SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge declared a mistrial Wednesday when a second jury deadlocked on the question of whether police went too far by swabbing pepper spray on the eyes of bound and nonviolent logging protesters back in 1997.

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Video On Demand: Spring Lundburg and Bob Bloom Discuss Pepper Spray Case

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled after jurors sent her a third note, in which they said they were still deadlocked and that further deliberations were "pointless." The jury voted 6-2 in favor of the activists, saying the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department abused the peaceful protesters in Northern California.

"I felt it was an unnecessary use of force given the circumstances," said juror Scott Michael. He said the authorities could have cut the shackles off the protesters to arrest them instead of swabbing their eyes with the irritant.

Under federal law, all jurors must agree on a verdict, unless both parties agree to accept a non-unanimous verdict. Attorneys for the logging protesters told the judge Wednesday afternoon they would agree to a non-unanimous verdict; attorneys for the police said no.

Before declaring a mistrial, Illston took the lawyers into her chambers to try to broker a settlement but that failed. An initial trial in 1998 on the same allegations also ended with a deadlocked jury, which voted 4-4.

One of the plaintiffs who was swabbed with pepper spray while chained to a bulldozer, Mike McCurdy, 29, said the activists will retry the case for a third time.

"Obviously, we would like to have this issue settled," he said. "We believe the police crossed the line."

Settlement talks ended when attorneys for the officers said they would not agree to stop using pepper spray on nonviolent protesters as the activists had demanded.

"It's like asking them not to use a gun whey they respond to a robbery," attorney Bill Bragg told reporters.

Tony Serra, the activists' attorney, said the case was about trying to ban the use of pepper spray on those practicing civil disobedience.

"They are unwilling to agree to that," Serra told reporters.

The excessive force case stems from 1997 anti-logging demonstrations. To make it more difficult for police to arrest them, the protesters chained themselves to trees and or linked their arms together inside steel tubes.

Serra told jurors that police officers treated them like "wild beasts."

Nancy Delaney, one of the sheriff's department's attorneys, said authorities did not wish to use power tools to unbind the protesters who had shackled themselves together, fearing that it could have "severed digits."

She said authorities swabbed pepper spray -- an eye and throat irritant designed for self defense -- on the protesters' eyes to get them to unlock their shackles and be removed from private property.

"The pepper spray is preferable and poses less risk of injury," she told the jury. She said she would ask the judge to dismiss the case outright and not allow a retrial.

The authorities had used power tools dozens of times to unlock logging protesters, but felt it was too dangerous to do so this time, Delaney said.

Many viewers were outraged by the images broadcast nationwide, showing Humboldt deputies and Eureka police officers dabbing pepper spray directly into the eyes of writhing and screaming young demonstrators.

The case arose in 1997, when activists from across the country had made their annual trek to sparsely populated Humboldt County, where the 150-year-old timber industry is deeply rooted in the region's economy, to protest the tree-cutting practices of Pacific Lumber Co.

On three separate occasions in September and October 1997, Humboldt sheriff's deputies and the Eureka police warned protesters chained together at a harvest site, in the local congressman's office and in Pacific Lumber's office that they would be pepper sprayed unless they unlocked themselves from the metal pipes. Eight of the nine activists targeted with pepper spray sued and sought unspecified damages.

The legal issue centered on whether police use of the pepper spray was abusive and illegal or whether it was a legitimate law enforcement activity. A year after the incidents, the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training authorized the unprecedented use of pepper spray to respond to civil disobedience.

The protesters argued the pepper spray was used to illegally punish and intimidate them for chaining themselves together and making it difficult for the police to arrest them.

It was clear that a mistrial would be called after two weeks of testimony. On Tuesday, hours after deliberations began, jurors sent the judge their first note, saying, a "resolution does not seem likely."

Illston ordered them to return Wednesday, and panelists returned a second note after a morning of deliberations and later third note saying the panel was "hopelessly deadlocked."

The original case in 1998 was thrown out when a judge said a new jury would never side with the eight suing protesters. A federal appeals court reinstated the case and removed the first judge after years of legal jockeying.

Spring Lundberg, 24, who testified that "It felt like acid eating into my eyes," said after the latest mistrial: "Hopefully, the third time is the charm."

The two jurors who sided with the activists declined comment. But another juror, Elliot Feigenvaum, said the dispute was "whether pepper spray was unreasonable or excessive."