Judge Tells Denny Jurors to Calm Down

Tensions among jurors in the Reginald O. Denny beating trial have escalated to such a point that the judge excused the panel early on Saturday, hoping tempers will cool by Monday when deliberations continue.

“I suggest you take a break, see family and friends, recharge your batteries and come back with a clear mind,” Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk told the panel members. “Cheer up, it’s not all that bad. If you can get down to business Monday . . . hopefully you can make the decisions you have to make.”

Ouderkirk’s decision to cut short deliberations in the volatile and closely watched trial followed a closed-door session he convened with the defense attorneys, prosecutors and a juror who had sent him a note at 9:15 a.m.--just 45 minutes into the seventh day of deliberations.

In it, the juror said that “a very serious problem” had surfaced with another panel member and that it was “imperative that I speak to you in your chambers as soon as possible. I have, as well as my fellow jurors . . . tried to give the person the benefit of the doubt, but I can see no other choice but to bring this very delicate but serious plea to you.”

After the meeting with the juror, Ouderkirk did not disclose in open court what had precipitated the note or details of the secret session. But it seemed clear he was troubled by the apparent contentiousness that had developed between at least two jurors.

He said the complexity of the case and the fact that the jury is sequestered has caused “some interpersonal problems perhaps.”

That clash, the judge said, “tends to interfere with the business at hand--an objective evaluation of all the evidence that you heard over all these weeks and the law that applies to the case.”

After the judge had spoken, one juror asked if panel members could take their trial notes back to their hotel rooms after the group finishes deliberating each day, instead of leaving them with the bailiff. “I feel we haven’t had time to work on the essentials,” she said. The work, she said, is “detailed and tedious. None of us want to make a mistake. We want to do the best job we can. We can’t do that unless we know what we are doing.”

Ouderkirk said he will consider the request and give the jury an answer Monday.

The judge refused to release a transcript of his meeting about the “very serious problem” referred to in the juror’s note. But an order he issued to the prosecution and defense seemed to suggest that the conflict involved the not guilty verdicts in the first Rodney G. King beating trial and the issue of whether an individual is responsible for his actions after being swept up by a mob.

The judge asked both sides for proposed special instructions that could be read to the jury.

The defense suggested, among other things, that the jury be told: “You cannot use the verdict in the Rodney King case to even a score in this case.” Prosecutors proposed, in part, that the panel be instructed: “Your personal views regarding the ‘Rodney King’ verdicts and the resulting civil unrest are not evidence in this case.”

Ouderkirk said he will consider both versions and will decide which will be read to the jury on Monday.

The jury of 10 women and two men includes four African-Americans, four Latinos, three Anglos and one Asian-American. Two original jurors were removed before deliberations because of illness. A third member of the original panel was dismissed for alleged misconduct.

That juror, a middle-aged black man, was removed after allegedly discussing the case with neighbors and telling them that he would vote to convict the defendants even before defense attorneys put on their case. He was replaced by a black woman who was selected at random from alternate jurors. She was elected forewoman when the panel began its deliberations.

The confrontations among the jurors could be seen as “indicative of a group of people trying to do the best job they can,” said Southwestern University School of Law Prof. Robert A. Pugsley. “They are conscientious and are finding themselves locked up on issues that are not easy.”

The more the jurors are in disarray, Pugsley said, “the better it is for the defense--the more likely that the trial could end with a hung jury.”

The jury is weighing the fate of Damian Monroe Williams, 20, and Henry Keith Watson, 29, who are charged with premeditated attempted murder in the beating of Denny at Florence and Normandie avenues, a flash point for rioting last year.

Williams is also accused of aggravated mayhem--intentionally causing permanent disability or disfigurement--for allegedly hitting Denny in the head with a brick. Attempted premeditated murder and aggravated mayhem carry maximum penalties of life in prison.

The two men are also charged with assaulting or robbing seven other people at the intersection as rioting broke out after not guilty verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating trial in Simi Valley.

Dissension on the jury surfaced Friday when Ouderkirk was sent a question implying that one juror had accused another of not deliberating.

That question sought clarification on just how much support a juror has to offer for his or her decision on a charge. The panel wanted to know whether a juror could be accused of not deliberating even though that juror has stated his or her reasons for a decision “numerous times.”

A second version of the question, written in a different handwriting, asked: “When a juror (asks) another juror to list the evidence and reasons that determined their decision, does that juror have the obligation to answer the juror as a responsibility of deliberations?”

Prosecutors and defense attorneys proposed answers to those questions Saturday, and the judge will also decide how to answer them Monday.

The clashes on the panel are reminiscent of the bitter confrontations that took place on the fifth day of deliberations in the federal trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of violating King’s civil rights.

Their relationship deteriorated to name-calling. After one particularly acrimonious day, the jurors settled down. Within two days, they convicted Officer Laurence M. Powell and Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, while finding Timothy E. Wind and Theodore J. Briseno not guilty.