American Travesty : How justice failed the Rodney King cops

Truth will out, however, and a similar version of events emerged from an analysis by U.S. district judge John G. Davies, who presided over the federal trial. Davies, a naturalized citizen who had won an Olympic gold medal in swimming for his native Australia and practiced law for 27 years before being named to the bench by Ronald Reagan, was thorough and fair. He had no access to the Internal Affairs report and undertook his own moment-by-moment examination of the videotape before sentencing Koon and Powell. The judge's analysis suggested to some trial observers that he might have found Koon (and conceivably even Powell) innocent had the decision been his. But because the jury had spoken, Davies was limited to determining when the unlawful conduct began. He decided the officers had behaved legally until the final 19 seconds of the incident when they continued to hit King after he was no longer resistant. This meant that King's injuries were the result of lawful action. King's broken cheekbone and facial cuts were caused by Powell's first blow. His other significant injury, a broken right fibula, occurred at the forty-third second of the video. In summary, Davies found that the officers had been caught up in a difficult arrest of a resistant suspect but should have stopped the beating slightly sooner than they did. This had also been the finding of Tzimeas, the Internal Affairs detective.

The government, cheered on by black leaders, sought long sentences-nine to ten years (the maximum) for Koon and seven to nine years for Powell. Davies was hemmed in by federal sentencing guidelines that have transferred discretion from judges to prosecutors, who can increase sentences by tacking on "enhancements" for particular acts. In this case the government sought an enhancement because of King's injuries. Davies demurred. In a bold sentencing memorandum, he cited several mitigating factors, starting with the fact that "Mr. King's wrongful conduct contributed significantly" to the incident. Davies noted that the defendants would be punished by losing their livelihood and that the successive prosecutions of the officers in state and federal courts, "though legal, raise a specter of unfairness." He sentenced Koon and Powell to 30 months in prison and also rejected the government's demands for fines, saying that Koon "has five dependent children who would be unduly burdened if a fine was imposed" and that Powell was unable to pay. The government appealed the sentences, contending that Davies had strayed from the federal guidelines. After a liberal panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the government, the sentences were unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court and have become, in the words of Briseno's attorney, Harland Braun, "the seminal case in restoring a modicum of judicial discretion." (The biggest beneficiaries of this discretion, incidentally, have been blacks and Latinos.)