Davies Faces Weighty Job of Sentencing

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies, who will decide the fates of the two police officers convicted of the beating of Rodney G. King, is a political moderate who over the years has increasingly handed down moderate to light sentences.

“The only thing that causes me worry is sentencing,” the Australian native once told a reporter. “That is a heavy responsibility. When you look across at someone whose freedom you have in your hands. . . .”

Just a few weeks ago, Davies sentenced a former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who was convicted of conspiring to sell cocaine to the minimum sentence allowed under federal guidelines, explaining that the defendant had already suffered greatly.

“Should the court not consider these collateral prices people pay when they make these horrendous judgments?” Davies asked during the sentencing hearing. Not under federal sentencing rules, said an attorney who practices in federal court and is familiar with that case.

The guidelines--which limit the discretion of judges--do not permit such considerations, the attorney said. He said Davies’ sentencing in that case and others offer clues to how the judge may treat Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell when they come before him Aug. 4.

“He is more understanding of the plight of the defendant than some judges,” said the attorney, who knows Davies well and admires him. “I just don’t think he personally likes sentencing people.”

But Davies also has handed out long prison sentences, particularly in his first years on the bench, and he is well liked by many Drug Enforcement Administration agents who favor tough sentences.

Under the federal sentencing guidelines, the base sentence for Koon and Powell is 37 months to 46 months in federal prison. But Davies could raise or lower the jail time by taking into account various factors--including whether the criminal offense was aberrant behavior for the officers.

A former top-notch trial attorney with little patience for ineptness, Davies, 63, presides over his courtroom with formality and a strict adherence to decorum. He is known for lecturing attorneys in his clipped accent in how best to ask questions and even occasionally corrects their grammar.

“He’s had 20 years of courtroom experience himself, and he certainly is a better trial attorney than 99% of the attorneys who come before him,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Dean G. Dunlavey, Davies’ former law clerk. “A lot of times he is just disappointed or irritated with the inability of attorneys to come up to his expectations.”

Hard-working and straightforward, the no-nonsense judge is not known for erratic rulings or extreme views. “He is pretty much a down-the-middle guy,” said Sheldon Sloan, trustee of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.

Davies, whose chambers are adorned with art of American eagles, presided over the King case with a dry wit. He began many court days with a pledge to the American flag, tailored to include not just a pledge to the flag but to the constitutional principles it embodies.

Legal analysts who followed the case generally praise Davies’ handling of the trial as fair and even-handed, though some argue that he favored the defense over the prosecution.

“There were times when he was extremely tough on the prosecutors, almost in a personal way, and extremely generous to the officers in his rulings,” said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola University law professor and former prosecutor who sat through the trial.

Levenson recalled that Davies also was generous to the defense in a case she tried before him in 1989. “But when he came to sentencing, he just followed what the rules were,” she said.

During the King case, Davies at times gave conflicting signals to the attorneys, suggesting he would change his mind on a legal point and then not change it, she said.

“I think the bottom line was that he really wanted to keep tight reins, tight control over the courtroom,” Levenson said. “That was very, very, very important to him during this case.”

When lawyers tried to register objections from their seats, Davies would order them to their feet. And sometimes he jumped in on his own. “I have an objection,” he announced at one point when a witness was being questioned by prosecutors. “And I am sustaining my own objection.”

He seemed to enjoy a strong rapport with the jury, treating them consistently with courtesy and concern in a style he was renowned for even as a trial attorney.

“He tried almost exclusively jury cases,” recalled Dean C. Dunlavey, who was Davies’ opponent several times in court and whose son is the judge’s former law clerk. “He could have the jury walk right into bed with him and snuggle up to him.”

Tall and attractive, with dark receding hair and the muscled physique of a swimmer, Davies won a gold medal for Australia in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 1952 Olympic Games. He came to the United States to visit a swim coach in Michigan and eventually became a naturalized American citizen. He attended the University of Michigan as an undergraduate and received his law degree from UCLA.

As a private lawyer, Davies specialized in entertainment law and brought limited criminal experience to the bench when former President Ronald Reagan appointed him in 1986.

“He does not have the instincts for criminal trials as much as he does for civil,” Levenson said. “In other words, he can’t see down the road where a defense lawyer (in a criminal case) is going with a particular tactic.”

Davies already had been assigned to try King’s civil case against the city of Los Angeles for the March 3, 1991, beating when his name was drawn by chance to oversee the criminal trial as well. Lawyers for the officers were cautiously pleased by his selection.

But as the case wound through seven months of preliminary hearings and an extraordinary jury selection process, Davies occasionally seemed to struggle. In several of his early rulings, he stated that prosecutors had to prove that the King beating was racially motivated in order to convict the officers--a position that drew immediate criticism from constitutional scholars and which he later rescinded.

“He was clearly wrong in his initial opinion of that issue,” said one federal judge. “But he reconsidered, and that’s important, especially in a trial of this magnitude.”

In many of his most important decisions during the trail, Davies appeared to give the benefit of the doubt to the defendants. Koon, in fact, was the beneficiary of two key rulings by Davies: He prevented prosecutors from introducing evidence that Koon had previously lied about using force against another suspect, and he blocked government lawyers from discussing a manuscript by Koon in which he described a confrontation between King and a female officer as a “Mandingo sexual encounter.”

But then, near the end of the case, Davies ruled in favor of the prosecution on a key piece of evidence: the videotaped testimony of Officer Theodore J. Briseno from last year’s state trial of the officers in which Briseno said King did not appear to be resisting arrest.

“I think in hindsight that he must have been wondering about the fallout if he denied the jury that piece of evidence,” said Harland W. Braun, attorney for Briseno, who was acquitted. “I think intuitively he knew that this case had to be argued in a social context, and I think that he kept it a fair trial.”

Times staff writer Jim Newton contributed to this story.

Profile: U.S. District Judge John G. Davies

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies has presided over the Rodney G. King civil rights trial since last year. On Aug. 4, he is scheduled to sentence the two officers who were convicted Saturday.

Born: May 17, 1929.

Education: BA from the University of Michigan, law degree from the UCLA School of Law.

Career highlights: Practiced law with Rosenfeld, Meyer & Susman in Beverly Hills from 1972 to 1986, and with Hagenbaugh, Murphy & Davies in Los Angeles from 1960 to 1972.

Interests: Swimming, reading.

Family: Married, two children.

Quote: “The art of trying a case is in sad shape. There are too many generalized lawyers out there who think they can try a case and can’t.”