San Francisco County Superior Court | |
---|---|
37°46′52″N122°25′08″W / 37.781°N 122.419°W | |
Established | 1850 |
Jurisdiction | San Francisco |
Location | San Francisco |
Coordinates | 37°46′52″N122°25′08″W / 37.781°N 122.419°W |
Appeals to | California Court of Appeal for the First District |
Website | sfsuperiorcourt |
Presiding Judge | |
Currently | Hon. Garrett L. Wong |
Since | Jan 1, 2019 [1] |
Lead position ends | Dec 31, 2020 |
Assistant Presiding Judge | |
Currently | Hon. Samuel K. Feng |
Since | Jan 1, 2019 [2] |
Court Executive Officer | |
Currently | T. Michael Yuen |
Since | Sep 3, 2010 [3] |
The Superior Court of California of the County of San Francisco is the state superior court with jurisdiction over the City and County of San Francisco.
Courthouse functions were incorporated into San Francisco City Hall prior to 1997. The village of Yerba Buena, seized by Commodore John D. Sloat in July 1846, was renamed to San Francisco in January 1847. [4] : 104, 110 Initially, the Custom House on Brenham Place and Washington Street was used for municipal offices. [4] : 147
With the influx of immigrants seeking gold during the California Gold Rush in 1849, the population swelled and a nativist gang calling themselves The Hounds began harassing Spanish-American immigrants. [4] : 148 The first court system was organized after a public meeting on July 16, 1849, demanding the Hounds be brought to justice; the leaders were put on trial and sentenced to ten years imprisonment and the leaderless organization dissolved shortly thereafter. [4] : 149 Subsequently, planning began for the first California Constitutional Convention and a local election was held on August 1, 1849, naming ten delegates; these men were advised by John W. Geary, the recently-elected First Alcalde (equivalent to the mayor), that "in the absence of any state legislative authority, they were supreme in the district" as the ayuntamiento (town council, equivalent to the modern San Francisco Board of Supervisors). [4] : 143
After the first state constitution was adopted, a city charter was passed in the state legislature and a subsequent election in May 1850 saw Geary elected as the first mayor. [4] : 155 The city offices had outgrown the Custom House and the Graham House, built initially as a four-storey hotel on the northwest corner of Kearny and Pacific, was purchased for US$150,000(equivalent to $5,276,000 in 2022) to serve as the new City Hall. [4] : 156 Members of a group that previously had held a vigilante justice trial in February 1851 continued the legacy of the Hounds, later forming the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance in June 1851. [4] : 172–173 The Graham House was destroyed during the fifth "great fire" of June 22, 1851, and the former Jenny Lind Theater was purchased in 1852 for US$200,000(equivalent to $7,035,000 in 2022) to serve as a replacement City Hall and Courthouse. [4] : 170, 184
Gold mine production peaked during the winter of 1852–53 and many miners left the city; [4] : 216–217 by 1855, the population boom and bust had produced what historian John Hittell called "a greater depth of [political] corruption in San Francisco than in any other part of the United States. The people were new-comers, not long acquainted with their leading men, and their officials were selected at random." [4] : 241 Notable failures of justice, including the fraud of Henry Meiggs and the murder of James King of William, led to the revival of the Committee of Vigilance in May 1856, [4] : 243–246 which subsequently was dissolved that August. [4] : 259
In 1870, Yerba Buena Square, previously used as the city cemetery in the 1850s, [5] : 516 was graded to prepare for the construction of the first purpose-built City Hall. [4] : 382 Plans from Augustus Laver were selected and construction began in 1871 but the building was not completed until a quarter-century later, in 1895. [5] : 712–713 As historian John P. Young wrote in 1912, "The cost as originally estimated was quite modest, but there were plenty of critics who declared that it would be largely exceeded. The most pessimistic, however, did not even remotely approach the truth in making their guesses." [6] : 406 It was destroyed during the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire.
In 1976 the Court helped to create the San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project, [7] a nonprofit organization that helps to provide alternative punishments for misdemeanors and parking violations, in an attempt to divert petty offenders from overcrowded courtrooms. [8]
Katherine Feinstein (daughter of Senator Dianne Feinstein) had been the presiding judge of the court from 2011 through 2012. [9] [10] Judge Cynthia Ming-Mei Lee was elected the new presiding judge on June 27, 2012. The court is composed of 52 judges and twelve commissioners. [11] The court currently has two commissioners. [12]
In December 2016, John Stewart, chief judge at the court, discarded 66,000 arrest warrants for criminal infractions, like sleeping on the sidewalk, public urination, and public drunkenness, stating "You're putting somebody in jail because they're poor and can't pay a fine. We got a lot of criticism, but we thought it was the right thing to do." [13]
The courthouse for the San Francisco County Superior Court is located at 400 McAllister St, San Francisco, CA 94102. It was opened on December 9, 1997. [14] The building was designed by Lee/Timchula Architects. The local architect was Cavagnero and Associates.
The entrance features fabricated metal doors designed by sculptor Albert Paley.
A courthouse or court house is a structure which houses judicial functions for a governmental entity such as a state, region, province, county, prefecture, regency, or similar governmental unit. The term in insular british usage, and by extension, to the former colonies of the british empire, gradually superseded the term moot hall, or meeting hall, during the later half of the middle ages and early modern period, as these buildings housed the local or regional courts. The term court was introduced into english as a french loanword as couer meaning heart, as these buildings were considered to be at the heart of local judicial and administrative business. In most of continental Europe and former non-English-speaking European colonies, the equivalent term is a palace of justice.
San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is taller than that of the United States Capitol by 42 feet (13 m). The present building replaced an earlier City Hall that was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake, which was two blocks from the present one.
The California Courts of Appeal are the state intermediate appellate courts in the U.S. state of California. The state is geographically divided along county lines into six appellate districts. The Courts of Appeal form the largest state-level intermediate appellate court system in the United States, with 106 justices.
The mayor of the City and County of San Francisco is the head of the executive branch of the San Francisco city and county government. The officeholder has the duty to enforce city laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch. The mayor serves a four-year term and is limited to two successive terms. Because of San Francisco's status as a consolidated city-county, the mayor also serves as the head of government of the county; both entities have been governed together by a combined set of governing bodies since 1856.
Superior courts in California are the state trial courts with general jurisdiction to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a governmental agency. As mandated by the California Constitution, there is a superior court in each of the 58 counties in California. The superior courts also have appellate divisions which hear appeals from decisions in cases previously heard by inferior courts.
The Superior Court of Los Angeles County is the California Superior Court located in Los Angeles County. It is the largest single unified trial court in the United States.
Charles Austin Tweed was an American politician and jurist. During his early career he was elected to the Florida Senate and California State Senate. Tweed then moved to Arizona Territory and was appointed to serve two terms as an associate justice of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court.
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Katherine Anne Feinstein is an American attorney, public official, and former judge who currently serves as President of the San Francisco Fire Commission. Feinstein previously served as Presiding Judge of the San Francisco Superior Court from 2010 to 2012 and as a Superior Court judge from 2000 to 2012.
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