Putting Justice in the Dock

The first time police officers went on trial for beating Rodney King, Los Angeles looked at itself in the mirror and saw Caliban. Not everyone recognized the same monster. Some saw racist authority and biased justice. Some saw a lawless citizen and mob madness. But for almost everyone, inside and outside the smoking city, the trial became a symbolic test of national values -- something that trials, with their focus on factual specifics and winner-take-all outcomes, are not constructed to be. The acquittals were so shocking to a nation mesmerized by a videotape, and so achingly rejected in riot and rage,...