SANTA ANA : Warrants Are Issued for Homeless Campers

A judge issued arrest warrants Monday for about 45 homeless men and women charged with camping in the Civic Center two years ago, after their deadline passed to resolve their cases by performing community service.

In June, a judge had extended an unusual offer to nearly 60 people charged with illegal camping: If they completed eight hours of community service, their misdemeanor cases would be dismissed.

Only three accepted the offer. Most of the rest weren’t even told of it because they couldn’t be found by investigators and defense attorneys who searched shelters, soup kitchens, jails and hospitals.

When the deadline passed Monday, Central Municipal Judge Gregory H. Lewis issued the arrest warrants. He also set trial dates in early September for another eight defendants on the list.

Deputy Public Defender Jim Merwin, whose office is representing 10 defendants, said he was disappointed, but not surprised that more cases weren’t dismissed.

“They’re just difficult to find,” he said.

Howard Hance, one of two homeless defendants who attended the court proceeding Monday, said he likes to volunteer and was happy to resolve his case by spending eight hours helping at a local community center.

But Hance, 65, said he still doesn’t have a home, and fears more problems because of Santa Ana’s anti-camping ordinance.

“I feel I’m a fugitive from justice,” he said. “All of us are being made a fugitive from justice.”

The misdemeanor charges against the homeless, pending for more than two years, moved back onto the court calendar in June soon after the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Santa Ana’s 1992 anti-camping ordinance.

The ordinance makes it a crime punishable by up to six months in jail to store personal effects or to use a sleeping bag or blanket on public sidewalks, streets, parking lots and government malls.

The judge and attorneys negotiated the unusual community service offer in the hopes of sparing dozens of costly trials amid the county’s financial crisis.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Joel Stone said he too had hoped to resolve more of the cases but will be ready for trial next month.

Cathy Jensen, one of several private attorneys who have been representing the remaining defendants for free, said she will seek dismissal of the cases now set for trial, saying she’s outraged as a taxpayer that the cases are still being prosecuted.