One important event that happened during the 1992 L.A. riots was the fact that the video evidence of the Rodney King beating failed to bring the guilty verdict to the police. Despite the fact that the video had visually shown several policemen participating in the physical abuse, the court had determined that the cops were not guilty of excessive use of force. This decision later caused many people to become upset and led to the riots we’ve learned. In the past, the concept of trial by jury was used, so fewer people from the community of where the trial took place played a role in the verdict of the case. However, trial by jury was indeed used in the trial that started the 1992 L.A. riots, which implies that there were many people in the community who believed that the policemen were not guilty. I’ve decided to bring this up so that we may possibly consider potential changes to our current legal system so that a similar event would be less likely to occur. Afterall, our current legal system hasn’t changed much since the Rodney King beating.
We should view the trial of the Rodney King beating as something to reflect upon in terms of our legal system. With how I interpreted the readings of the trial, it seems like the main issue was that the majority of the jury for the trial of the event chose to side with the cops regardless of the video evidence that was presented. The reason for their decision could be from racism, genuine trust in the police, or something else. Although we can’t be certain of their reasoning, the fact that video evidence was disregarded shows that their reasoning was unjust. Since we still use the same jury system today, this issue can occur once again. However, I’m not suggesting that this is something we need get rid of since people in the community should still have some right to decide on such verdicts. We could assume that people in our time right now are more logical and wouldn’t make poor decisions, such as ignoring video evidence, but that isn’t a guarantee. Once again, I’m not trying to argue that our current legal system is in need of some changes. I only wish to bring light to the fact that our system is still similar to the one during the times of the 1992 L.A. riots.
We should view the trial of the Rodney King beating as something to reflect upon in terms of our legal system. With how I interpreted the readings of the trial, it seems like the main issue was that the majority of the jury for the trial of the event chose to side with the cops regardless of the video evidence that was presented. The reason for their decision could be from racism, genuine trust in the police, or something else. Although we can’t be certain of their reasoning, the fact that video evidence was disregarded shows that their reasoning was unjust. Since we still use the same jury system today, this issue can occur once again. However, I’m not suggesting that this is something we need get rid of since people in the community should still have some right to decide on such verdicts. We could assume that people in our time right now are more logical and wouldn’t make poor decisions, such as ignoring video evidence, but that isn’t a guarantee. Once again, I’m not trying to argue that our current legal system is in need of some changes. I only wish to bring light to the fact that our system is still similar to the one during the times of the 1992 L.A. riots.
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