by Martin Kuz SF Weekly With murders on the rise, City Attorney Dennis Herrera is cracking down on gangs using a legal tool critics say smacks of McCarthyism Read the rest of this story.Read More

By Jeff Adachi Printed in SF Bay Guardian, February 2005 Thirty years after President Richard Nixon declared the national War on Drugs, this country is spending upwards of $50 billion each year to fight drug crime, abuse and addiction, continuing to pour money into another losing war, albeit, here at home.  Of the 2 million...Read More

San Francisco, CA – Justin Desmangles, a member of the North Beach literary community, was acquitted yesterday of rape, attempted sodomy by force, and assault with a deadly weapon. The four-week trial took place before San Francisco Superior Court Judge Jerome Benson. Desmangles, who once hosted jazz and literary radio shows on local station KPOO,...Read More

by Jeff Adachi Printed in The Recorder, September 2005. 60 years ago, a black maid named Lena Baker was tried for capital murder in Georgia. She was charged with shooting a white man who had kidnapped her and threatened her with a metal bar. Her trial, presided over by a white judge and 12 white male...Read More

CBS 5 CrimeWatch  (BCN) SAN FRANCISCO – A 20-year-old Daly City man who spent the last 19 months in county jail on murder charges was set free Tuesday after a San Francisco jury found him not guilty, Deputy Public Defender Mark Jacobs said Wednesday. Read the rest of this story. Read the press release.Read More

San Francisco, CA – A 20-year-old man charged with first-degree murder in a fatal stabbing that occurred during a street brawl was found not guilty yesterday after a four-week trial. The stabbing occurred during a November 2005 melee that erupted in front of a house party in the Oceanview district of San Francisco. The victim...Read More

by Eliza Strickland SF Weekly It’s expensive and time-consuming, but a court can help cure the hard-core homeless problem in San Francisco. Read the rest of this story.Read More

by Jeff Adachi SF Chronicle San Francisco has begun to employ a controversial crime-fighting tool known as civil gang injunctions. Injunctions bar persons identified as gang members by law enforcement from engaging in restricted activities in specified areas. In light of the violence that the city is experiencing, proponents argue that these restrictions on civil...Read More

Reprinted from the SF Examiner, February 18, 2005 By Jeff Adachi Last week, the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants published an extensive report on the quality of legal representation for the poor in criminal cases. The report exposes an underbelly of the justice system that is rarely seen on...Read More

San Francisco, CA – San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced today that the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee has recommended a $23.7 million budget for the Public Defender’s Office for fiscal year 2007-08, a $1.4 million increase from fiscal year 2006-07. This comes after Mr. Adachi appeared before the Committee last Wednesday...Read More