Judge Refuses to Return Koon, Powell to Prison

Five and a half years after exploding across Los Angeles, the Rodney G. King beating case quietly reached what appears to be its final milestone Thursday as a sparsely attended federal court hearing effectively closed out the episode that reshaped the city’s legal and political landscape.

“It’s done,” Michael Stone, the longtime friend and lawyer of former Police Officer Laurence M. Powell, said as he emerged from the hearing. “It’s finally done.”

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies, who presided over the civil rights trial of four police officers charged with violating King’s civil rights, refused to send the two convicted men back to prison, where they had already served more than two years. He also turned down a new prosecution motion to impose fines on them, even though one of the former officers has amassed millions of dollars through his nationwide drive to raise money for his family and legal bills.

Davies’ decision can be appealed, and theoretically prosecutors could ask a higher court to review Thursday’s rulings. But the U.S. Supreme Court already has ruled that judges should be given great discretion in sentencing. Few observers think it likely that the prosecution will wage a protracted, uphill battle on the issue of whether Davies should fine the former officers.

Moreover, even if prosecutors succeeded in convincing an appellate court that Davies had the authority to impose fines, Davies presumably would stand by his refusal to do so.

Nora Manella, the U.S. attorney for the central district of California, said prosecutors were waiting until they received a written copy of Davies’ order before deciding whether to file an appeal.

The defendants, Powell and former LAPD Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, sat silently but attentively through Thursday’s hearing, which lacked the rancor of many previous sessions. In fact, the once-bitter disputes that gripped Davies’ courtroom through the winter and spring of 1993 gave way to a reunion air; before the session began, reporters and lawyers greeted one another amiably, chatting and catching up on old news.

Even Koon and Powell seemed at ease. They smiled and accepted greetings before the hearing. Once it began, however, both declined Davies’ invitation to address the court, answering identically, “No, thank you, Your Honor.”

Although analysts had predicted that Davies would resist sending the two men back to prison, prosecutors added one last twist to the case Thursday by raising an argument not previously addressed in the appeals filed by both sides--the notion that the defendants should be required to pay fines.

Koon was destitute when sentenced by Davies three years ago, and because of that, Davies refused to impose an otherwise mandatory fine; since then, Koon has raised millions of dollars from conservative fund-raising groups and from sales of his book about the case.

As a result, prosecutors argued that Davies should take the opportunity to impose the fine he decided to forgo three years ago. Powell also has raised money through fund-raising efforts, but his have been far more paltry than his former sergeant’s, and Assistant U.S. Atty. Lawrence Middleton pressed the case for fining Powell with considerably less vigor than he argued for fining Koon.

According to Middleton, Koon’s defense fund raised more than $5 million in 1994 and $3.8 million in 1995. Large sums of that money were used to care for Koon’s family and to set up trusts for him, his wife and his children.

Middleton reminded Davies that the judge had shortened the sergeant’s sentence in part because the notoriety of his crime made him susceptible to abuse in prison.

“The defendant . . . has used that same notoriety to profit,” Middleton said. “He’s profited to the tune of $10 million.”

By law, the fines could have ranged from $6,000 to roughly $60,000.

But Davies refused, saying that the law prohibited him from reopening that issue so long after the fact. Davies said he was empowered only to review the incarceration portion of the sentence, not the other conditions attached to it.

Outside court, one of Koon’s lawyers, Ira Salzman, applauded Davies’ ruling and said prosecutors unfairly maligned his client’s fund-raising.

“He didn’t voluntarily invite himself to be a defendant in U.S. vs. Koon,” Salzman said. “He lost his career. He’s now a convicted felon.”

Davies not only rejected the prosecution’s plea for fines, he also unambiguously rejected the government’s efforts to send the officers back to jail.

“There will be no amendment to, no change, no additions to, no subtractions from the original sentence,” the judge proclaimed in the same crisp tones that he used to oversee the sensational criminal trial in 1993.

The episode began March 3, 1991, when Los Angeles police officers tried to arrest King, who had been drinking and driving and who refused to yield when first signaled by authorities to pull over. King then resisted arrest, but after being knocked to the pavement, he was struck dozens of times as he writhed on the ground.

Koon and Powell first were charged with assault along with two other police officers, Timothy E. Wind and Theodore J. Briseno, in state court. The jury in that case found the officers not guilty, with the exception of one count against Powell, on which the panel could not reach a verdict.

Those verdicts stunned much of Los Angeles and the nation. Within hours, Los Angeles was engulfed in the worst riots in modern American history.

The end of the state case did not conclude the matter, however. Instead, federal authorities quickly reopened their probe of the King beating. On Aug. 4, 1992, the four officers were charged again, this time in federal court, where they faced charges of violating King’s civil rights.

After an emotionally intense trial in downtown Los Angeles, the jury acquitted Briseno and Wind but convicted Koon and Powell of violating King’s rights, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. When it came time to sentence Koon and Powell, Davies calculated that the recommended sentence under the federal guidelines called for a term of 70 to 87 months.

But then Davies proceeded to reduce that recommended sentence. King’s wrongful conduct, according to Davies, justified a reduction in the sentence. Several other factors--that the officers had been subjected to two criminal trials, that they stood to lose their jobs, that they posed little risk of committing crimes again and that the notoriety of their crime and their positions as police officers made them susceptible to abuse in prison--together justified a second reduction, Davies ruled.

All told, those factors resulted in a sentencing range of 30 to 33 months. Davies sentenced Koon and Powell to 30 months apiece. They served their time and were released in November 1995.

The officers appealed their convictions, and the prosecution appealed Davies’ sentence. Appellate judges consistently refused to overturn the convictions, but split on the issue of the sentence. A panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that Davies had erred in many respects in imposing the sentence, and directed him to sentence the two former officers within the guideline range, 70 to 87 months.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled that decision. It ruled that trial judges generally should be given deference in imposing sentences, though it did find two errors in Davies’ sentence, which it directed him to consider again.

According to the Supreme Court, Davies was wrong to consider the officers’ loss of their jobs as a reason for lowering their sentences, and he erred in taking into account their low risk of committing future crimes.

Thursday, Middleton argued that eliminating those two factors as valid reasons for reducing the sentences meant that Davies now was obliged to impose longer ones. Davies peppered Middleton with questions about that idea, asking how he should weigh the relative value of those two factors, given that they were lumped together with other grounds to justify the reduction.

“No weight was assigned to any of those four factors,” Davies pointed out.

“Obviously,” Middleton responded, “two is less weighty than four.”

But Davies was unmoved by that reasoning. Instead, he said that even with two of his reasons eliminated, the two that remained were enough to justify the reduction.

With that, Davies then asked the defendants to stand, restated his original sentences against them and let them go. Powell turned to his family and hugged his sister. Koon shook hands with his lawyers. Then the two of them disappeared out a side door and slipped away from the federal courthouse, possibly for the last time.