Attorney Awarded $114,880 Over Arm-Twisting at Jail

When criminal defense attorney Lucy Mesecher went to trial last week to try and persuade a jury that a sheriff’s deputy twisted her arm and forced her to the ground when she was unable to produce identification at the County jail downtown, her case had a major drawback.

She could not remember anything about the incident.

Mesecher knew something disturbing had happened that day. She knew she had a mildly sprained wrist and strained shoulder. And she knew from another lawyer who witnessed the incident that she had been lying on the floor with the deputy above her. But she recalled little else.

“How do you win when your own client doesn’t remember what happened?” her attorney, Peter Friesen, asked Wednesday.

Mesecher, who hired a private investigator to tell her what happened that day, won $114,880 from the county this week.

The six-day trial resulted in an El Cajon Superior Court jury’s findings Tuesday that Deputy David Hawkins had “intentional, unlawful and harmful” contact with Mesecher but did not use excessive force.

A doctor testified at trial that Mesecher, 45, had psychogenic amnesia, which caused her to black out much of the events of Dec. 9, 1987, when she went to a video arraignment of a client. According to court testimony, Mesecher was led into the jail with other attorneys via a courthouse elevator and did not pick up a jail ID.

The arraignment was delayed, and when she attempted to leave the jail, Mesecher attempted to use the C Street exit, which was barred by an iron gate. A deputy stopped her and asked to see her identification.

She turned without answering and walked back to the arraignment room when the deputy allegedly grabbed her arm, locked it behind her, and pushed her to the ground, witnesses said.

Hawkins, another deputy and two jail clerks testified that Hawkins did nothing more than touch Mesecher’s arm.

Until shortly before trial, Mesecher had only one witness--another attorney who said he saw the deputy standing above her while Mesecher was on the ground. Then the plaintiffs found the inmate Mesecher was representing that day. He said he saw the entire incident.

Attorney Friesen said Wednesday that the verdict should send a strong message to the county and the Sheriff’s Department, which has been plagued by accusations of abuse and several substantial judgments involving inmates and jail visitors.

“I think the reflex in that (jail) setting is for deputies to deal with people with overwhelming force,” he said. “It’s not thought out. It’s not planned. And they don’t discriminate against inmates or anyone else. Everyone is treated that way.”

In September, a jury awarded a 32-year-old Vista woman $332,000 in damages after determining that two female sheriff’s deputies used excessive force when they booked her into County Jail there. In that case, Kimberlee Bryant was stripped and left naked in a rubber-walled cell.

In July, a San Diego jury awarded $1.1 million to former Navy chaplain Jim Butler, who accused deputies of beating him at the Vista jail in 1985.

And Kelly Martinez, 24, was strip-searched when she visited her husband at the County Jail in Descanso two years ago. She sued the county, but her case has not yet been resolved.

A measure on last month’s ballot that would have taken the jails from under the control of the Sheriff’s Department and created a separate corrections department would have curtailed many of the abuse problems, its proponents argued. It failed by a large margin.

Voters did approve a ballot measure that will create a citizens review panel with authority to oversee all potential deputy misconduct cases.

County attorneys, who offered to settle with Mesecher for $2,000, did not return several telephone calls about the verdict. Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Cooke said the department normally declines to comment on litigation.

Mesecher, an attorney for 10 years who since has moved to Santa Barbara, could not be reached for comment.

Friesen said Mesecher worked for Defenders Inc., which used to hold a contract with the county to defend poor clients whose cases are not handled directly by the county’s Office of Defender Services.

After the incident, Mesecher had trouble practicing law and no longer felt comfortable in San Diego. She moved to a more relaxed community to escape the pressure, her attorney said.

“When you are going through depression and anxiety, it’s tough to represent clients with all your heart,” Friesen said.

Friesen said that all Mesecher remembers is someone grabbing her arm that day. On the witness stand, Mesecher said she could not recall anything else that happened in the jail.

“She blacks the incident out of her memory,” Friesen said. “That made it a difficult case. But the jury felt something had happened and (Mesecher) deserved compensation.”

Mesecher’s client, who was being arraigned, helped the case immensely, Friesen said.

Before her client surfaced, Friesen said he was willing to settle for less than $20,000.

“It was painful for her to go to trial,” he said. “Once your mind is closed on something like that, then you hear details, you really start reliving it.”