Jury Relied Heavily on Tape of King Beating

In the end, seeing was believing.

The jurors in the Rodney G. King civil rights trial came to the same conclusion as millions of people around the world when they watched the videotape of King’s beating: Los Angeles Police Officer Laurence M. Powell used excessive force and his boss Sgt. Stacey C. Koon should have stopped him.

“When all was said and done, this case came down to common sense,” said Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson. “When you look at the last 50 seconds of that videotape, you believe that the officers went too far and knew that they were doing so. You don’t believe what the defense said--that Rodney King was aggressive and combative and a threat to the police officers.”

She also said that by acquitting Officers Theodore J. Briseno and former Officer Timothy E. Wind, the jury “drew a line between good police officers and bad police officers.”

Asked what was the most compelling evidence in the case, one juror who agreed to be interviewed Saturday said the panel relied heavily on the video.

“I think the tape basically speaks for itself,” he told KNBC’s Jess Marlowe. “I would have to say that’s basically what convicted them.”

Levenson and several analysts said a number of other factors were critical to the outcome, including the jury’s composition of two African-Americans, a Latino and nine Anglos. They said the prosecution presented a more fully articulated and detailed case than did state prosecutors and one with a clear theme: The officers had broken the law and then concocted a story in an attempt to conceal facts, deceive jurors and exaggerate the danger presented by King on the night of the beating.

California Highway Patrol Officer Melanie Singer’s testimony that she did not think King was on PCP and that she did not view him as a significant threat drove a dagger through the heart of the defense’s case--built on the premise that the officers perceived King as a muscular, drug-crazed ex-convict whom they had reason to fear.

Ironically, Singer, who pursued King during a high-speed chase just before the beating, was called to the witness stand by Powell’s lawyer, Michael P. Stone.

She broke down and cried on the witness stand when describing how Powell had pummeled King in the head and face with his baton, an action forbidden under Los Angeles Police Department policy.

“There is no doubt in my mind that he struck him in the face,” Singer said in an agonized voice. “I will never forget it until the day I die.”

Calling Singer “was a critical strategic mistake by Powell’s defense lawyer,” said UCLA law professor Peter Arenella.

But, to the end, Stone maintained that Singer’s testimony had helped the defense. Stone contended that Singer’s credibility was undermined because the video showed that Powell did not hit king in the face.

Both lead prosecutors, Steven D. Clymer and Barry F. Kowalski, referred to that testimony in closing arguments--a sign of how critical they thought it was.

“I expect that none of you will ever forget Melanie Singer’s testimony,” Clymer said. He reminded the panel that a “professional, accomplished police officer broke down and cried on the witness stand.”

Defense lawyer Harland W. Braun said that Singer and Paul J. Beauregard, a Los Angeles Unified School District officer who also chased King before the beating, were the two witnesses who most hurt the defense.

Beauregard, on cross-examination by Justice Department lawyer Alan Tieger, said that he and Powell joked with King while King lay on the ground handcuffed, his face bloody and swollen. And Beauregard said he overheard what he thought was Powell laughing as he called for an ambulance.

Clearly, several elements distinguished this trial from last year’s state case in Simi Valley, where jurors drawn from the area acquitted the officers on 10 of 11 charges and failed to reach a verdict on a charge of excessive force against Powell.

Among the key distinctions was the more diverse jury in the federal case. One of the African-American members lives in a neighborhood damaged during the riots that followed last year’s verdict. Although an Asian and a Latino were on the state court jury, there were no African-Americans.

In addition, several of the state court jurors had ties to law enforcement, noted Barry Levin, a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer and former LAPD officer.

“It’s terribly important that you had a more diverse jury,” said Loyola’s Levenson, who was present for the entire second trial. “You had more voices who expressed . . . our community standards” for police conduct, she added.

Levenson and several others praised the prosecution’s handling of the trial, which injected more emotion and detail into the high-profile case. The prosecutors had to prove that the officers used excessive force and that they intended to violate King’s civil rights.

“I think this trial was as different from the first trial as two trials about the same facts could be from one another,” USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky said.

Among the key moves by the federal prosecutors was their decision to call LAPD use-of-force expert Sgt. Mark J. Conta early in the case. In the state trial, prosecutors from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office put on a use-of-force expert only as a rebuttal witness after the defense already had presented its own expert witnesses who contended that the officers had acted reasonably.

Conta’s testimony that the officers violated departmental policy on use of force enabled the prosecutors to put the defense in a position of taking extreme stands to justify what the officers had done, Levenson said.

The defense tried to rebut Conta, who heads LAPD’s training and self-defense unit, with their own expert, Police Sgt. Charles Duke, a streetwise officer who also testified in the state trial. He said the officers were justified in striking King all 56 times.

“Duke said that every movement of King while on the ground, every twitch could be interpreted as an aggressive, combative act that could be met with a baton blow,” Levenson said. “That went too far. It’s just not plausible that you’re allowed to beat someone who twitches, especially someone who twitches in reaction to a blow or kick of an officer.”

Indeed, the juror interviewed by KNBC said: “After a while it becomes apparent (on the tape) that they’re hitting him just to be hitting him.”

Southwestern University law professor Myrna Raeder stressed that the videotape had been electronically enhanced since the first trial, strengthening it as a trial tool.

Another significant factor, according to Raeder and others, was the prosecution’s decision to call King as a witness. Prosecutors in the state case did not call King, fearing that he would be a poor witness and that he would become the central focus of the trial instead of the officers. Because King did not testify, the prosecution was unable to rebut the defense’s contention that he was “a crazed monster,” Levin said.

“In this case, Rodney King was brought in for the jury to see and evaluate,” Levin said. “He had a persona. He was humanized.”

From the start, prosecutors acknowledged that King was less than a role model. In fact, Clymer told the jurors, King would not be the victim in an infamous police-brutality case if he had been arrested properly. Instead, he would be on trial for drunk driving and trying to evade police. But prosecutor Clymer also stressed that the officers were on trial, not King.

For his part, King admitted that he had contradicted himself several times in talking about the incident. The jury learned that he had a prior felony conviction for robbery.

The gamble to put him on the stand appears to have paid off, however. The man whose face had been seen around the world told the jurors he was “just trying to stay alive” the night of the beating.

On the other hand, only one defendant--Koon--testified in this case, unlike in the state trial in which all testified except Wind. Perhaps Powell’s decision not to testify was most noteworthy. He had testified in the state trial that he feared that King was on PCP and would overpower him.

This time, his lawyer said it was too risky to call him, a decision that hurt Powell’s case, Raeder said. She argued that Powell would have benefited by telling the jurors what was going through his mind during the beating.

But other analysts said Stone’s move was prudent because Powell’s testimony could have been seriously challenged on cross-examination.

Federal prosecutors also departed from the tactics of their counterparts in the district attorney’s office by putting on expert medical testimony from two doctors who said fractures to King’s head and face clearly were caused by baton blows.

Ira Salzman, Koon’s attorney, said he thought that the testimony of one of the physicians, Dr. Charles Aronberg, was particularly harmful to the defense.

In response to cross-examination by Stone, Aronberg said the defense theory that King’s injuries were caused by a fall was “out of the question.”

The prosecutors also capitalized on the videotaped testimony of Briseno from the state trial. Briseno is shown on the tape testifying that he “couldn’t understand” why Powell and Wind needed to pummel King with their supervisor, Koon, looking on.

Arenella and Raeder said they thought the jurors decision to acquit Wind and Briseno while convicting Koon and Powell showed that they had done a good job of distinguishing levels of culpability.

“The case against Officer Briseno was incredibly weak from the outset and by the close of the trial the prosecution was using Briseno through his Simi Valley testimony as their own witness against the other officers,” Arenella said.

“I believe the jury showed some compassion and good judgment in acquitting Officer Wind,” he added.

The fact that two officers were acquitted also showed that the case was not the “slam-dunk” some people thought it would be when they first saw the videotape.

“This is the toughest kind of case in the criminal justice system--asking jurors to convict their protectors,” said Los Angeles lawyer Johnnie Cochran. “This was a real bright jury. They drew lines.”

The prosecutors declined to answer numerous questions about their strategy. “We put on the best case we could with the strongest evidence we could,” Kowalski said. “We presented what we felt the jury needed.”