(Bay City News) A judge today sustained a tentative ruling denying a motion by suspended San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi to overturn his suspension on official misconduct charges.
San Francisco Superior Judge Harold Kahn issued the tentative ruling Thursday and, after hearing from both Mirkarimi's counsel and the city attorney's office, said today that the matters raised by Mirkarimi's counsel "can and should be addressed by the administrative procedure."
On Monday, the city's Ethics Commission will begin a hearing on the official misconduct charges. The commission will make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors, which will issue the decision on whether to remove Mirkarimi from office.
Mirkarimi's attorney David Waggoner raised concerns this morning that the ad-hoc process "is completely indefinite" and that Mirkarimi "cannot get and expect to get due process" without specific guidelines in place for the Ethics Commission hearing.
Kahn called the process "peculiar" but not so much so "that I should pull the plug before it starts."