Two Juries Deliver Verdicts After Abuses by L.A. Deputies, Police : Courts: Family of man whose neck was broken is awarded $3.16 million. Woman who was imprisoned gets $55,000.

With controversy still swirling over the videotaped beating of Rodney G. King, two Los Angeles juries Monday returned verdicts against law officers--one for $3.16 million to the family of a black man whose neck was broken by sheriff’s deputies and another for $55,000 to a woman who was held by police for questioning in a gang murder case.

Attorneys for the sued officers said the verdicts illustrated deep public distrust of law enforcement in the wake of the King beating.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury returned a verdict in favor of eight surviving children of Otis Robinson, who died in 1985 of a broken neck incurred after deputies placed him in handcuffs and hand and leg restraints in the jail ward of County-USC Medical Center.

“The videotapes and newspapers led jurors to sympathize with Robinson and feel animosity toward the Sheriff’s Department,” defense attorneys Clyde Lockwood and John Daly said in a motion during the trial.

In the other case, a federal court jury awarded $5,000 in compensatory damages and $50,000 in punitive damages to Keiko Larez, an El Sereno woman who contended that she had been unlawfully imprisoned by a Los Angeles police officer during a murder investigation of a friend of hers.

“The verdict is a vindication of the important civil rights of citizens and sends a message to the police that the end of catching a criminal doesn’t justify trampling on civil rights,” said Stephen Yagman, Larez’s attorney.

King’s beating March 3 by baton-swinging Los Angeles police officers has sparked nationwide outrage against police brutality and brought calls for the resignation of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates. The incident, which was videotaped by an amateur cameraman, has spilled over into the courts and put law enforcement on the defensive.

Because of this, defense attorneys in the Robinson case were so unnerved by the anti-police climate that they tried in vain to delay the trial and also sought to dismiss the suit four times.

Finally, both the city and county tried to settle the case out of court--the city succeeded, but the county went to trial.

During the trial, defense attorneys complained in a motion for dismissal, that when the officers testified, several jurors rolled their eyes upward in apparent disbelief. The motion also claimed that one juror felt close enough to Cora Robinson, the dead man’s widow, that the juror asked to borrow her umbrella. The motion was denied by Superior Court Judge Madeleine Flier.

At the time of his death, Otis Robinson had heart trouble and an arm was semiparalyzed because of a shoulder injury. He was arrested by Los Angeles police officers who believed he had been drinking.

The officers took him to the jail infirmary at Parker Center police headquarters. While there, they claimed Robinson was “hostile and agitated” and hit his head against a window sill several times, suffering a two-inch cut above his right eye. The officers then took him to the jail ward of County-USC Medical Center.

At the hospital, Robinson was laying on a bed and two deputies and a male nurse tried to force him to a sitting position so that he could be examined. They testified that Robinson, who was laying on his back with his hands handcuffed underneath him, was resisting them.

At that point, Robinson wound up on the floor and Dr. Marc Yellin, a junior resident, briefly examined him. Yellin told the deputies it was OK to book Robinson into the psychiatric ward at the Men’s Central Jail. But Robinson’s blood pressure, which had been high when he came to the hospital, suddenly dropped, an indication of a spinal injury, according to testimony.

The Los Angeles police officers then took Robinson to the jail, where deputies dragged the limp Robinson by his feet--his head sweeping the floor, according to testimony by one of the police officers. Robinson was dragged to a detox cell, where he was left overnight.

The next morning, deputies noticed he was still motionless and transferred him again to the hospital, where doctors found that he had a broken neck. He died the next day.

Throughout the trial, the county, deputies or medical personnel did not admit to any of the allegations, including responsibility for Robinson’s death, according to Assistant County Counsel Phil Miller.

But the jury, voting 10 to 2, found that Deputy Michael Kevin Hannah violated Robinson’s civil rights by using excessive force, and also found that he performed battery which resulted in wrongful death.

The jury also found that Deputy Richard Ellis showed deliberate indifference to Robinson’s medical needs in throwing him into the detox cell overnight with a broken neck. Jurors also found that Yellin committed medical malpractice.

Although the jurors rendered their verdicts in the case, Flier has yet to accept them. She said that there is some confusion over the jurors’ arithmetic. She said she would review the verdict forms overnight.

The judge made remarks that indicated the two sides might try to settle the case before she formally accepts the verdicts today.

The federal court case arose after El Sereno resident Keiko Larez and a friend, Richard Jimenez, were stopped by Officer William Holcomb.

Larez testified she was stopped on June 9, 1986, about a block from her house while walking with Jimenez. She said she was handcuffed, taken to the Hollenbeck police station and held in a cell for two hours, even though she was not a suspect.

Holcomb disputed part of her account, according to Deputy City Atty. Theodore Heyck, who represented the officer. According to Holcomb, Larez was not held that long and was put into a cell because it was the only space available.

This is the second case involving the Larez family in which juries have awarded damages against the Los Angeles Police Department. Four days after Keiko Larez was temporarily taken into custody, the police officers obtained a search warrant and came to her parents El Sereno house looking for weapons that might be used as evidence in a murder.

An officer broke the nose of her father, Jesse Larez, and damaged the home. Last year, a federal jury assessed $90,000 in damages against several officers. In a subsequent trial stemming of that incident, a federal jury assessed $170,000 in punitive damages against Gates. Gates’ appeal of that verdict was heard by the U. S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena in February and a decision is pending.

Heyck said the King controversy already has had a major impact on police cases.

“My job, to put it mildly, is much more difficult now,” Heyck said.