The ABA Journal report on the arrest of a public defender in a San Francisco courthouse where she was attempting to represent her client.
The long-time public defender, Jami Tillotson, stood with her client explaining to plain clothed police what she was doing when she was warned and then arrested, as a YouTube video (below) attests. Fellow attorneys took cellphone videos as police told Tillotson to put her hands behind her back. She did, and the cuffs went on, reports Bay City News Service.
“I am representing my client here … I am not resisting,” she said as she was led away in handcuffs, a YouTube video shows. As of Thursday morning, it has received over 140,000 views.
Tillotson said she spent about an hour handcuffed to a wall in a police holding cell and was then released. She faces a misdemeanor resisting arrest charge.
Her boss, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, said the arrest violated constitutional provisions and said he hopes the resisting charge will soon be dropped, the article reports.
“This is not Guantanamo Bay, you have an absolute right to have a lawyer with you when you are questioned,” Adachi said, adding that he “can only imagine what might be happening out there on the streets” when such police activity “outside the law” occurs within a courthouse.
