COLUMN RIGHT/ STEVEN S. LUCAS / ERIC W. ROSE : Get Ready for Acquittal in Rodney King II : This time, leadership is needed in advance to explain why a videotape isn’t the whole case.

Many see in the upcoming Rodney King civil-rights trial the federal government coming to the aid of a city scarred by unprecedented violence and racial animosity. Others see the trial of the four LAPD officers charged with violating King’s rights simply as a second chance for the justice system to do what is right, to administer for King the justice that a predominantly white jury denied him in Simi Valley.

In the end, however, because convictions are even less likely in the federal trial, the probable result will be intense disappointment and frustration, and, again, the potential for the chaos that accompanied these same emotions after the first trial ended last April 29.

The public’s condemnation of the criminal justice system in the wake of the acquittal verdict was of unprecedented magnitude. At the root of this phenomenon was the fundamental and, to many, incomprehensible disparity between the public’s judgment as to the officers’ culpability, a judgment based on countless viewings of a single grainy videotape, and the jury’s conclusion based on the testimony of 56 witnesses and a frame-by-frame analysis of that same videotape.

The factors that created this disparity in Rodney King/Part One, the combination of extraordinary media hype and the complex nature of the legal hurdles facing the prosecution that were never fully conveyed to the public during that trial, have only become more pronounced in the sequel, and make for an even more volatile combination this time around.

Before the first trial, public perceptions were focused by repeated TV broadcast of the videotape, which showed motorist King being beaten after a traffic stop. After the verdict, that video was joined by one showing the equally graphic images of trucker Reginald Denny being beaten and the city erupting in uncontained violence, looting and arson that lasted for three days. In the mind’s eye of the TV audience--that is, the public--this collage of images suggests that it all may happen again if the federal trial also ends in acquittal.

Next to these expectations lie complex and daunting legal issues for the federal prosecutors, issues that have proved incompatible with the traditional approach of the media in reporting news.

The central legal issues of the civil rights trial are not capable of definition by the media simply because the media have already determined that the critical issue is the videotape, and that this leans in favor of convictions. But, even in the best of circumstances, the legal issues in this case are not susceptible to easy media presentation, given their complex nature.

The intricate legal issues of the first trial, including those related to police training, procedure, control and perception, have been magnified by the one critical issue that is unique to the second trial: The prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the officers intended to use excessive force against Rodney King in violation of his civil rights. This will be difficult; for one thing, the defense plans to show that the passengers in King’s car, who obeyed the officers’ orders, remained untouched.

The problem of presenting these intricate legal questions is compounded by the ban on television cameras in federal courtrooms. The TV audience’s exposure to the trial as it unfolds will be limited, for the most part, to reporters’ sound-bite summaries, augmented by courtroom artists’ sketches.

No one can predict whether death and destruction will again tear through the fabric of this community after the trial. There are too many unknowns, such as the preparedness of the LAPD and the National Guard, the “temperature” both literally and figuratively, on the streets and other events that might have synergistic effects, such as the Reginald Denny trial.

What can be predicted is the overwhelming likelihood of acquittals in the civil-rights trial. Such a prediction is a step that the city’s leaders have been unwilling to take, but it is a necessary step in order to narrow the gap between expectations and reality. And only through such a narrowing can Los Angeles defuse the volatile situation that has again arisen at the intersection of complex issues of criminal justice and careless, unrestrained media hype.