DOJ Case Summary: U.S. v. Koon, et al

Official Misconduct Cases

The videotaped beating of Rodney King by officers of the Los Angles Police Department on March 3, 1991 led to one of the most significant and well-known official misconduct/police beating cases in the history of the Criminal Section, receiving international attention. After the videotape of the beating was aired on nationwide television, the Criminal Section immediately opened its investigation, pending the outcome of the local trial of the four defendant police officers on state charges in California. When that trial ended a year later with the acquittal of all the officers, rioting broke out throughout Los Angeles, resulting in deaths and property damage. A team of federal prosecutors from both the Criminal Section as well as the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles then undertook an exhaustive investigation, in which new evidence was developed during three months of grand jury. On August 4, 1992, the same four officers were indicted on two federal counts of violating 18 U.S.C. 242 -- three officers for the excessive beating of King and the fourth (the supervisory sergeant) for failing to stop them. The federal prosecutors had to overcome major evidentiary hurdles to develop evidence independent of the state prosecution and not derived from compelled statements made by police officers that could have compromised the federal case.

Despite the potential for additional civil unrest locally and nationwide, and the difficulties of empaneling an impartial jury, the two-month federal trial of the four Los Angeles police officers ultimately ended with the conviction in April 1993 of two of the four officers, Sgt. Stacey Koon, the supervising officer at the scene, and Officer Laurence Powell, the officer who had delivered the most number of blows to King. Both defendants were sentenced to 30 months in prison, after appealing their sentences to the U.S. Supreme Court.

As a result of this incident, the City of Los Angeles undertook a Department-wide review of its police practices.

While this incident received tremendous public attention, it was not unique but rather representative of the numerous incidents of official misconduct regularly reviewed and prosecuted by the Criminal Section. The attendant publicity may also have led to a misconception that, because the victim was black, the officers charged with his beating were white and then indicted on civil rights violations, racial motivation was an essential element of the federal crime. However, as explained elsewhere on this site, the applicable federal criminal civil rights law used in this case, 18 U.S.C. 242, pertains regardless of the race, national origin, or color of the victim or the defendant. It is the abuse of authority under "color of law" that is critical.