Why? The same infamous 81-second videotape of the King beating was played repeatedly in both trials. Both juries deliberated for more than 30 hours. What did 12 federal jurors see that their counterparts in Simi Valley could not? What did prosecutors offer them in evidence and nuance that was left out last year? Until a reunion comes when all 24 jurors compare notes, there can be no final answer. Yet in explaining the conflicting verdicts, several key points emerge:
Federal prosecutors Steven Clymer and Barry Kowalski-already skilled litigators-knew the blunders of the state case last year and the weak links in defense strategy. Prosecutions rarely get a second chance, given the constitutional prohibition of double jeopardy. But a federal civil-rights prosecution is considered a separate crime from a state charge of assault. So even though they had a more difficult legal task this time because they had to show that the cops maliciously intended to rough up King, Clymer and Kowalski started with the advantage of hindsight.
This was a no-brainer for the Feds, given the debacle of Simi Valley, where King was silent. It was emotion rather than substance that his testimony provided. He spoke softly, he dressed meticulously. “He turned out not to be the monster he had been portrayed as in the state case,” says Prof. Laurie Levinson of Loyola-Marymount law school.
In Simi Valley, prosecutors assumed the videotape would do their job for them. It may have for the Feds, but they made sure to put on new witnesses to bolster the visceral and technical aspects of their case. Civilian bystanders vividly described the beating; a police expert testified that the cops’ use of force went way over the line.
Officer Theodore Briseno didn’t testify this time, but the judge still allowed the prosecution to play back his testimony from last year when he said his colleagues were “out of control” during the beating. This may have been damning evidence against Officer Laurence Powell and Sgt. Stacey Koon, since it offered the view of a cop involved at the scene.
Keeping Briseno and Officer Timothy Wind in the case, despite the weak evidence against them, may have been an attempt to let the jury acquit two while still convicting Powell and Koon.
Kowalski and Clymer tripped a few times, but the defense made the big mistakes. Not calling Powell, who landed most of the blows in the videotape, was akin to state prosecutors keeping King off the stand. The jury might have assumed he had something to hide. (Powell did testify last year.) Further, several defense witnesses-most notably Officer Melanie Singer, who took up the high-speed car chase that led to King’s arrest-wound up scoring points for the prosecution. The prosecution also benefited from getting a racially diverse jury from an urban area; the Simi Valley jury was mostly white and came from a suburb filled with retired cops.
A final, cynical explanation for the convictions this time is that the 12 jurors knew all too well what a full acquittal could mean. “The difference between this case and last year’s were the riots,” says Harland Braun, Briseno’s lawyer. The Simi Valley trial surely taught the perils of a criminal-justice system that’s perceived to be racist. But a system that’s perceived as political–one that responds to public pressure as much as evidence–isn’t much better. However popular last week’s split verdict was, its burden is to prove itself just.
