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Faced with what was probably to be an unsympathetic audience, it may not have been an advantage to Terry White, the soft-spoken, studious-looking lead prosecutor, that he was black. (Alan S. Yochelson, his co-prosecutor, was white.) Though the prosecutors objected strongly when it was first suggested that the trial be moved to Simi Valley, the pair acknowledged that they were powerless to reverse the judge's decision once it had been made. But they could take comfort from the fact that juries in Ventura County had decided against the police in three of the five police-brutality cases conducted there since 1986. And besides -- the prosecution team had the videotape.
But the defense would have the jury. Ten members were white -- six men and four women. Of the two non-whites, both women, one was Hispanic, one Filipino. Ranging in age from 38 to 65, the panel included a maintenance worker, a printer, a retired teacher and a retired real estate broker. Three of the jurors had worked as security guards or patrol officers in the U.S. military. Three others were members of the National Rifle Association. One was the brother of a retired L.A. police sergeant.
Even granting the difficulty there might be in winning over such a group, the prosecutors made some serious errors in building their case. In 29 days of testimony, the prosecution presented only six witnesses, including a passenger from King's speeding car and a husband-wife team of officers from the California Highway Patrol who were present at the beating. In contrast, the defense presented 49 witnesses, almost all of whom were police officers or experts on law enforcement who claimed that the defendants' conduct fell within L.A.P.D. guidelines. White and Yochelson also failed to call any of 30 civilian witnesses to the beating whose testimony might have contradicted that of the defendants.
In what may have been the prosecutors' biggest blunder, they chose not to let King take the stand. Having him testify might have exposed King, who once served time for robbery, to damaging cross-examination. But it would also have compelled the jurors to come face to face with the obscure figure in the videotape. And King could have countered the defense attorneys' contention that he had not been badly injured by the beating. One of the lawyers went so far as to argue that King was not even hit in the head, a claim that he supported with photographs taken of King soon after the beating that showed bruises on his body but not on his head. Though King suffered a broken leg and several broken facial bones, some jurors said later that they accepted the defense argument that he was not badly hurt.
The prosecutors did elicit useful testimony from one of the accused officers, Theodore Briseno, but it is not clear that they gained much advantage from it. Five years ago, Briseno was suspended without pay for 66 days, after a police board of rights found him guilty on four counts of using excessive force. But before the trial, he broke ranks with his three fellow officers. On the stand he testified that they were "out of control" on the night of the beating. He claimed that he had tried to restrain them. Lies, countered two other officers, who said Briseno had told them himself that there was no misconduct involved.