News and Press Releases

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.

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 inmates incarcerated in state and...

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, published several articles on jazz...

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 jurors, lasted less than four...

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.