Denny Case May Hinge on Clashing Testimony : Trial: Lawyers challenge the credibility of each other’s witnesses. Identifying the attackers is a necessary element to prove intent.

In the trial of two men charged with trying to kill trucker Reginald O. Denny, witnesses Gabriel Quintana and Phillip Davis personify a battle of trump cards.

In Quintana, prosecutors produced an eyewitness who could identify one defendant, Damian Monroe Williams, and describe his intent--a necessary element in proving attempted murder and aggravated mayhem.

On Friday, Williams’ defense attorney, Edi M.O. Faal, countered with Davis, a good Samaritan whose testimony challenged key elements of Quintana’s account.

In his cross-examination of Davis, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence C. Morrison launched a withering, sarcasm-laden assault on Davis’ credibility. Morrison is expected to complete his cross-examination today, and Faal will be faced with repairing whatever damage the prosecutor has inflicted.

“If the prosecution wins on identification, I don’t see any problem for them winning on inferred intent” in the aggravated mayhem charge against Williams, said Southwestern University School of Law Prof. Robert A. Pugsley, who attended Friday’s court session. “To me it would not be difficult to see the intention to permanently injure or maim that person.”

Quintana, 22, arguably provided the most damaging testimony against Williams. Between them, Williams, 20, and co-defendant Henry Keith Watson, 29, are charged with assaulting or robbing seven other people at Florence and Normandie avenues, a flash point of last year’s riots.

Only Williams is charged with aggravated mayhem--the intentional permanent disfiguring of someone--for allegedly hitting Denny in the head with a brick.

Quintana, the prosecution’s only ground-level eyewitness, testified Aug. 31 that he saw Williams hit Denny with the brick. He said he recognized Williams as a man who in the past had caused trouble at the Unocal service station where Quintana worked. Earlier on April 29, 1992, Quintana said, Williams threatened “to hit and kill people.”

After the attack on Denny, Williams and others smashed their way into the station and looted it before beating and robbing him, Quintana said.

Faal earlier called Quintana a liar, noting that Quintana had told police that he saw Williams hit Denny three times with a brick. A detective later testified that when Quintana was shown the Denny beating on videotape, he could not point out three blows.

On Friday, testifying for the defense, Davis said that Quintana could not have seen the attack on Denny because a mob had already attacked Quintana before Denny’s truck pulled into the intersection.

Davis, a paralegal who described himself as a minister of the Gospel, said he was standing on the same corner where the station is when he noticed that cars were swerving dangerously close to Larry Tarvin, another trucker who was badly beaten at the intersection before Denny’s truck arrived there.

Videotape of the attack on Tarvin shows Davis and another man approaching the trucker and helping him to his feet. Tarvin then begins making his way back to his truck.

Even before he had gone into the intersection to help Tarvin, Davis said, a mob had begun attacking Quintana’s cashier’s booth. Quintana was being beaten when Denny’s red truck came into the intersection, Davis said.

Davis’ testimony also supported the defense contention that the damage to Denny’s skull occurred before he was pulled from his truck. He said Denny slumped to his right as the truck came to a stop, adding that he “noticed his eyes rolled back in his head.” A police investigator testified earlier that a brick and two pieces of concrete were found in Denny’s cab.

Answering questions from Faal, Davis, 41, said he had pleaded guilty to grand theft auto in the late 1970s and that he had later been arrested for carrying a concealed weapon.

During Morrison’s cross-examination, Davis said he once had a driver’s license in a false name and had once impersonated someone else. Morrison asked him if he had presented false identification to a police officer in 1988, and Davis said he did not recall.

Davis also could not identify anyone at the intersection, and placed the Denny beating at least an hour earlier than other witnesses.

Morrison’s cross-examination “undermined Davis’ credibility as an observant, percipient eyewitness,” said law professor Pugsley. “There are so many things he can’t remember.

“But it is important to remember that Mr. Davis assisted that person. You can’t take that away from him.”

Even if Faal is able to raise doubts about Quintana through Davis’ testimony, his defense will have to overcome the cumulative effect of videotape of the Denny beating and the testimony of two other eyewitnesses who were in a news helicopter above the intersection.