Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 23, 1993 TAG: 9304230473
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAXTON DAVIS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Two cops guilty, two not, said the jury; and that allowed it, and the court system, to distribute goodies, like Christmas presents, in every direction:
For the blacks of South Central Los Angeles, the verdict offered at least the appearance of rough justice. The two most aggressive patrolmen drew convictions and the possibility of serious sentences.
For black Los Angeles and black America, the verdict seemed partially to redress what they saw as the rank injustice of a state jury's acquittal of all four last year.
For Los Angeles as a whole, the verdict bestowed peace instead of the cataclysmic rioting that followed the 1992 acquittals; riots had been widely predicted by the news media and, apparently, many citizens of the metropolitan area.
For many throughout America, including President Bill Clinton, the verdict appeared to prove that "the system works," whatever that means; and there was widespread rejoicing, in this newspaper as elsewhere, at the outcome.
Since I, too, was pleased at the verdict and saw it as belated but honest repudiation of the police-state mentality of ex-police chief Darryl Gates, I cannot quarrel with that satisfaction. During my reporting days, I was present only too often when white detectives mauled black suspects, and I have no affection for that cruel and obscene contempt for the rights of human beings.
Yet the outcome of the King case leaves many troubling questions unanswered.
Was bringing federal civil-rights charges against the four defendants after a state court had acquitted them a flagrant episode of double jeopardy? I believe it was, and that the case, whose outcome now pleases so many, would never have come to trial again if the first verdict had not displeased so many. Whatever you think of the first trial, or the second, the principle that no one may be tried a second time after being acquitted once is a precious constitutional right that it is folly to jettison because one disagrees with a verdict.
Is the fact that a trial "pleases" many, or that it is conducted in an atmosphere demanding a particular verdict, a guarantee of "justice" or an impediment to it? The King trial and its verdict were wholly political, I believe, and the loud public demand for conviction was the demand of a lynch mob, not a concerned citizenry hungry for "justice."
Was the absence of rioting in Los Angeles this year the result of a verdict that satisfied its black citizens or the result of police work, under the leadership of Chief Willie Williams, that prepared for trouble, patrolled the streets and arranged for reinforcements in case they were needed? The black leadership of Los Angeles deserves credit too, for it worked ceaselessly to discourage civil unrest.
Does the trial do anything to deal with the inner-city decay and accompanying destructiveness that played so important a role in last year's riots? Have the residents of South Central Los Angeles received "justice" or only a couple of white cops' scalps?
In short, did the system "work" or was the second trial yet another instance, like so much else these days, of surrender to public opinion?
\ AUTHOR Paxton Davis is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB