only one of the four defendants who testified and his account convinced the other officers that they did not need to take the stand. In their closing arguments, both Stone and DePasquale credited Koon for his supervision but pointedly emphasized that it was Koon who directed the actions of their clients.

“You must consider and decide the case of each defendant separately,” DePasquale said. “This is not a team sport.”

DePasquale stressed that Wind was not trying to hide behind Koon’s orders, and Stone told jurors that he admired Koon’s testimony. But their arguments made clear that if jurors believe unreasonable force was used during the beating, they could hold Koon solely responsible and determine that the other defendants merely followed his orders.

Although DePasquale’s presentation occasionally bogged down in garbled syntax, he drew chuckles from the jury with a light joke about his baldness, and he moved swiftly through the videotape, focusing on Wind’s actions throughout.

At one point on the tape, Wind appears to step forward to strike King with his baton but then pulls back.

“Tim Wind checked that swing,” DePasquale said. “Tim Wind appears to be checking that swing . . . rather than swing into the head of Rodney Glen King.”

DePasquale’s comments took about two hours; Stone’s closing argument was more than twice as long and involved 18 charts and a variety of other evidence. Stone’s presentation was the most complete description that jurors in the federal trial have yet heard about the arguments advanced by the four officers.

Stone’s closing argument closely tracked the one he gave during last year’s state trial in Simi Valley, sometimes even quoting directly from it. That case ended in acquittals on all but one count against Powell.

As he did in Simi Valley, Stone hammered on a theme central to the defense’s case: that King, not the officers, controlled the incident in Lake View Terrace and that he, not the defendants, could have ended it at any time.

“From start to finish, it was Rodney Glen King who controlled his own destiny,” Stone said. “Every time Rodney Glen King made a decision, he made the wrong one.”

King, who did not testify in the state trial, captivated jurors for two days in the federal trial.

Stone, however, reminded jurors that King had admitted to lying about some aspects of the incident in the past, and Stone said King still is lying to bolster his chances of winning a large settlement in his civil suit. “Every time Rodney King has a stake in the outcome, he’ll lie,” Stone said.

The lawyer also mocked King’s claim that officers taunted him during the beating with the falsetto chant: “What’s up, killer?”

His voice heavy with sarcasm, Stone asked: “Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in your life?”

In the federal case, prosecutors presented medical evidence and eyewitnesses to show that King suffered his most serious injuries from baton blows to the head. The officers say those injuries were the result of a fall to the pavement, and Stone addressed that issue at length Friday.

Blows to the head are important for two reasons: Los Angeles police policy prohibits intentional baton strikes to the head of a suspect, and none of the officers reported any blows to King’s head when they filled out their various reports.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven D. Clymer, in his closing argument Thursday, said the omission of that information demonstrates that the defendants were engaged in a cover-up, not knowing that their actions had been captured on videotape. Clymer said the omission of any information about those blows fits into a pattern of deception, exaggeration and concealment by the four defendants.

Stone attacked that premise, and he took particular aim at the notion that King was ever struck directly in the head.

A defense expert, Carley Ward, said that baton blows would have done far more damage to King’s face than the injuries that he actually suffered.

Waving a baton in front of jurors Friday, Stone reminded them of Ward’s testimony and added: “You don’t need a doctor to tell you that this will break your face.”

While backing up his own witnesses, Stone also disputed the government’s chief medical expert--Harry Smith of San Antonio--by suggesting that he had failed to do tests to back up his claim of blows to the head. And he attempted to undermine the credibility of two witnesses who said they saw head blows--Briseno and California Highway Patrol Officer Melanie Singer--by stating that their perceptions were not borne out by the videotape.

Explaining Singer’s testimony was Stone’s most challenging task, as the officer broke down and cried on the witness stand when she gave her description of Powell’s baton blows. Stone told jurors that Singer’s testimony was unsupported by the videotape and by the medical evidence.

“All the tears that Melanie Singer shed when she was on the witness stand will not turn fantasy into reality,” Stone said.

Singer’s recollections were distorted, according to Stone, by the stress and violence of the incident, which he compared to a bullfight or a boxing match. A defense witness testified that police officers often have distorted views of violent situations, and Stone reminded jurors of that testimony.

In fact, Stone pointed out that four civilian witnesses called by the prosecution also testified in ways that were inconsistent with the videotape of the beating.

The same problems of distortion and faulty memory explain why police reports of the incident do not capture it in detail, Stone added.

Prosecutors say the omission of certain details from those reports is circumstantial evidence that the officers knew they had acted improperly. But Stone said the officers, just like the civilian witnesses, did not have photographic memories of the incident.

As he concluded his remarks, Stone confronted an issue that he and Powell have discussed for months: the fear that jurors might view Powell as a “throwaway” defendant, whom they could convict to satisfy the public even if they harbor doubts about his guilt.

“Forgive me if I am direct or perhaps blunt,” Stone said quietly. “Don’t make Laurence Powell a throwaway, please. Don’t make him a compromise. . . . He deserves to walk away from this nightmare acquitted.”