Word: koon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Koon's roughhewn rhetoric reminded some onlookers of the unyielding officer played by Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men and seemed likely to polarize jurors the way that character polarized moviegoers. But the defense does not need to win acquittal; it is almost as effective to persuade enough to hang a jury. Outside the courtroom, Koon and Powell boasted of having won at least one female admirer on the jury. Many observers predicted a split verdict -- a slap at most for Briseno and Timothy Wind, something sterner for Koon and especially Powell, who struck the most blows. Powell...
Where the suburban Simi Valley jury in the first trial heard prosecutors harp on the videotape, this team meticulously countered defense evidence. On whether King's facial wounds came from police batons, Koon testified, "Mr. King fell like a tree. He made a one-point landing on his face." Dr. Harry Smith of San Antonio, Texas, a leading expert witness, asserted this scenario was impossible. The bones beneath King's right eye were crushed to powder, which required a pressure equivalent to 350 lbs., while his nose, which would have been broken by pressure of about 50 lbs., remained intact...
...force, Sergeant Mark Conta, and a California Highway Patrol member who saw King beaten, Melanie Singer. Conta said, "We never teach to break bones. I see excessive force here. The picture I see is that of a beaten man who is not combative or aggressive." He faulted each defendant: Koon for failing to intervene, Wind for six "brutal kicks," Briseno for stomping on King's neck, and Powell for a fusillade of chest blows that he termed "the most flagrant violation...
...observers felt he provided this trial's most compelling moments. Rather than experience him only as a silent presence or a moving shadow on videotape, jurors could see the fateful night through his eyes. He described lying on the ground waiting to be handcuffed, only to be shocked by Koon with a stun gun. He recalled running toward his car, throwing his hands over his face. He said, in complete accord with the evidence, "I wasn't trying to hit any police officer." Said Denver trial lawyer Dan Caplis, a consultant on the case for NBC News: "The whole defense...
...previous testimony by Officer Theodore Briseno suggesting that King was indeed beaten on the head, unnecessarily and intentionally; this undermined the "unified defense" Briseno had since joined. The prosecution's summation, too, was more compelling than the defendants'. Observers predicted conviction for Officer Laurence Powell and possibly Sergeant Stacey Koon. But Judge Davies feared that the jury would find itself deadlocked...