Subject: Criminal Trials

• District Attorney Files Criminal Charges Against Supervisor Ed Jew

  June 12, 2007

• Alleged S.F. Road Warrior Omeed Popal to Face 35 Felony Counts

  January 8, 2008

• Marjorie Knoller case inches forward

  April 11, 2008

• Shoot First: Mehserle Likely Only Bay Area Cop Ever Charged With Murder for On-Duty Killing

  Just like Johannes Mehserle, we can't give you a straight answer -- but the former BART police officer appears to be the first Bay Area cop to ever find himself charged with murder following a job-related shooting. Jim Chanin, a veteran Berkeley attorney who has prosecuted more than 20 police shooting incidents and is currently handling two in Oakland, couldn't recall a similar instance. The closest he could come was a policeman last year convicted of murder in Ohio -- but that man killed his pr

  January 14, 2009

• City Slackers

  July 5, 1995

• Cops vs. Cops

  October 25, 1995

• Leader of Down Below Gang blames PTSD for killings

  February 18, 2009

• Bouncers Gone Wild

  September 24, 2008

• Snitch

  May 21, 2008

• Gus Fallay Beats Bribery Rap, Wants Old Job Back at SF Department of Building Inspection

  January 16, 2008

• Lawyers Behaving Badly

  Featured Stories

  July 18, 2007

• Stained Rep

  February 14, 2007

• Pay to Play

  The son of a world—renowned chef says he wanted to reform the phone industry. The feds say he wanted to get rich quick.

  February 7, 2007

• Untouchable

  Half of U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan's lawyers have quit. But as he remains bunkered against criticism, who's minding the shop?

  October 4, 2006

• Let It Bleed

  Prosecutors' reluctance to charge murder suspects in S.F. leaves alleged killers on the street, flush with bravado

  January 18, 2006

• Bait and Snitch

  Lying under oath, threatening witnesses, revealing the names of federal agents -- it's just another day on the job for one of the DEA's paid drug informants

  November 23, 2005

• Fajita the Night

  Were the cops really innocent of assault, or is our DA's Office just lame?

  April 6, 2005

• Case Study: Christopher Taylor

  Taylor's lawyer was suspended from practicing during the robbery trial.

  October 29, 2003

• Innocence Arrested

  Albert Johnson was exonerated for a crime he didn't commit, but not before spending over a decade in prison. Why guiltless people get jailed -- and how to stop it.

  October 29, 2003

• Case Study: Clifford St. Joseph

  Testimony by an escaped inmate helped convict St. Joseph of murder.

  October 29, 2003

• Prosecutors' Patience Wears Thin With Levada, Mahony

  June 25, 2003

• Law of the Bungle

  Sara Jane Olson's attorney would like to say a few words about how her San Francisco co-counsel handled the high-profile case

  December 26, 2001

• Law and Borders

  Prosecutors, judges, governors, a sex offender, and a woman with a penchant for poor judgement entangle California and Texas in an epic child custody war with two sure losers -- aged 7 and 9.

  November 14, 2001

• The Dilemma of Sara Jane Olson

  With an October trial in the offing, prosecutors had every intention of proving that Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson was a domestic terrorist who helped plant bombs under police cars 26 years ago.

  September 19, 2001

• Killer, Junkie, Liar, Thief...

  ... so why not lawyer? How our political elite tried and failed to get a law license for sister-killing Eben Gossage.

  August 23, 2000

• Officer Down

  Steve Landi was a hero at 101 California and a cop to his bones. Why is the SFPD trying so hard to get rid of him?

  June 7, 2000

• "Fairfield Wives" Saga Continues

  Mormon doctor's conviction for sexual penetration with foreign object upheld; allegation of juror misconduct headed for court

  January 26, 2000

• Charmed

  The amazing transformation of Carmen Policy, defender of mobsters, babysitter to flashy kid moguls, and now savior of the Cleveland Browns

  October 13, 1999

• Cothran

  June 16, 1999

• Cothran

  May 12, 1999

• Madam I Am

  Raeshel Keavy ran one of the city's most sophisticated and profitable prostitution rings. She was safe until she strayed from San Francisco.

  February 3, 1999

• Panic or Attack?

  Did this aspiring cover boy, who says he killed in a panic fit brought on by unwanted gay advances, get away with murder?

  January 13, 1999

• Cothran

  December 30, 1998

• Cothran

  October 7, 1998

• Perverted Justice?

  Or is a new law that puts sexual predators in long-term psychiatric lock-up really -- and finally -- justice for perverts?

  June 3, 1998

• Trial by Liar

  The snitches mumbled, stumbled, equivocated, and perjured themselves The jury found Bernard Temple -- the man prosecutors believed to be a bloodthirsty assassin for drug dealers -- not guilty of murder.

  January 14, 1998

• School of Scandal

  U.S. alleges $3 million fraud at Oakland's Laney College; 400 "students" involved

  October 29, 1997

• Will the Soul-Jacker Go Free?

  State prosecutions against alleged gang assassin appear to disintegrate

  May 21, 1997

• Fatal Attraction: Illicit Affair Allegedly Behind 2006 SF Infanticide

  Three years ago Linda Woo, then 40, woke her two children, wrapped them in blankets, and placed them inside a Subaru Outback owned by a man who had recently broken off a six-year-affair with her. Also in the car had been placed a lit barbecue grill -- which Woo had bought along with a carbon monoxide meter -- after she'd researched how to commit suicide by breathing charcoal fumes. When the trio were found a short time later, Olive Woo Murphy, age 3, petite with dark wavy hair, was dead. Linda

  April 17, 2009

• Waste Case History

  October 23, 1996

• Where Crime Pays

  Is the DA's Office bungling the biggest pollution case in Bay Area history?

  October 23, 1996

• The DA's Svengali

  Earlier this year, the District Attorney's Office was flirting with farce. Then Terence Hallinan called in David Millstein.

  September 4, 1996

• Hallinan's Right Cross

  The narrow bandwidth of San Francisco politics makes most elections a contest between liberals. The DA's race, which pitted prosecutor Bill Fazio against centrist Arlo Smith and progressive Terence Hallinan, promised to change all that. But when Fazio zig

  December 6, 1995

• Cyperpornocopia

  Milpitas residents Carleen and Robert Thomas found a lucrative way to sell the hardest of hardcorepornography to smut fans all over the country: by computer bulletin board. Then their little Silicon Valley startup attracted the interest of a U.S. Postal S

  March 15, 1995

• Trial by Fire

  May 27, 2009

• Does Pleading Guilty to a Drug Charge Injure Immigrant's 'Good Moral Character'? Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Says No.

  The San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that the government cannot use an illegal immigrant's expunged guilty plea to a simple drug offense as evidence of bad moral character in deportation proceedings. Jesus Romero came to the United States from Mexico when he was 10 years old in 1988. He pleaded guilty to a first-time drug possession offense a decade later, yet the judge deferred judgment against him pending his completion of a rehabilitation program. According t

  June 12, 2009

• Convicted Embezzler Linda Simwa Cons SF Symphony, UCSF

  November 14, 2007

• S.F. taxpayers may be struck with the legal tab for a failed Ingleside murder case

  September 23, 2009

• Jury Convicts Attempted Murderer Despite Disappearance of Victim Allegedly Scared Off By Private Investigator

  ​A San Francisco jury convicted Phil Pitney, 19, of attempted murder Thursday, even after the victim he shot at was a no-show for the entire trial -- apparently because he was threatened by the defense attorney's investigator.The Chron reported last week that Steve Vender, a private investigator working with defense attorney Eric Safire, had called Ladarius Greer, 21, on the eve of the trial and threatened that he would be arrested if he showed up for trial. The victim played police the i

  October 29, 2009

• Breaking: Prominent S.F. Private Investigator Indicted For Allegedly Scaring Off Witness

  A San Francisco private investigator who works with criminal defense attorneys has been indicted on a felony count of dissuading a witness, a charge stemming from his alleged efforts to scare off a star witness in an attempted murder case last month.Steve Vender, in a 2007 SF Weekly photograph​Steve Vender was indicted by a grand jury Tuesday and arrested this afternoon, according to Brian Buckelew, spokesman for the office of District Attorney Kamala Harris. Vender was being held on $75,000 b

  November 19, 2009