Reactions to the verdict in the 1992 Rodney King trial ranged from sober dismay to outright hostility. In the 12 months
following the riots that ensued, pundits and public alike pointed fingers of blame at different parts of our judicial system--and, indeed, at society at large. The essential problem, most critics said, lay not just in Los Angeles, but at the very core of our understanding of law and law enforcement. To perhaps a majority of Americans, the King trial evinced a failure not so much of people but of institutions. We had witnessed a profound systems failure, and one with national repercussions.
Such a reaction was both understandable and misguided. The pessimism was predictable in that the verdict presented many Americans--especially minorities--with a grimly visible reminder of the potential fallibility of our court system. Because the beating was captured on videotape, we all felt, in a way, as though we were jurors, hence the profound sense of injustice: The Simi Valley jury's verdict clashed with our own.
The Rodney King case is not alone in history. As we shall see, popular reaction has been at odds with the court before; the Sacco and Vanzetti trial is one example. Yet disagreement over one jury's decision does not necessarily entail a failure of an entire institution. The problem of injustice, in fact, goes deeper than our laws, goes deeper even than the Constitution on which these laws are based. Laws can be bent. If they could not, their rigidity would invite them to be broken more often than they are. The people who bend the laws are the police officers, judges, attorneys and juries, individuals drawn from the general populace; that is to say, as of us. It is we individuals who occasionally make mistakes, who succumb to prejudice and corruption. And it is only through educating ourselves and our children that we may hope to contain injustice spawned by such personal flaws.
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