Parks Vows to Seek New Convictions of Rampart Officers

Reeling from a judge’s decision to toss out the convictions of three Los Angeles police officers, police reform advocates angrily complained Saturday, while Police Chief Bernard C. Parks vowed to pursue convictions a second time.

“This is not over by a long shot,” Parks said in an interview. “It’s unfortunate that we’ve gone through a trial of this length and depth and then to have to go through it again, but we’ll be prepared to refile it if necessary.”

The convictions of the three officers last month were a boost to the investigations of LAPD corruption and signaled the likelihood of more prosecutions to come. But Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor late Friday took the highly unusual step of overruling the jury after concluding that the panel had been confused about some of the evidence before it. Her decision could set up an appeal or a retrial of the three officers, who were convicted of conspiracy and perjury in fabricating charges against gang members. In the interview with The Times, Parks said LAPD investigators would meet in the coming days with officials from the district attorney’s office to consider whether the case would be best pursued by appealing Friday’s ruling or by merely refiling the case and trying it again in front of a new jury. That decision, Parks stressed, would be made by prosecutors, but police would be prepared to support the prosecution in either event.

Another possibility, raised by law enforcement sources close to the Rampart investigation, is that the case be taken over by the U.S. attorney’s office as part of a federal civil rights prosecution.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for newly elected Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, said prosecutors would study Connor’s ruling over the next few weeks before deciding how best to respond. Cooley was vacationing in Hawaii and was not immediately available for comment.

In her ruling, Connor tossed out the jury verdicts against Sgts. Edward Ortiz and Brian Liddy and Officer Michael Buchanan.

The three were found guilty Nov. 15 of conspiring to obstruct justice by fabricating evidence and framing gang members whom they accused of trying to run them down with a pickup truck. The prosecution argued that the assault had never occurred.

The judge concluded that jurors had considered irrelevant and incorrect evidence--testimony that the officers had been victims of assault “with great bodily injury”--in reaching their decisions.

In fact, Connor said, that term was “copspeak” for assault “with force likely to produce great bodily injury”--a far different concept, since it does not require anyone to have actually been injured. She said some jurors apparently voted to convict the officers because they saw no evidence that the officers had been seriously injured, and therefore believed they must have been lying.

She also admitted to having made a “fatal error” herself by denying a jury request to hear a rereading of testimony about “great bodily injury.” At the time, she said, she thought the issue was irrelevant; she realized only later that it was crucial.

Connor did not agree with one defense argument, however: that the jury foreman had tainted the case by expressing bias against the officers. She said she found the allegations troubling, but not solid enough to overturn the verdict.

Connor said she could not let the public’s desire to root out corruption dissuade her from making the right legal decision in the case.

“While recognizing the enormous pressure on the community, on the police force, on the district attorney’s office, and on the courts to ‘fix’ the Rampart scandal, this court is only interested in evaluating the fairness of the proceedings in this court and determining whether justice was done in this case,” Connor wrote.

The judge’s 18-page decision was a potentially crushing setback for police and prosecutors investigating the LAPD corruption scandal. It comes at a time when prosecutors, both in the district attorney’s office and in the U.S. attorney’s office, are gearing up to file possible corruption charges against other LAPD officers.

For the officers in the case before Connor, however, the ruling was a relief and a vindication.

“I am certainly pleased the way the judge analyzed the verdict in the case,” said attorney Barry Levin, who represented Ortiz. “This prosecution was not based on evidence. It was a political prosecution.”

Levin’s remarks were echoed by other lawyers for the defendants, even as Connor’s ruling drew mixed reviews in some legal and police circles.

Winston Kevin McKesson, who represents Rafael Perez, the corrupt former officer who launched the scandal, said there is one thing Connor’s ruling will not change.

“The conscience of the community--the jury--has spoken in this case, and no amount of post-trial legal technicalities can un-ring that bell that the jury rang on the day they rendered their verdict,” McKesson said.

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles), a longtime police reform activist, called Connor’s ruling “an embarrassing decision” with “frightening” ramifications.

This is not the first time Connor’s objectivity has come under question. Before the trial even began, Connor came in for criticism after it was disclosed that before being assigned the Rampart case she had publicly stated that she did not want to see Perez, the former officer at the center of the scandal, in her courtroom.

The statement, which she said was made in jest, came three years after she wrote a glowing commendation calling then-Officer Perez an example of “the best that law enforcement offers its community.”

Connor also issued a series of rulings that many legal observers interpreted as favorable to the defense.

Ruling Has Its Critics, Defenders

Among her critics was attorney Stephen Yagman, who has often criticized local judges for their handling of police abuse cases.

“I’m certainly not surprised to learn that a judge who appeared to be bending over backward in favor of the defense would overturn these verdicts when simply tipping the scale in their favor didn’t adequately bamboozle the jury,” said Yagman, who has made a career of suing the LAPD over alleged civil rights violations.

Others took the opposite view.

Bill Seki, a former prosecutor in the district attorney’s Special Investigations Division who has since joined the defense bar, praised the judge’s decision.

“I think it takes a lot of courage for her to do something that is going to be extremely unpopular with those who didn’t sit through the trial and who don’t know the facts that were presented at trial,” Seki said. “From what I know of what she was presented with, she did the right thing.”

Seki is one of two lawyers representing Perez’s former partner, Nino Durden, who is charged with attempted murder and is expected to stand trial early next year.

Perez never took the stand in the trial that concluded in November. During much of it, he was dogged by the allegations of a former lover that he had killed a drug dealer and buried the body in Tijuana. The alleged crime, which Perez denied, could have been used in an attempt to impeach him if he had been called as a witness.

The woman has since recanted her allegations and pleaded guilty to making false statements to authorities. Seki said that could revive Perez as a witness, not only against Durden, but in a new trial for the first three officers as well.

On Saturday, Chief Parks declined to comment on the likelihood of Perez’s testifying, saying that, too, is a decision for prosecutors.

“We’ve said all along that Perez has to be corroborated by physical evidence,” the chief said. “That’s true in this case. The prosecution did an excellent job with this case in the trial, and they’ll be even better prepared next time.”

In her ruling, Connor criticized the prosecution for waiting until the end of the trial to announce that it wouldn’t be calling Perez as a witness, a decision that forced the defense to waste time preparing for a nonexistent star witness. She also criticized the news media for what she described as inaccurate reporting that might have tainted the case.

The judge’s ruling created little noticeable stir in the central Los Angeles neighborhoods served by the Rampart police division. At the heart of the district, the streets around MacArthur Park were filled with familiar sights, sounds and smells Saturday evening--street vendors cooking hot dogs, storefront stereos blaring music in Spanish and English, crowds of holiday shoppers on the sidewalks. There was little sense that the judge’s ruling would have an effect on people’s lives.

“It’s too bad, but it won’t make a difference,” said Afsaneh Abaian, the owner of “Big $5 Fashion” on West 7th Street. Police, he said, “don’t care about this area. There’s so much prostitution and drugs and people offering to sell you fake Social Security cards, driver’s licenses. But they don’t do anything about it.”

In a news conference at his Brentwood office, defense attorney Levin said the case from the beginning wasn’t evaluated on the strength of evidence but on public pressure.

“There was a marked lack of physical evidence. I am thankful that we have a system of checks and balances so that, when there is a mistake, it can be rectified,” he said.

He said Ortiz was “extremely pleased” that the court set aside the verdict. “My client has been through a lot. My client is relieved.”

*

Times staff writers Richard Winton, Jason Song and Twila Decker contributed to this story.