A Slap for a Broken Head

In the collective mind, the beatings of Rodney King and Reginald Denny have become a matched pair -- two videotaped outrages, two tests of the criminal justice system. As it emerged last week, one parallel was still to be played out. Just as in the King case, videotape evidence was supposed to make the verdict in the Denny trial a foregone conclusion. Just as in the King case, that was wrong.

When one of the most tumultuous jury deliberations in recent memory ended with something close to acquittal for Damian Monroe Williams, 20, and Henry Keith Watson, 29, some of Los Angeles celebrated, but much of the city -- and the U.S. -- was stunned. Out of the 12 counts facing both men, the jury returned one felony conviction. For disfiguring Denny with a brick, Williams was found guilty of simple mayhem, which carries a prison term of up to eight years. Watson, who was convicted on a misdemeanor assault charge that carries a six-month prison term, was released from jail, where he had already spent 17 months awaiting trial. Though the streets of L.A. stayed quiet, the radio- talk-show lines were on fire for days.

Should the verdict have come as such a surprise? From the arrest of Williams to the uproar in the jury room, there were ample signs that the prosecution's case was harder than it looked. Here's some advice they should have heeded:

DON'T OVERCHARGE. Though they may have thought public outrage at the crime required it, prosecutors erred by hitting Williams and co-defendant Watson with the heaviest possible charges, including attempted murder and aggravated mayhem, both of which carry terms of life in prison. At trial, even videotape evidence couldn't prove the attackers had a specific intent to do harm -- the very thing jurors were required to decide before finding the defendants guilty on the most serious points. "From day one, we thought the prosecution would never be able to prove ((that))," said Edi Faal, the defense attorney for Williams.

Prosecutors thought they could prove intent simply by pointing to the ^ attackers' actions. "When you take a brick and hurl it at point-blank range as hard as you can into a helpless man's head, what other logical conclusion is there other than that you are trying to kill him or at least disfigure him?" asked Deputy District Attorney Lawrence Morrison. But the defense was able to convince jurors that the beatings arose from the wild circumstances of a riot and were not premeditated acts.

DON'T UNDERCHARGE. Despite the long indictment they brought against the defendants, who were also accused in connection with attacks on seven other people at the intersection that day, prosecutors failed to hit Williams with one crucial count: assaulting Denny with a deadly weapon. While conviction would not require proof of intent, the charge still carries jail time of up to four years in California. That could have been added to any other sentence the defendants received.