American Notes Trials

Since it first aired a year ago, the brutal scene of Los Angeles policemen beating motorist Rodney King senseless has been replayed hundreds of times. Last week attorneys for the four officers charged with assault faced a tough assignment: convincing a jury that what they saw was not what it seemed.

The defense argued that King, a convicted robber who was on parole at the time, was high on the drug PCP and had brought the beating on himself by leading officers on a high-speed chase, then ignoring their orders to lie down on the ground. The prosecution counters that such actions, even if proved, did not justify excessive force. The trial is expected to last into next month.

Minority-rights advocates fear that the absence of blacks on the jury and the decision to move the trial to predominantly white Ventura County might increase the cops' chances of acquittal. Last week more than two dozen civil rights and community groups held a rain-dampened candlelight vigil at the site of King's beating. "More is at stake than the trial of four police officers," said Joe Hicks, one of the organizers. "Justice is what's at stake."