filed<\/a>\u00a0suit in October 2023, claiming Jenkins violated his First Amendment rights by restricting his ability to speak on matters of great public concern and broke the law by retaliating against him for making protected disclosures to the public.<\/p>\nWhile White didn\u2019t find the district attorney\u2019s arguments against the retaliation claim compelling, he said Jenkins\u2019 reasons for issuing a gag order on Friedman, following Jenkins\u2019 reversal to press charges against San Francisco police officer Christopher Samayoa, were justified.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaintiff\u2019s First Amendment claim fails because although arguably plaintiff\u2019s prohibited speech would have been a matter of public concern, the limited speech restrictions were imposed during the pendency of an internal investigation into plaintiff\u2019s conduct in connection with the arrest warrant for officer Samayoa,\u201d White wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn curtailing plaintiff\u2019s speech, Jenkins had legitimate interests in preventing interference with prosecutorial discretion and conducting internal investigations. Public employers have a legitimate interest in instructing their employees not to make statements that would interfere in \u2018a workplace misconduct investigation during the pendency of that investigation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Friedman\u2019s lawsuit stems from\u00a0a 2017 shooting\u00a0by Samayoa, who\u00a0killed\u00a0carjacking suspect Keita O\u2019Neil. Samayoa is the first\u00a0San Francisco officer to ever be\u00a0charged with criminal\u00a0homicide for a killing in the line of duty. Under former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Friedman was the investigator who signed the arrest warrant.<\/p>\n
After assuming office as the new district attorney in 2022, Jenkins decided to revisit the charging decision. Friedman was placed under internal investigation and instructed not to speak about the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe appreciate that the court found the district attorney put appropriate limitations on [Friedman\u2019s] speech and that those limitations did not violate his First Amendment rights. We look forward to presenting our case to the court on the remaining claim,” Jen Kwart, communications director with the City Attorney\u2019s Office, said in an email to Courthouse News.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the longtime investigator claimed he learned members of Jenkins\u2019 staff had directed another investigator, Daniel Lundberg, to write a memorandum of his opinions on the decision to charge Samayoa. He believed this counted as unlawful coercion to provide false testimony and raised the issue multiple times over the next several months.<\/p>\n
Jenkins dropped the charges against Samayoa in January 2023, claiming Boudin had filed them for political purposes. She also claimed Friedman was improperly pressured by the previous administration to sign the arrest warrant, citing it as one of the main reasons she dropped the case.<\/p>\n
Friedman contested Jenkins\u2019 characterization, claiming he didn\u2019t speak about the incident for fear of violating his gag order and passed up opportunities to speak to members of the press about the illegal activity he witnessed.<\/p>\n
Friedman raised the issue again in March 2023 and was fired two months later.<\/p>\n
Since filing, the suit was\u00a0dismissed<\/a>\u00a0twice.<\/p>\n\u201cWe look forward to vindicating the rights of this whistleblower in trial,\u201d\u00a0Friedman\u2019s attorney Sonya Mehta, with Siegel Yee Brunner & Mehta, said in an email to Courthouse News.<\/p>\n
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