Legal Pad

Herrera Has His Own Endless Inmate-Related Crisis

If only there were a fairy godmother ushering poor government workers through the arduous task of responding to public records requests. Unfortunately for the city and county of San Francisco, and lots of upstanding local governments like them, no such creature exists (as far as we know).

Not even for “voluminous” requests, as San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera termed one made more than a year ago by Prison Legal News and its lawyer, Sanford Jay Rosen of Rosen, Bien & Galvan.

With a voracious appetite for documents unsated by Herrera’s office, the monthly magazine today sued the city and county of San Francisco, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, the sheriff, and Herrera in San Francisco Superior Court. They just want their documents, people — how hard can a little bit (and by “little bit” we mean “an alarming amount”) of photocopying be? Shouldn’t there be a law governing this? 

How to drive Dennis Herrera nuts, after the jump.

S.F. Taketh From Local Courts and Giveth to PD and DA In Budget

The San Francisco budget battles are (basically) over, and while Public Defender Jeff Adachi (pictured at right) has pulled his office back toward its fighting weight, he’s still nearly $1 million in the red. That means potential layoffs and continued understaffing, Adachi said Thursday. He also said that he’ll have to begin referring cases to private lawyers and may withdraw his office from representing defendants at the Community Justice Center, a move that could bring proceedings at that experimental court to a near halt.

In a bit of political déjà vu, the board of supervisors voted Tuesday to strip funds from the superior court’s indigent defense budget and transfer some to Adachi. In June, the board took $1.2 million from the indigent defense fund. From that money and the additional $900,000 taken Tuesday, it has given Adachi $950,000. The supervisors also agreed to give $250,000 of Tuesday’s take to the district attorney’s office.

After the jump, some "consolation" for the local courts: Sure, we have taken $2 million from Peter to pay Paul. But it's only because we have much more confidence in Peter's ability to beg for handouts from the mayor ...

A Theory On Minnesota's Quickie (Settlement) With the National Arbitration Forum

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson put a behemoth in the world of credit card arbitration out of that business over the weekend, but the seeds of her victory may have been laid in a year-old court battle in San Francisco.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the National Arbitration Forum in March 2008, alleging that the corporation was “retained by debt collectors and serves their interests alone in a non-neutral, biased and unfair manner.” The NAF, represented by lawyers from Los Angeles’ Loeb & Loeb, claimed that the corporation was immune because it was an arbitrator, according to Deputy City Attorney Ronald Flynn.

Last week — about 16 months after S.F. sued — Minnesota swooped in with a complaint of its own, plus a new alleged link between NAF and one of the country’s largest debt collectors. The NAF settled with the state within days.

But Minnesota is still finding a way to get the best of both worlds. See what happens if S.F. does better in its suit, after the jump.

Legal Eagles on Parade

 

  

Over 200 floats rolled down Market Street during San Francisco's 39th gay pride parade. The City's three legal officials all made their way down the route waving and cheering.  While Kamala Harris and Dennis Herrera were merely just rocking the vote, Jeff Adachi did a different kind of rocking by adorning his float with a timely political statement.

-- Jason Doiy

Ouch! The LA Times Does a Number on AG Wannabe Kamala Harris' Back On Track Program

Updated Tuesday 6/23: The San Francisco Chronicle gets further into the details today on what supposedly happened when Izaguirre was let into the Back on Track program, and reports that the DA then identified six other apparently illegal immigrants among the program's participants. Updated Wednesday 6/24: Harris speaks about this whole thing, in another Chron story.

District Attorney Kamala Harris’ press team must be cringing. In an article published in today’s Los Angeles Times, reporter Michael Finnegan puts Harris’ pet program, Back on Track, through the wringer, determining that it has given illegal immigrant drug dealers a chance at job training and a clean record. Harris, who is running for state attorney general, has held Back on Track up as a smart alternative to traditional criminal justice.

Finnegan opens the LAT article with this example:

A stranger, later identified as Alexander Izaguirre, snatched [Amanda Kiefer’s] purse and hopped into an SUV, police say. The driver sped forward to run Kiefer down. Terrified, she leaped onto the hood and saw Izaguirre and the driver laughing. The driver slammed on the brakes, propelling Kiefer to the pavement. Her skull fractured. Blood oozed from her ear.

Only after the July 2008 attack did Kiefer learn of the crime's political ramifications. Izaguirre, police told her, was an illegal immigrant who had pleaded guilty four months earlier to a drug felony for selling cocaine in the seedy Tenderloin area.

He had avoided prison when he was picked for a jobs program run by San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris ...

Read the jump and ponder as we do: What's the "right" response on immigration questions for a statewide prosecutor-hopeful, anyway? It's tricky ...

Union For S.F. City Lawyers Extends 2% Pay Cut

San Francisco government lawyers have agreed to dock their own pay by 2 percent for another year to pitch in during an ugly budget season, according to officials from the Municipal Attorney's Association.

After two days of voting that ended Wednesday night, 167 attorneys said yes to the cut, while 73 said no. The MAA represents roughly 400 non-management lawyers in the district attorney, city attorney and public defender’s office.

Still, no one knows where that money will go ...

So How Much Will 2 Percent Cut Really Cost S.F. Lawyers?

Corrected after the jump: Our faulty math. We initially calculated loss-per-paycheck based on 24 paychecks a year. (Forgive us for being Legal Pad-centric ... we get paid twice a month here.) Actually, the city generally pays out every two weeks, or 26 times a year. We've crossed out the erroneous per-paycheck numbers and filled in better ones.

San Francisco government lawyers are voting today and tomorrow on a proposed 2 percent pay cut that could make a small dent in the city’s budget deficit. Cal Law has a story  up today analyzing the pros and cons.

The pay cut could save the city between $1.8 and $2 million, but Legal Pad thought it might be useful to figure out what the real effect would be on lawyers’ paychecks.

The bite, after the jump.

Herrera, Adachi Rally Crowd Against Court Furloughs

Court workers and union representatives from as far away as Los Angeles gathered in front of the Administrative Office of the Courts headquarters in San Francisco today to voice their complaints about proposed budget cuts that could close courtrooms once a month.

S.F. City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who is sailing unopposed toward re-election in five months, joined Public Defender Jeff Adachi on the picket line. Both could be seen chatting as they ambulated the shaded sidewalk in front the AOC building, which also houses the state Supreme Court and First District Court of Appeal.

Both Herrera and Adachi did their best impersonations of Michael Collins when they took the mic, trying to rouse the crowd of perhaps 100 to 150 placard-wielding protestors.

“Certain issues need to be off the board completely,” Herrera said, referring to the idea, proposed by the AOC, of shutting courthouse doors to save money. “Whether it be criminal courts or civil courts, the courts need to stay open.”

What do want? Adachi’s jokes! When do want ’em? After the jump!

Roundup: Pot Clubs, Wiretapping & Harris, Oh My!

Marijuana and wiretapping – they’re all fun and games until somebody ends up in court.

That’s true for Charles Lynch, who will be sentenced on Thursday and faces up to five years in prison for running a pot dispensary in San Luis Obispo County. Lynch claims he ran his shop in accordance with state law and was a licensed “caregiver,” and Attorney General Eric Holder made comments in March that seemed to indicate that new, less-aggressive federal marijuana enforcement wouldn’t target such dispensaries.

“Psyche!” Plus Al Haramain and a Kamala Harris cameo, after the jump.

The Patience It Takes To Be a Plaintiff Lawyer (Assuming You Want to Get Paid)

Never lose faith, oh lawyers for whom contingencies are both bread and butter: It only took about eight years or so, but the San Francisco Housing Authority is finally, finally paying up for some verdicts it lost in the earliest part of this decade. Which means some local lawyers and, of course, their clients, are finally, finally getting paid the ga-millions they've been owed for, oh, years now.

A whole passel of judges and justices coming down on the SFHA hadn't done the trick last we knew, so what finally did? After the jump ...