Juror Says Evidence, Not Fear of Riots, Led to Verdicts

The first juror to comment publicly on the Reginald O. Denny beating trial said Thursday that the verdicts were based on the evidence--not a concern that convictions might result in another riot.

Asked about Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti’s contention that jurors reached their verdicts more from a desire for peace than justice, the juror told KCAL-TV Channel 9: “He’s dead wrong. He wasn’t in the room with us. I don’t think he should be speaking for us. He can’t go around saying the verdict was done on peace.”

The juror’s voice was electronically altered, and she appeared on camera in shadows and wearing a baseball cap.

She said the jurors considered testimony from the trial and other evidence in reaching their decisions. “We weren’t thinking: ‘Let’s have this verdict so another riot won’t break out.’ That wasn’t even on our minds.”

Meanwhile, the two truckers who were brutally beaten in the early hours of Los Angeles’ riots last year expressed diametrically opposed views Thursday in separate television interviews on the punishment their attackers should be given.

Reginald O. Denny, whose televised beating was broadcast around the world, said that Damian Monroe Williams--the man convicted of mayhem for attacking him--ought to be given probation.

But Larry Tarvin, another trucker beaten at Florence and Normandie avenues, said Williams and his co-defendant Henry Watson, who was released from jail Wednesday, should have been convicted of more serious crimes that carry harsher sentences.

As the city began to decompress from a week of verdicts handed down piecemeal in the Denny beating trial, Denny’s voice transcended the rage vented on call-in shows in the aftermath of the jury’s decisions.

“I would just recommend a very strong probation, one which Damian Williams would have to check in and totally be accountable,” Denny said on NBC’s “Today” show. “That man has to understand that that type of behavior is unacceptable.”

Williams and Watson had been charged with premeditated attempted murder--which carries a maximum life sentence--stemming from the attack on Denny. Both were found not guilty. Williams was convicted of mayhem and four misdemeanor counts of assaulting other victims, charges carrying a maximum of 10 years in prison. Watson was convicted of a single misdemeanor assault, and jurors were deadlocked on a charge that he assaulted Tarvin with a deadly weapon.

Although the verdicts appalled some Angelenos and relieved others, Denny said Thursday that he has no problem with the jury’s decision.

“Those people took a lot of time out of their lives, and they made the decision and it’s one that, thank God, is available to us in America,” he said.

Tarvin, who was hospitalized for three months after he was dragged from his truck and brutally kicked and beaten, said Williams and Watson “shouldn’t have got off quite as easy as they did.”

Watson was released from jail Wednesday because the 17 months he had served awaiting trial was more than the maximum penalty for the assault for which he was convicted. Williams’ brother, Mark Jackson, said his family is “hoping to get Damian out on bail” while he awaits sentencing Dec. 7 on the mayhem conviction.

“They deserved to get a much harsher punishment for inflicting so much harm to the people in that area,” Tarvin said Thursday on the television show “American Journal.”

He said he is thinking about moving because “it might happen (again) tomorrow or maybe five years from now.”

The juror appearing on KCAL-TV on Thursday said the panel deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of acquitting Watson of assaulting Tarvin with a deadly weapon because “some jurors weren’t willing to lower the count” to a lesser charge.

Jurors deadlocked and a mistrial was declared even though Watson’s lawyer, Earl C. Broady Jr., conceded that Watson was the man prosecutors identified on videotape of the assault. The juror was not asked what reasons jurors gave for their positions.

Still hanging over Williams and Watson is the possibility of a federal indictment on charges of willfully interfering with an individual attempting to do business during a riot, and interfering with a person attempting to operate a vehicle in interstate commerce. The charges carry a punishment of up to 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The U.S. attorney’s office filed those charges against the two men when they were first arrested.

But the charges were dropped with the understanding that they could be refiled depending on the outcome of the state trial. U.S. Atty. Terree A. Bowers said Wednesday that a decision is still pending on any federal action.

Legal scholars say that prosecuting Watson and Williams under federal statutes could be extremely difficult.

Federal prosecutors could charge the pair with violating Denny’s civil rights, but that would require showing that they intentionally conspired to commit certain criminal acts--which is difficult to prove.

The federal charges of interfering with business or interstate commerce also require proof that the perpetrators specifically intended to interfere, not just attack and beat someone.

“The prospects of federal action are extremely remote,” said USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky.

Meanwhile, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge gave Denny and two other riot victims a chance to redraft lawsuits against Los Angeles police and the city. If their new efforts are successful, these could be the first riot victim cases to come to trial in Los Angeles.

About three lawsuits filed by other riot victims have been dismissed because state codes say local governments are not required to provide any police protection.

Although Judge John Leahy dropped similar claims by Denny, Fidel Lopez and Takao Hirata that police were negligent April 29, 1992, he did not dismiss their cases entirely. Instead, he gave their lawyer, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., 40 days to amend their allegations.

Denny, Lopez and Hirata contended that police discriminated in their deployment as the riots began. Officers went to Anglo neighborhoods, they said, but stayed away from black and Latino areas. Each is seeking $40 million in damages, and is pursuing a similar suit in federal court.

Senior Assistant City Atty. Thomas Hokinson expressed confidence that an amended Denny lawsuit would fail. “Before the city can be held liable, it has to have a duty to act,” he said. “There is no duty to act.”

As the legal maneuvering continued Thursday, Watson’s parents, Henry and Joyce Watson, began to pick up the loose ends of dozens of tasks left untended as the tension of their son’s trial left no energy to focus on anything else.

“People were calling all night,” Joyce Watson told her neighbor Pearline Sims. “I practically didn’t get any sleep at all.”

Times staff writers Ashley Dunn, Penelope McMillan and John L. Mitchell contributed to this story.