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www.ebar.com
Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community
Vol. 47 • No. 27 • July 6-12, 2017
Germany legalizes same-sex marriage Rick Gerharter
Leslie Elliott, left, who her attorneys said was overcharged at the time of her booking, described the negative consequences that followed as Deputy Public Defender Elizabeth Camacho looks on at a June 27 news conference.
Report: Racial disparities stem from police charges
Germans celebrated June 30 after the lower house of Parliament approved a same-sex marriage bill.
by Heather Cassell
by Seth Hemmelgarn
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acial disparities in San Francisco’s criminal justice system stem largely from the charges police book people on, according to a report the city’s top defense attorney has released. Citing issues raised in the report, “Examining Racial Disparities in Criminal Case Outcomes among Indigent Defendants in San Francisco,” Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced the formation of the Pretrial Release Unit, which will scrutinize people’s initial charges for bias. “The disparities that later manifest themselves in every area,” from arrest to conviction, come from booking charges, said Adachi at a news conference June 27. The study shows that people of color receive more severe charges when they’re first booked. Those charges reflect decisions made by police and other booking agencies. Public defenders aren’t assigned to cases until defendants are arraigned. By that point, they’ve already spent up to five days in custody, according to the public defender’s office. The new unit, which will launch in October, will have two deputy public defenders and an investigator. The team will step in after someone’s arrested and before they’re arraigned to review police reports and conduct a preliminary investigation to make sure that the defendant hasn’t been overcharged. The unit’s formation was prompted by findings of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, which did the study based on a review of 10,753 case records from 2011 to 2014 provided by the public defender’s office. The center and the law school funded the study. Researchers found that “Black defendants are held in pretrial custody for an average of 30 days, 62 percent longer than whites.” “Black defendants are convicted of 60 percent more felony charges than white See page 16 >>
ermany’s lower house of Parliament voted 393-226 in favor of same-sex marriage June 30, just days after Chancellor Angela Merkel relaxed her opposition and allowed lawmakers to vote their conscience on the issue.
The vote paves the way for Germany to become the 23rd country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage and the 15th in the European Union. There were four abstentions to the vote, according to media reports. Merkel voted against same-sex marriage, holding onto her belief that See page 16 >>
Longtime AIDS, hep C fighter retires Sean Gallup/Getty Images
by Seth Hemmelgarn
Health at Home program. In the early 1990s, Robb started lesbian San Francisco nurse working on a project at the Amwho’s helped fight HIV/ bassador, a residential hotel in the AIDS and hepatitis C for alTenderloin neighborhood. most three decades recently retired. The Ambassador, one of the Valerie Robb, 62, who’s spent hotels managed by the late gay much of her career at the city’s AIDS activist Hank Wilson and well-known HIV clinic, said, “I his friend Ron Lanza (who died need to retire so I can do some four years ago), was frequented by more activism now that we have many queer and transgender peothe current presidential leadership, ple and became an early epicenter but I’m very pleased with the things of the AIDS epidemic. Wilson put we were a part of at Ward 86.” together a team of care providers, Robb’s history with fighting HIV and with a small group of activand AIDS goes back to the early ists, started the Tenderloin AIDS 1980s, when she started working at Network in 1986. After running on UCSF Medical Center at Mt. Zion. a shoestring budget, TAN obtained She said by working on a cancer Nurse Valerie Robb retired after nearly three decades of helping city funding to open a storefront ward, she was “used to people being people living with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. in 1990, becoming the Tenderloin very sick, people of all ages.” AIDS Resource Center. epidemic that has raged for 36 years and continHowever, Robb, whose last day of The Ambassador was known as ues to affect millions of people around the world. housing of last resort for people no one else would work was June 29, said, “We started getting really sick young men with these various opportunistic In the 1980s, San Francisco developed a model of take. By the early 1990s, it was the largest supportcare centered on the medical and nonprofit cominfections,” which were “terrible.” Friends and acive AIDS housing program in the country, and it munities at a time when then-President Ronald quaintances started getting sick, too, and around came to be regarded as a model of community Reagan would not utter the word “AIDS” and a 1984, her best friend’s brother got pneumocystis care and harm reduction. federal response was lacking. pneumonia and died. Robb said that people at the Ambassador were Robb said she and others at the cancer ward “It was this new illness that I thought was going “a somewhat more diverse group of people” than to get a cure,” said Robb. The thought was, “Oh, “had the same skill set needed to provide care for those she’d worked with from the Castro, since the patients coming in with AIDS,” and those skills they’ll figure this out soon,” and when her friend’s hotel drew a mix of gay, straight, and bisexual men brother died, she recalls thinking, “Thank God I were put to use. Robb left the ward in 1988 and and women. joined Visiting Nurses and Hospice, which evenwon’t have to go through that again.” See page 16 >> But that turned out to be the beginning of an tually became the Department of Public Health’s
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