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Slow Burn
The L.A. Riots | 5. The System
00:39:18
The officers who beat Rodney King had been caught in the act. Why wasn’t that enough to secure a conviction?
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Zero Proof delivers the taste, aroma and bite of real spirits without the alcohol. Whiskey for a sour, gin for a gt, agave for a margarita. There's a zero proof option for every cocktail. A simple one to one swap makes it easy to mix, enjoy and keep your goals on track. This January, choose more More flavor, more cocktails, more moments. Ditch the rules, keep the ritual. Find yours@ritual0proof.com a quick warning this episode has some explicit language. John Barnett got a phone call one night in March 1991. It was a friend of his telling him to turn on the local news. The video of four police officers beating Rodney King had just come out and he says, you see the the cop who's kicking the guy on the ground? That's your client. Barnett's friend was a lawyer for the LAPD's officers union. He wanted Barnett to represent Theodore Brasino, one of the four cops on the tape. Barnett watched the video and formed his own opinion about what he was seeing, the same way everyone else did. I thought then, and I think now, that it was a shocking display. You can see the brutality of it. Still, Barnett accepted the job. He had never handled a case that got as much attention as this one would. When we went to court, we met in an underground place and they told us to put on flak jackets. That was my first big clue that this was going to be different because they wanted the lawyers to wear vests. And not before and not since has there been a case where they were taking such safety precautions. For the defense lawyers, Barnett had represented clients accused of committing awful crimes, from serial killers to child molesters to a lot of people in Los Angeles, the officers who'd beaten Rodney King were just as unsympathetic. A poll showed that 81% of potential jurors there believed the officers were probably guilty. If the defense was to have any hope at all, they'd need to find a much friendlier jury pool. Here's Russell Cole, an attorney for another of the four officers. The defense wanted to try to get the trial into a county where there was a better chance for a predominantly white jury. No question about it. Did anybody ever say that out loud? No, not that I recall. It's just the truth. That was not the argument the officer's lawyers made when they asked the court to move the trial out of Los Angeles. Instead, they claimed the nonstop media coverage had created too much bias to have a fair trial there. It was wall to wall coverage, morning to night. Every commentator on every issue in the case held the same position. These guys, these police officers are guilty. And that's what the atmosphere was as we approached litigation. And so I felt that we must seek a change of venue. The defense's request was a long shot. LA saw plenty of high profile trials. Lawyers often asked to have those cases moved. But judges seldom granted their request. The city had a huge and diverse jury pool, the biggest for any superior court in the country. There were few places where you were more likely to find 12 jurors with genuinely open minds. When you filed that motion, what did you think the odds were of it being granted? Statistically, it would be one in a thousand. The case had been assigned to Superior Court Judge Bernard Kamins. When he heard the defense attorney's request for a change of venue, he waffled. First he scheduled the trial for Los Angeles. Then he said he'd be open to moving it elsewhere. The prosecutors were alarmed. They knew that a move out of LA could mean a wider jury that would be friendlier to the officers. At this point, Kamins did something out of the ordinary. He sent one of his law clerks to the prosecutor's office to reassure them to say, basically, don't worry, I've got this. Indeed, the next day came and said again that he was sure a fair jury could be seated in la. That private message to the prosecutors had been improper. Judges aren't supposed to communicate with only one side in a trial. Well, it was very unusual. And look, it's a very high profile case and everybody's trying to do the best they can, and sometimes they don't do the best there is. Eventually, an appeals court overruled Kamens. Those judges wrote that there had been so much media coverage and so much political fallout that there is a reasonable likelihood that a fair and impartial trial cannot be had in Los Angeles County. A month later, that same appeals court removed Judge Kamens from the case. They said his communication with the prosecutors indicated that he had abandoned his status as a neutral decision maker and focused the spotlight on himself. Three months later, Judge Stanley Weisberg was assigned to take his place. Weisberg's first task was to decide where the trial would be held. We were given three choices. That's Terry White, the lead prosecutor in the case. Riverside, Alameda and Ventura. Of those three, Alameda county is the most diverse. It's home to the city of Oakland, where a lot of black folks live. That was the prosecution's preferred choice for white. Ventura was by far the worst of the options. What did you know about Ventura county, if anything? I think we knew that there were a lot of law enforcement in that community. I assume it didn't look like it would have looked if it was in downtown la. That's true. It did not look like it would have in downtown Los Angeles. I'll leave it at that. In 1991, just 2% of Ventura county residents were black. Here's how another prosecutor, Roger Gunson, described the population of Ventura County. You want to get away from crime and violence, and people equate that with blacks in this community. And so they want to get out of Los Angeles County. They want to go elsewhere. Well, where do the people go? They go to Ventura County. They characterize it at better schools or safer places to live or whatever. But they were all moving out there for the same reason. On November 26, Judge Weisberg did what the prosecution had been dreading. He chose Ventura County. He announced the trial would take place in the city of Simi Valley. Anywhere in Ventura county would have been bad for the prosecution, but Simi Valley might have been the worst possible choice. 80% of the city was white. Only 1 1/2% was black. And Simi Valley had a specific reputation for hostility to black people. In the 1950s, signs were posted in the city that read, no niggers or dogs allowed. The head of Ventura County's NAACP chapter said they would be better off going to Mississippi for the defendants. Ventura county would do just fine. Russell Cole again, you know, it was the sense of relief, if not being pleased, that we ended up in Simi Valley. Everyone was surprised. It was like, wow. Oh, hey, okay. All right. That worked. The lead prosecutor, Terry White, did his best to be optimistic. He told the LA Times that we think we can get a fair trial in Ventura County. I asked him, black man to black man. If he had really believed that, I would say I believed it up until the time we started selecting the jury. Why did Judge Stanley Weisberg pick such a white place for a trial where race was an important factor? He didn't respond to our request for an interview, but after the trial, he said he wasn't thinking about demographics when he picked Simi Valley, only the cost of moving the trial further away. Terry White told me he thought the judge had a personal reason for choosing Ventura County. The prosecutors and defense attorneys lived out of a Radisson Hotel in Simi Valley for the duration of the trial. But Judge Weisberg, he lived in a home nearby. Weisberg said that didn't influence his decision. I'll say this, he drove to court every day. It was an easy drive for him. This is Slow Burn. I'm your host, Joel Anderson. In Los Angeles. The trial of the four officers charged in the beating of Rodney King was all anyone was talking about, from City hall to South Central. Despite the move to Simi Valley, lots of people still felt that justice would be served. After all, the whole incident had been caught on tape. So how did the prosecution make its case against the police? How did the officers hold up under questioning? And what happened when the verdict was announced? This is Episode five, the System. Officers Lawrence Powell, Stacy Coon, Theodore Brasino, and Timothy Wind were charged with assault and use of excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Powell and Coon were also charged with filing false police reports. On February 5, 1992, jury selection in the trial of the officers started at the East County Courthouse in Simi Valley. The jurors who must decide will be selected from a pool of 2,000 people. It's going to be very hard to find people who have not either seen the videotape or are not influenced by it. 260 potential jurors showed up at the courthouse over several days. Of those 260, only six were black. Joel and Demetrius worked as a jury consultant for the defense. In an interview in 1993, she said she could tell that those six were uncomfortable because there were so few that were there. The ones that were there obviously were going to be under a lot of pressure. And again, they live in basically a lily white area. And, you know, there was so much publicity surrounding it that I think these People just basically were scared and figured out the way to get out of it before they actually got into that jury box. Those six prospective jurors were all excused. No black people would help decide if the officers were guilty for the prosecution. Their problems with the jury went beyond race. Potential jurors were asked about their attitudes toward the case. Terry White, the lead prosecutor, after we went through those questionnaires, it was clear that we were not going to get a panel that we would have liked. Prospective jurors who thought the cops in George Holiday's videotape used excessive force were eliminated. So you're left with people who basically say, I have made up my mind, as opposed to most of the people who saw the video and said this was outrageous. The jurors who remained were more open to the officer's version of offense. They included one Latino, one Asian American, and 10 white people and ranged in age from 34 to 65. On the questionnaires, eight of them expressed strong support for law enforcement. It was a dream panel for the defense and for jury consultant Joellen Demetrios. We actually rank people on a pro defense to pro prosecution basis by number. We had four of our top 10 jurors on that jury. We had our number one juror, our number two juror, our number four, and our number seven. The remainder of the other eight jurors were in the top 50%. And I tell you, when I walked out of that courtroom, I have never felt like that. I have never felt as though if there could be a slam dunk. This was a slam dunk. The trial of the four police officers began on March 5, almost a year to the day after they'd been caught on tape beating Rodney King. Moving the trial to Simi Valley didn't diminish the media spectacle. Newspapers and broadcast outlets sent reporters to cover daily developments. The proceedings were also broadcast live on a local TV station and a new cable outlet, Court tv. The station offered gavel to gavel coverage that was available in most major US Cities. This was one of the first big trials where hundreds of thousands of people could watch from the comfort of their homes. On a 14 second delay, the prosecution called 21 witnesses, including one of King's passengers, Bryant Allen, and the nurse who treated King after the beating. But the jury didn't hear from King himself. The prosecutors thought he wouldn't help their case. Looking back on it now, I think he had ptsd. I think the trauma of the incident was such that he just didn't recall it. The prosecution wanted to call an Expert on police practices to make the case that the cops had used unnecessary force, but they couldn't find anyone willing to testify. These national experts, they train police officers, so testifying for against a police officer is going to affect their business. They're not going to be able to train police officers anymore if they're gonna testify against police officers. Prosecutors had also hoped that LAPD Chief Daryl Gates would take the stand. Gaetz had publicly criticized the officer's conduct and promised they would be disciplined. But testifying against them in court was further than he was prepared to go. The district attorney's office decided not to subpoena him for fear he might harm their case. I just think it was very similar to a code of silence, because when you have the chief of police who's willing to get on the stand and say what these officers did was wrong. Back 30 years ago, there weren't too many chiefs of police who would do something like that because they realized that their officers are not going to like it. The prosecution did have high hopes for one witness, California Highway Patrol Officer Melanie Singer. Singer was part of the husband and wife team that pursued King and tried to arrest him before the LAPD took control. On her first day on the stand, she offered a detailed recollection of how the night began and then of the beating itself. Her testimony was shown live on Court TV and and KTTV locally. It was the first public account of what happened that night from a law enforcement officer who'd been at the scene. Then Officer Powell came up to the right of him. In a matter of seconds, he took out his baton. He had it in a power swing and struck the driver right across the top of the cheekbone, splitting his face from the top of his ear to his chin, where blood split out, poured out. Terri White, you know, she was very emotional, as most people were that saw this. So I thought she was an excellent witness. But when the defense put Singer under cross examination, she stumbled. I didn't think I'd have the degree of success that I did with Melanie because she heard I was able to make her look foolish. I think that's Mike Stone, an attorney who represented Officer Lawrence Powell. Singer had testified that King never tried to attack the officers. Now Stone handed her a copy of a report she submitted the day after the beating, in which she wrote that King had kicked and punched them. For those who were following the trial closely on tv, this was revelatory. Singer was supposed to be a key witness for the prosecution, but here she came across as uncertain, even confused. Second to the last sentence, where it says the subject became almost violent and not faltering at all in his steps, but continued to take swings at the officers. Wild swings? Yes, sir. Wild swings. Yes, sir. Takes. It says to take swings at the officers. Correct. I'm saying how I interpret it. He was swinging wildly. One of those people watching Get Home was Rodney King. In an interview after the trial, Terry White said that King called him as soon as Singer finished her testimony. And he was very angry. He was using profanity. He was very abusive about Melanie Singer. And what first struck me about that was, gee, he's watching the trial. Because normally, you know, you don't have these things on television and you're not supposed to. Witnesses are normally excluded from a the courtroom, so witnesses can't see other witnesses testify. So that was the first thing that struck my mind, was, gee, he shouldn't be watching the trial. The prosecution didn't have testimony from the victim or a strong expert or a trustworthy eyewitness. But they still had the centerpiece of their case. George Holiday's tape. We'll be right back. George Holiday's videotape seemed like the solution to a persistent problem in police brutality cases. Finally, there was concrete and visceral evidence of violence that police couldn't deny or downplay. Terry White made that evidence the focus of his case. The crux of this trial is the videotape that caught the four officers in the act this morning. The prosecutor's pictures spoke as strongly as his words. You have a man who is down, a man who is not aggressive, a man who is not resisting. Yet those blows from Officer Powell and Officer Wynn's batons continue and continue and continue. In his opening statement, White played George Holiday's entire 81 second recording of the beating and not the 68 second edit that was aired over and over again on TV. White thought the full video made his case even stronger, in part because of the audio track. It was always incredible to me that the defense did not try to exclude the entire version of the tape, because on the entire version of the tape, you could hear people talking who were across the street talking about how bad the beating was. The defense attorneys thought the extended video actually helped their case. At the start of that longer version of the tape, it looks like Rodney King is maybe lunging toward one of the cops. Most people had never seen that. The edited version shows the officers beating a submissive victim. The full tape is still brutal, but makes a more plausible case that the cops felt threatened by King. The defense repeatedly played the tape hammering home that point of view. There's another reason the tape didn't bolster the prosecution's case as much as Terry White had hoped. I had seen the tape so much, I kind of glazed over it. I was always looking for something different. That's Rick Serrano of the LA Times. He covered the trial every day, sitting right behind the defendants. So the tape was, you know, exhibit A all the way through this trial. And, yeah, you do get desensitized by it. That was part of the defense's strategy. The hope was to numb the jurors to the brutality of the tape. Defense attorney John Barnett. When you see it 10 times, then you sort of know the ending. When you see it a hundred times and you see it in slow motion and you have it dissected by use of force experts by each witness. When you look at it frame by frame, you lose or one loses the effect of it. So the video wasn't the game changer the prosecutors had wanted it to be. But it did present the defense with a difficult question. Why did the beating go on for as long as it did? Even if you saw the images of King lunging at the officers and believed that they felt threatened, it was hard to understand why they continued to beat and kick him for more than a minute after he had fallen to the ground. That was what the four defendants had to explain when they took the stand. On March 19, the defense called Stacy Coon to the witness stand. Coon was the LAPD sergeant who took control of the arrest that night. He was the first accused officer to publicly share his perspective on the King beating. Coon began his testimony talking about himself. He spoke about growing up in Southern California, earning master's degrees and providing for his wife of 20 years and their five children. He said he joined the LAPD because he wanted to help people. Then he moved on to Rodney King and the events of March 3, 1991. His attorney played George Holiday's videotape, the tape that seemed to incriminate him. Coon used it to make the case that he was not guilty of using excessive force. Using a wooden pointer, he broke down the video second by second. He pointed to moments when he said King was trying to get up and attack the officers. Coons sounded confident and coolly analytical. He relished the attention. In his autobiography, he claimed the TV audience more than doubled when he was on the stand. I directed them to hit Mr. King in his joints. I ordered them to hit his elbows, his wrists, his knees and his ankles. Why did you do that because from my perspective perception, the blows that had initially struck his arms and legs and torso were not having any effect at all. And when you say any effect at all, what were you trying to accomplish? Sergeant Kent? I was trying to get Mr. King to submit using pain compliance. And what made you believe that he had not complied? He gave me no indication either through facial or through any non verbal that he was feeling any pain. John Barnett, he was one of the best witnesses I've ever seen anytime, anywhere. He's in the worst position. He's been characterized as the leader of a bunch of thugs in uniform and he was the best witness I've ever seen anywhere. For Coons cross examination the next day, Terry White seated the floor to his co counsel Alan Yokelson. That part of Coons testimony made all three network news broadcasts later that evening. Under cross examination, sergeant Stacy Coon conceded that the beating officers under his command gave Rodney King was the most violent use of force he had seen in his 14 and a half years on the job. At the same time he insisted that the use of force, some 56 blows, was necessary. Watching the videotape now, is it your testimony that every one of the blows that you see on there is a justified use of force? It's a reason reasonable and necessary using the minimum force. Yes sir, that is my testimony. Coons said he believed King was able to withstand the blows and the electric shocks from Coons Taser. Because he was high on pcp, King never showed a trace of the drug in his system. The prosecution was arguing that no one deserved to get beaten this brutally by the police, no matter who they were. Stacy Coon was saying the King wouldn't have complied otherwise. That King had been the aggressor, that the officers had been the ones under attack. Let's take a quick break. So far a lot of things had gone well for the defense. They'd gotten a rare change of venue and what seemed like an extremely sympathetic jury. They'd neutralized the prosecution's strongest evidence and the defendant with the highest profile had delivered a persuasive performance on the witness stand. But not everything broke their way. Of the four defendants, Lawrence Powell was the youngest and the most vulnerable. He led his division in arrest and had developed a reputation for being more cocky than competent. He had landed the most blows on King and the prosecution had some damning evidence against him. They had shown the jury racist messages he'd sent on his patrol car's computer and the messages in which he joked about the beating. And when it was his turn to testify. He was no Stacey Coon. Terry White. The thing about Lawrence Powell was he just had a lot of explaining to do and, you know, he didn't explain very well. On April 1, Powell testified that he was following Stacey Coons orders. He said of when he tells me to do things and they're in department policy and I feel they're reasonable, then by all means you do them or you're in trouble. Terry White pressed Powell about who was to blame if the beating got out of hand. Powell was evasive. For those tuning into the trial, it was a jolt to watch them spar in news reports. Most correspondents who'd been in the courtroom led their stories with the clash between the two. Hypothetically speaking, if there was excessive force used out there that night, would Sergeant Coon be responsible for that excessive force? That's not a question that can be answered. That doesn't make sense. It's not a question you want to answer, is it? And in one of the trial's most combative exchanges, White asked Powell about one of the computer messages. In an earlier incident, Powell had used the term guerrillas in the mist to describe black people. It was the first time race was directly addressed during the trial, and the confrontation was later replayed on cable news. It was one thing to read their exchange in print, but quite another to see and hear it on tv. Even though he is a suspect and even though he is suspected of committing a crime, this man is still a human being, isn't he? Yes, sir. He deserves to be treated like a human being, didn't he? Yes, sir. He wasn't an animal, was he? No, sir. Just acting like one. He wasn't. He was just acting like one. Yes, sir. Was he acting like a gorilla? No, sir. Terry White. He was a horrible witness. He was horrible. He didn't do very good at all. Powell did a poor job defending his actions, but one of the other defendants, Theodore Brasino, tried to separate himself from his colleagues entirely. During opening statements, it had become clear that there would be a break between Bracino and the other officers. Lawyers for Kuhn, Powell and Timothy Wind argued that everything those officers had done to King was reasonable and appropriate. Bracino's attorney, John Barnett, said that the beating had gotten out of hand and that his client had tried to stop it. My story was going to be Ted Brasino as has nothing much to do with this, and you can make whatever decisions you want about the other officers for the prosecution. This was an opportunity to play the officers against each other. When you have one defendant basically saying that the other defendants are guilty, that's favorable to the prosecution. It was clear that he was selling out the other three defendants. On the witness stand, Bracino said that he yelled at Powell to get the hell off King and that he called on Coon to intervene. Bracino testified that when the beating was over, he returned to his patrol car. His partner, a rookie who hadn't participated in the beating, was waiting there. Bracino said he told them that the other officers had gone overboard. From his seat behind the defense, LA Times reporter Rick Serrano thought Brasino's testimony might have sealed the officer's fate. You could see the tension. Maybe Powell's gonna get convicted, but I'm not. I'm trying to save my skin, but I'm not gonna roll on this guy. But you saw that blue wall crumbling right there in the courthouse. Closing arguments in the trial of the four LAPD officers started Monday, April 20th. Terry White ended his case where he'd started almost two months earlier with George Holiday's videotape in a three and a half hour presentation. White. White played the tape several times and referred to more than a dozen charts and diagrams. He reminded the jurors of the injuries King suffered at the hands, feet and batons of the lapd. White was beamed into millions of homes across the country. On the national news, prosecutor Terry White told the jurors that the entire case comes down to one question. Do they believe their own eyes? This was a man in pain. You can clearly see that on the video. And yet they continue to strike him again and again and again. And at some point you have to look at that video and say, enough is enough. The next day, Lawrence Powell's attorney, Mike Stone, had his opportunity to address the jury. During final arguments, lawyers on both sides erupted repeatedly with anger. These officers, these defendants, do not get paid to lose street fights. They don't get paid to roll around in the dirt with the likes of Rodney Glenn King. Stone asked the jury to sympathize not with the man being beaten, but with the officers doing the beating. He said, we leave it to them to take care of the mean streets so that we can safely enjoy our lives, so that we can raise our families and neighborhoods. One writer called Stone's argument a masterful appeal to the prejudices of the white suburban Simi Valley jury. John Barnett made a different case. He told the jury that his client had been ostracized for taking a stand against his colleagues. He said Bracino stood and stands alone against the power of the state. Barnett told me he figured at least one officer would be found guilty. If the jury believed that Bracino had tried and failed to stop the beating, the other officers would be convicted. If they didn't believe him, they'd be likely to find him guilty, too. It was hard to see how they could all be acquitted. I was very hopeful that Ted would be found not guilty because I thought really he was not guilty. Now the jury would decide. And despite the change of venue, the favorable jury, and the diminished impact of the tape, it still seemed like the prosecution would prevail. Can you take me back to the morning of April 29th? Do you remember where you were when you found out that the jury had reached a verdict? I know I was in the courthouse. I think we got told the jury reached a verdict before noon, and then the judge wanted to meet with us in chambers prior to the verdict being read. The trial had run for 55 days, and the jury had been deliberating for seven. Everyone in the courtroom had seen George Holiday's videotape from every possible angle. Terry White says that when Judge Stanley Weisberg called the attorneys to his chambers, it was clear which way the judge thought the trial had gone. He tells the defense, your clients are going into custody because, you know, normally when someone is found guilty, the only question is, are you going to be remanded into custody now or not? And he was telling them, you're going to be remanded into custody. In that moment, White felt certain that the officers who'd beaten Rodney King were going to be convicted. Let's take a quick break. On the afternoon of April 29, Rick Serrano was reading a book in the driver's seat of his yellow Mustang convertible. I was just sitting there and thinking, this could go to the hung jury and some. Another reporter came up and said, they've got a verdict. Serrano hustled back to the courtroom. It was so crowded that people were turned away and had to wait outside. The jurors filed in, betraying no emotion on their faces. I just remember the judge looking at the verdict forms before he hands it to the clerk, because the judge normally will look at the verdict forms. And I remember the look on his face told me, this may not be good, because I remember he looked stunned when he looked at the verdict forms. I see Judge Stanley Weisberg on the bench. Let's cut to the courtroom right now. We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Lawrence M. Powell, not guilty of the crime of assault. You got to be kidding. Timothy E win. Not guilty. Yeah, I was. I was stunned like everyone else was. It was just stunning. It was surreal. The jurors had acquitted the four officers on all but one count. They deadlocked on a single excessive force charge against Lawrence Powell. Judge Weisberg declared a mistrial on that count. The officers turned to hug their attorneys while their family members burst into tears. Behind them. John Barnett. I put my hand on Ted's shoulder, you know, like you would your kid. You know, when something very important's gonna happen, you know, it's a, an instinctive reaction and there's relief. The officers were among the few people at the courthouse in the mood to celebrate. In the parking lot outside, anger was building. Reaction to the verdict started to play out on local tv, just like the trial. Outside the courthouse, angry demonstrators gathered to protest, and some taunted the former defendants as they left to go home and celebrate. Ted Bruceno was quickly hustled out to a waiting car and was escorted by Ventura County Sheriff deputies. Stacy Coon was surrounded by protesters as he and his lawyer made their way through the parking lot. Tim Wynne made a quick exit from a side door and had nothing to say to reporters. Across Southern California, thousands of people took to the streets in protest. Minutes after the trial was over, more than 300 demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse. Angry crowds also started gathering in South Central LA and near the Lakeview terrorist site where Rodney King had been beaten. This was a modern day lynching. All these brothers here and everybody in the whole community has experienced and witnessed a total injustice today. And we're not going for it. We're not going for it. We're going for. King had been watching at his home in Studio City. He wrote in his autobiography that when he heard the verdict, his shock and rage was so overwhelming that I just wanted to close my eyes and open them as another person someplace a thousand miles away. King's civil attorney, Steve Lerman, had gone to the trial every day. After the verdicts, he issued a warning to the city of Los Angeles. It's a good time, folks. If you got a plane ticket, cash it in and get the heck out of Dodge. This is going to be a bad place to live. Terry White trudged outside the courtroom to face the media. You know, you have to be composed because you don't want to say anything that's going to be inappropriate. Well, I'm not going to say. I don't want to imply that this is a miscarriage of justice. This is the way our system works. You present the evidence to a impartial trier of fact. And that trier of fact comes to a verdict, and sometimes you disagree with, with a verdict, but that's the way the system works. I asked him how it felt to have to act stoic in that moment. I mean, what am I going to do? Am I going to go out and say, oh, this jury's wrong and this jury's horrible and this jury's terrible? No, I'm not going to do that. The way that you, that you work with jury trials is you have to respect their decision. Even if you disagree with it, you have to respect it. Why do you have to respect it? I mean, because it's not uncommon for somebody to say, this is a miscarriage of justice, or so on and so forth. Why did you think that the jury's decision was worth respecting? I am a prosecutor. I am a trial attorney. Ultimately, the jury makes the decision. We present our case. The defense presents their case. Ultimately, the jury makes the decision. Decision. I am not going to stand up there and disrespect the system. Terry White may not have been willing to go that far, but plenty of people were, as Los Angeles and the nation would soon find out. Next week on slow burn, L.A. catches fire. And they said, them cops, them cops got off. And my stomach, man, just like, I was stunned. The streets took over, you know, for three to five days, you know what I'm saying? A straight fucking anarchy, you know what I'm saying? Just pure lawlessness. Slow Burn is a production of Slate Plus, Slate's membership program. You can sign up for Slate plus to hear a bonus episode of the show. And in this week's bonus episode, you'll be hearing from Russell Cole, one of the defendant's attorneys. Head over to slate.com slowburn to sign up and listen. Now. It's only a dollar for your first month. We couldn't make Slow Burn without the support of Slate plus, so please sign up if you can head over to slate.com slowburn Slowburn is produced by Jason De Leon, Ethan Brooks, Sophie Summergrad, Jasmine Ellis and me, Joel Anderson. Editorial direction by Josh Levine and Gabriel Roth. Artwork is by Jim Cook. Our theme music was composed by Don Will, mixing by Merritt Jacob. Some of the audio you heard in this week's episode comes from the Department of Special Research Collections at the UC Santa Barbara Library, thanks to their team. Also thanks to Rick Serrano, whose new book Buried Truths and the Hyatt Sidewalks, the Legacy of America's Epic Structural Failure, is out now and available anywhere you purchase books. Special thanks to Voice Tracks West Lou Cannon, Jackson Van der Becken, Mark Steinberg, Stan Mizrahi, Jarrett, Holt Lowen Liu, Jene Desmond Harris, Amber Smith, Bill Carey, Meredith Moran, Seth Brown, Rachel Strom, Chow Tu, Derek Johnson, Asha Saluja and Katie Rayford. Thanks for listening. Foreign. Is the perfect time to pause, reset and rethink what you're sipping. Ritual Zero Proof delivers the taste, aroma and bite of real spirits without the alcohol Whiskey for a sour, gin for a G and T agave for a margarita. There's a zero Proof option for every cocktail. A simple one to one swap makes it easy to mix. Enjoy each and keep your goals on track. This January, choose more More flavor, more cocktails, more moments. Ditch the rules, keep the ritual. Find yours@ritual0proof.com.