The sudden death of San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi in February jolted the city and its criminal justice system. As one of the only elected public defenders in the nation, Adachi had expanded the traditional role of the office, fighting for legal reform, pushing for police accountability and fiercely promoting civil rights — particularly for the poor and people of color. Three months later, it is the leak of a police report on Adachi’s death — and the city’s response to that leak — that is stirring controversy and roiling San Francisco politics. The police raid May 10 on journalist Bryan Carmody’s home as part of an investigation into who on the police force leaked the report has raised questions about due process and whether city officials violated laws protecting freedom of the press. Here’s what we know so far about the developing saga: Michael Macor / The Chronicle 2015 Who was Jeff Adachi? Adachi, who was 59 when he died, was a fierce advocate and courtroom lawyer for clients, a police watchdog, a filmmaker and firebrand politician. For 17 years he served as public defender, transforming the office into a fearsome outfit with skilled attorneys that rivals many private firms. Raised in Sacramento, he graduated from UC Hastings College of the Law in 1985 before joining the public defender’s office the next year. He went on to stand at the center of many of the biggest stories in San Francisco. His biggest fights included the legal saga of John Tennison, a man convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life for a 1989 street-corner killing but who was later freed on appeal. He later went to work as a clerk in the public defender’s office. In 2010 Adachi pushed Proposition B, a pension reform effort that would have forced police, firefighters and other city employees to contribute more money to their pensions and health insurance costs to save the city an estimated $170 million annually. He exposed the “textgate” scandal at the SFPD, which revealed that six officers had exchanged dozens of racist and homophobic text messages. His office won an acquittal for Jose Inez Garcia Zarate in the Pier 14 killing of Kate Steinle. Garcia Zarate was in the country illegally and had been previously deported five times. The case drew national attention when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump used it to advocate for stricter immigration policy. And Adachi pushed to punish police in officer-involved shootings like the killing of Mario Woods, who was shot by five officers in the Bayview in 2015 after allegedly stabbing a man. Even as head of his office, he continued to personally take cases and won an acquittal for a client in a murder trial just two months before he died. Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle How did Adachi die? Paramedics were called to an apartment at 46 Telegraph Place at 5:45 p.m. on Feb. 22 and found Adachi unconscious. They rushed him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead an hour later. Adachi had left home that morning around 6 a.m., his wife told investigators. The city medical examiner’s office learned Adachi had been with a woman named Catalina who told police she had spent the day with Adachi, starting with breakfast at 11 a.m. The two went to a restaurant in North Beach for dinner around 4 p.m. and “drank a glass or two of Champagne,” according to the medical examiner. While eating, Adachi began complaining of abdominal pain and was sweating profusely, officials said. The two headed to the Telegraph Hill apartment, which a friend, Susan Kurtz, had let Adachi use. Once there, he continued to feel ill, collapsed and became unresponsive, the medical examiner said. The medical examiner ruled the death accidental. A toxicology report found alcohol, cocaine and a drug typically used for anxiety relief in his system — substances the medical examiner said caused his death along with heart disease. Paul Chinn / The Chronicle How did the police report first surface? A day after Adachi’s death, reporters began to learn some of the circumstances — including the location and that Adachi had been with a woman who was not his wife when he died. KGO-TV, KNTV, KTVU, The Chronicle and the Examiner soon began reporting details of Adachi’s death from a preliminary police report that included a two-page summary of the incident along with 22 photos. None of the television stations revealed how they obtained the police report, but it was later learned three stations bought it from Carmody, an independent “stringer” who typically gathers video of breaking news stories for stations. The Chronicle obtained the report, without payment, from a confidential source who was not Carmody. Days later, KPIX-TV sent a letter to the Police Department and the city attorney’s office seeking a copy of the report after other stations had published their stories, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Chronicle. An attorney with the public defender’s office said he spoke to a reporter for KRON-TV outside the apartment where Adachi died. The reporter, he said, told him that the police report related to Adachi’s death had been offered for sale to news outlets by a stringer. Paul Chinn / The Chronicle What was the initial reaction from City Hall? City officials, including Mayor London Breed, members of the Board of Supervisors, and attorneys in the public defender’s office expressed outrage over the leak. Many believed releasing the report was an attempt by police officers who disliked Adachi to smear him and tarnish his legacy. San Francisco Supervisor Sandra Fewer called a special hearing in April castigating the Police Department over the leak. Police officials apologized to Adachi’s family and promised they were investigating the matter both administratively and criminally. At the hearing, Deputy Public Defender Hadi Razzaq told supervisors about the stringer reportedly offering to sell copies of the report to news outlets for $2,500 apiece. Carmody would not say how much he sold the report for, but said it was significantly less than $2,500. Courtesy Bryan Carmody How did the ensuing raid go down? Nearly a month later, on May 10, police officers arrived at Carmody’s home in the Outer Richmond District with a search warrant and a sledgehammer. He said police had been there the month before asking him to identify the confidential source who provided him the report. Carmody refused to give up the name. During the search, police handcuffed Carmody and searched his home. The officers discovered he had an office in the Western Addition and obtained a second search warrant for that location. Two Superior Court judges, Victor Hwang and Gail Dekreon, signed the warrants. Police Chief Bill Scott said he was “confident we took the appropriate legal matters to get the search authorized.” The judges have not commented. In California, journalists are protected from being searched and from being compelled to reveal sources under the state’s shield law. Nonetheless, police seized 68 items, including computers, phones and hard drives, while “investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of a confidential police report,” a department spokesman said. Scott justified the search, saying, “We have to do our jobs and make sure reports are not released when they are not supposed to be released. If there’s criminal activity that’s proven, we want to get to the bottom of that.” Paul Kuroda / Special to The Chronicle How do police get search warrants? A search warrant is an order signed by a judge that allows law enforcement to search a person or his property, like a home, car or boat. Police must show probable cause, or reasonable suspicion of a crime, in a signed affidavit, and describe what they’re looking for. Under California law, police can search for stolen property, items that were used in a felony and items that are evidence of a felony. They can also search for items a person intends to use later in a crime, or criminal property that a person gives to another person to conceal. Judges are barred from issuing warrants for items protected by the California shield law for journalists.<doc-sep>Lawyers and free speech advocates are wrangling over whether San Francisco police were right to raid a journalist’s home Friday — the latest jolt from a leaked report on the February death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi. The incident has raised concerns that city officials have lost sight of journalists’ rights in their haste to solve a case that embarrassed the city. Some observers wondered whether the judges who signed the warrant were aware the search targeted a journalist. “Somebody screwed up royally,” said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition in San Rafael, who called the raid outrageous. At the heart of the dispute is a report that included photographs and details about what happened at the Telegraph Hill apartment where Adachi lost consciousness on Feb. 22 after spending the day with a female companion. The Police Department drew sharp reprimands from city politicians after the report showed up on television newscasts and in print only hours after Adachi, 59, collapsed and later died. It rattled City Hall, creating a new drama that overtook the news of Adachi’s death. The public defender was a key figure for local progressives but also a vocal critic of the police, leading some to say the report’s unauthorized release was politically motivated. Police immediately started a probe, which led investigators to freelance videographer Bryan Carmody, who says he received the report on Adachi’s death from an unidentified source inside the Police Department. He sold it to three television news stations, but wouldn’t identify them. Officers showed up at the door of his Outer Richmond District home two weeks ago and “politely asked me to tell them who my source was. I declined to do that,” Carmody said. On Friday morning, at least 10 police officers and two federal agents used a sledgehammer to enter Carmody’s home. They also searched his vehicles and his office in the Western Addition, taking check stubs, CDs, USB drives, computers, cell phones, notebooks and the original leaked police report. Carmody said he was handcuffed and detained for seven hours as officers grilled him, asking for passwords to his cell phones and computers, the name of his source, and whether the source had been compensated. “I’m positively clear on that — literally not a penny, not even a cup of coffee,” Carmody said. A copy of the warrant obtained by The Chronicle shows it was signed by two Superior Court judges — Victor Hwang and Gail Dekreon — but does not list a probable cause for the search. In a statement released Friday, David Stevenson, a Police Department spokesman, characterized the searches as “one step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice, along with the illegal distribution of a confidential police report.” Debating the issue on social media Saturday, attorneys pointed to precedents in which police obtained warrants to seize the work of independent journalists. In some cases, attorneys managed to retroactively quash the warrants and get the materials back. “Same must happen here,” tweeted David Greene, civil liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco. Theodore Boutrous, a First Amendment lawyer in Los Angeles, said that “clearly” Carmody should not have been the focus of the Police Department’s investigation. “They have a legitimate reason to find out who leaked information among themselves, but they should be searching in their own backyard,” Boutrous said. He urged City Attorney Dennis Herrera to press the case and recover Carmody’s possessions. Carmody’s lawyer, Thomas Burke, agreed that the police went too far. The warrant and seizures were “highly improper,” he said. Burke has represented The Chronicle and its parent company, Hearst Corp., in other cases. Burke called the police and district attorney’s office Friday night, demanding that they freeze all the information confiscated from the search and not review any of the data on Carmody’s cell phones or laptops. He said he is still waiting for a response. Snyder, the First Amendment Coalition director, said he’s mystified by the judges’ decision to sign the warrant, which he said violates the California Shield Law. It protects journalists who refuse to disclose their sources or turn over other materials associated with news gathering. “It’s a chilling sign that the San Francisco Police Department had such low regard for journalists’ rights,” Snyder said. But another civil liberties attorney, John Hamasaki, said this isn’t the right case to hold up as a cause celebre. “There’s a reason that other news outlets were not targeted and raided,” said Hamasaki, who is also a San Francisco police commissioner. “It’s because there’s a difference between reporting and hawking a stolen item.” He added: “There’s no First Amendment protection for profiting off the tragic death of Jeff Adachi.” Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan<doc-sep>Police raided the home and office of a freelance journalist Friday morning as part of an ongoing investigation into a leaked confidential police report containing salacious details about the death of late Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Freelance journalist Bryan Carmody told the San Francisco Examiner that his home and office were raided by police and FBI agents because he had obtained a copy of the police report, and sold information from that report to the press following Adachi’s death on February 22. The leak drew wide condemnation and prompted members of the Board of Supervisors to call for the police department to investigate and hold accountable the source of it within the department. Two weeks prior, Carmody said that he was interviewed by police officers about where he obtained his information, but refused to disclose his source. Today, Carmody said that police and FBI agents executed a search warrant on his Richmond District home and Western Addition office. They confiscated his cell phones, computers and a copy of the police report from within his office safe. “They have completely shut down my business,” said Carmody, who has operated as an independent stringer for Bay Area and national television stations, including Fox News, CNBC and CBS Evening news. Carmody accused police of “intimidation” to “make me break my [journalistic] ethics.” “I’m refusing to give up my source,” he said. A San Francisco Police Department spokesperson defended their action in a statement Friday, saying that the warrant was granted by a judge and the raid was “part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the leak of the Adachi police report.” “Today’s actions are one step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of a confidential police report,” the statement read. Carmody said that police and FBI agents attempted to enter his home at 8:30 a.m. using “a sledgehammer.” “They were in the process of breaking my gate down at which time I woke up and let them in,” said Carmody, adding that the authorities entered his home with guns drawn and searched “my entire house from attic to garage.” Carmody said that he was detained in handcuffs for more than seven hours and asked to be released several times, but that authorities refused his request. He said he remained in handcuffs as police brought him along with them to his Western Addition office, where they found the police report in a safe. Carmody doesn’t believe that whatever materials were confiscated would lead to identifying the source of the leaked report. Carmody said he sold details of the report as a story package that included “video information” and “off-the record interviews” as “any freelance journalist does.” He said that the package was bought by three media outlets. He would not disclose which outlets. Friends and supporters of Adachi, who dedicated his career to uncovering police misconduct, said the leak was political retribution. Carmody declined to comment on the motivation of the leak. At an April hearing it was revealed that a freelance reporter had allegedly sold the information to media outlets for $2,500 each, but his identity was not disclosed. Public Defender Mano Raju, who succeeded Adachi, said in an email statement that he is “pleased that [Police Chief Bill Scott] and others are keeping their word and working to get to the bottom of it.” “All of our criminal justice and City Hall leaders agree that the release of police reports in this fashion is wrong,” said Raju. lwaxmann@sfexaminer.comJeff Adachi News If you find our journalism valuable and relevant, please consider joining our Examiner membership program. Find out more at www.sfexaminer.com/join/<doc-sep>
San Francisco police on Friday raided the home of a freelance journalist who provided three Bay Area television stations with a copy of a police report into the death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi, the journalist and police officials said. Bryan Carmody, a freelance videographer known in the industry as a stringer, told The Chronicle that San Francisco police executed a search warrant at his Outer Richmond District home and Western Addition office and seized his computers, cell phones and other electronic devices. “I don’t think it was right to break my door down,” he said in an interview. “I’m one of the original independent media companies in San Francisco. This is outrageous.” The Police Department has been repeatedly castigated by city officials after the report showed up on television newscasts and in print only hours after Adachi, 59, collapsed at a Telegraph Hill apartment with a mysterious woman on Feb. 22 and later died. The Police Department said it immediately opened an internal investigation into how the report was leaked. Carmody has worked for nearly three decades in the Bay Area, shooting video footage and selling it to local and national news organizations. He said he obtained the report from a source and sold it for a standard fee to three television news stations. He would not say which stations paid him for the report. As a freelancer, he emphasized, getting paid by media outlets is how he makes his living. The Chronicle also obtained a copy of the report but did not get it from Carmody or pay for it. “The search warrant executed today was granted by a judge and conducted as part of a criminal investigation into the leak of the Adachi police report,” said David Stevenson, a police spokesman. He added that the “actions are one step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of a confidential police report.” Carmody said two inspectors with the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau “politely asked” for his source on the Adachi report two weeks ago, but he declined to reveal the person’s name. Then around 8:30 a.m., he awoke to a banging sound on the outer gate of his home, he said. When he went outside, he said, about 10 officers were trying to break down the gate with a sledgehammer. When he willingly opened the gate, he said police handcuffed him and streamed into his home. Carmody said the investigators later learned he had an office in the Western Addition and obtained a second search warrant there. During the ordeal, he said, two men who identified themselves as FBI agents tried to interview him, but he declined to speak with them and asked for a lawyer. The FBI did not immediately return a request for comment. Carmody said he was detained until 3 p.m. and then released. He contacted The Chronicle after purchasing another cell phone, he said. Last month San Francisco supervisors called a special hearing, at which they lambasted the department over the release of the report related to Adachi’s death. Adachi was a major figure in criminal justice reform, a police watchdog and fierce foe of law enforcement. Some city officials said the release of the report appeared politically motivated. Police officials called the release of the report “totally inappropriate” and began two internal investigations into the report’s premature release — one of possible criminal misconduct, the other an internal administrative probe, Capt. William Braconi testified at the hearing. Adachi collapsed in the apartment on Telegraph Hill and was later pronounced dead at a hospital. The city medical examiner ruled he died from a mixture of cocaine and alcohol, which caused his already-damaged heart to stop. But within 24 hours of his death, several television stations ran stories based on the police report, which contained salacious details of Adachi’s death, including that he was with a mysterious woman who wasn’t his wife, and photographs of the bedroom where he collapsed. None of the stations revealed how they obtained the police report. KPIX-TV sent a letter to the Police Department and city attorney seeking a copy of the report in the days after other stations had published their stories and mentioned that a stringer was selling the report, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Chronicle. A deputy public defender who testified at the Board of Supervisors hearing accused a then-unknown stringer of trying to sell the report for $2,500.