Stacey Koon

In response to "Lungren Declines to Seize Profits on Koon's Book," April 9: If Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren arbitrarily chooses to enforce certain laws of California on a selective basis, how then can the people of the state expect him to competently discharge his responsibilities as the state attorney general in an impartial and objective fashion, which he has sworn to do? ERICH WILLIAMS Santa Ana As if former Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Stacey Koon hasn't been vilified enough, now state Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento)

Rodney King spoke candidly of death. I recall a time last March when he and I were walking through his Rialto home. He looked at photos of the LAPD officers who'd beaten him. Without prompting, he opened up. "I'm just glad I survived what he did to me," he said, speaking of one of the officers, Stacey Koon. He held his two fingers about a quarter-inch apart. "I was this close to death," he said. "This close. " He went on to say there were long moments that night in Lake View Terrace in 1991 when it felt as if he had, in fact, died.

Stacey C. Koon, one of two police officers convicted in the Rodney G. King beating in Los Angeles, has been moved from California to a federal prison in Sheridan, Ore. Koon was moved from a federal prison camp in Dublin, Calif., because it is changing to a women's facility. Koon, 44, is serving a 30-month sentence for violating King's civil rights. He is scheduled for release Dec. 14.

The Times was its usual snide self when commenting on the refusal of Judge John G. Davies to add additional prison time for Sgt. Stacey Koon and Officer Laurence Powell in the Rodney King episode (editorial, Sept. 30). Regardless of the estimates, the funds raised for Koon's defense were given voluntarily by people who felt the officer had been unfairly treated by the judicial system. An unfairness encouraged by the hostility of The Times. Voluntarily, I repeat. Whereas King's payoff from the city was extortion of public funds at the highest level.

Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, serving a prison term for the beating of Rodney G. King, has raised more than $1 million and possibly as much as $3 million through a direct-mail campaign, the campaign organizer said Monday. The money will go to pay Koon's legal bills and support his wife and five children, said Alfred Regnery, president of Virginia-based Regnery Publishing Co.

In an extraordinary early morning conclusion to one of the most volatile criminal trials in U.S. history, a federal jury returned guilty verdicts Saturday against two Los Angeles police officers for violating Rodney G. King's civil rights during an infamous 1991 arrest. Sgt. Stacey C. Koon--a coolly confident police officer who has rarely shown any hint of emotion through two criminal trials--sat stoically as the clerk to U.S. District Judge John G. Davies read the guilty verdict against him.

A long-brewing dispute among the lawyers defending the four police officers indicted by the federal government in the beating of Rodney G. King comes to a head today when U.S. District Judge John G. Davies considers whether to force one of the officers to drop the attorney who has represented him for nearly two years. "This is a critical stage in this case," said lawyer Harland W. Braun, who represents Officer Theodore J. Briseno. "It will determine a great deal about how we proceed from here."

A gunman stormed a Riverside County halfway house Thursday looking for former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey C. Koon but killed a hostage instead before sheriff's deputies shot him to death, authorities said. The gunman--tentatively identified as Randall Tolbert, 35--was killed in a volley of gunfire after a sheriff's SWAT team burst into the Re-Entry Community Corrections Center in Rubidoux about 3:30 p.m.

The King trial jury has to be commended for coming up with a good decision. The Los Angeles Police Department is staffed with a great majority of good, capable personnel but like every other profession, a few bad apples do appear and must be removed. I hope Sgt. Stacey Koon will now find less time for writing and more time for reading books on humility and how to suppress egotism. ALLEN LIDYOFF Montebello

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided in the Koon-Powell ruling (June 14) that federal judges are "to consider every convicted person as an individual and every case a unique study in the human failings that sometimes mitigate ... the crime and punishment to ensue," it will be interesting to see if black males who come before Judge John G. Davies and his colleagues on crack cases are afforded the same judicial flexibility and leniency that have...

Five and a half years after exploding across Los Angeles, the Rodney G. King beating case quietly reached what appears to be its final milestone Thursday as a sparsely attended federal court hearing effectively closed out the episode that reshaped the city's legal and political landscape. "It's done," Michael Stone, the longtime friend and lawyer of former Police Officer Laurence M. Powell, said as he emerged from the hearing. "It's finally done." U.S. District Judge John G.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied efforts by two former Los Angeles police officers to win city reimbursement for $500,000 in legal fees they spent defending themselves against a lawsuit brought and won by Rodney G. King. The unanimous ruling by a three judge-panel from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that a judge was right to rule that Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell acted with "actual malice" in beating King after a chase on March 3, 1991.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided in the Koon-Powell ruling (June 14) that federal judges are "to consider every convicted person as an individual and every case a unique study in the human failings that sometimes mitigate ... the crime and punishment to ensue," it will be interesting to see if black males who come before Judge John G. Davies and his colleagues on crack cases are afforded the same judicial flexibility and leniency that have...

In a ruling that sends the Rodney G. King police beating case back to Los Angeles for at least one more hearing, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found Thursday that King's "misconduct" and the burden of a double trial justified the lenient, 30-month sentences imposed on two officers found guilty of violating his civil rights.

Re the March 22 letter from an LAPD officer thanking the "grace of God" for not being prosecuted for an "honest mistake" as Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell were: If you think what happened to Rodney King was an "honest mistake," you provide chilling evidence of the LAPD's grotesque nature. Instead of brutalizing the people of the city and whining about the consequences, L.A. police officers should try enforcing the law without breaking it themselves. Maybe then the people in this city could stop worrying about who is going to protect them from the police.

The two former Los Angeles police officers who are trying to avoid more prison time for the beating of motorist Rodney G. King found an unlikely ally Tuesday at the Supreme Court in Justice Stephen G. Breyer, a moderate-liberal appointed by President Clinton. Breyer, joined by several justices, commented during the oral argument of the case that trial judges should have flexibility to set the proper sentence, especially in unusual cases.

Re the March 22 letter from an LAPD officer thanking the "grace of God" for not being prosecuted for an "honest mistake" as Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell were: If you think what happened to Rodney King was an "honest mistake," you provide chilling evidence of the LAPD's grotesque nature. Instead of brutalizing the people of the city and whining about the consequences, L.A. police officers should try enforcing the law without breaking it themselves. Maybe then the people in this city could stop worrying about who is going to protect them from the police.

The much-anticipated U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments Tuesday in the case of two police officers convicted of violating Rodney G. King's civil rights were a casualty of the snowstorm that has gripped the northeastern United States since the weekend. Although the Supreme Court has been virtually the only government institution in Washington to put in full workdays this week, William Kopeny, who was planning to present the argument for Officer Laurence M.

After five years of legal battles and social upheaval, the case that helped shape the modern history of Los Angeles makes its way this week to the nation's highest court, where government lawyers and attorneys for two former police officers will engage in what could be the last debate of the Rodney G. King beating. As the saga marks yet another milestone, the principals still are battling to put their lives in order.