(5 of 5)
Some legal experts say that white jurors are often inclined to give police the benefit of the doubt in cases involving brutality, particularly if the victim is black. "I've had cases where black clients have been beaten up by the police," says John Powell, national legal director of the A.C.L.U. "To be candid, I have soft-pedaled that ((in court)). If you have an all-white jury, most white people are not inclined to believe that the police beat blacks if unprovoked."
In the eyes of many people, both white and black, it appears that the jury simply chose to nullify the evidence -- to put it aside in making their decision -- which American law allows. "The jury wanted to acquit, despite the fact that the evidence was very clear," says Jerome Skolnick, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "They could not see putting those nice, white policemen in jail."
Attorney John Burton is representing Bryant Allen, one of the other men riding in the car that night with Rodney King. Burton contends that the jury is not so much to blame as the prosecutors from the office of a district attorney who must normally work with the police in convicting criminals. "That alliance is more important than any conviction," he insists. "From the way it was tried, I can't believe that the D.A.'s office actually wanted a conviction in this case."
The acquittal cannot have provided much satisfaction to many who watched the beating of King or the televised rioting that broke out once it was announced. The four officers still face the possibility of federal charges for violating King's civil rights. And the videotape will go on to haunt the nation with its scene of what still looks like sanctioned sadism. For most Americans, no legal argument about the stages of police procedure can explain away those images, though legal argument may have worked for 12 jurors in Simi Valley who were disposed to heed it. To most Americans, black and white, in this case good lawyering triumphed over justice itself.