Verdict 'stuns' Vt. law professor
Dublin Core
Title
Verdict 'stuns' Vt. law professor
Subject
Verdicts
King, Rodney
Description
Michael Mello gives his thoughts on the jury’s verdict of the Los Angeles police officers who beat Rodney King, who were found innocent.
Creator
Hacker, Tom
Source
Tom Hacker, “Verdict 'stuns' Vt. law professor,” HIST298, https://hist299.umwhistory.org/admin/items/show/142.
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1992-05-01
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
300 DPI
1 JPG
Language
English
Coverage
Los Angeles, CA
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
[image]
END OF THE LINE: Los Angeles police form a line to prevent a crowd from going into a building Thursday. National Guard troops moved in Thursday to seize control of neighborhoods torn by riots.
END OF THE LINE: Los Angeles police form a line to prevent a crowd from going into a building Thursday. National Guard troops moved in Thursday to seize control of neighborhoods torn by riots.
[image]
LOOTING SUSPECTS: Police stand over handcuffed looting suspects in Los Angeles on Thursday. Looters plundered businesses and torched buildings in brazen daytime assaults.
LOOTING SUSPECTS: Police stand over handcuffed looting suspects in Los Angeles on Thursday. Looters plundered businesses and torched buildings in brazen daytime assaults.
SOUTH ROYALTON --- Convicting a police officer of a crime is a hard thing for a jury to do, Vermont Law School professor Michael Mello said Thursday.
But Mello, who teaches criminal procedure and said he specializes in “the general issue of regulating police behavior,” was nonetheless surprised Wednesday when a jury found four Los Angeles Police officers innocent of charges in the beating of motorist Rodney King.
“I was stunned by the verdict,” Mello said Thursday. “My jaw just dropped. When I had heard earlier that they were deadlocked on all counts but one, I had assumed that they were ready to convict.”
Mello’s personal reaction to the jury’s decision was tempered, though, with a professorial view of the jury’s job.
“You need to be careful about trashing the jury’s verdict without knowing what they had in front of them,” he said. “They had a responsibility to view the evidence, listen to witnesses and then make judgements about the credibility of what they see and hear.
“On the other hand, you had an all white jury making those credibility judgements.”
Rodney King is black. The four officers charged in his beating are white.
Police on trial, Mello said, begin with a built-in advantage.
“Juries identify with cops,” he said. “They tend not to identify with the victims of police brutality, especially in the case of someone who is not clearly an innocent victim.”
But Mello, who teaches criminal procedure and said he specializes in “the general issue of regulating police behavior,” was nonetheless surprised Wednesday when a jury found four Los Angeles Police officers innocent of charges in the beating of motorist Rodney King.
“I was stunned by the verdict,” Mello said Thursday. “My jaw just dropped. When I had heard earlier that they were deadlocked on all counts but one, I had assumed that they were ready to convict.”
Mello’s personal reaction to the jury’s decision was tempered, though, with a professorial view of the jury’s job.
“You need to be careful about trashing the jury’s verdict without knowing what they had in front of them,” he said. “They had a responsibility to view the evidence, listen to witnesses and then make judgements about the credibility of what they see and hear.
“On the other hand, you had an all white jury making those credibility judgements.”
Rodney King is black. The four officers charged in his beating are white.
Police on trial, Mello said, begin with a built-in advantage.
“Juries identify with cops,” he said. “They tend not to identify with the victims of police brutality, especially in the case of someone who is not clearly an innocent victim.”
Original Format
Newspaper
Contributor of the Digital Item
Lindsey, Megan
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Williams, Megan
Files
Citation
Hacker, Tom , “Verdict 'stuns' Vt. law professor,” HIST299, accessed July 12, 2026, https://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/142.