Peter Keane, rabble-rousing S.F. attorney and champ of superior governing administration, dies at 79
Peter Keane’s 1st consumer was himself.
He arrived in San Francisco from Dallas in a Volkswagen Squareback weighed down by his legislation books and attempted to register to vote. He was denied on account of a a single-12 months residency necessity in California in area at the time, and he’d only been a resident for 11 months.
So he sued the condition, and attempted the circumstance even right before he was a registered California lawyer.
“State Voting Residency Legislation Voided,” study the headline in The Chronicle on Oct. 8, 1970, with the names of plaintiffs Peter and Nancy Keane on the entrance web page. It was the nucleus of a track record that would appear to symbolize the suitable to a superior govt and a good demo in San Francisco.
With a dashing Irish demeanor and a aptitude for courtroom dramatics, Keane would serve as a community defender, law enforcement commissioner, ethics commissioner, metropolis and state Bar officer, voter initiative creator, Tv murder demo analyst, regulation professor and regulation faculty dean.
Keane experienced retired when he was diagnosed with metastatic colon most cancers in February. He died at to start with mild Easter Sunday at his longtime house in the Richmond District, with his spouse of 53 decades and two daughters at his bedside. He was 79.
“Peter carried a copy of the Constitution in his pocket everywhere,” explained his wife. “It wasn’t just customers, or students. He’d prevent and speak about the Constitution with individuals in the grocery keep or although going for walks on Clement Street. But he under no circumstances did it in a way that would put anybody down. If any person posed a dilemma, he’d say, ‘let’s look it up jointly.’ He just loved individuals.”
This incorporated people who were being experiencing heinous crimes with demise penalty implications. Keane gave his purchasers a vigorous protection and was generally a previous and only good friend to many of them. He invested fantastic quantities of time in holding cells at San Francisco County Jail and in visitation areas at San Quentin, Santa Rita, Folsom and Atascadero prisons, and usually arrived in a accommodate and tie.
“Peter Keane was the design general public servant,” mentioned previous mayor Art Agnos. “He experienced integrity, he experienced commitment and he experienced compassion for men and women who were being helpless in the face of the enormity that includes law enforcement in our place. He evened the odds.”
Peter Gerald Keane was born February 8, 1943 in an Irish tenement in the Bay Ridge community of Brooklyn, N.Y. as the youngest of seven children. His father, John Martin Keane, was a longshoreman who labored the New York Town docks, and his mother, Mae Veronica Neville Keane, labored in the cafeteria at the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard.
This left the kids to improve up mainly on their possess. Keane’s first solo subway experience was at age 6, riding to his position at a corset store. By age 8, he was providing groceries for suggestions on his bicycle, even in the snow.
He was constantly a voracious reader, using the subway to the general public library where he could lastly come across plenty of peace and peaceful to examine. He passed the test for Brooklyn Technological Substantial Faculty, graduating in 1961, when operating the docks with his father. He saved his longshoreman’s job straight by way of his graduation at Metropolis College of New York, in 1965.
“He knew all the union tunes,” said his wife. “He generally claimed ‘Keanes do not cross picket lines.’”
The 1st time Keane remaining New York Town for more than a couple of times was to declare a entire tutorial scholarship to attend regulation school at Southern Methodist College in Dallas. Also at SMU law faculty was Nancy Ellsworth of Oklahoma Metropolis, who recognized him as the only kid with no a driver’s license. He was also the only college student in a heavy overcoat which also experienced a unique button for every single hole, which he’d sewn on himself.
“The initially time I realized we had been really collectively is when I sewed on the future button,” Nancy explained. “Peter genuinely stood out for not dressing in a preppy way and the jacket confirmed self-self-confidence in a sea of persons who have been not like him.”
Keane was an officer in scholar federal government and recruited Ellsworth to operate for treasurer. She dropped the election but 3 months later on they were engaged. Keane graduated in 1968 and missing his college student deferment for army support. He was drafted by the Military and obtained a health-related deferment on account of staying a lifelong sleepwalker.
They were married in Sept. of 1968. Keane’s very first high profile lawful client was Vietnam Moratorium Committee of Dallas, who had been lawfully prevented from reading the names of 2,200 Texans killed in the war useless in front of a Dallas courthouse. Keane lost that circumstance but won a reputation as rabble-rouser. It was a distinction he embraced — till he was tipped off that he was about to be established up for a drug bust with marijuana planted in his possession by police.
That was the catalyst that drove them to California. “We understood completely no a person in San Francisco,” claimed Nancy, “but we decided if were being both of those heading to be unemployed and broke, we could possibly as effectively do it in San Francisco.”
They got an condominium in the Richmond and hardly ever left the neighborhood.
After his victory in the voter registration case, which he won on charm, Keane entered personal follow and rented a $90 business office that came with with a pool secretary, home furnishings and business plants in the Jack Tar Resort.
“He was so anxious that he would not be in a position to pay back the lease,” mentioned his spouse, Nancy. “He’d say ‘how am I going to make $90 a month?” His most dependable shoppers were being the producers of pornographic movies in violation of obscenity laws.
Keane insisted on getting these situations to demo the place his courtroom system was to demand judges and juries to sit as a result of all the films at situation, dozens of them a person right after the other in City Corridor courtrooms that have been open up to the general public.
In 1979 public defender Jeff Brown appointed Keane as San Francisco’s Chief Assistant General public Defender, leading an workplace of 70 attorneys. Keane remained there for 19 yrs, the longest tenure of any assistant in office historical past, in accordance to Matt Gonzales who now retains Keane’s outdated career as chief legal professional.
In court, Keane had fantastic timing and was an partaking story teller, said Gonzales, who used to occur just to watch him.
“When he talked to jurors, it was like he was sitting down and possessing a cup of espresso with them,” reported Gonzalez. “He listened to what they had to say. Peter was a learn at jury selection.”
The O.J. Simpson murder demo, as Tv set spectacle, made available Keane the likelihood to spread his participating style further than the courtroom. All the stations sought him out for specialist commentary, and KPIX presented him an exceptional deal to be on the Eyewitness Information 5 evenings a week, along with KPIX-FM radio, to inveigh on the demo.
“He was measured, he was cautious, he was analytical and he never allow his possess emotions area,” reported Harry Fuller, who hired him at KPIX. “He was not a performer in the way that lots of anchors are. He was so clearly honest in what he was declaring that he was fantastic at it.”
Keane could keep an viewers. For yrs he taught criminal process, constitutional regulation and authorized ethics at UC Hastings Faculty of the Legislation. At the conclude of the expression he would personally examine, grade and write remarks in the margins for the remaining tests of up to 250 learners.
Keane also taught at Golden Gate College Faculty of Law, wherever he served a time period as dean. In both career he was obtainable. Everyone could knock on the door if it was shut, which it usually wasn’t.
“One of the items I most admired about Peter is that he supported all pupils,” explained Rachel Van Cleave, also a faculty member and previous dean at Golden Gate. “He was undoubtedly a winner of underdogs and Golden Gate is that variety of regulation school. He was not scared at all to just take a stand.”
Even though serving on the San Francisco Ethics Fee from 2013 to 2018, Keane took a stand for campaign finance reform. As chair he pushed the commission to put a evaluate on the ballot aimed at delivering more transparency into political donations. It needed 4 votes to move and only bought a few. When it was voted down he announced, “the vote fails. I resign,” snapped his briefcase shut and walked out of the meeting.
But Keane didn’t give up on his resolve to clean up up city corridor and it finished up before the voters in 2019, when he chaired the committee for Proposition F, the “Sunlight on Darkish Money” initiative to call for the disclosure of who specially was paying for Tv set adverts in political campaigns. It overwhelmingly passed, many thanks largely to Keane, who attended local community meetings on its behalf just about just about every night.
“Peter remaining the metropolis greater than he identified it, which is for positive,” reported Larry Bush, Vice Chair of the ethics fee.
When Keane’s disease grew to become terminal, his wife explained to the neighborhood letter provider, Phat. The provider sat down on the entrance measures and cried. That was all the appreciation he needed.
“When I questioned Peter how he required to be remembered, he stated ‘as a fantastic guy,’” stated his wife. “He always believed that was the greatest tribute.”
A family members memorial support is personal. Donations in his memory may well be designed to the American Clinicians Academy on Health-related Support in Dying, 2819 Piedmont Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 and the ACLU Basis, 9450 S.W. Gemini Drive, PMB 62825, Beaverton, OR 97008-7105.
Survivors contain his spouse, Nancy Ellsworth Keane and daughters Lauren Keane and Heather Keane Leonard, all of San Francisco sister Anne Anderson of Timonium, Md. and five grandchildren.
Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle personnel author. E mail: [email protected] Twitter:@samwhitingsf