some of it was policy we passed, but a lot of it is a real commitment the city has seen, and we have so many amazing community partners that have dedicated years before we came to this point to develop plans to bring people here. i want to thank redevelopment. the soma pac chair who is here. it is amazing to see people talking about what we can do to revitalize this area. of course, i want to thank the mayor's office of economic workforce development. as urgent as the process is, they understand we need to listen to the community and neighborhoods that have already existed here to make sure their input is included in this revitalization effort. [applause] last is that this corridor does belong to the city of san francisco, but we have two historical neighborhoods here that surround it -- the tenderloin and the south of market. it is a community that has

struggled but also has made a ton of achievements in this neighborhood without the support of the city. we want to continue to make sure that the changes we are making are for the city but also the residents that have been here a long time -- the families, the seniors, the youth. i know many of the senior members of market said that are clapping in the back were there as well. i sought asian neighborhood design. central city sro collaborative. side david addington outside, urban solutions, so there are a lot of folks here. this is really an example of how many people have been part of this process to make market street work, and we are really excited to continue to work with everyone here to make this the street that everyone wants to see it. thank you. [applause]

>> as supervisor kim said, central market does belong to the entire community. we have been blessed to have the commitment and energies of the board president helping us as well. [applause] supervisor chiu: good morning. anybody hundred? i know as an elected official not to get between people and food, so i am going to be very brief. six years ago, i ran a technology company that was located half a block from here. my employees asked me to move from this neighborhood. the reason for that was they did not feel safe. second, we did not have a community of innovators and creative folks all around us, and third, we were getting tired of eating doughnuts and vietnamese food. so it is wonderful to be here as part of this mid-market community, moving our community forward. i am delighted to see all of these yellow jackets behind me.

when there were issues of crime in the neighborhood, the city administrator and our head of our community affairs office -- we came together to think about this program, and it has been a great to see the work they have done in the southeast neighborhood, but you're sort particularly happy to see them here in south of market, so let's give a hand to our yellow jackets who will be patrolling every night of the week. [applause] like other speakers today, i cannot believe that it was barely a year ago, jennifer, when you and i started conversations about what we could do to revitalize this area. the conversations are around quarter were just starting, and it took all of us coming together [inaudible] what we needed to do here. i have on my telephone a robocall that was put out to tens of thousands of san franciscans that was trying to explain to people why we should

not invest in the mid market area. i want to thank all of you for coming together as a city, as a village to say that we are -- [inaudible] example of 21st century development in san francisco, of microphone systems that will work steadily, of making sure that we are bringing not just 21st century companies that reflect the very best of innovation here in san francisco, not just the very best of creativity represented by an organization and theater organization, and [inaudible] but what are the diversity that is san francisco. i want to thank you for being part of that. thank you for working together. thank you for moving this city forward. thank you for being here, and let's get some burgers. [applause] >> we had a few more speakers that i think it is important to hear from here when we think about doing public safety in this challenging neighborhood that it has resisted a lot of changes over the years, we are

incredibly lucky to have the leadership and the knowledge and long-term understanding of the police chief, and i would like to ask him to say a few words. [applause] >> i certainly do not want to take a lot of everybody's time because i have ever on order. when i came to the police department, right across the street was the tenderloin section of the tender station, and that was might be. i can tell you that the area has changed so much over the last 30 years duty all the things the prior speakers spoke to. i wish there had been a burger place like this done because i would probably weigh about 30 more pounds. we are committed. we have signed the lease. there will be more officers. the neighborhood is changing daily. we are absolutely committed to making the mid-market corridor a

safer place. i can tell you firsthand, having been a cop in a baby station, how critical the program was to our success in making the third street corridor a safer place. without further ado, i will give it back. cheers to sylvia and pearl's. >> redevelopment efforts on sixth street have been intense for years. without redevelopment efforts, pearl's would not be here today, i think it is safe to say. like to recognize redevelopment and have tiffany, the director, say a few words. [applause] >> thank you, jennifer. the opening of pearl's here at the corner of sixth and market st. marks a major milestone as the mayor and our community partners have indicated. what was once a vacant and

blighted corner is now this incredible, beautiful store where we can all enjoy burgers and then some. that history dates back many years. since 2003, the redevelopment and the city have invested in this area. more than 30 businesses and tenants, ranging from great community partners -- they are all here due to our sixth street economic revitalization loan program. without the partnership of folks like urban solutions, and jenny mcnulty is here -- we would not have been able to achieve the success, even though we had the strong backing of our mayor and our chief. we are excited that this is just one of many great changes that are happening here, and we look forward to many more on sixth street. so thank you all for coming. [applause]

>> i would like to invite adrian to say a few words about the community ambassador program and the commitment he made to expanding the program here at central market. >> thank you, everyone. i want to say that when the mayor comes to you and says, "please start a safety program and we do not have money and no resources to hire a new staff, and you will just have to make it work" -- it is amazing. we got so much from the mayor's office, from the board of supervisors, and you see the result of our efforts. our community ambassadors program is a street smart safety program. not only do we keep the peace out in the streets, but we also educate the public. everyone deserves safe and clean streets, and that is including our employers, our businesses, our workers, our visitors, and every resident of san francisco. thank you so much.

we look forward to working with our businesses and community in the area. [applause] >> i would also like to invite jenny to say a couple of words. we need private sector partners to help with technical assistance, and also give us a little kick in the pants. >> this is a great day for central market. i would like to thank and acknowledge the staff of urban solutions and in particular, tracey were all the work she did to bring pearl's select burgers. they did everything from reaching out to the owners to tell them about the opportunity to handling the lease negotiations to helping secure financing and managing construction of the restaurants.

sylvia ann young are amazing people and amazing business operators, and we are thrilled that they are here, and they have created 16 jobs with health insurance right here in the neighborhood. [applause] >> and by far the most important speaker today is sylvia, and i would like to invite cilia to say a few words and said afterwards, we are going to do a ribbon cutting, so i would like to invite everyone to come outside, and we will come back in for burgers after soviet is done speaking. -- after sylvia is done speaking. >> i want to start by saying that we're particularly excited to be on this corner because i am a san francisco native and i grew up in the tenderloin and my aunt and uncle used to have efficient chips placed but he appeared my sister and i used to run this neighborhood all the time. for me being here, it is kind of

like coming home. the project could not have been possible without the financial help from the mayor's office and the san francisco redevelopment agency. we are forever thankful for all of your help and for urban solutions, who held our hand through every step of the way and still continues to be a huge help to us here. finally, the community here. i cannot tell you how welcoming sixth street and central market have been. everyone from the merchant and the neighbors -- we tried to have a soft open last week. had lines out the door. i just want to encourage other merchants out there to come on down. change is not going to happen here. it is here. it is happening now. if you take the risk, i tell you, you are going to have lines out the door. thank you, everyone, for coming today. [applause] them all right, everyone.

outside.

>> welcome, everybody. to the 2011 justice summit by the book. i'm so excited to be here. you know, we've been doing these summits now for seven years, but this by far is the most exciting summit. i cannot wait to hear the panelists that we have today. we're going to be delving in to some of the most critical issues affecting the criminal justice system at this time. and we're going to talk about, what is justice and what it means. you know, plateo said, "i do not know what justice is, but i know what it is not."

and that is very true when you think about it because it's something that we take for granted, that we believe in, that we hope for, but the reality is is that we don't understand and appreciate justice unless we are deprived of it. and in many cases the definition of justice is the correction of an injustice, and that's really the spisht that we're approaching today. we have three action-packed panels. our first panel celebrates the 50th anniversary of a novel that really defined american justice in the 1960's and that's "to kill a mockingbird." and many a lawyer was motivated by atticus finch in his closing

argument in that case which in many ways represented the civil rights movement that was to come and it already begun. we have best-selling authors. we have a real-life atticus finch, tony serra, who is here and has motivated so many of us to do what we do. our second panel looks at abuse of power, abuse of power and how it happens and why it happens and most importantly what we can do and need to do to prevent it. whether it's a prosecutor or a judge or a defender render ineffective assistance to counsel or a police officer violating constitutional rights. this is not something we can tolerate, yet it happens each and every day. and our panel is going to delve

deep into the issues that we're seeing not only here in the bay area but throughout the country and throughout the world. our third panel after lunch will talk about the future of the death penalty and hopefully its demise. you might be surprised that we are having a conversation here in san francisco about the death penalty. as you know, our district attorney has indicated that he may seek the death penalty in appropriate cases in san francisco, and that has not been the case for the past decade. but he's coming today to talk about his views. we also have a former warden at san quentin who surprised the last three executions, and she is now the head of death penalty focus which is an

anti-death penalty group. we have somebody, though, who really symbolizes everything that's wrong with the death penalty. in 1983 he was arrested and within 120 days was convicted in two trials which resulted in the death penalty. he was sentenced to angola in louisiana, death row, where they were executing people left and right. he spent 14 years. he had nearly half a dozen execution dates. and yet he survived and he's here today. and actually -- i know you are on the third panel. come on up. come on up. this is james "j.t." thompson.

he came all the way from louisiana to be here today. [applause] one question, how did you survive? >> god. god. god. death row is a place that brings out the truest human being in you. it makes you realize you can't take nothing for granted. you need to love every moment of each day and praise and thank god for each moment you have out here. for the system to do what it did to me -- i was the only child from my mother. i was a father too. the system didn't see none of that. it did not see me not having a

criminal record. it's hard to accept. it's hard to keep on continuing to accept a prosecutor or somebody that wants to sentence swub to death with a system that's corrupt as ours. all right. [applause] >> i want to take this opportunity to thank the sponsors who have made the summit possible. the law firm of brown and furtel and my good friend, dave young, thank you. the criminal trial lawyers association. we'll hear from their incoming president in a few minutes. and also stuart hanlon as well as the bar association of san francisco. so let's have a round of applause for our sponsors today

. let's get down to it. so before we get started i want to introduce someone who's a wonderful leader in our community and that's the president of the bar association of san francisco. >> thank you. thank you, jeff, for inviting me on behalf of the bar association of san francisco. i'm priya sanger. i'm president of the bar association of san francisco. basf, as we note the bar association to be called, has had a long relationship with the public defenders office. it is crucially important for administration of justice.

and so is san francisco conflicts panels where administration, which the bar association has provided in partnership with public defenders. so in san francisco when a public defender has a conflict of interest, criminal defendants and minors are represented by private attorneys from a panel administered by the bar association of san francisco. maintaining this independent body of attorneys is critically important as a well-run public defenders office. we are each other's complement. we are the sum of the parts that makes whole the criminal departments working so well in san francisco. in 2003 the superior court contracted with the bar association of san francisco indigent to have cost-saving oversight to the administration and billing associated with conflicts. so tron is the director of the

courts administration and has been working with jeff since 2003 to make sure that indigent panels are effective and that they do all -- that we do all we can to prevent recidivism. so thank you, jeff, for allowing us to be here and co-sponsoring this event. thank you all for coming here. [applause] >> thank you. next i'd like to introduce, the incoming president of the criminal trial lawyers association of northern california, frank. >> hello. i'm frank and president-elect of criminal trial lawyers association of northern california. ctla is a proud co-sponsor of the justice summit here today. i've been asked to say a few words about ctla to both inform and entertain you for about the

next two minutes. it's a professional association of criminal defense lawyers in the bay area. our membership list includes about 400 lawyers and private investigators, expert witnesses and even some professors and law students. our members are -- how do i say this -- luminaries in the field. today, the justice conference honors a past ctla honoree, one of our own, tony serra. ctla has featured the likes of not only tony serra at a feature presenter at our programs but those that include jim bross that has who defends cases most of the time but was the special prosecutor in the cat wineberger case. john was responsible for ollie north. chris argatis, who i don't think has prosecuted anyone but defends everyone. and other greats like patrick and nancy. our programs have historically been more a mix of social and

educational gatherings. our history dates back to 1962. we had a judge's luncheon in 1962 and our list of ctla presidents goes back that far. i wish i had the time to list them all but i don't. we'll get that list on our ctla page soon. san francisco is lucky to have ctla to kick around. our shall i say, to have our ctla members to kick around. but seriously, i'm humbled by the ctla members who every day, every day defend their clients using the constitutions of the united states and california in support of great principles. every day our members show courage in bay area courts, and we do ok in the big battles as well. who will ever forget the extraordinary accomplishments of john in defending our college, patrick, from a crazy federal prosecutor in nevada? that level of talent and that

level of courage is unique, but every day criminal courts in the bay area shine because my colleagues from ctla are working there. recently ctla issued a public statement against the death penalty. ctla joins other groups and individuals here today in calling for permanent incarceration as california's alternative to the death penalty. this city and county has a great san francisco public defender and we want to express our thanks to jeff adachi for his support of ctla over the years and for his gratitude for being here today. thank you for your taxi and have a great conference -- thank you for your attention and have a great conference. [applause] >> i also want to acknowledge the public defender, past-present president of the california lawyers association. thank you for being here. now, we have our 50th anniversary tribute to "to kill

a mockingbird." how many of you have read the book? seen the movie? i think everybody has seen it. well, this tribute features not only a great clip from "to kill a mockingbird" but atticus finch himself played by julian lopez-morillas who is one of the finest actors in the bay area. so let's go back to memory lane and enjoy this performance. >> ladies and gentlemen, gregory peck. >> never seems as fresh and wonderful, as good and evil as it does when seen through the eyes of a child. trying to capture that is remarkable and perhaps that is

why one look and the last few years has been so warmly embraced by tens of millions of people. "to kill a mockingbird," winner of the pulitzer prize and just about every award a book can win and now happily "to kill a mockingbird" becomes a motion picture and its memorable characters become vividly alive. some people call him jane louise finch. but she insists on scout. and that's her brother, gym. just a boy until the day he learns there is evil in the world. and atticus finch, the father, whose devotion of justice places him and his children in jeopardy. and party to the defense, john robinson. >> excuse me. >> what kind of man are you?

you got children of your own. >> atticus finch. >> this ring that belonged to your mother. you want to tell us what really happened? >> i got nothing to say. do nothing about it. you coward! >> gentlemen, i shall be brief but i would like to use the