Homeless Man’s Suit Ends in Mistrial : Litigation: Mashone Bonner claimed Santa Ana employees illegally confiscated his possessions during sweep.

A homeless man’s civil rights lawsuit against the city of Santa Ana ended in a mistrial Monday when jurors in Superior Court deadlocked.

After the announcement, the attorney for Mashone Bonner vowed to retry the civil case, which alleges that city employees illegally confiscated all of Bonner’s possessions during a 1989 sweep of the Civic Center.

The case, heard in Newport Beach, is the only one of a series of lawsuits filed by the homeless against the city to go to trial. The others were settled out of court, with the city agreeing to pay a total of about $500,000 to a number of homeless people, including Bonner, who had received $22,000 in a settlement over another, unrelated arrest.

The city last week rejected an offer to settle the case for about $15,000.

The jury’s 6-6 split decision Monday gave attorneys on both sides cause to argue that their side would eventually prevail.

“It should be instructive to political leaders” who are looking for solutions to the homeless problem that forcing them out of town “is an approach that at least a fair percentage of the public has a great deal of difficulty with and disagreement (with),” said Christopher B. Mears, Bonner’s attorney.

“We have got to start approaching this problem with a sense of love and compassion toward our fellow man rather than treating people like Mr. Bonner as if they are subhuman and are police problems and maintenance problems.”

During the trial, Mears claimed that the taking of Bonner’s property was part of the city’s strategy to permanently evict vagrants by continually removing the homeless and their belongings from public areas and also by stepping up code enforcement on businesses and agencies that help them.

But the city’s attorney, Phillip D. Eaton, argued that there is no proof that the city took the plastic bag containing Bonner’s possessions, which included a watch, diamond ring and photographs of his three daughters.

After the jury was dismissed, Eaton said the indecision reflected doubt that the city acted irresponsibly or illegally and questioned Mears’ argument that the city had a scheme to run the homeless out of town.

“Many of the jurors concluded some of the same things (the city) concluded, and that is that we don’t know for a fact that it was picked up by the city.”

“I think it’s a tough case for jurors,” Eaton added. “Whether they like it or not, I think they get torn between sympathy and kindness” for Bonner, and looking carefully at the evidence.

Some jurors said afterward that they did not consider the lawsuit frivolous and were leaning in favor of Bonner by a 9-3 vote after deliberating Thursday for three hours.

But as they resumed their discussions Monday, jurors said they disagreed over whether the city had properly posted warnings about the disposal of abandoned property in the Civic Center and how to reclaim it.

The need for the city to give adequate warning “should not be taken lightly,” said jury forewoman Kathy Edwards of Huntington Beach. “We all definitely took it under severe consideration.”

Juror Gordon Bayes of Fullerton said he was unimpressed by a series of city staff memos that were the cornerstone of Bonner’s case. They described the city’s plan to remove vagrants from throughout Santa Ana.

“It was not germane to the case,” Bayes said. But that comment drew a reaction from juror Joe Langer of Laguna Beach, who said, “For myself, you bet it was” germane.

“I feel that since the city knew the homeless people were there and since the city knew they put their belongings in plastic bags behind bushes, that they should notify people on the day they are making the sweep,” Langer added.

Juror Janine Bell of Huntington Beach agreed with Langer and said she believes that the homeless were targeted by the city.

“I think that they willy-nilly just went in there and took the items,” she said.

Bonner was not in the courtroom when the case ended.

In what Mears claimed was in retaliation for Bonner’s lawsuit against the city, Bonner was arrested Friday by Santa Ana police on suspicion of trespassing and held on two outstanding arrest warrants related to an earlier loitering complaint and a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia in Orange.

A Police Department spokesman said the arrest was not in retaliation, but was prompted by a citizen’s complaint.

Mears said Bonner, 45, was to be released from Orange County Jail late Monday after pleading “no contest” to the initial loitering case and “not guilty” in the drug paraphernalia case.