‘We Stuck to the Evidence,’ Juror Says : Deliberations: Videotape was crucial, panelist says. Another declines to comment unless paid.

After all of the evidence had been considered, the flickering images on an amateur videotape sealed the fates of Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell, who were found guilty of violating Rodney G. King’s civil rights, one member of the federal jury said Saturday.

George Holliday’s now famous videotape was more important evidence than California Highway Patrol Officer Melanie Singer’s tearful testimony or Koon’s appearance on the stand, the unidentified juror told anchor Jess Marlowe of KNBC-TV, Channel 4 news.

“I think the tape basically speaks for itself,” said the juror, who appeared in silhouette during the television interview. “I would have to say that’s basically what convicted them.”

Another juror, contacted at his home in Fullerton, declined to discuss the case unless he was paid.

Although Koon and Powell, who delivered most of the baton blows in the taped beating, were found guilty, Officer Theodore J. Briseno and former Officer Timothy E. Wind, who was fired after the beating, were found not guilty.

Wind had no right to kick King the way he did to make an arrest, the juror said, “but we weren’t sure if he was trying to effect an arrest or if he was merely trying to get him down to stop the beating.” Given that doubt, he said, “we couldn’t have found him guilty. That is not to say he’s innocent.”

He described Briseno as “a very excellent cop. If I’m ever caught in a situation like that, I hope there are more cops like him on the scene.”

The juror said he thought that Koon “did not do his job, and I hold Koon responsible for most of what happened out there. I feel that of both defendants we found guilty, he was guiltiest.” Powell, he said, “was a very callous individual. He is the type of police that you don’t want on the streets.”

Later, while walking KNBC reporter Furnell Chatman through scenes on the videotape, the juror commented: “After a while it becomes apparent that they’re hitting him just to hit him.”

He pointed out that he saw a baton blow to King’s chest as unnecessary, and after another scene from the beating, he said: “When we saw that blow, we knew right then and there that they were giving this man more punishment than what he needed.”

Fear of violence erupting as a result of the verdicts “never came up at all--not once” during the weeklong deliberations, the juror said. “We were instructed to stick to the evidence and we stuck to the evidence,” he said. “There were no compromises at all.”

But the juror said he was unnerved by the sight of police in riot gear as the panel left the federal courthouse Saturday.

“Because we didn’t watch . . . we weren’t allowed to hear anything about this case, sometimes we forgot the scope of violence that could be accomplished by our verdicts,” he said. “And what I saw--people in riot gear and sirens going as we were leaving, streets blocked off--it was very scary.”

The atmosphere in the jury room became tense at times, he said, because the jury had lived with the case for six weeks but had been forbidden to discuss it.

“Finally we were allowed, and everybody wanted to talk at once,” he said. “And it was kind of frustrating because we could only allow one person at a time to speak. That’s when the tension started to become really heightened. There were yelling matches and so forth, and there were personality conflicts.”

Another juror interviewed on KABC-TV Channel 7 said there was screaming, yelling and tears at times during the deliberations, but the jurors developed a deep respect for one another.

There was some difficulty reaching unanimity on the verdicts, the juror interviewed on Channel 4 said, “but the evidence spoke for itself.”

Deliberations lasted seven days, the juror said, because the panel believed that “it was only fair to both the defense and the prosecution that we go through all the evidence.”

Asked how the panel sorted out conflicting testimony from expert witnesses, he said the jury threw out testimony from Los Angeles Police Sgts. Charles L. Duke Jr. and Mark John Conta, who testified as use-of-force experts for the defense and prosecution, respectively.

“Nobody really wanted to discuss them,” he said. “We wanted to come up with our own conclusions.”

The panel looked at conflicting medical testimony and concluded that “most of (King’s) facial fractures were caused by baton blows,” he said. “Some of them may or may not have been caused by a fall.”

Jurors sifted through police training bulletins, photographs of King and of the beating scene in Lake View Terrace and looked at the videotape.

“We went through that Holliday video a number of times--forward and backward, frame by frame, fast motion, slow motion, regular motion,” he said.

King “took a bad beating,” the juror said, “and his testimony was very confused.” He added that he thought King “had a lot of money riding on this case and did not want to speak very much about this.”

Although the jury was sequestered throughout the trial, they spent their free weekends deep-sea fishing or on outings to see the mountains or to visit Universal Studios and Griffith Park.

And were they recognized as the jury members in the officers’ trial?

“I hope not,” the juror said.

Marlowe said the juror told him that he was allowed a one-hour visit each week with his wife in the presence of a U.S. marshal. When the juror asked the marshal if the visits could be conjugal, the marshal said, “Yes”--but the marshal would have to watch.

The juror who lives in Fullerton asked a reporter who went to interview him: “Do you want to make an offer? Why should I talk to you when others might be willing to pay?” He said that during his involvement in the trial, he had “heard talk from other people” that the jurors’ story might be worth money. “People have said things” about capitalizing on their experience, he said with a smile.

When asked if he wanted to share any impressions about the case or whether it has had an impact on his life, he said, “Well, so far, it’s had no impact.”