Peter Keane’s very first consumer was himself.
He arrived in San Francisco from Dallas in a Volkswagen Squareback weighed down by his law textbooks and tried to sign-up to vote. He was denied on account of a one-calendar year residency need in California in area at the time, and he’d been a resident for only 11 months.
So he sued the state and experimented with the circumstance, even prior to he was a registered California lawyer.
“State Voting Residency Law Voided,” study the headline in The Chronicle on Oct. 8, 1970, with the names of plaintiffs Peter and Nancy Keane, his wife, on the front web site. It was the nucleus of a status that would occur to symbolize the suitable to a good government and a fair trial in San Francisco.
With a dashing Irish demeanor and a flair for courtroom dramatics, Keane would serve as a community defender, law enforcement commissioner, ethics commissioner, town and condition bar officer, voter initiative writer, Television murder demo analyst, law professor and regulation university dean.
Keane experienced retired when he was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer in February. He died at initial gentle on Easter Sunday at his longtime house in the Richmond District, with his spouse of 53 many years and two daughters at his bedside. He was 79.
“Peter carried a duplicate of the Structure in his pocket in all places,” his wife mentioned. “It wasn’t just consumers, or learners. He’d stop and communicate about the Constitution with folks in the grocery keep or though going for walks on Clement Road. But he in no way did it in a way that would put anyone down. If somebody posed a issue, he’d say, ‘Let’s appear it up with each other.’ He just cherished people today.”
This involved persons who had been experiencing heinous crimes with loss of life penalty implications. Keane gave his consumers a vigorous protection and was often a previous and only close friend to a lot of of them. He spent great portions of time in keeping cells at San Francisco County Jail and in visitation spots at San Quentin, Santa Rita, Folsom and Atascadero prisons, and normally arrived in a fit and tie.
“Peter Keane was the model public servant,” claimed former Mayor Artwork Agnos. “He experienced integrity, he experienced motivation, and he had compassion for people today who ended up helpless in the encounter of the enormity that comprises legislation enforcement in our country. He evened the odds.”
Peter Gerald Keane was born Feb. 8, 1943, in an Irish tenement in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., the youngest of 7 kids. His father, John Martin Keane, was a longshoreman who worked the New York City docks, and his mom, Mae Veronica Neville Keane, labored in the cafeteria at the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard.
This left the kids to develop up mostly on their possess. Keane’s first solo subway journey was at age 6, riding to his career at a corset store. By age 8, he was offering groceries for guidelines on his bicycle, even in the snow.
He was often a voracious reader, using the subway to the public library, where he could lastly come across more than enough peace and peaceful to go through. He passed the exam for Brooklyn Complex Substantial Faculty, graduating in 1961, whilst working the docks with his father. He retained his longshoreman’s position straight via his graduation at Metropolis University of New York in 1965.
“He realized all the union songs,” his wife explained. “He generally claimed, ‘Keanes do not cross picket traces.’”
The first time Keane left New York City for far more than a few days was to declare a whole academic scholarship to show up at law university at Southern Methodist College in Dallas. Also at SMU law college was Nancy Ellsworth of Oklahoma Metropolis, who found him as the only child with no a driver’s license. He was also the only pupil in a significant overcoat, which also experienced a different button for every single hole, which he’d sewn on himself.
“The initial time I realized we were really with each other is when I sewed on the up coming button,” Nancy claimed. “Peter truly stood out for not dressing in a preppy way, and the jacket showed self-self-confidence in a sea of people who were being not like him.”
Keane was an officer in university student federal government and recruited Ellsworth to operate for treasurer. She misplaced the election, but 3 weeks later on they were being engaged. Keane graduated in 1968 and shed his university student deferment for armed service services. He was drafted by the Army and got a professional medical deferment on account of becoming a lifelong sleepwalker.
They ended up married in September 1968. Keane’s initial higher-profile legal client was the Vietnam Moratorium Committee of Dallas, which experienced been lawfully prevented from looking at in front of a Dallas courthouse the names of 2,200 Texans killed in the war. Keane lost that situation but gained a popularity as rabble-rouser. It was a distinction he embraced — till he was tipped off that he was about to be set up for a drug bust with marijuana planted in his possession by law enforcement.
That was the catalyst that drove them to California. “We understood absolutely no a single in San Francisco,” Nancy stated, “but we decided if have been equally likely to be unemployed and broke, we may as properly do it in San Francisco.”
They bought an condominium in the Richmond and never left the community.
Immediately after his victory in the voter registration scenario, which he gained on charm, Keane entered private observe and rented a $90 business that came with with a pool secretary, household furniture and business office vegetation in the Jack Tar Lodge.
“He was so concerned that he would not be in a position to pay the hire,” Nancy mentioned. “He’d say, ‘How am I likely to make $90 a month?’” His most responsible clients were the producers of pornographic films accused of violating obscenity legal guidelines.
Keane insisted on using these circumstances to trial, the place his courtroom system was to call for judges and juries to sit as a result of all the movies at issue, dozens of them a person after the other in Metropolis Hall courtrooms that ended up open up to the general public.
In 1979, General public Defender Jeff Brown appointed Keane as San Francisco’s main assistant community defender, major an office of 70 attorneys. Keane remained there for 19 a long time, the longest tenure of any assistant in division historical past, according to Matt Gonzalez, who now retains Keane’s outdated position as chief legal professional.
In courtroom, Keane had ideal timing and was an engaging storyteller, mentioned Gonzalez, who used to arrive just to view him.
“When he talked to jurors, it was like he was sitting down and obtaining a cup of espresso with them,” Gonzalez claimed. “He listened to what they experienced to say. Peter was a learn at jury range.”
The O.J. Simpson murder demo, as Tv spectacle, offered Keane the possibility to distribute his partaking model over and above the courtroom. All the stations sought him out for professional commentary, and KPIX presented him an exceptional deal to be on the eyewitness information five nights a 7 days, together with KPIX-FM radio, to inveigh on the trial.
“He was calculated, he was cautious, he was analytical and he in no way enable his very own thoughts floor,” said Harry Fuller, who hired him at KPIX. “He was not a performer in the way that a lot of anchors are. He was so certainly sincere in what he was declaring that he was excellent at it.”
Keane could keep an audience. For years he taught felony method, constitutional legislation and lawful ethics at UC Hastings College of the Regulation. At the conclusion of the expression he would individually browse, grade and compose comments in the margins for the remaining examinations of up to 250 students.
Keane also taught at Golden Gate University University of Law, wherever he served a phrase as dean. In equally careers, he was accessible. Any individual could knock on the door if it was shut, which it ordinarily was not.
“One of the points I most admired about Peter is that he supported all learners,” stated Rachel Van Cleave, also a college member and former dean at Golden Gate. “He was definitely a winner of underdogs, and Golden Gate is that kind of law university. He was not fearful at all to just take a stand.”
When serving on the San Francisco Ethics Commission from 2013 to 2018, Keane took a stand for campaign finance reform. As chair he pushed the fee to put a evaluate on the ballot to supply more transparency into political donations. It wanted four votes to move and obtained only three. When it was voted down he announced, “The vote fails. I resign,” snapped his briefcase shut and walked out of the conference.
But Keane didn’t give up on his perseverance to clean up City Corridor, and it ended up ahead of the voters in 2019, when he chaired the committee for Proposition F, the “Sunlight on Darkish Money” initiative to involve the disclosure of who specifically was spending for Tv set adverts in political strategies. It overwhelmingly passed, many thanks mostly to Keane, who attended community conferences on its behalf almost each night time.
“Peter remaining the metropolis far better than he identified it, which is for positive,” stated Larry Bush, vice chair of the ethics commission.
When Keane’s health issues became terminal, his spouse told the neighborhood letter provider, Phat. The provider sat down on the front actions and cried. That was all the appreciation he necessary.
“When I requested Peter how he required to be remembered, he mentioned ‘as a excellent guy,’” Nancy explained. “He often thought that was the best tribute.”
A family members memorial company is private. Donations in his memory may be made to the American Clinicians Academy on Professional medical Help in Dying, 2819 Piedmont Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 and the ACLU Basis, 9450 S.W. Gemini Drive, PMB 62825, Beaverton, OR 97008-7105.
Survivors include things like his spouse, Nancy Ellsworth Keane, and daughters, Lauren Keane and Heather Keane Leonard, all of San Francisco sister, Anne Anderson of Timonium, Md. and 5 grandchildren.
Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff members author. E mail: [email protected] Twitter: @samwhitingsf
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