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Man Cleared Of Threats In Parking Feud

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San Francisco, CA — A man whose classic car collection set off a parking war with his Glen Park neighbors was found not guilty of criminal threats, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

Jurors in the trial of William Kaiser, 64, deliberated for under an hour Thursday afternoon before finding him not guilty of misdemeanor criminal threats, said his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Alexandra Pray. If convicted, Kaiser faced up to a year in jail.

Kaiser is known around the neighborhood as “The Car Guy” due to his 15 vintage cars, some of which he parks on the street, Pray said.  Kaiser’s neighborhood is one of the few areas in the city that offers free on-street parking and does not require residential parking permits.

Kaiser’s troubles began approximately two years ago, when his neighbor told him he was fed up with Kaiser’s cars taking up so much space and was working with the city to change the way Chenery Street parking was regulated. The revelation set off a bitter feud between the two men, who had been friends for 13 years, Pray said.

Over the next two years, Kaiser argued frequently with the man and the man’s husband, with both sides threatening to call the police.

On Aug. 26, Kaiser approached the neighbor’s husband to talk about a confrontation he and the neighbor had a day earlier, in which the neighbor threatened to report Kaiser for trespassing after Kaiser looked through a box of discarded books the neighbor had placed on the sidewalk. Kaiser told the man’s husband he was going to call the police as well because he believed the neighbor had aimed his car at him.

After a heated exchange, the man’s husband accused Kaiser of harassment and told him to leave or he would call the police. Kaiser left and the neighbor’s husband never called the authorities.

However, police were called by a female neighbor who overheard the argument from her window approximately 15 feet away. When officers arrived, she told them that Kaiser had twice threatened to kill the man. However, when police questioned the man, he said he didn’t hear any death threats despite being 3 to 5 feet away from Kaiser during their exchange.

During the one-day trial, Kaiser took the stand as well as the neighbor, his husband and the woman who called the police.

“The only explanation the prosecution could offer as to how the complaining witness wouldn’t have heard a death threat shouted by a person standing so close to him was through the onset of ‘hysterical deafness.’ However, the existence of such a syndrome was not established in evidence, and the jury couldn’t rely on it in reaching their verdict,” Pray said.

Adachi said the jury made the right decision.

“There is no doubt that things were volatile between these neighbors, but there was no evidence that Mr. Kaiser committed a crime,” Adachi said.

Man Acquitted of Vehicle Tampering

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San Francisco, CA — A mechanic who took a $3 part from what he believed was a junked car was acquitted of vehicle tampering, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

Jurors in the trial of Ben Velez, 51, deliberated approximately two hours Wednesday afternoon before finding him not guilty of the single misdemeanor count, said Velez’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Abigail Rivamonte.

Velez, a longtime San Francisco mechanic and truck driver, was awakened Oct. 24, 2011, to the sound of metal hitting metal. Velez followed the noise to the back fence of his Little Hollywood home, where he saw a man parked 30 feet away, working under the hood of a 2001 Mercedes. Velez identified himself as a mechanic and offered the man help. In return, the man told Velez that his car was junk and would be towed tomorrow, offering, “Take what you want.”

Velez, who frequently visited junk yards and recycled auto part lots, told the stranger he was on his way to work but would take him up on his offer later. Velez returned home at 8 p.m., and approached the car with his tools.

He noticed that the car’s interior was completely stripped and assumed that most of the parts had already been given away, Velez testified during the two day trial.  Velez salvaged a valve stem cover and put it in his pocket. Police on patrol spotted him, handcuffed him, and told him the vehicle had been involved in a carjacking.

Fearing he would be wrongly connected to a carjacking, Velez did not tell the officers about his conversation with the man earlier in the day. Instead, he tried to distance himself by telling them only that, “if anything, I was maybe going to take brake pads.”

On the stand and with nothing to fear, however, Velez told jurors the whole story.

“It was clear that Mr. Velez believed he had consent from the car’s rightful owner,” Rivamonte said. “To believe a law abiding man would try to dismantle a car and steal its parts while parked just feet from his home at 8 p.m. is ludicrous.”

Velez’s employer of 30 years testified as a character witness during the trial, stating that Velez was an honest, trustworthy man.

Velez was in jail for three days before being released on his own recognizance. He faced up to a year behind bars if convicted.

Adachi applauded the jury’s decision.

“Mr. Velez was truly in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Adachi said. “Jurors carefully weighed the evidence and testimony and determined he had done nothing wrong.”

 

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Bay Citizen: SFPD Told To Follow Law On Residences

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By: Shoshana Walter

Bay Citizen

After a mentally ill man was shot and killed by a police officer inside his residential hotel room, the San Francisco Police Department has clarified its policy on entering homes: All residents, including those living in hotels, have the same privacy rights.

Amid little fanfare, Police Chief Greg Suhr admonished the officer and issued a training memo to the department that outlines the law. The memo states that officers are allowed to enter a residence only when there is an immediate safety threat, to prevent the destruction of evidence, when the officers are in hot pursuit of a suspect or if the residence is a crime scene.

Officers also are allowed to enter with a resident’s consent, with a warrant, to provide emergency medical assistance or if the resident’s probation or parole conditions permit searches. After the memo was distributed in July, officers were required to sign a statement that they had read and understood it.

“Members are reminded that individuals have an expectation of privacy in their residences,” Suhr wrote. “Tenants of hotels, including single room occupancy hotels, possess the same constitutional rights and protections related to law enforcement entry into their hotel room.”

The memo was a quiet resolution to a tragic case. In 2010, a patrol officer shot and killed a mentally ill man inside his residential hotel room after the manager unlocked the man’s door.

The officer, Kimberly Koltzoff, had been responding to a noise complaint. When she arrived at the Granada Hotel, the manager led her to the room of Michael Lee, a mentally ill man with a history of hostility toward the police. Instead of knocking, the manager unlocked Lee’s door, and Koltzoff walked inside. Moments later, the officer shot Lee.

San Francisco’s Office of Citizen Complaints, which investigates complaints against officers, determined earlier this year that Koltzoff had violated department policy by illegally entering Lee’s residence. According to the group’s report, Suhr determined that Koltzoff had received inadequate training and did not discipline her for the shooting. Although officers are trained in search and seizure law, Suhr ordered Koltzoff to receive new training and issued the memo to ensure all officers were familiar with the requirements pertaining to residential hotels.

“The point is, you need to be treating these single-room occupancy hotel residents the same way you treat anybody who lives in a single-family dwelling,” said Joyce Hicks, executive director of the Office of Citizen Complaints, which helped draft the memo. “You have the same rights.”

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San Francisco police officers have come under increasing criticism for using room keys to enter residential hotel rooms, a practice that led attorneys to accuse the department of abusing the city’s poorest residents. Last year, several hotel managers told The Bay Citizen that they regularly gave police officers the room keys because they believed it helped combat crime, which is common in some residential hotels.

The FBI is investigating several cases after public defender Jeff Adachi released a series of surveillance videos last year that allegedly showed San Francisco police officers illegally entering and searching residential hotel rooms. The videos show them taking items that were never booked into evidence or mentioned in police reports. In some cases, the officers had used hotel passkeys to get into the rooms.

As a result of the videos, prosecutors dropped hundreds of cases, and many of the officers were placed on desk duty. The San Francisco Police Officers Association has reported that several officers have been called to testify as witnesses before a federal grand jury.

Adachi, who had been lobbying the Board of Supervisors to pass legislation barring police officers from using hotel room keys, said Suhr’s memo satisfied his concerns.

“We don’t want a situation where police can enter anyone’s residence without a reason,” he said. “And we certainly don’t want a different standard to apply just because they live in single-room occupancy hotels.”

But Adachi, who said he has not seen any recent cases, still expressed skepticism.

“It remains to be seen whether or not the practice will end,” he said.

 

SF Chronicle: Jurors Deadlock in SF Cold Case Murder

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Vivian Ho

San Francisco Chronicle

A San Francisco Superior Court jury deadlocked Tuesday on murder charges against a man accused of killing a sex partner nearly 29 years ago and leaving the body in McLaren Park, authorities said.

Three of the 12 jurors believed there was evidence proving that William Payne, 48, strangled 41-year-old Nikolaus Crumbley during sex in a rental car in November 1983.

But nine jurors said the DNA that led to Payne’s cold-case arrest decades later only proved that the men had sex, not that Payne committed murder, according to Deputy Public Defender Kwixuan Maloof.

Crumbley was found facedown with his pants and underwear pulled down to his ankles in McLaren Park on Nov. 16, 1983. He had been beaten and was robbed of his belt and wallet.

Investigators traced DNA found on Crumbley’s body to Payne, whose DNA was in a criminal database after he was convicted in 1984 of assaulting a woman.

During the monthlong trial, Deputy District Attorney Michael Swart argued that the amount of Payne’s semen found in Crumbley confirmed that he was the last one to have had sex with the victim.

But Maloof argued that the DNA was deteriorated and could have been left before the night Crumbley was killed. He argued that a witness saw two men dumping Crumbley’s rental car in Lake Merritt in Oakland a few hours after the murder, but the witness’ descriptions did not match Payne.

The jury deliberated for two days before declaring it could not reach a verdict.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

 

Jury Hangs 9-3 For Acquittal In Cold Case Murder Trial

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San Francisco, CA — Jurors voted overwhelmingly for acquittal but ultimately deadlocked in the trial of a man accused of killing a sexual partner in 1983, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

Jurors in the trial of William Payne, 48, announced Tuesday afternoon they were deadlocked 9-3 in favor of a not guilty verdict, said Payne’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Kwixuan Maloof. Superior Court Judge Andrew Cheng declared a mistrial.

Motions in Payne’s new trial begin Thursday and opening arguments are scheduled for Oct. 22.

Prosecutors argued that Payne, then 19, strangled 41-year-old Nikolaus Crumbley during a tryst in Crumbley’s car. In 2009, authorities matched Payne’s DNA to samples taken from Crumbley’s body nearly 30 years ago. In January, 2012, Payne was charged with first-degree murder during the course of sodomy.

“Mr. Payne’s murder trial is proof that, despite what we see on television, the presence of DNA does not prove a person is guilty of a crime,” Maloof said. “In this case, it proved only that Mr. Payne and Mr. Crumbley had sex.”

During the three week trial, Payne took the stand and admitted to having sex with Crumbley a single time after the two met in a gay bookstore. Payne testified that he heard about Crumbley’s death at a Castro bar several days later, but did not reveal the tryst to authorities for fear his religious family would learn of his bisexuality.

Crumbley was found dead in McLaren Park with his pants and underwear around his ankles. Forensic testing of his underwear revealed the presence of sperm cells from two unknown men. Rectal swabs revealed sperm cells from Payne and at least one other, unknown man.

Prosecutors argued that Payne was the last person to have sex with Crumbley, and therefore must have killed him. But the government’s own experts gave conflicting answers on how long Payne’s sperm cells had been inside Crumbley’s body based on its level of degradation. Sperm cells can live inside the body for up to three days.

Fingerprints found on Crumbley’s rental car, which was pushed into Oakland’s Lake Merritt, did not match Payne.

Adachi said the case for Payne’s acquittal is extremely strong.

“There is no credible evidence that Mr. Payne did anything beyond having consensual sex with Mr. Crumbly and we are confident we will prove he is not guilty,” Adachi said.

 

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BART Rider Acquitted of Indecent Exposure

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San Francisco, CA — A man accused of exposing himself on a San Francisco-bound BART train was acquitted after his attorney argued police had the wrong man, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

 

Jury members deliberated less than an hour Tuesday afternoon before finding San Francisco resident Carlos Law, 39, not guilty of one count of misdemeanor indecent exposure. If convicted, he faced lifetime registration as a sex offender, said his attorney, Deputy Public Defender JP Visaya.

 

Law’s trouble began June 16 at 11:30 p.m., when a 26-year-old woman sleeping on a nearly empty BART car awoke in the Transbay Tube to a man waving a phone at her from his seat across the aisle. The woman, who was wearing headphones, could not hear the man, but assumed he was trying to sell her the phone. The passenger told the man to leave her alone and ignored him. Several minutes later, she looked over to see him slumped in his seat against the window. The man appeared to be giggling and masturbating, she said.

 

When the woman stood up and yelled a profanity at the man, he quickly zipped his pants and scurried to the next car. Meanwhile, the woman called the train operator from the intercom. Police were waiting when the train arrived at Powell Station.

 

The woman identified Law, who was among 10 passengers in the adjacent car, as the man who exposed himself. BART police immediately led Law off the train, where he was cited.

 

During the one-day trial, both Law and the complaining witness took the stand. The woman insisted that Law was the man she saw, and Law denied exposing himself or ever seeing the woman. Law testified that he never left his BART car during his trip across the Bay.

 

Jurors were troubled by BART police officers’ lack of investigation in the case, Visaya said. Officers did not talk to any of the witnesses on Law’s train, nor did they bother to find out whether surveillance footage was available on his car, although they checked for surveillance on the complaining witness’s car immediately. About 35 percent of BART cars are equipped with cameras and footage is purged after about 72 hours, Visaya said. The car where the alleged crime occurred did not have a camera installed.

 

During the trial, Visaya produced the BART Police policy manual, which states officers are required to look for material evidence and facts after a crime.

 

“Solid and thorough police work leaves no room for doubt,” Visaya said. “That was not what we had here.”

 

Adachi said BART officers owed both the female passenger and Mr. Law a thorough investigation.

 

“BART officers failed to take the most basic steps to ensure they had the right person,” Adachi said. “Fortunately, justice was served when the jury recognized there was no solid evidence to convict Mr. Law.”

 

 

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Man Acquitted Of Robberies In Overcharged Case

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San Francisco, CA — A young man charged with two iPhone robberies was acquitted after a jury determined prosecutors overcharged the case, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today.

 

Jurors reached their verdict late Thursday afternoon after deliberating just over two days.  Malcolm Graham, 21, was found not guilty of two felony counts of robbery, which would have counted as two “strikes” under California’s three strikes law, which imposes life sentences on habitual offenders. Jurors convicted Graham on a lesser charge of theft in connection with one of the incidents and hung 8-4 in favor of acquittal on a resisting arrest charge, said his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Michelle Tong.

 

Graham’s family and supporters wept with relief as the verdict was read.

 

“This case was outrageously overcharged,” Tong said. “Mr. Graham stole a woman’s phone. He accepted responsibility from the time he was arrested. But he never used force or fear, which is essential for a robbery charge.”

 

Graham was arrested May 7 after plucking an iPhone from a Whole Foods shopper’s hand as she prepared to make a phone call outside the market on California and Franklin streets. Responding police officers tackled Graham, struck him with a radio and repeatedly punched him in the head, leaving him with an eye that was swollen shut and numerous cuts and bruises.

 

Graham’s co-defendant, Moses Legesse, was also charged with robbing the woman. Jurors hung in Legesse’s case.

 

During the six day trial, the shopper described Graham’s method for stealing her phone as “a clean swipe.”

 

Graham, a former football player for Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School, became dependant on pain pills after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament and had stolen the phone to support his addiction, Tong said.

 

In the second robbery charge, Graham was accused of robbing a high school student of his iPhone four hours earlier on May 7. Jurors determined he did not commit the crime.

 

“The jurors were extremely responsible and thoughtful,” Tong said. “They listened to all the evidence and determined that prosecutors were trying to make a simple theft case into a robbery.”

 

The case illustrates a persistent problem with prosecutors routinely overcharging cases, Adachi said.

 

“The district attorney should charge only the crime shown by the evidence,” Adachi said. “Here, the jury agreed with our assessment that the charges were inflated.”

 

 

 

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Let Reporters Into Prisons

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By Jeff Adachi

As a young public defender, I represented an innocent man who was convicted of
murder.

John Tennison was serving a sentence of 25 years to life when, in 1997, I
contacted a 20/20 news producer, who agreed to feature the case.

Tennison had already lost seven years of his freedom. A national broadcast
exposing concealed evidence, perjury and misconduct by police and prosecutors in
the case could reverse his fate and reunite him with his family.

But when prison officials denied the television crew an interview with my
client, producers were forced to withdraw. No interview meant no story.

Tennison was eventually exonerated, but it took 14 years. Fortunately, a
reporter from the SF Bay Guardian named Adam Clay Thompson accompanied me during
a prison interview as my paralegal and was able to meet and interview Tennison.
He wrote a cover story that exposed the injustice [1]of Tennison’s case and
started the ball rolling towards his eventual exoneration. I am convinced that
if media access were granted in this case, it would have restored his freedom
years earlier.

For the past 15 years, California’s prisons have operated in a virtual media
blackout. With the flick of his pen, Governor Jerry Brown has the opportunity to
turn on the light.

Now on his desk is AB 1270, also known as the Prison Media Access Bill. The
bill, authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, would restore the press’ ability to
conduct pre-arranged, face-to-face interviews with specific prison inmates.

Currently, reporters may interview inmates who are hand-picked by prison
officials. They are not allowed follow-up contact, making it impossible to know
whether a prisoner has suffered retaliation as a result of the interview.

It wasn’t always this way. During Brown’s first stint as governor, the press was
free to fulfill its watchdog role in California prisons.

In 1996, prison officials clamped down on press access under the guise of
discouraging tabloid media from making celebrities of notorious killers. In the
process, it also made it far harder to expose systematic abuse, fiscal
mismanagement and unsafe conditions for guards and inmates alike.

It was under this information shut-out that inhumane conditions were allowed to
fester to the point that the Supreme Court intervened in 2011, ordering the
release of 46,000 inmates.

It was nearly a century ago that US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote
that sunlight is the best disinfectant. It remains no less true today.

Government accountability is impossible without media access. The 2011-2012

state budget allocates $9.2 billion in taxpayer money to the CaliforniaDepartment of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, yet public information is limited by CDCR’s current restrictive
media policies.

Taxpayers deserve to know where their money is going. Like John Tennison,
innocent men and women languishing in California’s prisons deserve to tell their
stories.

Jeff Adachi is San Francisco’s public defender.

Mandatory Treatment For Chronic Drunkenness?

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In San Francisco, people who are extremely drunk on the streets are locked in jail and released once they sober up. But a new plan, supported by the mayor, could force them to stay in jail or choose mandatory treatment for up to six months. Chronic offenders are often homeless. Critics worry it’s a short-term solution to a complex problem, and that it violates offenders’ rights. What’s the best way to deal with drunk people on city streets?

On related news, studies have found that honey bees react almost the same as humans when it comes to alcohol ingestion. Scientists say that the human brain is a lot like the bees’ brain on a molecular level. In addition, bee propolis and pure honey have also been found to have healing effects on many human conditions. Check out the different products at YourBeeStore.com.

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:

  • Bevan Dufty, director of Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement (HOPE) for the City and County of San Francisco
  • Jeff Adachi, San Francisco public defender
  • Jo Robinson, director of Community Behavioral Health Services for the San Francisco Department of Public Health
  • Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford School of Medicine, whose research focuses on the prevention and treatment of addictive disorders

Listen here

Why Arrest Statistics Matter to Citizens

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City residents discovered recently that the San Francisco Police Department failed to accurately report arrest statistics on race (“Faulty stats on minority arrests,” Aug. 15).

Unnoticed and over many years, these statistics painted a false picture of whom the police have used their enforcement powers to arrest. Credible statistics matter. Without them, it is impossible to know whether the police are engaging in racial profiling and other forms of discrimination against citizens. As a criminal defense attorney, I’ve seen the consequences of racial profiling firsthand – Latino men ensnared in prostitution stings through a decoy’s solicitation in a language they didn’t understand, African American motorists stopped and searched without cause, and young people being unfairly classified as gang members based on their race.

These practices are unconstitutional, counterproductive and dehumanizing. But without accurate statistics, we can’t spot them – much less hold the police accountable. Promoting community trust means more than walking a beat. It also means the Police Department can be trusted to honestly report whom it is arresting and why. This is the only way that citizens can know with certainty that they are being treated fairly by the police who are sworn to protect them.

Jeff Adachi, public defender, San Francisco

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