Asked once about his distaste for the forward pass, Ohio State`s legendary coach Woody Hayes replied that three things could happen when you throw the ball and two of them were bad.
The announcement Wednesday of federal indictments of four Los Angeles police officers in the Rodney King beating case evokes a similar reaction.
A number of things could happen as a result of this case, most of them bad. But there seems as little chance of avoiding this case as of eliminating the forward pass from football. The tragic momentum of things does not permit ending it to cut the losses.
One negative result is certain to be a widespread public impression that the constitutional protection against double jeopardy has been set aside to allow the four officers to be tried again for a crime of which they already have been acquitted in a trial that, at least in every formal way, gave the appearance of fairness.
This impression will persist despite the fact that the principle of separate federal and state sovereignty in such cases is well established, and despite the fact that police officers and other public officeholders routinely acknowledge it when they pledge to uphold the laws of their localities, their states and the United States.
Another negative result will be to place jurors in the federal case-assuming an impartial jury can be assembled-under enormous pressure to convict. Having seen the results of the verdict of acquittal in the state trial-60 people dead and $850 million in damage in the worst urban riot of the century-the jurors would have to be intimidated by the prospect of a repetition.
If the purpose of the federal prosecution is to re-establish a public sense that justice will be done, it probably is doomed to be frustrated. The fact is that the state court verdict, still incomprehensible to most Americans who saw the famous King beating videotape, caused damage that would only be compounded by a second, dubious trial of the same events.
Nothing seems certain any longer in this case that once looked so certain. But one thing ought to be clear: Whether or not the four officers can be shown to have been responsible legally, Rodney King suffered a grievous moral wrong and grievous bodily injuries on the streets of Los Angeles.
In his public plea for calm during the rioting last spring, King said:
”We`ll have our day in court.” And quite likely, the City of Los Angeles will pay handsomely in damages-as it should.
Would that that could be the end of it. Unfortunately, the new indictments ensure that it will not be.
