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This morning I heard on the news that San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi had a heart attack and died yesterday; I was dumbfounded to hear this.
I met Jeff in 1999 when I was producing an event for the Asian American Arts Foundation (links below). Jeff was the chair for the event and we worked together for many hours and became friends. I liked him tremendously; he was gentle and soft spoken but when he did speak, it was with authority and certainty. He was polite to everyone and when needed, he could rationally direct them to what was the proper course to take. He was magnificent!
photo by Quint King
It was an experience of a lifetime; while working on the production I met a few celebrities: Charlie Low of the Forbidden City, Rolling Stone journalist Ben Fong-Torres (link below), actress Pat Suzuki (link below), actor Lou Diamond Phillips (link below), Mayor Willie Brown and many others.
We kept in touch for a while after the event but eventually drifted apart, however, I would watch his career progress over the years. In addition to his many legal activities he was active in social reform, hailed as a warrior for criminal justice reform and praised as a champion “for those who didn’t have a voice.”
On August 1, 2013 He gave a brilliant talk on the ethical dilemma of implicit or unconscious bias in the law at the Criminal Litigation Ethics Seminar at UC Hastings College of the Law (link below).
On August 1, 2013 He gave a brilliant talk on the ethical dilemma of implicit or unconscious bias in the law at the Criminal Litigation Ethics Seminar at UC Hastings College of the Law (link below).
He wrote, produced, and directed The Slanted Screen, a 2006 documentary film about stereotypical depictions of Asian males in American cinema. The film won awards at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival and at the Berkeley Film Festival.
In 2009, he directed You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story, which won the best documentary film at the Accolade Film Festival.
In 2016, he made the film America Needs a Racial Facial, an eight-minute history of racism in the U.S. It won the best short documentary at the Hollywood Independent Documentary
Film Festival awards in February of 2016 and earned a distribution deal by the Films
for the Humanities and Sciences later that year.
Jeff Adachi - February 21, 2016
photographer unknown
His 2017 documentary Defender, co-directed with Jim Choi,
won best documentary at the Independent Television Festival. The
70-minute piece followed a racially charged case tried by Adachi as well
as a case handled by the office's immigration unit.
Jeff Adachi is believed to have suffered a heart attack at 46 Telegraph Place near Coit Tower. He was 59 years old. He will be missed by many people.
Viewfinder links:
Jeff Adachi articles/mentions
Flower Drum Song & Pat Suzuk
Golden Ring Awards ~ October 2, 1999
Net links:
SF Public Defender ~ Talk: Implicit Bias - August 1, 2013
ABC News ~ obit
KQED ~ obit
LA Times ~ obit
SF Chronicle ~ obit
SF Examiner ~ obit
YouTube links:
Jeff Adachi - Golden Ring Awards 1999
Lou Diamond Phillips - Golden Ring Awards 1999
Ben Fong Torres - Golden Ring Awards 1999
"The history of man has just begun;
in the aeons which lie before him
lie limitless hope or limitless despair."
~ Jeff Adachi - 2013
Styrous® ~ Saturday, February 23, 2019
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