Jeff Adachi
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Jeff Adachi (born 1959 in Sacramento, California) has been the Public Defender of San Francisco since 2002. He was the son of a Sacramento auto mechanic and a laboratory assistant. His parents and grandparents spent part of World War II in the Japanese internment camps.
He graduated from University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Hastings College of the Law. He spent nearly 15 years as a deputy with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, working his way up from misdemeanors to felonies with over 100 jury trials. He is a Certified Specialist in Criminal Law (the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specilization) and in Criminal Trial Advocacy (National Board of Trial Advocacy).
He became the office’s chief attorney, but when Kimiko Burton-Cruz (daughter of State Senator John Burton) was appointed Public Defender by Mayor Willie Brown in 2001, Burton-Cruz fired Adachi on her first day on the job, ostensibly for political reasons. The following year, Adachi ran against Burton-Cruz for her position, and won.
He is currently campaigning to be elected to another term as the Public Defender of San Francisco. He is running unopposed.
As the current Public Defender, Adachi oversees 23,000 cases each year with 90 attorneys, 50 support staff and a budget of $17 million.
Adachi was featured in the 2002 PBS documentary Presumed Guilty, a film about the San Francisco Public Defender's office, its difficult cases and complex defense strategies.
He wrote, produced, and directed The Slanted Screen, a 2006 documentary film about stereotypical depictions of Asian males in American cinema.
