Activist led jury in King civil trial

Ester Soriano, 61, a Filipino American civil rights activist who was the jury forewoman in the civil damages trial of Rodney G. King, died April 3 at a Los Angeles hospital of complications from liver cancer surgery, said her sister, Emily Deitrich.

King, who was black, was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers in 1991, an incident that would help spark riots the next year after the officers were acquitted. He brought a civil action against the city.

Soriano facilitated a discussion between jurors who were split on whether King should get significant punitive damages.

The jury awarded King $3.8 million in compensatory damages but no punitive damages.

“She was trying to be fair and listen to both sides like she always did,” Deitrich said. “But later she said she thought he should have gotten more money” and punitive damages.

A nationally recognized mediator, Soriano worked 37 years for Los Angeles County and created its dispute resolution program.

She helped found several social service and political groups, including the Search to Involve Filipino Americans, Asian American Drug Abuse Program, Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment and National Committee for the Restoration of Civil Liberties in the Philippines.

Soriano was born April 6, 1946, in Santa Paula to Filipino migrant farmworkers and graduated from Whittier College in 1968.

She was married to Raymond “Masai” Hewitt, a former high-ranking member of the Black Panther Party who died in 1988.