Homeless Men Acquitted of Trespassing at 2nd Site After Closure of Justiceville

Three homeless men who lived in Justiceville, a Skid Row shantytown shut down last May by authorities, were acquitted Friday of trespassing charges filed after the Justiceville transients had moved to another vacant lot.

Ted Hayes, 34, a defendant and a one-time minister who organized the two settlements, said the Municipal Court jury’s decision vindicates the ideals of his community for the homeless.

“It proves that we’re credible, and if we and our word are credible, then so are our concepts,” Hayes said outside the courtroom of Judge Richard A. Paez. “This case should give the public more trust in us . . . and at the same time, it’s going to give homeless people some courage, some hope that we do have dignity and respect from our peers.”

Also acquitted were Wendell Grady, 30, and Walter Bannister, 24, both unemployed Army veterans. The three were arrested June 3 after they refused to leave the second Justiceville site at 3rd and Bixel streets.

Deputy Disappointed

“I’m disappointed with the verdict,” Deputy City Atty. Gloria J. Dabbs, who prosecuted the case, said. “I thought we proved our case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Defense lawyers had mounted a broad defense, arguing that even if their clients did not have permission to stay on the land, they were not guilty of trespassing under the legal theory of necessity--that they had no other place to go.

But the jury decided the case on the narrow issue of whether the defendants had reason to believe that the land owner was allowing them to stay on the property, the foreman said.

During the seven-day trial, Hayes told the jury that an agent for Stobor Corp., the owner of the nine-acre Bixel Street property, discovered the settlement there and gave his group permission to stay, at least temporarily, while the agent presented Hayes’ proposal for a long-term lease.

But the agent, Terry Lee, an employee of Richfield International Management Inc., testified that he told Hayes and his group to leave as soon as Lee had found the encampment May 30.

“We just thought there was a reasonable doubt as to whether Mr. Lee did suggest, whether expressly or by implication, that they could remain on the property,” jury Foreman Ken Yamate, 40, an Inglewood pharmacist, said.

Yamate noted that four days elapsed between Lee’s first contact with the homeless group and the arrival of police to evict the residents.

Hayes and 17 other transients moved to the lot on Bixel Street after police evicted them May 10 from the first site, at 6th Street and Gladys Avenue. Eleven transients were arrested during that eviction, but the city attorney’s office later decided not to press charges.

Trespassing, a misdemeanor, is punishable by up to six months in County Jail.

Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for City Atty. James K. Hahn, said Friday that the Justiceville verdict will not affect the agency’s policy on filing trespassing charges against transients who camp out on vacant lots. City prosecutors file charges only in those cases in which they believe the owner did not give consent to occupy the property, Goldstein said. When there is a doubt, he said, the office attempts to resolve the dispute in an informal hearing.

In the first Justiceville case, Goldstein said, there was ample evidence to suggest that the owner of the property had willingly allowed the transients to live on his land. But the office believed that was not the case at the second site, Goldstein said.

To buttress their position, defense lawyers Douglas Booth, Dan Stormer and Cathy R. Dreyfuss called experts who testified that it is all but impossible for the roughly 30,000 homeless people in the Los Angeles area to live on the $228 a month provided by the county Department of Public Social Services to those on general relief. The county calculates a housing allowance of $143 out of that total, the experts said.

The experts, Allan Heskin, a professor at the UCLA School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and Gary Blasi, of the Legal Aid Foundation, testified that living on the street is life threatening and that hotel rooms available are unsafe and unhealthy.

The jury briefly discussed those issues, Yamate said.

“There were differing opinions,” the foreman said. “Some felt very sorry for the homeless, but they weren’t willing to give up their own property. I don’t think anyone was willing to give up their own property to house the poor. I think we were all concerned about the homeless. But we really had no answers, beyond anything the county is providing (now.)”