Court OKs New Trial in Suit Over Arrest

LOS ANGELES — A lawyer for two black men who accused Los Angeles police of false arrest should have been allowed to argue that officers fabricated racist claims to appeal to white jurors, a federal appeals court has decided.

Instead of permitting the argument, U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson told the lawyer, in open court, that there was “no issue of race in this case” and that he should know better than to make inappropriate comments.

That ruling denied the plaintiffs the right to present their case, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday in granting a new trial.

Shearwood Fleming and Vincent Maddox sued the city and five officers over their May 1994 arrest in Venice. Fleming was well known in Venice as a minister and frequent critic of police who often videotaped officers in the community, said Donald W. Cook, a lawyer for the two men.

Fleming said he was standing with friends when police drove by and told him to get off the street. After protesting that he was doing nothing wrong, Fleming said, he was grabbed by the officers, pepper-sprayed and knocked down. Maddox said he complained and was also knocked to the ground.

Cook said police testified that they asked Fleming to get off the street, and he responded with profanity and epithets against whites, Latinos and women, and shoved a policewoman.

Both men were taken to jail and released, and the city attorney filed no charges against them, Cook said.