Setback for Defense in Denny Beating Case : Courts: Judge limits questioning of former Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner. He clears only two other witnesses to testify on a motion to dismiss charges because of discriminatory prosecution.

An effort to have charges dismissed in the Reginald O. Denny beating case because of alleged discriminatory prosecution was dealt a severe blow Wednesday when a judge excluded testimony from all but three witnesses that defense attorneys wanted to call.

“In effect, he has denied our motion already,” attorney Edi M. O. Faal said outside the courtroom after the ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk.

Only former Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry White, who prosecuted the unsuccessful state case against four officers accused of beating Rodney G. King, and former state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp will be allowed to testify, Ouderkirk ruled.

Reiner can be questioned about the Denny beating case only if he compared it to other cases in making his decision to file charges against the three men accused of assaulting the trucker and 12 other people at Florence and Normandie avenues as rioting broke out in Los Angeles last year, Ouderkirk said.

Damian Monroe Williams, 20, Antoine Eugene Miller, 21, and Henry Keith Watson, 28, face multiple felony charges--including attempted murder--stemming from the alleged assaults.

Faal, who represents Williams, told Ouderkirk that he was “a little bit distressed” about the limitations placed on Reiner’s testimony. “If Mr. Reiner didn’t compare (this case) with any other cases, he cannot be questioned,” Faal said. “Obviously, the way out for Mr. Reiner is to say, ‘I didn’t compare this case with any others.’ ”

Faal said that it would be frivolous to put Reiner on the stand and that the defense could not proceed with the hearing “given the conditions set by the court.”

However, when Ouderkirk asked Faal if he would like to call any witnesses, the attorney conferred briefly with lawyers for the other defendants and decided to call Reiner after all.

But Reiner was not in court.

“We don’t know where he is,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence C. Morrison, one of the prosecutors. He said he had called the courtroom of Reiner’s wife, Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne, and was told that the couple were out of town.

Morrison said Reiner would return today; Ouderkirk scheduled his testimony for Friday.

As he was leaving court, however, Faal changed his mind about calling Reiner as a witness. “I will not call Mr. Reiner because I am restricted in what I can question him about,” Faal said. “I’m not going to go through this exercise in futility.”

Attorney James C. Gillen, who represents Miller, said he would call Reiner. Asked why, Gillen responded: “Why not?”

Ouderkirk said White can be called but cannot be questioned about the King beating case because it is not legally comparable to the Denny beating. Van de Kamp can testify as an expert witness on how prosecutors determine what charges to file, Ouderkirk ruled.

Faal said he would appeal the ruling and criticized the judge’s decision, saying Ouderkirk “didn’t follow the law in any respect.”

Defense attorneys wanted to call attorney Stephen Yagman, who specializes in police abuse cases, and Michael Zinzun, an activist who campaigns against police abuse, to testify about cases in which officers allegedly involved in the illegal use of force were charged with relatively minor offenses compared to those faced by the defendants in this case.

Ouderkirk ruled that the cases Yagman and Zinzun would testify about are not “legally and factually” comparable to the Denny beating case, and for that reason they would not be allowed to testify.

Defense attorneys also wanted to question five current or former deputy district attorneys in an effort to demonstrate that their office charges African-American suspects with more serious crimes than it does whites arrested for similar offenses.

The officers accused of beating King, for instance, were charged with assault--which carries a maximum 10-year sentence--while defendants in the Denny beating case face life imprisonment if convicted, defense lawyers said.

Prosecutors challenged the defense motion to dismiss charges in an 82-page document, arguing in part that the King and Denny beating cases are not legally comparable and that police officers and the defendants in the Denny beating are not “similarly situated”--an important legal prerequisite for using the discriminatory prosecution defense.

Papers filed by Faal in support of his request for dismissal are “devoid of any type of rational legal argument,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Janet Moore said in court Wednesday while arguing for the judge to deny the defense effort to dismiss charges without allowing any testimony.

“Mr. Faal wishes to put a parade of witnesses before this court without establishing a legal basis,” Moore said. If Faal cannot articulate his position, she argued, he should not be allowed “to stumble and bumble” his way through the testimony.

Faal responded that Moore did not want a hearing because she is “afraid to confront the defense,” and “she seems to have--founded or not--a perception of sympathy from this court. She is trying to exploit that.”

Outside court, Georgiana Williams, defendant Williams’ mother, accused Ouderkirk of giving Reiner special treatment. “Had that been an ordinary citizen who didn’t show up in court,” she said, “the judge would have issued a warrant for his arrest.”