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2 convicted of killing transient Self defense rejected, as is more serious charge BY CHRIS BRISTOL Two transients were convicted Friday on reduced charges of second-degree manslaughter for the fatal beating of another homeless man. Howard Baker, 51, and David Zahner, 37, had been charged with first-degree manslaughter for beating and stomping Ronald Pageau in a fight Nov. 16 outside an abandoned house in north Medford. A Jackson County jury of six men and six women rejected the more serious charge, which carried a mandatory Measure 11 sentence of 10 years in prison. Second-degree manslaughter is punishable by 75 months with no early release or parole. A sentencing date was tentatively set for March 5. Trial judge Dan Harris is bound by the terms of Measure 11. The verdict represented a bitter victory of sorts for the defendants, who had been originally arrested on charges of murder. In closing arguments Friday and Thursday, defense attorneys Angie LaNier and Lorenzo Mejia argued their clients acted in self-defense. The defendants were tried jointly, but each had his own lawyer. According to trial testimony, Pageau started the fight in a drunken rage. He threatened a homeless woman who was camping out in the house with her 8-year-old son, and then attacked Baker when Baker tried to intervene. But prosecutor Beth Heckert argued the defendants ganged up on Pageau and stomped his head on the ground long after he was down, then casually dragged the stricken man's body to the front yard and left him outside all night in near-freezing weather. An autopsy showed the victim's skull was badly fractured. "They were angry and mad, not scared," she told the jury. "They kicked him over and over, saying `Get up. Get up and fight like a man.' " Heckert argued that despite Pageau's drunken belligerence, the defedants never really feared him. She also recounted Zahner's statements to detectives that the fight started because Pageau "got mouthy with me." "This is not the statement of a man who just defended his life or defended a woman and her child," she argued. Zahner testified earlier in the trial that he fought Pageau out of fear, but his decision to take the stand opened him up to impeachment. Perhaps most damaging to his case was a taped interview with detectives in which he explained to detectives that while Pageau was the aggressor, he was the victor. "He was whalin' on me," Zahner said. "Why shouldn't I whale on him?" Baker did not testify. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA