Deputy Public Defender Jami Tillotson on the verge of being led away in handcuffs

Deputy Public Defender Jami Tillotson on the verge of being led away in handcuffs

The video shows Deputy Public Defender Jami Tillotson refusing to step aside as a man identified as San Francisco Police Inspector Brian Stansbury tries to take a cellphone picture of him in a hallway at the Hall of Justice on Tuesday. “I just want to take some pictures, ok? Then he will be free to go,” says Stansbury on the video. Tillotson refuses and Stansbury then tells her she can either step aside or be arrested for resisting arrest, according to the subtitles on the YouTube video.

According to the public defender, Stansbury was the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit that was filed against him by another San Francisco police officer for alleged racial profiling, which is what Adachi has accused Stansbury of doing in the Hall of Justice Tuesday.

“I was arrested for what we do as public defenders every day,” Tillotson said of the encounter, which was captured in a video that the public defender’s office posted on YouTube. “I asked questions. I talked to my client and explained to him his rights. At that point, I was told I was interfering and taken into custody.” Adachi said, “This is not Guantanamo Bay. You have an absolute right to have a lawyer with you when you’re questioned. Ms. Tillotson was simply doing her job.”

She was released from custody under penal code 849b, Esparza said, which usually means there is insufficient evidence for making a criminal complaint.

San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Jami Tillotson, an 18-year-veteran of the public defender's office, was in court when she was notified that one of her clients was being interviewed and photographed by police in the hallway. She rushed out to intervene and notify her client they did not have to speak to police without an attorney present. That's when things got ugly: Deputy Public Defender Tillotson's client was at the Hall of Justice for an unrelated misdemeanor charge when Inspector Stansbury began questioning and photographing him. Inspector Stansbury was also there for another reason: Watch the whole thing go down:Needless to say, both Tillotson and Public Defender Jeff Adachi are outraged: Police are standing by the arrest and the charge, but Deputy Public Defender Tillotson was released after only an hour: