Key points:
- San Francisco Public Defender’s Office criticizes District Attorney for overzealous prosecutions.
- Juries acquit three Black men in felony trials, highlighting criminalization of mental illness and homelessness.
- Acquitted defendants were charged for self-defense and misunderstood interactions.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The San Francisco Public Defender’s Office is sharply criticizing the District Attorney for what it describes as a pattern of overzealous and wasteful prosecutions, after juries acquitted multiple clients in recent felony trials.
The acquittals, attorneys say, highlight the ongoing criminalization of mental illness, homelessness, and poverty—especially among Black residents—and the high public cost of prosecuting people who pose no threat to public safety.
“These three Black men should not be in the criminal system, taking up courtrooms and jurors’ time,” said San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju. “These are people who should be offered support, not criminalized. It would be a lot more effective—not to mention less costly for taxpayers—to allow them access to stable housing, treatment, and job opportunities. I am grateful to our tireless, determined defender teams, and to the juries who thoughtfully delivered not-guilty verdicts in these cases.”
One of those men was Marcell Collins, a 52-year-old unhoused San Franciscan who was incarcerated for eight months before being acquitted on May 20, 2025. Collins had been charged with second-degree robbery and making a criminal threat—both felonies—after what defense attorneys described as a misunderstanding at a Chinatown restaurant.
Collins had gone into the restaurant to take a few mints from a jar on the counter, something he had done before without incident. But this time, a worker removed the jar, and Collins believed she was asking him what was in his pocket.
In response, he showed her the knife he carried. Startled, the worker stepped back, and Collins said, “I’m not going to kill you,” before leaving. The worker reported the incident as a threat, and police arrested Collins. At trial, both Collins and the worker testified, and the jury found their interaction to be the result of miscommunication, likely influenced by a language barrier.
“Marcell was incarcerated for eight months and a jury found he had committed no crime,” said Deputy Public Defender Jared Rudolph, who represented Collins. “Prosecutors fought us tooth and nail when we proposed mental health diversion, which would have been the more appropriate solution. Unfortunately, it’s a typical occurrence for the District Attorney to oppose mental health diversion.”
In another case, Hermon Tamrat, 39, was jailed for nearly a year and endured two psychiatric hospitalizations while in custody. Tamrat, who is unhoused and suffers from serious mental illness, was initially arrested in June 2024 after being told to leave the Embarcadero Center mall by security guards.
During the resulting confrontation, Tamrat used a knife he carried for self-protection and cut one of the guards on the hand. Prosecutors charged him with felony assault. But as evidence mounted that Tamrat had acted in self-defense, a judge ultimately dismissed the case in April 2025.
However, while that case was still pending, prosecutors filed a new charge against Tamrat for an incident that occurred while he was in jail: he had thrown a milk carton filled with feces at a sheriff’s deputy—an act known in jail settings as “gassing.” Though “gassing” charges are common in jails and often linked to deteriorating mental health, prosecutors proceeded with a felony aggravated assault case. In May 2025, a jury acquitted Tamrat, who was finally released from custody.
“The tragedy here is that Hermon was in jail for 300 days on false allegations, and while in jail he had a psychotic breakdown that the DAs wanted to squeeze a felony out of,” said Deputy Public Defender Max Eberitzsch, who represented Tamrat. “Mental health diversion was never offered. Thankfully, the jury understood that a person who clearly has a mental health condition should not be subjected to criminal law and criminal sanctions. I’ll note that this acquittal happened when the DA’s office was posting on Twitter about mental health awareness month.”
A third case involved 57-year-old Timothy Watkins, who was charged with two felonies—assault with a likelihood of causing great bodily injury and battery—after a January 2025 altercation on a Muni bus. Watkins said that a woman on the bus became angry with him for talking too loudly, stood over him, and began shouting in his face.
Watkins pushed her away in self-defense. She told police he had punched and stomped her without provocation. When officers arrived, they arrested Watkins within seconds, and he urged them to collect surveillance footage from the bus to prove his innocence.
But by the time investigators followed up, Muni officials said a server error had wiped the video. The trial featured inconsistent and contradictory accounts from the alleged victim, the bus driver, and other witnesses. On June 16, 2025, a jury found Watkins not guilty.
“This is another case involving a Black man that never should have been charged, since it was clear that witness accounts were completely inconsistent,” said Deputy Public Defender Tatiana Howard, who represented Watkins. “Instead, Mr. Watkins had to be in jail for nearly half a year, was almost evicted, and lost his health insurance while waiting for the chance to tell the jury what really happened.”
Public defenders point to these cases as emblematic of a broader trend: vulnerable San Franciscans being swept into the criminal legal system on the basis of questionable or misunderstood evidence.
Prosecutors, they argue, are clogging courts, jails, and public budgets with cases that fail to meet basic standards of proof—and failing to offer alternatives that could actually address the underlying causes of many alleged offenses.
The Public Defender’s Office notes that its attorneys are already carrying the heaviest caseloads in the Bay Area, well above national standards, and that these flawed prosecutions only further burden an already strained system.
“These cases reveal a disturbing pattern of harm and waste,” said one defender. “People are being jailed for months on end, sometimes for behavior that isn’t criminal at all—and often while struggling with mental illness, homelessness, or both. These are not situations that call for punishment. They call for care, stability, and compassion.”
Hermon Tamrat pulled out a knife and attempted to stab me at my job in 2018 for simply asking him to plug his cellphone into another outlet. He was sentenced to prison for assault with a deadly weapon. He is a dangerous man and this article will age very poorly in short time. He already had a violent criminal record prior to that incident as well as having a felony warrant out of Virginia at the time. He was able to get out on non violent felony parole somehow after only around 3 and a half years in prison. He has since being released be in and out of jail for multiple violent offenses seemingly always getting a slap on the wrist or being let off completely like in this article. I have much more to add, but I’ll leave it for another day. Hermon Tamrat is 100% a threat to society and this article framing his mental health issues as if they don’t put others at risk is absurd. I only hope that someone is not seriously injured or murdered by him, but either way this article framing him as some innocent person caught in a bad situation instead of a threat to society is horrifying as someone that almost lost their life to his hands.