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Jurors hear start of death trial Homeless men accused in beating By CHRIS BRISTOL In a test of tolerance, jurors heard opening statements Tuesday in the manslaughter trial of two down-and-out homeless men. Howard Baker, 51, and David Zahner, 37, are accused of beating to death another homeless alcoholic, Ronald Pageau, in a fight outside an abandoned house in north Medford last November. The defendants claim self-defense. The prosecution concedes the victim was a belligerent drunk, but contends the defendants went too far. The trial is expected to last three days. Jackson County Judge Dan Harris is presiding. On Nov. 17, a postal carrier found Pageau's body in the front yard of an abandoned house in the 1000 block of North Central Avenue. City officials had condemned the house and several others in the neighborhood three years ago. An autopsy revealed Pageau, 39, suffered numerous injuries, mostly facial. He had a broken nose, was missing large chunks of hair and has a fractured skull. Deputy district attorney Beth Heckert told the jury that a homeless woman and her 7-year-old son witnessed the fight and would testify. The boy is now 8 and appears to be the state's star witness. According to Heckert, the woman had been "romantically involved" with Pageau in the past, and invited him over the night of the fight. At the time, she was living illegally in the house; Baker and Zahner lived out back, in a shed. Heckert told the jury the fight apparently started after Pageau began behaving erratically -- at one point he made threats to "cut somebody's jugular" -- and twice kicked in the door to the woman's room. Responding to her son's plea for help, Baker and Zahner tried to calm Pageau down, who then attacked Baker. What happened next is at the heart of the case. According to the prosecution, Baker and Zahner used too much force to subdue Pageau. Heckert said Zahner struck Pageau repeatedly over the head with part of a metal crutch and Baker then stomped on the stricken man's head, after he apparently had been knocked out. But defense attorneys Lorenzo Mejia and Angie Lanier contend the defendants' efforts to subdue Pageau were reasonable, given the circumstances. Mejia, who represents Baker, told the jury there was no factual dispute that Pageau had been behaving irrationally -- he started the fight with a sucker-punch to Baker's head -- and nobody thought Pageau had been seriously injured in the fracas. He also noted that Pageau had a blood-alcohol level of .30 -- almost four times the legal standard for drunken driving. Lanier, who represents Zahner, repeatedly referred to Pageau as a "madman" -- noting he was a much bigger man than her client -- and stressed that both defendants tried to play peacemaker before Pageau attacked Baker. "This is a classic case of self-defense," she said. She also urged the jury to be tolerant of her client's down-and-out lifestyle as a maintenance alcoholic, meaning he drinks only to stave off the shakes. She pointed out that Zahner had a part-time job with a home furnishing company, and said he had put in six hours at work on the day of the fight. The defendants were originally arrested on charges of murder and first-degree manslaughter, but a grand jury indicted them on the lesser charge only. If convicted, they face a mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison, with no early release or parole. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA