NATION/WORLD
Monday, April 12, 1993
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
5
Jury deliberation continues
Members of the Placentia, Calif. police department go through a riot training exercise. The police officers received training from the City of Bell Police Department in preparation for reaction to the verdict in the civil rights trial of motorist Rodney King.
Jurors ask for transcript of officer' s testimony in Rodney King case
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — jurors reached no verdict yesterday on the police officers accused of violating Rodney King's civil law and a transcript of testimony from four of them.
soon after they convened yesterday, the jurors asked for the testimony of California Highway Patrol Officer Melanie Singer. The officers recalled that she recalled bionts blows to King's head.
by the end of yesterday's session, jorars had deliberated three and a half hours since
Sgt. Stacey Koon, Officers Laurence Powell, Theodore Brisoen and former Officer Tinthoy Wind are charged with violating King's civil rights in a beating, which the government said was excessive
U. S. District Judge John G. Davies said that he did not have the transcript jurors wanted, adding, "Even if I had it, I would not testify because that tends to empire testimony."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Clymer then suggested that the jurors be asked if they were concerned about a particular part of the testimony But Davies said he was reluctant to ask the jurors another more. Davies told jurors at the outset of testimony to rely on their memories and notes and said he would not provide them with transcripts.
Singer's testimony rocked the trial near the end of the case. She was called as a defense witness but gave perhaps the most powerful testimony for the prosecution.
Singer, the first person to approach King after chasing him for speeding, testified that King was not threatening, that he acted like a "wisecare drunk" and that police had no justification for beating him.
At one point, she burst into tears as she described Powell smashing King in the head with a baton. A key defense contention is that King was never hit in the head but instead fractured his face in a fall.
All of the jurors said that they could put aside concerns about public reaction to their verdicts and decide the case purely on the evidence. Acquittains on most charges in a state trial last year touched off three days of rioting in Los Angeles that left 54 people dead and $1 billion in property damage.
"I don't think anyone should be condemned because of the threat of a riot," Harland Braun, one of the defense attorneys, told the jurors in a final argument faced with religious references and comparisons of the defendants to Christ being judged by Pontius Pilate.
"If you have the courage to vote not guilty on all these defendants, the public will understand," Bram assured them.
But a prosecutor called the defendants "bullies with badges" and urged jurors to
convict them.
In a poll published yesterday by the Los Angeles Times, 33 percent said a repeat of last spring's deadly riots was inevitable if lovers acquit the four men.
To convict on civil rights violations, jurors must find that the four men intended to inflict unreasonable force on King
Police Chief Willie Williams increased the number of officers on city streets, yesterday, and other law enforcement agencies began to prepare for any possible problems.
Israel closes occupied lands
JERUSALEM — Israeli cabinet ministers endorsed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's proposal to seal the occupied territories indefinitely yesterday and sharply cut the Palestinian work force in Israel.
The Associated Press
Ministers acknowledged that the closure created economic hardships for the 1.8 million Palestinians of the occupied lands but were vague about measures to guarantee their economic survival.
Rabin believes a separation of the two areas is vital to curb violence and win support among Israelis for future concessions in Middle East peace talks.
The occupied territories were sealed during most of the Persian Gulf War and have been shut periodically during times of unrest. The latest closure, imposed March 31 after a wave of Arab-Israeli attacks, dealt a harsh economic blow to both sides.
Wages from 120,000 Palestinian laborers in Israel account for half the income of Gaza and one third the income of the West Bank. Israeli laborers pay about 25 percent of Arabies to fill many low-paying jobs.
Yesterday, the Cabinet decided to review the closure weekly and inject an undetermined amount of money into the territories to compensate for the lost jobs.
In another development, aides to Rabin said he would meet Wednesday with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in the President city
of Ismailiya to try to work out problems hindering the resumption of peace talks, scheduled to restart April 20 in Washington.
A key issue will be the participation of Palestinians, who pulled out of the U.S. sponsored talks after Israel deported about 400 alleged Muslim militants to Lebanon in December.
On Saturday, Palestinian leader Faisal Hussaini said an Israeli promise to return all deportees was no longer a condition to resume negotiations. The Palestinians have not, however, announced they were returning to the talks.
Ats meeting yesterday, the Cabinet did not approve any clear-cut plans for creating jobs in the occupied territories. Labor Minister Ora Namir said hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes paid by Palestinian laborers would be reinvested in the occupied lands.
Up to 7,000 Palestinians will be given special permits to work on Israeli farms that rely on Palestinian labor.
World NEWS
Naur predicted the closure would be lifted in stages and that at least 70,000 Palestinians would return to their jobs. Health Minister Haim Ramon urged that the closure be permanent.
Prisons seek solutions to crowding
Officials search for alternatives to building more
The Associated Press
SHELTON, Wash. — Twenty-five years ago at the Washington Corrections Center, every cell had just one bunk and a man could sleep in peace.
Now, two bunks crowd each 9-by-6-foot cell. When the prison's population climbs, a third mattress often is spread out on what little floor space remains.
no longer are the only ones complaining.
Nobody said prison was supposed to be easy. But inmates
Nearly every state faces mounting bills for prison construction and operations — the result of a decade of get-tough-on-crime sentiment and the war on drugs.
The U.S. prison population has increased more than 150 percent since 1980. According to The Sentencing Project, a policy group in Washington, one of every 235 people in the United States was behind bars in 1991 — the highest incarceration rate of any industrialized nation.
prisons in 1991.
Local, state and federal government agencies spent $20.1 billion building and operating
Strained budgets are leading some states to consider whether there might be better and cheaper — accent on the cheaper — alternatives to prison for punishing and rehabilitating criminals.
"After 10 years of the most massive prison construction we've ever seen in our history, the crime rate remains stable, or increasing a little bit," said Tim Matthews, director of the Center for Law and Justice, an arm of the Council of State Governments.
"It leads me and others to conclude that prison construction is not the way out. We've got to find other solutions."
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ENVIRONS
GUEST SPEAKERS FRANK J. AND DEBORAH EPSTEIN POPPER
TOPIC "THE FUTURE OF THE GREAT PLAINS: WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM"
DATE: MONDAY, APRIL 12 TIME: 7:00 P.M.
PLACE: WOODRUFF AUDITORIUM (IN THE KANSAS UNION)
FREE LECTURE
SPONSORED BY KU'S DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND BY ENVIRONS, A STUDENT ORGANIZATION. ALSO SPONSORED BY SUA.