Legal Pad

'Who You Callin' Better Off?' (How to Start a Budget Slapfight)

In times of tense budget talks (like now), be careful about alleging that another department is better off financially than your own. That’s the implicit message of a letter the San Francisco County Superior Court presiding judge sent to the city's mayor Tuesday.

In the two-pager, Presiding Judge James McBride made it clear that he did not think an Oct. 28 press release issued by Public Defender Jeff Adachi was fair to the court. In that release, Adachi had noted that the mayor’s office had approved filling 200 positions for the district attorney, police, sheriff, probation departments and the court while rejecting the public defender’s seven requests to fill positions in his department.

After the jump, a note on timing: Budget blah blah blah isn't water under the bridge, ever, anymore. Why just yesterday, the mayor's office asked the city's legal offices and other departments to make more cuts ...

Dennis Herrera: The People's (Only) Choice

After cruising uncontested yesterday into a third term as San Francisco’s city attorney, Dennis Herrera said he’d continue to pick a wide range of cases and issues to fight in his new term.

Herrera said his priorities would continue to fit in with his overall philosophy of using the law “to improve peoples’ lives.” Examples, he said, include negotiating the settlement with electricity producer Mirant to shut down its Potrero power plant, and going after credit-card “arbitration mills” on behalf of consumers.

Herrera got 58,637 votes, or 97 percent.

Maybe all the money he raised discouraged any wannabe challengers? See how much, after the jump ...

Golden Gate Law Prof And Local DA At Odds Over Expert Witness Bill

In a billing dispute, a Golden Gate law professor is fighting hard to collect the rest of a fat bill he says the San Francisco district attorney’s office owes him.

The DA’s office agreed in August 2007 to pay real-estate law expert Roger Bernhardt’s $600 per-hour fee for his expert witness services on the case against former Supervisor Ed Jew, according to Bernhardt’s complaint. But the office balked at his $12,450 bill. After negotiations failed to resolve the dispute, the office still owes him $7,950 plus interest, the complaint said. The city says Bernhardt did more work than he was authorized to do.

Not looking so good for Bernhardt, though not totally hopeless, either ... after the jump.

Will Newsom Shake Memo-Leakin'-Gate With Celeb Fundraisers?

Political observers note that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s campaign for governor experienced a little lift yesterday when he flew south to chat up L.A. City College students with Bill Clinton, followed by a fundraiser starring Clinton.

Back at the ranch, though, members of the city Board of Supervisors took advantage of an opportunity to blast Newsom at a Monday hearing on proposed changes to the city’s sanctuary immigration policy dealing with juveniles.

Supervisor Chris Daly said Newsom “should be taken to task” for releasing City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s legal memo on the policy change, the San Francisco Examiner reported. Supervisor John Avalos said “it constitutes official misconduct to release such a memo because it jeopardizes the standing of the city in its legal arguments.”

— Kate Moser

Asian Law Caucus Backs Plan to Keep I.C.E. Off Juvie Suspects

Legal experts and civil rights groups, led by the Asian Law Caucus, weighed in yesterday in a legal memo (.pdf) supporting a proposed change to San Francisco’s policy on reporting juvenile suspects to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

The change, proposed by San Francisco Supervisor David Campos, would make it so that city officials can’t hand over juvenile suspects to federal immigration authorities unless they’re convicted of felonies.

“This policy change, which will help ensure that innocent youth are not wrongly reported to immigration officials for deportation, is supported by law professors and legal experts in the areas of immigration, constitutional, and juvenile law,” says the memo, signed by the Asian Law Caucus and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, among others. They cite law professors who they say agree with City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s assessment that the proposed law is legally defensible: Kevin Johnson, dean and professor at UC-Davis School of Law, Bill Ong Hing at UC-Davis School of Law, Michael Wishnie at Yale Law School, and Jayashri Srikantiah at Stanford Law School.

Between the lines, the memo criticizes Mayor Gavin Newsom’s treatment of the proposed change, which he panned by talking up potential legal challenges in an August San Francisco Chronicle story — a story that cited a confidential memo from Herrera’s office. Newsom’s spokesman later acknowledged that the mayor’s office had given the Chronicle the memo. In a footnote, the Asian Law Caucus and others quoted Herrera’s admonition that city attorney memos “are not intended to be fodder in political disputes.”

— Kate Moser

Lawyers Brace for Battle Over Supervisor's Seat

San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty’s announcement that he planned to file papers this morning to run for mayor in 2011 reminded Legal Pad that we’ve heard the race for his District 8 seat is going to be a hot one, and full of lawyers.

A call to the city’s elections office revealed that three candidates have filed to run for Dufty’s seat: Rafael Mandelman, Scott Wiener and Laura Spanjian. With further intrepid reporting, we found one more lawyer who plans to file: Rebecca Prozan.

Who they are, where they eat lunch, and is that a subtle whiff of fear, after the jump.

Herrera Campaigns For Signatures ... at the Very Least

In case you forgot, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera is up for reelection this November. He’s unopposed — the city’s elections office says there have been no filings by write-in candidates yet (the write-in period ends Oct. 20). Still, Herrera raised $353,388.35 between the first of January and the end of June, according to filings with the city’s ethics commission.

Starting today, Herrera is airing a new campaign ad, which the Chronicle hinted was about the city attorney having his eye on mayor. “We’ll let you decide what election it’s about,” the paper says, noting that the ad doesn’t mention his reelection campaign or any future campaigns.

The video, posted at www.cleanairsanfrancisco.com, talks about Herrera’s efforts to shut down the Mirant Corp. Potrero power plant through a $1.1 settlement that the city inked last month, and it urges people to sign a petition asking state regulators to let the city shutter the plant. “Join me and we’ll all breathe a little easier,” Herrera says in the ad.

— Kate Moser

Harris' Call On Murder Case Looks Pretty Unrisky In AG's Race

SF District Attorney Kamala Harris’s decision not to seek the death penalty in the Edwin Ramos case “involved many issues, many facts and many laws,” she told the Chronicle yesterday, not elaborating on the reason for the decision. One political observer said the move won’t hurt her in her bid for state attorney general unless the GOP fields a moderate.

“You’ve got to give her some credit for a relatively unpopular decision, but it was a campaign promise and a pretty cut-and-dried one,” said local pollster David Latterman. “She will take criticism, but she’s making the political calculus that this isn’t really going to hurt her.”

Assistant District Attorney Harry Dorfman told Judge Charles Haines on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court that the office would not seek the death penalty for Edwin Ramos, who allegedly murdered Tony Bologna and his two sons in 2008.

As bad as the Bologna murders were, Latterman said, they are ultimately a local crime issue -- less pressing when Democratic voters consider choices for the state’s top cop. “The only thing that hurts Kamala in this case is if you get some sort of moderate Republican in there with serious environmental cred or corporate malfeasance credibility,” he said. “Damned if I know who that person is.”

— Kate Moser

Harris Talks Gang Enforcement at Obama's Place

Taking on gang crime has long been a top talking point for San Francisco District Attorney Kamela Harris in her current job, and in her bid to be California’s next attorney general. She got to talk it up in a bigger venue today with a speech at the White House.

At a “Conference on Gang Violence Prevention and Crime Control: Learning From Successful Partnerships Around the Country,” Harris spoke about work her office has done around truancy and its reentry program for low-level drug offenders, among other topics, a spokeswoman said.

High-profile gang cases being prosecuted now in San Francisco include that of Edwin Ramos, an alleged MS-13 street gang member who is accused of killing Anthony Bologna and two of Bologna’s sons while they drove on June 22, 2008. Prosecutors say the shooting was a mistaken retaliation for an earlier wounding of a gang member.

Harris’ invitation to the White House came late last week, her spokeswoman said, and other people with expertise in gang violence prevention were invited. California invitees to the conference reportedly were San Bernardino Mayor Pat Morris and Fresno Sheriff Margaret Mims.

Harris campaigned hard for Obama, but she won’t be seeing her friend at the White House today — he’s off on vacation, playing golf and tennis and hanging out on Martha’s Vineyard.

— Kate Moser

Herrera Unhappy About Leak of Sanctuary Memo

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera took elected city officials and their staffs to task today after a San Francisco Chronicle story on the city’s sanctuary policy quoted a confidential memo from his office.

“Confidential legal advice is not intended to be fodder in political disputes,” Herrera said in a statement released Thursday evening. “Principles of comity in the legislative process dictate that confidential legal advice should not be used in this fashion.”

The political dispute concerns Supervisor David Campos’ proposal to change the city’s sanctuary law so that undocumented juveniles are turned over to immigration authorities only after they’re convicted of a felony. According to the Chronicle, the confidential memo advises the Board of Supervisors that the proposed law would violate federal and possibly state law and could undermine the city’s existing sanctuary policy.

“The memorandum was prominently labeled as ‘privileged and confidential,’ reflecting the fact that it was a confidential attorney-client privileged document,” Herrera wrote in his Thursday memo addressed to Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors.

An update (a confession!), after the jump.