Illness of King Juror Briefly Stirs a Frenzy : Trial: Parties convene nervously in court, only to learn that a visit to doctor will delay deliberations.

Hundreds of reporters descended upon the federal courthouse while helicopters took to the air overhead Wednesday after the judge in the Rodney G. King civil rights trial summoned lawyers and defendants to his courtroom for an afternoon announcement.

The accused officers fidgeted nervously in their seats as U.S. District Judge John G. Davies took the bench and dropped his bombshell: A juror had requested to see a doctor.

“There are no verdicts,” Davies told the packed courtroom. “But we do have a problem. . . . One of the jurors appears to have become ill and needs medical attention. The juror has made a request to see a family doctor this afternoon.”

Davies informed prosecutors and defense attorneys that he had granted permission for the juror to see the doctor, accompanied by a U.S. marshal. With the issue thus concluded, Davies grinned at the lawyers and said: “Have a good afternoon.”

The courtroom erupted in nervous laughter as reporters dashed for the exits to alert their news organizations--many of which were broadcasting live reports from the courthouse--that the much-anticipated verdicts still had not been delivered. The jurors, who have been sequestered, left for the day before 2 p.m., having deliberated for just 3 1/2 hours.

While the false alarm over the expected verdicts created an adrenaline rush among those carefully following the historic trial, residents in many corners of the city seemed oblivious to the all commotion.

At the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, the flash point of last year’s riots, all was quiet. At a gas station there, two men pumped gas and chatted about Tuesday’s Dodger game. A woman standing nearby was asked by the only reporter who showed up whether she had heard rumors about possible verdicts. “What verdict?” she said.

At the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts, it was much the same. But for the presence of two news reporters, those who had gathered outside in the warm April sunshine would have been completely unaware of possible developments.

Small children pedaled their tricycles on the grass and filled a small pool with a garden hose. Young men sat on a sunny bench, sipping malt liquor and playing dominoes. Drying laundry flapped in the breeze and an ice cream truck made its rounds.

For the most part, business continued as usual throughout the city, despite the brief midafternoon spike in anxiety levels. Venice advertising agency Chiat/Day, which closed early on Monday when verdicts were rumored, stayed open this time and “there was no panic,” a company spokesman said.

A number of retailers noted an afternoon sales lull--among them the Fedco store on La Cienega, looted and burned last year but quickly reopened. A crowd gathered in the discount department store’s television department to watch news bulletins. Employees were a bit jittery about possible verdicts, acknowledged assistant manager Ed Parness, who said: “There was possibly a slight letup in business, but not that much.”

In Koreatown, one of the communities hardest hit by last year’s unrest, merchants reported that business has been down 40% to 50% since the jury began deliberating. But there appeared to be little outward excitement over the sudden court hearing.

Most people already were prepared for the verdicts, merchants noted. Many had stocked up on such staples as rice, canned food and Korean-style instant noodles. Now they were going about their daily business, albeit with a weary stoicism.

“What can we do but wait?” asked Charles Yoon from his metal folding chair outside a key shop in a mini-mall parking lot.

At Bourbon Street Liquor, next door to a supermarket where a security guard was killed in a cross-fire of bullets last spring, owner Jay Shim reacted to Wednesday’s false alarm by citing a Korean proverb: “When you get frightened by the sight of a turtle, you become startled even when you see the top of a hot pot.”

At five inner-city police divisions--Southeast, Southwest, Hollywood, Rampart and Newton--and at headquarters downtown, officials reported ordering no increased patrols or other actions in response to the verdict rumor.

Rampart Sgt. Michael Chamberlain said officers were trying to find out themselves if verdicts were in store by monitoring news broadcasts.

“We probably did like a whole lot of other folks and watched,” he said.

The only difference was that officers at Rampart were also fielding a greater than usual number of calls from merchants anxious for what they figured would be inside information in the hands of the police.

“When all that was going on, the officers at Newton Division were busy delivering a baby,” reported a proud Capt. Jim Tatreau, “and that overshadowed any news about a possible verdict.”

But that was not the case at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building, where the chaos and suspense began mounting during the lunch hour when Judge Davies’ clerk began quietly circulating among the lawyers, telling them to be in court at 1 p.m. Meanwhile, the wire services notified the media about the scheduled proceeding.

When court convened, U.S. Atty. Terree A. Bowers and the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division were in attendance, fueling speculation that an announcement of the verdicts could be at hand.

Some radio and television organizations went live to announce the news that Davies had convened the afternoon session, and within minutes, helicopters were broadcasting aerial shots of the courthouse.

Then, just as the anxiety crested, Davies was forced to order a one-hour delay in the announcement because one of the defense lawyers, Harland W. Braun, was having a pasta lunch in Chinatown.

The extra time merely stoked the tension, and within the hour, the Federal Building was in an uproar.

“Lucille, I think that it’s time to leave,” one federal worker said to another as they boarded an elevator. “I feel like I’m in a MASH unit.”

Braun and his client, Officer Theodore J. Briseno, were on hand when court reconvened at 2:07 p.m. Davies chided Braun for being away from the courthouse and told him to stay within 10 minutes’ call from the building in the future.

“Some people really seem to enjoy the tension,” Paul R. DePasquale, the lawyer for Officer Timothy E. Wind, said later of Davies.

Davies told lawyers that he was not sure how serious the juror’s ailment was, and he did not disclose which juror it was.

Davies’ handling of the issue drew some fire from defense attorneys in the case, who complained that he had allowed speculation to run wild about possible verdicts when he could simply have told lawyers that a juror needed medical attention.

“I really think this was unnecessary,” Braun said. “He could have just issued an order and kept this all from happening.”

If the juror is too sick to continue, Davies could allow the panel to continue with 11 members. Although the federal rules do not specifically address the question of whether one of the alternate jurors could be added to the 11 remaining panelists, lawyers said they might be allowed to draft one of three alternate jurors if both sides agreed to that idea. Those alternates, like the 12 regular jurors, have been sequestered since late February.

If one of the alternates were drafted, that could force deliberations to begin again, since none of the alternates have been allowed to attend the jury discussions that have been under way since Saturday.

Braun said that if both sides agreed to use an alternate juror, that person would be selected randomly.

Despite the uncertainty about the ailing juror’s medical condition, jurors told Davies that they hope to reconvene this morning at 8:30.

In a separate development, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said that the remaining state charge against Officer Laurence M. Powell, left in limbo after the jury in Simi Valley deadlocked over whether the officer used unnecessary force against King, will be dismissed at his office’s request, possibly this Friday.

Garcetti said Wednesday that the decision to drop the charge was made months ago. Because of the federal jury trial, “Legally we will be obligated to do so, because it’s double jeopardy,” Garcetti said. “Even if we wanted to we couldn’t try him again.”

A hearing is scheduled Friday before Judge Stanley Weisberg, who presided over the first trial. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office said prosecutors would move to dismiss the charge at that hearing if the federal jury has returned its verdicts by then. If not, prosecutors will move to continue the hearing until after the federal case is over.

Wednesday began on a strange note when one of the defendants, Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, and his attorney, Ira Salzman, arrived for the day’s activities wearing Groucho Marx-style gag glasses with fake noses and phony mustaches. The two suggested that they were attempting to inject some levity into the situation.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Stephanie Chavez, Paul Feldman, Jesse Katz, K. Connie Kang, Eric Malnic, Dean Murphy, Nancy Rivera Brooks, Ted Rohrlich, Amy Wallace and Henry Weinstein.

Update: The King Trial

A look at the developments Wednesday:

Word of a forthcoming announcement by U.S. District Judge John G. Davies sent hundreds of reporters scurrying to the federal courthouse in anticipation of a verdict, but it turned out to be a false alarm. The judge just wanted to report that deliberations would be halted for the afternoon so a sick juror could get medical attention.

Among those following the historic trial, the verdict rumor created an adrenaline rush. Local television stations went live. Media helicopters hovered overhead. But for most of the city, there was no panic, and businesses that had shut down Monday, when the last verdict rumor circulated, remained open this time.

In a separate development, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said that the remaining charge against Officer Laurence M. Powell, left in limbo after the jury in Simi Valley deadlocked over whether the officer used unnecessary force against King, will be dismissed at his office’s request, possibly this Friday. Garcetti said that because of the federal jury trial, the state cannot retry Powell without subjecting him to double jeopardy.