Commentary / PERSPECTIVES ON JUSTICE IN LOS ANGELES : The Trial Is Ended; Now Ours Begins : Justice: We must challenge ourselves; ordinary people, not legal experts, decide the boundaries of police conduct.

Arm yourself with the two most powerful weapons known to mankind--Truth & Knowledge. -- Sgt. Stacey C. Koon

The federal jury trying four LAPD officers for beating motorist Rodney G. King followed those words of advice from Sgt. Koon (which he uses to autograph his book, “Presumed Guilty: The Tragedy of the Rodney King Affair”) and found him and his co-defendant, Laurence M. Powell, guilty of willfully violating King’s civil rights.

The truth had not been told at the earlier trial in Simi Valley. The Simi Valley jurors did not hear from medical experts who testified in the federal trial that King’s face had been shattered by baton blows; they did not receive testimony from civilian witnesses who would describe how King laid helpless while the officers continued to beat him; they were never told that defendant Powell regaled his colleagues with war stories instead of transporting King to the hospital, and they never met King--the alleged PCP-crazed monster--who on the witness stand appeared a beaten man.

It was the job of the federal prosecutors to tell these truths, and they did their job well.

Now, however, it is time for us to examine some truths about ourselves, our community and our criminal-justice system. We must now realize that we as a community have serious social problems that cannot be cured in the criminal courts. The King case became a symbol of our struggle over these issues, although most of them were never aired in the courtroom. The truth is that criminal courts cannot eliminate racial prejudice, an issue carefully avoided in the King case; criminal courts also cannot restore jobs or prosperity to our inner cities because there is no mechanism or funding in the courts to do so, and criminal courts cannot eliminate police brutality, given the difficulty in prosecuting these cases.

If we want safe streets, we have to work to make them that way. If we want better policing, we must pay for sufficient officers and train them adequately. If we want jobs and prosperity, we must address underlying social ills. We must also realize that for our criminal-justice system to work, all voices must be heard in the process. It is critically important to have juries that represent the broad diversity of our community. The Simi Valley jury was homogenous; the federal jury was not. The Simi Valley jury did not live in the community most affected by the crime; members of the federal jury did. Not only was the federal jury more racially and ethnically diverse, but it represented various economic and social strata of our community.

This representation is critical. Our laws require that the jury determine community standards of “reasonableness.” Ordinary men and women, not legal experts or police, decide the constitutional boundaries of police conduct. We entrust our Constitution to our citizens, not to our government. Without full representation of the community’s ideas, it is impossible to establish standards that will be meaningful or respected.

Additionally, we must realize some truths about ourselves. We are frustrated, angry, tired, hungry, bitter and scared. We are also, however, hopeful, eager, generous and just. The media did not create our problems, nor can they solve them. They have been a mirror of our concerns--of our good and bad reaction, of our fears, pressures, impatience and irresponsibility. It is easy to criticize the media because, like every other institutions, there is a fringe and sensational element.

But, just as we challenge the media and police to change, we must challenge ourselves to change. We must start believing in ourselves and our system of justice. The criminal justice system worked. Maybe it did not work perfectly, maybe it moved too slowly, but it worked. After two months of trial, 61 witnesses, hundreds of exhibits, the jury returned responsible verdicts convicting two officers and acquitting two others.

As we face more challenging times, let us not forget the lifetime lessons of the Rodney King case.