Rodney King Video notes

Police start chasing King. High speed night chase through LA.

P’s case

First officer on the scene, who sees King being struck, but photos don’t reflect that.
Emergency room nurse who overheard a conversation where Powell said to King, “we played a little ball tonight didn’t we?” “I don’t know what you mean” “We played a little hardball tonight, do you remember who was playing?” “I guess so” “we won and you lost, or something to that effect”
Another emergency room nurse, Powell: “It’s a good thing i’m not going to the game; i woudn’t want you to be my ushers.” He later made a comment that he asked Mr. King if he remembered the game that they played that night. “Did you see the game we played tonight?” “I don’t know” “Oh come on, don’t you remember, we had a pretty good hardball game tonight.” He didn’t realize what they were talking about. “Don’t you remember that hardball game, we hit a few home runs.” “Oh yes, I remember, you did have a pretty good ball game tonight.”
Powell’s messeges sent on the computer in the car: “Oops” “What?”
- “I haven’t beaten anyone this bad in a long time”
- “just beat and tased… big time”
Powell makes call to hospital laughing while describing the wounds
P then turned to King’s injuries. Doctor testified that King required more than 20 stitches.

Hearsay problems?

statements offered and admitted that Powell and Koons made: No problems, because there is an exclusion to the hearsay rule for statements of the party opponent. In this case, the state is one party, and the party opponents are the Defendants. Any statements made by D, if relevant, are admissible. This is not an exception; rather, it’s an exclusion. This isn’t hearsay.
- Why? The problem with hearsay is the unavailability of W’s testimonial capacities for purposes of testing. The D is considered to be someone empowered by the procedure to take the stand, if D wants, and explain any statement. B/c D can testify, then statements made by D aren’t subject to hearsay problems.
- Statement by party opponent rule so strong that they're often admitted no matter what (expert statements when not an expert, if didn't know was making the statement, etc)
Nurse's testimony: King's statements are admitted to explain why the officer kept talking
- like the res gestae admission. when you have two sides to a conversation, and the other side is admissible, the other side becomes admissible -- not for its truth, but to give context
Officer testifying about messages going back and forth. P says they're introduced to show state of mind. That's a bit misleading, since he's a party opponent. But if not a party opponent, there's a state of mind exception, since you can stop at the state of mind without worrying about memory and perception

Other notes

P didn’t call Rodney King. They have their reasons, but they don’t seem to be good reasons.
- Protecting from impeachment

D’s Case

state of mind when seeing this buffed out person? “My initial state of mind is that he was an ex con”
I ordered her to step back, because you don’t inject a gun into a situation with an uncontrolled D
Next thing I saw, Powell was thrown off and officer Brecino landed on his behind
Did you say anything before you tased him? Yes: I ordered him to get down.
“PCP is a policeman’s nightmare. They exhibit superstrength. They equate it with a monster”
- let in on state of mind
- scared that he’s still getting up after being hit multiple times
“this was a managed and controlled use of force”
“sometimes police work is brutal. That’s just a fact of life.”
Koons referrs to the standards and policies of the LAPD, and claims his officers were using minimum force according to the guidelines.

At the time, there were three levels of force when arresting an LAPD suspect:

force with a cooperative suspect: can’t hit, choke, shoot
force with an uncooperative suspect, but not posing a deadly threat: baton, in a non-deadly manner (hit below the head; baton to the head = considered lethal)
force with a suspect posing a threat of deadly force: choke-hold, baton to the head and shooting
the guidelines further specify that the objective of the appliation of force = to bring difficult to control arrestees into “compliance mode” (lying down, face own, hands behind your back)
- if he’s moving toward compliance, you must desist violence

Expert testimony

Duke dissects the case, testifying that the blows and kicks as direct reactions to aggressive moves made by King
If you allow the suspect to rise to his feet, you allow the potential escalation into deadly force
P challenges expert’s conclusions
- when you saw this tape, did you think that it showed excessive force? “I never form an opinion until I see all the facts… No”