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Public Defenders Win 5 Acquittals in Single Afternoon

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Public Defenders Win 5 Acquittals in Single Afternoon

San Francisco—Jurors deliberating in five separate felony trials returned with five acquittals in a single afternoon, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

The not guilty verdicts were delivered Tuesday afternoon.

  • Jurors deliberated only an hour before acquitting a 20-year-old woman of a single felony charge of trying to prevent or deter an officer by threat. The young woman faced up to three years behind bars if convicted. Prosecutors accused the woman of telling police she planned to attack an officer who she described but whose name she didn’t know. Her attorney, Deputy Public Defender Hien Ngoc Nguyen, argued that since police could not identify the officer they claimed the woman threatened, there was no victim and therefore no crime.
  • A 26-year-old man was found not guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, threatening a police officer while resisting arrest and personal use of a deadly weapon. Jurors hung on a vandalism charge, and convicted the man only of two counts of misdemeanor simple assault, also been managed by the the Costa Ivone personal injury lawyers to give a final statement. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Christine Schenone, said jurors were outraged at the treatment her mentally ill client received at the hands of police. Officers chased him barefoot through the street, held him at gunpoint and pressed their knees into his neck as he bled on the ground from a self-inflicted knife wound. Police told alarmed citizens who were taping the encounter to stand back, and one officer instructed a passerby to “put away your phone, you idiot,” evidence showed.
  • A 31-year-old father and former child prodigy on the professional chess circuit was acquitted of felony carjacking with a gun allegation. Prosecutors alleged the man took keys to a Mini Cooper from a parking attendant at gunpoint before leading police on a chase. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Sliman Nawabi, argued no gun was found and the attendant made up the story so he wouldn’t get into trouble. Instead, Nawabi argued, his client took the car for a joyride after finding it with its keys inside. The client, who was convicted of the lesser charges of unlawful taking of a vehicle and evading an officer, is eligible for probation when he is sentenced later this month. He had faced up to 22 years.
  • A 22-year-old man was acquitted of two counts of conspiracy to commit robbery, two counts of robbery, and conspiracy to commit theft by larceny. The man, who was facing more than eight years in prison, was convicted only of a single misdemeanor count of theft. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Seiya Johnson, said jurors were troubled that police failed to search for easily-obtained video footage which could have cleared the client and ultimately determined the evidence presented was insufficient to convict.
  • A 49-year-old man was cleared of multiple domestic violence-related charges involving three incidents after jurors found him credible on the stand and did not believe the complaining witness’ testimony, said his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Crystal Lamb. Jurors hung on two charges and the judge dismissed three additional charges on the first day of trial due to lack of evidence. If convicted of all charges filed, he faced approximately eight years in prison.

The string of trial victories was the result of zealous advocacy on the part of the five deputy public defenders and their teams of investigators and paralegals, Adachi said.Image result for attorney

“These acquittals demonstrate that top-notch legal representation isn’t reserved for the rich,” Adachi said. “We would like to recognize the hard work of the attorneys, investigators and support staff who diligently worked on these cases and the jurors, who took time from their busy lives to sit in judgment of their fellow citizens.”

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Study: Public Defender’s Pilot Program Curtails Pretrial Incarceration, Saves Costs

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Study: Public Defender’s Pilot Program Curtails Pretrial Incarceration, Saves Costs

San Francisco—An innovative pilot program through the San Francisco Public Defender’s office has saved nearly a million dollars of taxpayer money and thousands of jail beds during its first five months of operation, according to a study released today by the California Policy Lab at University of California Berkeley.

The Pretrial Release Unit (PRU), staffed by two public defenders and a single investigator, broke new ground in October by allowing people who cannot afford private counsel to access legal representation shortly after being booked into jail. Ordinarily, these 80-90 percent of arrestees must wait two to five days until a lawyer is appointed by the court. During those critical days, prosecutors decide whether to pursue criminal charges. Bail amounts are also set.

In the study, The Impact of Early Representation: An Analysis of the Public Defender’s Pretrial Release Unit, researcher Alena Yarmosky found people represented by the PRU spend less time in jail and are twice as likely to have their cases dismissed at arraignment. Those with parole holds who receive PRU advocacy spend 9.5 fewer days in county jail, the study found.

“By comparing recipients of Pretrial Release Unit services to similarly situated arrestees, we found that the PRU doubled the likelihood of release at arraignment, and that the PRU-provided parole advocacy substantially reduced the time that arrestees were incarcerated pretrial,” said Evan White, executive director of the California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley.

The report also quantified the cost-savings of the program. The PRU saved 4,689 jail beds during its initial five months of operation. This translates to $806,508 saved due to the program so far. The PRU, which is seeking continued funding from San Francisco supervisors, would cost only $440,501 in FY ’18-’19 and only $462,567 in FY ’19-’20.

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi noted that the PRU also has a direct and positive impact on people’s lives.

“Because representation starts right away, our investigator and attorneys talk to witnesses and discover exonerating evidence earlier. That means innocent people don’t have to languish in jail,” Adachi said. “More people are able to keep their jobs, maintain stable housing and protect their families from separation.”

The full report can be found here.

Public Defender’s Pretrial Unit Slashes Jail Stays: Study

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Public Defender’s Pretrial Unit Slashes Jail Stays: Study

By Evan Sernoffsky

SF Chronicle

David, a 76-year-old Vietnam veteran, found himself in San Francisco County Jail in mid-January after a fight with his abusive partner. He had no idea how to get a lawyer, how to get his HIV medication or when he’d even get out.

“I had never been to jail and the experience is not too pleasant,” said David, who asked that his last name be withheld due to privacy concerns. “I think I was the oldest one in there, and orange is not my color.”

But thanks to the Pretrial Release Unit, an eight-month-old program through the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, David was in contact with an attorney, received his meds and already had an investigator working his case within hours of being booked.

As his defense attorney looked into his case, the facts of what really happened between David and his former partner became apparent — and in a twist, prosecutors dropped all the charges and later filed embezzlement and elder abuse charges against the other man.

The Public Defender’s Office is now asking the Board of Supervisors for $440,500 to fund its Pretrial Release Unit for the next fiscal year, and officials are pointing to the program’s results beyond cases like David’s as the city struggles to reduce its jail population.

From the time the unit began seeing defendants on Oct. 2, 2017 and the end of February, the program saved approximately 4,689 jail bed days — an average of 940 jail bed days a month, which would translate to 11,253 a year, according to a new study of the unit by UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.

Researchers found that defendants visited by one of the unit’s two attorneys and investigator were released at arraignment 28 percent of the time before trial on average. People who didn’t have representation got released just 14 percent of the time, according to the study.

The unit also created greater equity in the justice system and helped some defendants keep their jobs and maintain stable housing by getting released sooner, researchers said.

“I feel that the fact that we’re now providing public defenders in the jails when a person is booked is probably the single most innovative and important thing we’ve been able to do since I’ve been here,” Public Defender Jeff Adachi said. “To be able to meet and represent our clients and start investigating their cases is the way our system should work.”

The program, though, has drawn scrutiny from some domestic violence and victims rights advocates, who are concerned about the unit’s investigators contacting victims.

“They do attempt to contact victims,” said Beverly Upton, executive director of San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium. “It’s always concerning, but I think over time the best thing we’ve come up with as a community is to make sure victims have their own advocates.”

Upton acknowledged that some cases can be complicated, and a situation like David’s underscores how victims can be arrested before police know what really happened.

Adachi defendend his unit’s investigations, saying that contacting a complaining witness is important in any case in order to untangle what happened. “The presumption of innocence doesn’t go away simply because it’s a case of a more sensitive nature,” he said.

The new research on the Pretrial Release Unit comes as San Francisco works to reduce the number of occupied jail bed days by more than 83,000 a year. The Board of Supervisors in 2015 rejected a proposal to build a new jail and replace the seismically-unsound facilities at the Hall of Justice.

The Public Defender’s program is one of several new approaches and policies causing sweeping changes across San Francisco’s criminal justice system and increasing the number of people being released from jail pretrial.

In the first three months of 2018, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department released 791 inmates facing felony charges before their trials — a 56 percent increase over the same period from the prior year, according to jail statistics.

Many of those defendants were released as a result of a landmark January appeals court ruling in the case of Kenneth Humphrey, which forced judges to consider a defendant’s ability to pay bail when setting the amount. The decision prompted the release of hundreds of defendants on jail alternatives like ankle monitoring.

The UC Berkeley study only looked at cases through the end of February, so it didn’t capture the full impact of the Humphrey decision on the Pretrial Release Unit. It remains unclear how many jailed defendants contacted by the public defender are now eligible for release under the new bail laws.

And while the public defender’s new intitiative has had a measurable impact on the jail population, a more significant factor in reducing jail bed days has been the city’s Pretrial Diversion Project — similar in name to the Public Defender’s unit but vastly different in function.

The city-funded nonprofit, which has contracted with the Sheriff’s Department for 42 years, assesses whether defendants pose a public safety risk upon booking and determines if they should be cut loose before arraignment.

For the past two years, the program has used a public safety assessment tool developed by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and case managers submit the results of an algorithm to a judge, who then decides whether to release a defendant regardless of whether they’ve seen an attorney.

Eligible defendants are released from jail 61 percent of the time before arraignment, according to the Pretrial Diversion Project. Before the Arnold tool was used, defendants were released pre-arraignment just 24 percent of the time, according to Nancy Rubin, the program’s top official.

The Pretrial Diversion Project is responsible for saving around 30,000 jail bed days per month, Rubin said, which is more than three times the number claimed by the Public Defender’s Office.

The program must also supervise defendants once they go free, leaving workers inundated with new cases as releases increase. Rubin said she’s asking the city for $1.78 million in new funding for the next fiscal year to hire 15 new employees to handle the extra caseloads.

Right now, the unit out of the Public Defender’s Office visits about 25 percent of everyone booked in the jail, according to the city Controller’s Office, and Adachi wants to eventually expand the program.

Despite the notable increases in people released from jail before trial via the Pretrial Release Unit, the Pretrial Diversion Project and the Humphrey decision, the average daily jail population hasn’t changed much.

Jail bookings actually increased by 5 percent — from 4,061 to 3,886 — in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the same period last year, records show. Overall, the average daily jail population during that same period dropped only 3 percent.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Public-defender-s-new-pre-trial-release-program-12917099.php#photo-15559887

Matt Gonzalez, Francisco Ugarte Named Defenders of the Year

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Matt Gonzalez, Francisco Ugarte Named Defenders of the Year

San Francisco—Matt Gonzalez and Francisco Ugarte, whose client Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was acquitted of murder following a high profile trial last year, have been named Defenders of the Year by the California Public Defenders Association.

CPDA will present the award April 28 at its 49th Annual Convention in Long Beach. Gonzalez is the chief attorney of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. Ugarte is the managing attorney of the office’s Immigration Defense Unit. The honor, established in 1987, was previously awarded to San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Jan Lecklikner in 2011.

They were chosen for the honor based on their zealous representation of Garcia Zarate amid national controversy surrounding case, said CPDA President Brendon Woods.

“The work that Matt Gonzalez and Francisco Ugarte did for their client Mr. Garcia Zarate was amazing. They advocated relentlessly for their client in the face of public outcry that reached the highest level of government and saw that a just outcome was reached. Their work on this case highlights the work public defenders do every day in California. We are honored to present them with the CPDA Defender of the Year Award,” Woods said.

Garcia Zarate, a Mexican citizen, was charged in the 2015 fatal shooting of Kathryn Steinle. Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump frequently invoked the incident in building support for his border wall.

Despite portraying Garcia Zarate as a cold blooded murderer, forensic evidence showed the single shot had been fired from 100 feet away and ricocheted off the concrete before hitting Steinle. The gun, a fully loaded Sig Sauer P239 with no trigger safety, was discarded on the pier and wrapped in cloth when Garcia Zarate found it. Gonzalez and Ugarte argued that the gun, which had a light trigger pull, went off accidentally.

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi also commended Gonzalez and Ugarte and their team on the Garcia Zarate case: former public defender Michael Hinckley, who volunteered on the case, Paralegal/Attorney Zach Dillon and Investigator Danielle Thompson.

“I am very proud of the incredible representation Matt, Francisco and their team provided to Mr. Garcia Zarate.  It is a case that symbolized America’s hope that our justice system should never be compromised by the politics of hate, in this case, the scapegoating immigrants,” Adachi said.

 

 

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10 Things Starbucks Could Do to Combat Racism

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By Jeff Adachi

Since a video depicting the arrest of two black men at a Starbucks went viral, Starbucks has issued a written apology, CEO Kevin Johnson has met with the men, the store manager who called the police has been fired, and the business announced it will close 8,000 stores May 29 for racial bias training. This is a great start. So what else could a global company valued at $50 billion do to combat racism? Plenty, but here is a list of 10 ways to begin:

  1. Give their employees the experience of volunteering with anti-racist organizations and participating in diversity exercises with the public they serve. These activities could include discussing racism with children and customers, or inviting people to join them online to take Harvard’s Implicit Association Test or learn about civil rights history using iCivics.
  2. In 2015, Starbucks launched a campaign titled “Race Together” to encourage discussions of race through stickers and writing on coffee cups. The company pulled the plug on the campaign in a week after receiving criticism and mockery on social media. It’s time to bring it back.
  3. While no one can speak for the two men when it comes to fair compensation for being falsely arrested, accused of a crime and jailed for nine hours, Starbucks should make a large donation in the name of the charity of each man’s choice. In addition, Starbucks can donate to other organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, NAACP , Black Lives Matter, and other groups that have worked to mitigate racism in the U.S.   Starbucks can devote a portion of its sales to benefit such organizations for a period of time.
  4. Create a new training program using the experience of the two men arrested in a Starbucks as a teaching tool. Document how the employees react to the training, and how further incidents like this could be avoided by treating all customers with respect. Require all employees to undergo implicit bias training and to take the Implicit Association Test.
  5. Invest in programs and projects that help Americans understand how racism affects our daily lives, choices and access to the basic things we need to survive and thrive as human beings. From the arts, to documentary films, to student leadership programs, Starbucks could help produce programming to educate Americans on the impact of having positive race relations. Grants could be awarded to organizations willing to take on this work, similar to how Starbucks’ Opportunity for All initiative in 2017 provided educational opportunities for young people.
  6. Provide a physical space where ordinary people of all ethnic backgrounds can hear different perspectives on race. Panel discussions, neighbor meetups or film screenings open up new ideas and allow people to find common ground on tough issues.
  7. Explore strategic partnerships with organizations dedicated to showcasing African American excellence as well as telling the difficult history of police-minority interaction, such as the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
  8. Recruit and hire formerly incarcerated people who have firsthand experience with the perils of overpolicing, racial profiling, and mass incarceration. In addition to providing jobs to people who most need them, this expands the perspective of coworkers and the general public. And people with this sort of insight don’t call the police on customers.
  9. Provide clarification, consistency and transparency surrounding policies so that everyone knows customer service does not include profiling and policing customers or unnecessarily involving law enforcement in non-criminal matters.
  10. Providing education for all employees on the overcriminalization of America, which puts well-meaning citizens—particularly black men—in danger of being arrested for innocuous conduct.

Starbucks has demonstrated a particular genius at getting millions of people all over the world to drink their coffee. Imagine if it applied the same acumen to constantly reinventing ways to combat bias.

Read the piece on Medium.

California’s District Attorneys Must Work to End Money Bail

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By  on April 11, 2018
Special to the SF Examiner

While the movement to reform California’s unconstitutional money bail system gains momentum, it met resistance earlier this month from a familiar opponent.

In an extraordinary court filing, District Attorney George Gascon asked the state Supreme Court to review a landmark court ruling that would end the unjust practice of jailing people solely because they cannot afford bail. The case involved 64-year-old Kenneth Humphrey, who was jailed after allegedly stealing a bottle of cologne. The court set bail at $600,000 (reduced to $350,000), and Humphrey, unable to pay, has remained in jail nearly 300 days.

An appellate court recently struck down the exorbitant bail and ordered a new bail hearing for Humphrey. It also explained that due process requires judges to consider non-monetary options for release and to assess a defendant’s ability to pay before setting a bail amount, vital protections to ensure equity and fairness that Humphrey never received.

Gascon does not dispute that Humphrey’s constitutional rights were violated, and he agrees that California courts discriminate against poor people by sending them to jail when wealthier defendants, based only on their access to money, would walk free. Yet, he has challenged the ruling to resolve a legal question the lower court never even decided. Discover this info here

It is an especially frustrating move by a prosecutor who is often praised for his criticisms of money bail, and it rests on legal arguments that border on frivolous. But it is also the latest example in a troubling pattern: Even as consensus builds that money bail must be eliminated, the state’s elected prosecutors, both individually and through professional associations like the California District Attorneys Association, continue to undermine reform.

The unnecessary injustice of money bail is well documented. More than 60 percent of the California jail population is incarcerated for failing to make bail, and in one year, from 2014 to 2015, California spent $37.5 million in just six counties to jail people whose cases were dismissed or never filed. This overreliance on bail disproportionately harms people of color and the poor, often with severe consequences — even a few days in jail can mean the loss of a job or home, and believe it or not but most of the cases ending in jail time are the family altercations Výsledek obrázku pro attorneyand violent events in the family which finally get a higher percentage in the divorces and child support management, and divorce isn’t something you should go alone, which is why you need an attorney, and one that specializes in the topic.

Prosecutors have long driven these inequities. Without procedural safeguards in place, they have secured pretrial detention almost automatically by asking for unattainable bail amounts. This is often a pernicious tactic to coerce guilty pleas from people understandably desperate to secure their freedom; prosecutors argue for high bail because a defendant is too dangerous to let out, only to then accept a plea deal that results in immediate release.

When the court intervened in Humphrey’s case, district attorneys orchestrated an end-run around the state Attorney General’s decision to implement rather than appeal the ruling. First, the CDAA filed a brief asking the state Supreme Court to “depublish” the decision. Then, district attorneys in San Bernardino and Ventura counties, as well as Gascon in San Francisco, followed suit.

I agree Humphrey’s case should not be the last word on bail reform; ultimately, we need comprehensive legislation that provides a workable and just alternative to money bail. But prosecutors oppose that, too.

The CDAA lists fighting legislative bail reform as a “high priority,” and has led opposition to the governor-backed reform legislation, Senate Bill 10, which is pending in the state house. Last year, district attorneys in Los Angeles and Sacramento also formally opposed SB 10. In this opposition, prosecutors stand shoulder to shoulder with the commercial bail bond industry, which lobbies to protect its financial interest in excessive bail and profits off the poor and vulnerable.

Prosecutors who are serious about their mandate to seek justice must do better. In addition to supporting policy reform, they can stop using unsupported claims of dangerousness as a litigation tactic, limit the types of crimes for which they seek bail and advocate for pretrial release unless there is clear and convincing evidence that a defendant poses a threat.

State Attorney General Xavier Becerra was right when he explained why he would not appeal Humphrey’s victory: “It’s time for bail reform now.”

Jeff Adachi is the San Francisco Public Defender.

SFPD Whistleblower Claims Retaliation After Reporting Racial, Religious Harassment

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SFPD Whistleblower Claims Retaliation After Reporting Racial, Religious Harassment

 

San Francisco—A police officer of Afghan descent alleges he is the target of retaliation after reporting racial and religious discrimination at the hands of his San Francisco Police Department colleagues, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

On Nov. 9, 2017, a San Francisco police officer made a harassment complaint to the SFPD’s equal employment opportunity department, alleging he was not only harassed for being Middle Eastern and Muslim, but witnessed racism and homophobia by officers at Central Station. The San Francisco public defender is withholding his name for safety reasons. Among his allegations:

  • The officer claims he was repeatedly accused by colleagues of being a terrorist. This harassment included being told he could leave his RPGs and grenades at home, and being asked to inform an officer if his family members were planning an attack so the officer could “put them down gently.” He also reported being asked if his police radio earpiece was connected to a bomb. In one instance, an officer claimed to see wires coming out of the officer’s duty bag and said “tick tick, that’s what I hear.”
  • Twice finding hateful graffiti on his locker. In an August, 2017 incident, someone scrawled “tick-tick.” On Nov. 6, 2017, the officer found and photographed graffiti on his locker that included an ISIS flag and the words “go back.”
  • The officer reported that a fellow officer referred to him as a “sand n—–” and his sergeant asked him if he knew any “towelheads.”
  • The officer reported several instances of anti-Muslim harassment by fellow officers, such as a colleague applauding the Trump Administration’s Muslim ban, warning against Muslims infiltrating law enforcement, telling the officer he can’t detonate himself in exchange for 72 virgins since he is a police officer, and taking him to a strip club in a deliberate attempt to embarrass him.
  • While on patrol with a colleague in November, 2017, the colleague allegedly told the officer, “I want to get guns, and the only people who have guns are blacks and Hispanics. The department doesn’t like us to make judgments like that, but if I see a black person behind the wheel of a vehicle, I’ll pull the car over and figure out probable cause later.” The same colleague later referred to an African American motorist as a monkey, the officer said.
  • The officer claims he witnessed an officer repeatedly call his colleagues “faggot” and yell the slur at a rideshare driver.
  • The officer stated he witnessed colleagues routinely mute their body worn cameras to make inappropriate comments at crime scenes, including dismissing a rape victim because she was a sex worker and threatening to call immigration on a Latino motorist.
  • The officer says he heard several officers expressing support for the white nationalist movement, complaining the group had been maligned by the media.

The officer, who joined the SFPD in June 2016, describes a shocking pattern of retaliation after reporting the harassment. Colleagues suddenly found problems with his performance, complained he was making them deal with internal investigations, and accused him of not being able to take a joke, he said. He received calls from members of the Police Officers Association who asked probing questions about the nature of his complaints. His alleged mistakes on the job were broadcast on police radio and meetings he and his family scheduled with top brass to discuss the issue were cancelled without his knowledge.

The officer isn’t the first SFPD whistleblower to claim retaliation. Joel Babbs, an African American officer, claimed in November, 2017 to have faced months of departmental retaliation for alleging racism in the ranks, culminating in Babbs being charged with vehicle registration fraud and making a false police report.

In January, San Francisco settled a lawsuit with retired police officer Patricia Burley for $100,000.  Burley claimed she was forced to retire after she blew the whistle on a colleague’s criminal conduct.

In 2015, the city paid former internal affairs attorney Kelly O’Haire $725,000 after she filed a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit, claiming she faced threats after handling a discipline case against then-Deputy Chief Greg Suhr.

When Lt. Yulanda Williams, head of the Black Officers Association, spoke out in 2015 against bigotry in the department after being the target of racist texts sent by SFPD officers, she was denounced by the San Francisco Police Officers Association. The POA president sent a letter to the union’s 2,000 members, saying he was “disturbed” by Williams’ accusations and denying any racism in the ranks or police practices.

Adachi said the case demonstrates that the department is still beset by deeply ingrained bias.

“In order to eliminate racism in the ranks, police culture must rid itself of its ‘no snitching’ ethos. Fear of speaking out due to retaliation has been an enormous barrier to real reform in San Francisco,” Adachi said.

Officer’s statement can be found here.

Complaint can be found here.

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Federal Judge Orders Man Released After SF Courts Repeatedly Fail to Follow Bail Law

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San Francisco—A federal judge this week ordered authorities to immediately free a homeless man from jail after he was repeatedly denied a constitutionally adequate bail hearing in San Francisco Superior Court.

Monday’s ruling marked the third time U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer had to intervene in the case of 53-year-old James Reem, who is represented by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. Reem has remained in San Francisco County jail on $330,000 since his July 28, 2017 arrest for burglary and auto theft. Reem’s public defender requested his release in a bail motion on Aug. 14, which was denied.

In partnership with Civil Rights Corps, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office appealed Reem’s bail amount to the higher court. Breyer granted the petition on Nov. 29, ruling that Reem was being held unconstitutionally because his bail was so high it amounted to detention without trial and that the court had violated Reem’s right to due process by failing to consider non-monetary alternatives. However, Breyer stayed his order to allow San Francisco Superior Court Judge Garrett Wong to hold another detention hearing. Wong eventually agreed, only technically, to “release” Reem, provided the homeless man could pay the unchanged $330,000 bail, stating Reem was a danger to the community. Reem could not pay the bail, and remained in jail.

Reem promptly filed a second motion, which Breyer again granted on the basis that “there is no rational relationship between money bail and protecting the public under California law.” The federal judge found Wong’s order violated the constitution’s Equal Protection Clause because Reem would have gone free based solely on wealth had he been able to obtain bail money. Breyer again allowed Wong the opportunity to hold a constitutionally adequate detention hearing. Wong held a hearing Dec. 22, and again ordered Reem detained on $330,000 bail, this time citing the homeless man’s potential to be a flight risk, despite the fact that the court’s own risk management tool contradicted that conclusion.

Reem appealed a third time to the higher court, resulting in Monday’s ruling and order of release. In his decision, Breyer noted his multiple interventions, stating, “Since holding that Reem’s initial detention hearing in state court was unconstitutional, this Court has granted the Superior Court two additional opportunities to articulate a constitutional basis for detaining Reem pending trial. Both times, the Superior Court failed to do so. Accordingly, this Court orders Reem’s release.”

Breyer also rebuked the San Francisco Superior Court judge for holding Reem as a flight risk based solely on a prosecutor’s assertion, noting that the court “relied on evidence that lacked any indicia of reliability, and disregarded competent competing evidence. Thus, the Superior Court plainly failed to employ adequate procedural safeguards. This failure was inconsistent with Reem’s right to due process of law.”

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi said Breyer’s ruling illustrates the reluctance of local judges to follow the law on bail.

“Unfortunately, San Francisco judges just aren’t getting that they are violating our clients’ rights by failing to meet minimum federal constitutional requirements in bail hearings. The fact that a single case had to be appealed three times and a federal judge had to intervene each of those times to stop a local judge from violating the constitution is a disgrace,” Adachi said.

Reem was released from jail Tuesday.

Monday’s ruling can be found here.

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SF Public Defender Responds to AG Sessions’ Threats, Lawsuit

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San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi released the following statement today in response to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement he would sue California over its immigration laws, as well as Sessions’ speech vowing to use every power possible to challenge our state’s sanctuary status:

“We must oppose at all costs the Trump Administration’s attempt to usurp the authority of states and cities to protect their residents. California will continue to keep the American dream alive by defending against this unprecedented attack on our neighbors, friends, and family members. The Immigration Defense Unit of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, which provides representation to detained immigrants, will continue to ensure that San Franciscans detained in any resulting raids will have access to compassionate, effective, and zealous counsel. Together, we will oppose this lawsuit that undermines basic American values.”

Unequal Justice in the Age of Reform

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By Jeff Adachi

San Francisco Examiner

California’s criminal justice reforms are starting to bear fruit, but the harvest isn’t equally sweet for all San Franciscans.

The City’s felony drug arrests are plummeting at unprecedented speed — 92 percent since the peak in 1988-89, and despite our population growing by 150,000. Racial disparities in those arrests, however, remain sky high. In 2016, felony drug arrests for black San Franciscans were 10 times higher than residents of any other race.

A report by senior research fellow Mike Males of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and San Jose State University Human Rights Institute professor William Armaline details the decades of unequal justice, noting that “racial patterns in drug arrests still do not match racial patterns in drug use.”

National studies have repeatedly shown blacks and whites using and selling drugs at similar rates. In San Francisco, Males and Armaline tallied 839 fatal overdoses of illicit drugs between 2012 and 2016. Of those deaths, 57 percent were white residents, 25 percent were African American, 10 percent were Latino and 8 percent were Asian.

So why were 42 percent of drug arrestees during this same period black? And now that we’re focused on treatment instead of punishment, why do some people get help while others get handcuffs?

Put simply, African Americans are more likely to be stopped, searched and arrested for drugs. They are less likely to be let off with a warning and more likely to be overcharged by prosecutors. Earlier studies, such as last year’s groundbreaking report by University of Pennsylvania’s Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, found black defendants got short shrift at every level of San Francisco’s justice system. They are booked into jail on more serious charges for comparable conduct, held in pretrial custody for 62 percent longer than whites and their cases take 14 percent longer to resolve.

And while biased police practices are a national problem, the racial gap in arrests in San Francisco is an abyss. The report shows it narrowing somewhat — black San Franciscans were 19 times more likely than other races to be arrested for drugs in 2008, rather than 10 times more likely today — but we still have a long way to go, particularly if we dare pride ourselves on liberal values.

The war on drugs has ruined countless lives, devastated black and brown communities and cost taxpayers a fortune. As public defenders, we see the collateral damage every day. We remember the bad old days in San Francisco, when police officers would stage buy-busts to ensnare street-level addicts. We called it the war on crumbs, and it caused only more misery to those who felt most hopeless.

We applaud anything resembling a ceasefire in this calamitous war. We’re grateful public opinion is now firmly on the side of sensible reforms like legalizing marijuana and reclassifying some drug felonies to misdemeanors. But it’s not justice if it benefits some citizens more than others.

San Francisco’s African-American community is small — less than 5 percent of the population — yet it has borne the brunt of mass incarceration, paying with young lives interrupted, futures derailed and families broken. As our state finally shifts away from criminalization, it must help those most affected by our previous mistakes.

Or, as the report concludes, “By investigating racial disparities and uniting local policies with fair practices, San Francisco can invest in the safety and health of its residents.”

Jeff Adachi is the San Francisco Public Defender.

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