But the decisive difference at the second trial was the fear of jurors that failure to convict at least some of the officers might provoke another riot. Fear was the 13th juror. As in the Zimmerman trial but not in Simi Valley, the jurors in the federal trial of the officers were sequestered. The foreman had a commanding view of South Central Los Angeles from his 10th-floor room in a downtown hotel. Each night he would look out on the vast area of the riots and the next day tell fellow jurors he had not seen the city burning.
The foreman, a Vietnam veteran, considered this remark gallows humor and believed he stood up well to stress. Even so, he worried about the safety of his family and wondered whether people would find out where he lived and throw rocks at his home after the trial. When jurors would return to their hotel each afternoon, marshals would block off the sidewalk with a tent. Once, a pedestrian who had failed to heed a marshal’s instructions was pinned to the ground. Another afternoon, marshals learned of a bomb scare at the hotel. The van carrying the jurors returned to the court building while an excitable male juror screamed, “We’re going to die, we’re going to die.”
This would have been an intolerable strain for almost any jury. One juror, an African-American from Watts, acknowledged after the trial that he was afraid there would be new riots if the defendants were acquitted. Even so, the jury at first voted 7-5 to acquit all the officers. After deliberations, it convicted Laurence Powell, the officer who had struck the most blows, and the supervising sergeant, Stacey Koon, while acquitting the other two officers. I interviewed several jurors after the trial and believe that they did their best under highly adverse circumstances. But the context of the trial stacked the deck against the defendants.
It may be true, however, that the convictions in the federal trial forestalled another riot.
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