April 29, 2005, San Francisco Chronicle, Logging protesters win pepper spray case ---- Jury awards $1 each after third trial, by Stacy Finz,

April 29, 2005, San Francisco Chronicle, Logging protesters win pepper spray case ---- Jury awards $1 each after third trial,  by Stacy Finz,

After eight years and three trials, a group of protesters whose eyes were swabbed with pepper spray during a series of anti-logging demonstrations finally won their case Thursday against Humboldt County sheriff's deputies and Eureka police -- but were awarded only $1 each in damages.

A federal jury deliberated for about 12 hours starting Tuesday before returning its verdict, finding that law enforcement had used excessive force while trying to break up three different protests in the fall of 1997, including one at then-Rep. Frank Riggs' Eureka office and another at the Scotia headquarters of the Pacific Lumber Co.

It was the third time the civil case has gone to trial in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The first two trials -- one in 1998 and the other in 2004 -- ended in deadlocked juries.

This time, Attorney Dennis Cunningham asked the jurors to award Spring Lundberg, who was 17 at the time of the protests, and the other seven plaintiffs in the case between $10,000 and $100,000 for pain and suffering. Despite the jury's paltry award, he said his clients feel vindicated.

"It was never about the money," Cunningham said. "It was always about the principle."

He said that the jurors, who appeared to be emotionally drained after the two-week trial, didn't say much about how they came to their decision. He said he could only surmise that the eight-person panel compromised.

"They probably felt that the cops had to do something," said Cunningham, adding that although the protesters did not suffer long-term injuries from the pepper spray, it was a "profound experience that will stay with them for the rest of their lives."

Police and deputies put pepper spray directly into the eyes of the protesters, who had chained themselves together, in hopes that the burning would force them to unlock their shackles.

Defense lawyers for law enforcement argued during the trial that the protesters were resisting arrest on private property and that it would have been too dangerous to them to cut their chains with a grinder -- a technique Cunningham said is the traditional method of ending such demonstrations.

He said, "This was more like torture."