Chapters 15-18

The author makes a point to display King as a completely reformed man from what we had seen of him previously. During the Simi Valley trial, Cannon presents the prosecution as extremely nervous about King's testimony. He was shown to be easily confused and self-contradicting, a trait that isn't valuable to a witness that has to stand up to tough cross-examination.  The “new” King is attributed all of the traits of the perfect parenthetical victim of brutish police force. Cannon describes him as “earnest… decent, friendly, vulnerable, and intellectually limited” and having a “ring of truth” to a “sympathetic jury.” (P 428)

Although Cannon does not mention this explicitly, King's new-found confidence is most likely attributed to the publicity he experienced in the wake of all the events preceding the second trial. “Their eyes were riveted on King as he strode commandingly into the courtroom.” (P 423) He was at the very center of a media frenzy, and had to gain some semblance of proper composure during this time. The effect is clearly portrayed when King first enters the court.

Cannon also seems to be playing on the notion, much as he did in describing the verdicts of the first trial, that it was a combination of external factors and luck that lead to the decision reached. During the first trial, Cannon painstakingly re-enacts the case to show where the defense got lucky breaks, and delves into the anatomy of the jury in order to point to the fact that it was highly biased. While that perspective is entirely believable for the first trial, I find it difficult to not simply attribute the outcome of the second trial to a true act of justice. Of course every decision is effected by outside influences, a fact that the US Justice system tries to negate by sheltering jurors from the world around them. But in the wake of the LA riots of 1992, no new media coverage was needed to influence the jurors.

Cannon points out in Chapter 17 (called The Thirteenth Juror) that fear played a huge role in the decision making process for those deciding the officer's legal fate. He attempts to show how it was nearly impossible for any juror to not convict the police, as fear of a violent rebuttal by the slums of South Central still lingered heavily in the backs of their minds only a year later. He cites jurors that missed their families, worried about their homes, and were fearful of the safety of their children if the officers were not convicted. He alludes that the jury did not reach a decision based on their personal conclusions from the facts stated, but rather more as a representative of the "collective village" referred to in the defense's closing remarks.
The defense comments in its closing arguments that King was not allowed the benefit of a jury when he was pulled over, and his punishment was dealt out to him not through the legal process but by a thug-group of cops with metal batons. On the flipside, however, one can see that during the second trial the police were not afforded the personal conclusions of the jury that is the cornerstone of American justice. Rather, their trial was conducted on a 24-hour news cycle of CNN, where the whole world witnessed the consequences of their inadequacies. Conclusive judgment had been made long before the second trial began, and the citizens of the United States were no longer interested in the real events that occured when King was beaten. Instead, they were more concerned with the consequences of each verdict, and decided who was guilty for a crime by placing the ends before the means.