No More Prison For Koon, Powell In King Beating

The two former policemen who served 2-1/2 years behind bars for the Rodney King beating won’t have to go back to prison, a judge decided Thursday.

At a resentencing ordered by the Supreme Court, U.S. District Judge John Davies affirmed the prison terms he handed out to Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell in 1993.

In June, the high court ordered Davies to reconsider his departure from the federal sentencing guidelines, which called for about five to seven years in prison.

The Supreme Court said Davies was correct in considering the possibility Koon and Powell might be abused in prison and the hardship of being subjected to two trials.

But the court said the judge erred when he considered the effect the convictions would have on the officers’ careers and the unlikelihood the men would break the law again.

On Thursday, Davies said: “I’m certain in this case even if I had not used the two erroneous factors … I still would have imposed exactly the same sentence on the defendants.”