By C. Nellie Nelson
Late last week, three members of the Board of Supervisors signed a letter urging Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop the charges against the remaining defendant of the San Francisco 8. The letter, signed by Supervisors Eric Mar, John Avalos and Chris Daly, calls the prosecution misguided: “Based on ‘confessions’ and other testimony extracted by torture and denial of right to counsel, this prosecution has been a disservice to the people of San Francisco.” They point out that the case has cost the city millions of dollars already.
In June Sup. Mar introduced a similar resolution urging the attorney general to drop the charges against the seven men (one had had charges dropped previously) to the Board’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee. The Committee opted to send the resolution to be heard by the full Board, but ended up postponing when budget disagreements literally overtook City Hall.
Then in early July, the prosecution agreed to drop the charges against five of the men, and allowed two men to accept much lesser charges, where they were credited with time served and received only probation. The one remaining defendant is Francisco Torres, who declined an offer to plead guilty to a lesser charge.
The case being largely dismissed, the board tabled the resolution. As there is now just one attorney and assistant, compared with an original team of sixteen attorneys, so the next hearing on the case was postponed to October 9.
The Attorney General’s office had not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment by Monday evening.