Long after foreign ministers checked out of their hotels, scores of protesters in Miami for last week's free trade summit were released from jail Saturday while civil rights lawyers were fashioning legal actions on their behalf.

The streets were quiet for the first time in days. Police were scattered and harder to spot downtown, and no arrests related to the Free Trade Area of the Americas conference were reported.

A special court handling FTAA cases held 77 bail hearings for protesters charged with misdemeanors, including failure to observe a police order to disperse, resisting arrest and unlawful assembly.

Most were arrested during a demonstration Friday afternoon outside the Miami-Dade County criminal courthouse in a scene that was broadcast on live television. Miami-Dade police in riot gear encircled a group of demonstrators and handcuffed dozens of people.

Police say the group refused an order to disperse.

''The ones that were dispersing and walking away were not arrested. Those who engaged in civil disobedience were arrested,'' said Miami-Dade police Cmdr. Linda O'Brien. Police officials noted that some protesters were carrying items such as bricks, metal pipes, acid, feces, urine and slingshots.

Throughout the week, 231 people were arrested in FTAA-related cases, according to Janelle Hall, spokeswoman for the county's department of corrections.

REDUCED CHARGES

In the majority of cases heard Saturday, prosecutors reduced charges to ''failing to obey an officer,'' according to a lawyer with the public defender's office.

Most defendants took guilty pleas and were released after paying court costs of about $200. Of those who contested the charges, most were granted bail of $100 to $1,500.

One man arrested in an FTAA sweep who originally had his bail set at $20,000 for a charge of possessing a marijuana joint -- prompting complaints of unfair treatment -- had his bail lowered to $25 on Saturday, according to Assistant Public Defender Andrew Stanton.

As they were released Saturday, protesters gathered in a cordoned-off area near the county jail on Northwest 72nd Avenue and recounted their arrests as they waited for rides.

''We made a concerted effort to move to the sidewalk, but we sort of had no place to go because there was a fence behind us,'' said Julie Ramsey, a 19-year-old student from St. Paul, Minn. 'We said, `We're dispersing, we're dispersing,' but they arrested us anyway. They pushed me down to the ground and broke my glasses, which is kind of a problem.''

She was charged with unlawful assembly and took a plea to a lesser charge -- she wasn't sure what it was -- after agreeing to pay $205 in court costs, she said.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union said they were working on a class-action lawsuit against Miami-Dade and Miami police for what they contend were ''wholesale violations'' of constitutional protections against unwarranted searches and seizures.

`POLICE STATE'

''Miami was a police state on Thursday and Friday,'' lawyer John De Leon said in a telephone interview from Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was visiting a protester who, he said, suffered severe head injuries.

However, Jackson spokeswoman Conchita Ruiz-Topinka said all of the 16 protesters who were hospitalized this week had already been released. Three officers also were treated and released.

Marc Steier of the National Lawyer's Guild said he was one of several observers arrested.

He said he was riding his bicycle at Northwest 16th Street and First Avenue at 7:20 p.m. Thursday, responding to a call on his cellphone that a van carrying demonstrators' puppets was stopped.

He stopped at the corner -- by himself -- to call for directions when a group of bicycle cops rolled by.

''They snapped my cellphone in half before talking to me, and put me down on the ground,'' he said. ``I injured my right knee. I think I tore ligaments.''

Steier was handcuffed and taken away. He said his tape recorder was running, but the cops took it. They never returned it, he said.

Observers wore lime green hats to stand out. Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss told The Associated Press that people would not have been arrested for simply observing. But, he said, ``If they crossed the line and were actually doing something like picking up a rock or bottle and throwing it, they would move from observer to criminal.''

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