On July 8, San Francisco Mayor London Breed appointed Brooke Jenkins as the interim District Attorney, replacing the ousted Chesa Boudin. Jenkin\u2019s appointment comes at the heels of a recall election founded on concerns over public safety and sealed by a low voter turnout. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Come the Nov. 23 special election, San Francisco voters will determine the fate of the DA office, but until then the reins rest with Jenkins, a long-time critic of Boudin and his office\u2019s criminal justice reform measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boudin and Jenkins\u2019 fallout traces back to the 2020 Daniel Gudino case, preceding the recall election. In April of 2020, Daniel Gudino killed his mother, Beatriz Gudino, and then mutilated her body. When authorities arrived at the scene, Gudino cried out in horror and said that he thought his mother was a clone. During the trial, Gudino\u2019s family supported an insanity plea but Jenkins, the lead prosecutor on the case, argued against it. With the jury deadlocked 7-5, the majority voting insanity, Boudin made the definitive decision to accept the insanity plea \u2014 a decision further strengthened by Gudino\u2019s non-violent record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Catalyzed by the lost case, Jenkins quickly quit her position as a prosecutor and turned to the media. To San Francisco columnist Heather Knight, Jenkins named the DA\u2019s office \u201ca sinking ship.\u201d Aligned with the recall camp, Jenkins then became a leading champion for Boudin\u2019s removal, making various public appearances to discredit the DA\u2019s office. To \u201cReal Time with Bill Maher,\u201d Jenkins said, \u201cwe are watching as lives are being lost and continue to remain in danger by his [Boudin] radical policies.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Skeptics of Jenkins highlight the misalignment between her claims and reality. To the LA Times, John Hamasaki, SF defense attorney and former police commissioner, dispelled the mistruth surrounding the Gudino case \u2014 reminding listeners that the accepted insanity plea did not serve to place public safety at risk but did become the origin of Jenkins\u2019 dissatisfaction with Boudin. \u201cShe [Jenkins] quit because she lost and the DA wouldn’t let her retry,\u201d Hamasaki said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now in office, Jenkins\u2019 tune has shifted as she recoils from her team\u2019s previously offense-led approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turning her back on the promise of the recall election \u2014 a utopian-esque safe city \u2014 Jenkins warns that the DA alone cannot erase crime. To KQED Scott Schafer, Jenkins said \u201cI always attempted to be fair to him that no, he [Chesa] can\u2019t control natural trends in crime.\u201d The recognition of natural trends in crime counters the recall camp\u2019s leading claim \u2014 that crime holistically had gone up on Boudin\u2019s watch: a claim dispelled by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice\u2019s June report. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked if the public will see immediate changes in public safety, Jenkins continued to tell Schafer, \u201cpeople are going to have to be patient. They\u2019re going to have to temper their expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To date, Jenkins\u2019 known plans for public safety contradict her self-described image as a progressive. Namely, Jenkin’s entrance indicates the rollback of criminal justice reform measures: heightening surveillance, welcoming sentence-enhancing strikes, and bringing back the cash bail system. The re-introduction of the cash bail system flags concern as it is a system indivisible from structural racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2019, the Prison Policy Initiative found that Black and Brown defendants are, \u201cat least 10-25% more likely to have to pay money bail\u201d and the amounts are \u201ctwice as high as bail set for white defendants.\u201d To pursue equity, the Boudin office implemented the public risk-based assessment, but it is now up for discardment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To KQED, Jenkins also revealed her first priority as restoring prosecutorial discretion \u2014 a promise with the potential to create irreversible repercussions for immigrants. Previous SF DA\u2019s, Boudin and George Gascon, offered Penal Code 32, as their discretion to immigrants charged in drug sale cases. Under PC 32, low-level offenders would not receive a sentence of more than three years in state prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pivoting away from PC 32, Jenkins favors allowing prosecutors to take away \u201caccessory after the fact\u201d plea deals. This means that all non-citizens, inclusive to permanent residents, can face automatic deportation, and a lifetime ban from the U.S., if caught in the case of a drug sale \u2014 regardless of the amount sold. According to immigrant law, a judge is then unable to consider individuals\u2019 circumstances, such as ties to U.S.-born children, in cases of deportation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As highlighted by the Immigrant Law Resource Center (ILRC), Jenkins most recently exercised this executive in the charge of 17 individuals\u2013charges since dropped. Senior Staff Attorney at the ILRC, Carla Gomez named the situation and race to redact reform as \u201cheartbreaking.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further entangled with the immigrant community is Jenkin\u2019s policy for surveillance, one favoring her appointee, Mayor Breed. In December of 2021, Breed first proposed expanding the city\u2019s surveillance ordinance to allow police access to private cameras in the case of retail theft, rioting, looting and drug dealing. Breed\u2019s proposal, now backed by Jenkins, departs from current policy and goes against public opinion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs written, SFPD\u2019s proposal would allow officers to use private cameras to monitor people going about their daily lives and to request troves of recorded footage,\u201d said ACLU Norcal in a public statement. \u201cIn practice, local police could conceivably turn over stockpiled and time-stamped footage to prosecutors from other states. It’s not hard to guess the potential targets: immigrants, religious minorities, LGBTQ people, abortion seekers, Black people, and any other frequent targets of state violence,\u201d the ACLU further warned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beyond the realm of surveillance, Jenkins presence raises a host of questions \u2014 largely gone unanswered. The firing of 15 staff members, although standard protocol for a new DA, has the office in disarray and special units at risk of abandonment. In particular, Jenkins’s firing of Managing Attorney Arcelia Hurtado, raises concern. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2020, Boudin established the Innocence Commission, headed by Hurtado, which investigates potential wrongful convictions. \u201cArcelia was critical to the commission’s function. It is also concerning because Arcelia was the head of the DA\/s post-conviction review unit, which, among other things, is currently considering the petition by Mayor London Breed\u2019s brother Napoleon Brown to be granted leniency and released from prison following his conviction for carjacking and manslaughter,\u201d said the University of San Francisco law professor and chair of the commission, Lara Bazelon to SFGate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prior to Hurtado\u2019s removal, the prosecutor’s office requested that Hurtado report to the DA Office Chief of Staff, Kate Chatfield to avoid any conflict of interest due to Jenkins and Breed\u2019s relationship. With Chatfield now fired by Jenkins as well, distrust brews, and Breed\u2019s brother\u2019s trial date looms for August. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the limbo of uncertainty heralded in by Jenkins, core San Francisco community organizations ask for answers as well as accountability from the DA office. Most recently, SF Rising and ACLU Northern California partnered up to form the DA Accountability Alliance to advocate for reform and upholding public safety for all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
SF Rising\u2019s Co-Director, Emily Lee, speaks to the worried atmosphere among community organizers and those they serve. \u201cIt’s obviously concerning,\u201d Lee said. \u201cIf the staffing is gone from the Innocence commission, from the restorative justice division, what does that mean for reform?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In lieu of these changes, the alliance has requested public hearings for the DA to openly answer the public\u2019s question but Jenkins is yet to reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBesides her saying, \u2018I support reform,\u2019 her actions have not demonstrated that,\u201d said Lee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From Jenkin’s nebulous dance, certainty only arises in knowing who the criminal justice system serves and who it doesn\u2019t \u2013\u2013 as illustrated by the ills of the cash bail system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c[Jenkins] sends a signal of the potential plans to dismantle the criminal justice reforms made in San Francisco to undo draconian drug war policies that have oppressed our communities of color,\u201d said the ILRC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Devoid of reform, San Francisco\u2019s systemic racial inequality continues to persist under the guise of public safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On July 8, San Francisco Mayor London Breed appointed Brooke Jenkins as the interim District Attorney, replacing the ousted Chesa Boudin. Jenkin\u2019s appointment comes at the heels of a recall election founded on concerns over public safety and sealed by a low voter turnout. Come the Nov. 23 special election, San Francisco voters will determine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":52318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[19249],"coauthors":[18445],"class_list":["post-52317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-brooke-jenkins","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n