Not a good example. The Rodney King video played a large role in getting the officers acquitted.
Without the video, the prosecution would have had eyewitnesses and the injuries to King, which were pretty damning. The defense would not have really had anything to counter that.
With the video, the defense was able to take a step by step approach to the defense. They showed that the first blows were in response to King being uncooperative or aggressive, and were probably justified. They then framed the issue as when, if ever, did the beating switch from justified force against an aggressive suspect and turn to excessive force against a man who had stopped fighting and submitted?
Each time King was hit, he'd twitch or kick or flail an arm or a leg. The defense started with the first blows, which they were able to justify because King did start out aggressive, and then they went blow by blow, looking at the position of each officer and what he could see, showing that each saw one of those kicks or flails of King's, and that from his position the officer could not see that was an involuntary response to a prior blow. From what the officer could see, King was still violently resisting, and so that officer would take a swing. The defense would show that caused an involuntary response that made the next officer think King was still fighting.
They went all the way through the video that way, getting the jury to focus on the difficulty of pointing to any point and saying that this was where the line was crossed.
This worked, and they got acquittal.
No video, and the jury would have likely focused on the totality of what happened to King, and then it would be hard not to find excessive force.
I think the video also made the prosecution overconfident. I think they thought it was going to as simple as showing up, playing the self-evident video, proving that the accused were the officers in the video and that the video was real, and that would be it.
Without the video, the prosecution would have had eyewitnesses and the injuries to King, which were pretty damning. The defense would not have really had anything to counter that.
With the video, the defense was able to take a step by step approach to the defense. They showed that the first blows were in response to King being uncooperative or aggressive, and were probably justified. They then framed the issue as when, if ever, did the beating switch from justified force against an aggressive suspect and turn to excessive force against a man who had stopped fighting and submitted?
Each time King was hit, he'd twitch or kick or flail an arm or a leg. The defense started with the first blows, which they were able to justify because King did start out aggressive, and then they went blow by blow, looking at the position of each officer and what he could see, showing that each saw one of those kicks or flails of King's, and that from his position the officer could not see that was an involuntary response to a prior blow. From what the officer could see, King was still violently resisting, and so that officer would take a swing. The defense would show that caused an involuntary response that made the next officer think King was still fighting.
They went all the way through the video that way, getting the jury to focus on the difficulty of pointing to any point and saying that this was where the line was crossed.
This worked, and they got acquittal.
No video, and the jury would have likely focused on the totality of what happened to King, and then it would be hard not to find excessive force.
I think the video also made the prosecution overconfident. I think they thought it was going to as simple as showing up, playing the self-evident video, proving that the accused were the officers in the video and that the video was real, and that would be it.