County’s First ‘3 Strikes’ Case Ends in Mistrial : Courts: Jurors deadlock over the burglary defendant, who could have been imprisoned for life. A new trial is ordered.

The first “three-strikes” case to go to trial in Los Angeles County ended Monday in a mistrial, sparing the defendant--at least for now--the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison for a burglary.

After deliberating 2 1/2 days, jurors in the case against Gregory Joe Bellamy, 43, deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of convicting him in the March 13 break-in at a home near Hollywood. Some of the jurors who voted to convict him complained afterward that the three jurors who favored acquittal harbored racial loyalties toward Bellamy because they, like the defendant, are black.

Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger ordered Bellamy to be retried.

Under the state’s 3-month-old “three-strikes” law, defendants previously convicted of two serious or violent felonies must be sentenced to 25 years to life imprisonment if they are convicted of a third felony of any kind.

Bellamy has five prior serious felony convictions, including an unarmed robbery, attempted sodomy and a residential burglary with the use of a gun, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Keri De Santis.

After jurors were dismissed Monday, De Santis told them she was concerned that they had been affected by knowing that Bellamy would have received a 25-years-to-life sentence had he been convicted. However, the jurors said they were unaware of that stipulation.

“We didn’t even know it was a ‘three-strikes’ case until we walked out the (courtroom) door,” one juror said.

According to trial testimony, Bellamy was arrested less than two blocks away from the burglarized home eight minutes after the homeowner, William Davidson, awakened to a noise and called police. An officer testified that a watch and a ring that belonged to Davidson were found in a fanny pack worn by Bellamy.

The three jurors who stuck to not guilty votes said they were not convinced that Davidson had adequately identified Bellamy. His description to police of a 6-foot-tall black man with bold features was too vague, they said. Bellamy testified that police planted Davidson’s belongings on him.

Some of the other jurors accused the three holdouts of sympathizing with Bellamy’s testimony and comparing the circumstances of his arrest to the Rodney G. King beating.

Bellamy told the jury that police, while arresting him, ground his face in the dirt, struck him without reason and turned a police dog on a nearby man.

The three holdouts denied that their votes were swayed by race or the King case and said the other jurors--one African American, one Latino, one Asian American and the rest white--had made remarks about Bellamy during deliberations that were racially tinged and inappropriate.