News and Press Releases

You may have heard or read that the new Community “Justice” Center (CJC) opened last week.  Based on Brooklyn’s Red Hook Community Justice Center, the CJC is supposed to  solve neighborhood problems like drugs, crime, prostitution and theft.  The court is a full-fledged court, except that it is situated in the Tenderloin and deals with misdemeanor and low-level felony cases.    Although this new...

San Francisco, CA – A San Francisco man, who was strip-searched and misidentified by police, was acquitted of drug sales in 70 minutes after his deputy public defender exposed the prosecution’s case as devoid of evidence of illegal activity. “The scary thing about this case is that what happened to my client could have happened to anyone,” Deputy Public Defender...

The need for a well-resourced and comprehensive public defense system was made evident in a study released yesterday by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) indicating that African Americans and Hispanics are over-represented in the criminal justice system and more likely to require a public defender than their Caucasian counterparts.

San Francisco, CA – Demetrius Hill, 20, was acquitted yesterday afternoon of first degree murder in connection with the May 3, 2008 shooting death of Ajason Black, 32, in the parking lot of the Buchanan YMCA on Geary Boulevard. Deputy Public Defender Mark Iverson, who represented Hill, successfully argued at trial that Hill had no motive to kill Black, police...

San Francisco, CA – San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi on Thursday promised cooperation with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd’s call for an audit of the public defender’s office, but accused Elsbernd of engaging in petty retaliatory politics that are wasting valuable resources. “I think that this unnecessary audit will result in an incredible waste of staff hours, for both the Controller’s...