Police Officer Handcuffed Meddling Defense Attorney to a Wall: Report
A San Francisco public defender says she was placed under arrest and handcuffed to a wall for around an hour because she tried to stop police officers from questioning her client without a lawyer present.
Deputy Public Defender Jami Tillotson was inside a San Francisco courthouse when she reportedly heard police were in the hallway outside, interviewing a man she was representing on a misdemeanor theft charge.
There, she found plainclothes officer Brian Stansbury taking pictures of her client and tried to stop him, asserting the man's right to have his attorney present during any questioning.
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.
Tillotson, an 18-year veteran of the public defender's office, is calm throughout the video and does not resist officers. She continues to assert she is representing her client as she is led away.
Public Defender Jeff Adachi told reporters Tillotson was eventually handcuffed to a wall for close to an hour while Stansbury photographed and questioned her client.
She was charged with resisting arrest, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
