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From Jorge Fitz Gibbon

May 31, 2023 | 10:35 p.m

Warning: Graphic content

Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a controversial progressive prosecutor who was fired by voters last year for his soft-crime policies, is taking over as head of a new criminal justice center at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Boudin, 42, has been named executive director of the school’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, he announced Wednesday in an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle.

“In my new role, just as I did as District Attorney, I will continue to draw on networks of attorneys, activists, judges and legal practitioners to support reform and advance safety in a way that is rigorous, principled and responsive to the lived experiences of the communities directly affected,” he wrote.

“The center will systematically evaluate the results of specific policies and communicate to the public what policy changes are essential to improving public safety and equity,” Boudin said.

“Electoral politics will only advance the criminal justice reform movement so far. Winning a few major elections alone is not enough to bring about lasting change. I learned a lot during my tenure, including that people’s feelings are often more important than data and facts.”

Boudin, who faced criticism in the City of Gold as a criminal prosecutor, was voted out in a recall election in June – and announced in August he would not seek to retake the post.

Chase Boudin, 42, the progressive San Francisco prosecutor who was ousted from office by voters in June, said he is now the founding director of Berkeley Law School’s new Criminal Justice Center. AP

Critics said the left-wing prosecutors’ policies contributed to a rise in crime in the city, as drug dealers publicly sold their wares and shoplifting and robberies were rampant.

About 60% of San Francisco voters voted in favor of recall.

But in his editorial, Boudin stuck to his progressive stance, claiming that it’s Republicans and the “sensational media” that are making public safety an issue – calling it an “artificial frenzy.”

“In New York state, officials have rolled back pre-trial release reforms for poor people who cannot afford bail,” Boudin said.

Boudin has been named executive director of the school’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, he announced Wednesday in an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle.MediaNews Group via Getty Images

“Meanwhile, despite widespread claims of funding cuts, police budgets across the country have skyrocketed without demand for accountability.

“Even in liberal San Francisco, the mayor’s office shut down a regulated drug consumption facility while tightening surveillance of drug users, with results that were both predictable and tragic: the city is experiencing by far its deadliest year from drug overdoses on record.”

At Berkeley, Boudin will conduct research and advocate for criminal justice reform, the school’s dean said in a press release announcing the move.

“Since joining Berkeley Law, I have wanted to create a criminal justice and justice center to further advance the important work our amazing faculty and clinics do in this area,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkely Law School, in a statement.

“I am very excited to open the center and that Chesa Boudin will be its first managing director,” said Chemerinsky.

“Chesa was selected after a nationwide search and has extensive experience across the criminal justice system. He has thought deeply about the system and I can think of no one better able to establish and lead this important center.”

Boudin is the son of Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, who were members of the far-left terrorist organization Weather Underground.

Both were convicted of murder and serving decades of prison time in the deadly 1981 ambush of a Brink armored truck in Rockland County, New York.

The 14-month-old future prosecutor grew up in Chicago with adoptive parents.

“Both of my birth parents were arrested when I was a baby and together served 62 years in prison,” Boudin wrote in his editorial.

“A lifetime of visiting her behind bars, coupled with the years I spent as public defender and then as elected attorney general, have shown me the disastrous failure of California and the country’s current approach to justice.”

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Hossein Nayeri will testify in Orange County Superior Court on March 13, 2023. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A convicted torturer and former international fugitive accused of plotting a daring escape from an Orange County jail in 2016 was sentenced to two years and eight months behind bars on Friday, March 24, for his role in the headline-grabbing prison break sentenced.

A week after an Orange County Superior Court jury found Hossein Nayeri guilty of taking part in the brazen breakout from Santa Ana’s Central Men’s Penitentiary and also found him guilty of stealing a van while on the run, Nayeri’s lengthy legal process appears to have come to an end.

This case is unlikely to affect Nayeri very much – he has already been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Over the past decade, Nayeri, now 44, has become one of Orange County’s most notorious inmates, a man whom District Attorney Todd Spitzer recently called “one of America’s most dangerous criminals,” whom previous prosecutors have called a “psychopath,” a “really diabolical criminal” and compared to the fictional Hannibal Lecter.

Orange County Superior Court Justice Larry Yellin, who was just a block from where the escape took place, cited the sophisticated nature of the prison break while handing down the maximum sentence actually available under current state law. Yellin also dismissed several remaining drug-related cases filed against Nayeri while he was behind bars.

“‘Shawshank Redemption’ didn’t have anything against you guys,” Yellin told Nayeri, referencing a dogged prison escape in the 1994 film. “It played out like a movie.”

Nayeri did not speak during Friday’s hearing. He kept his eyes downcast as he sat next to his attorney and kept his hands in his suit pockets as he was led in and out of the courtroom.

Nayeri has openly admitted to escaping prison with two fellow fugitives, starting an intense week-long manhunt that ended with all three men being recaptured. But during his trial, Nayeri repeatedly denied kidnapping and holding against his will an independent cab driver who had driven the three to various hotels in Southern California and the Bay Area while fleeing.

Nayeri was already serving multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole prior to his most recent trial for plotting one of Orange County’s most violent and shocking crimes in recent memory.

In 2012, Nayeri and two high school friends kidnapped the owner of a marijuana dispensary and brutally tortured him when they tried to get him to wire a non-existent $1 million they believed to be in the Mojave – Desert had buried. They beat him with plastic hoses, cursed at him and burned the man with a blowtorch before severing his penis and leaving him tied up in the desert. A woman who was also kidnapped escaped and found a police officer who probably saved their lives. The missing body part was never found.

Nayeri fled to his native Iran before police identified him as a suspect. His then-wife – who was working with the police unbeknownst to Nayeri – persuaded him to travel to another country where he could be arrested and extradited to the United States.

Once in local custody, Nayeri was housed in a dorm-like unit within the Men’s Central Jail, part of the Central Jail Complex located next to the Sheriff’s Department Headquarters in the Civic Center near downtown Santa Ana.

Nayeri worked for months with other inmates – including his later fellow fugitives Bac Tien Duong and Jonathan Tieu – on an escape plan. Nayeri would film it on a contraband cellphone.

The inmates cut through 1/2-inch steel bars to gain access to the installation tunnels. They made makeshift ropes out of bed sheets to get to the prison roof. On at least two occasions, they made their way to the roof so they could use the makeshift ropes to haul up backpacks full of supplies, including real ropes and cell phones. Duong had tricked a friend into taking the contraband right in front of the jail.

On January 22, 2016, in the early hours of the morning, the three men used the ropes to rappel from the five-story prison and then slipped into a Santa Ana neighborhood.

Nayeri continued to call the shots, prosecutors said.

The refugees were picked up by a friend of Duong’s. Then, prosecutors say, they contacted an unsuspecting, unlicensed cab driver named Long Ma, who would testify driving the men to Rosemead before they pointed a gun at him.

Ma described the fugitives who held him against his will for five days as they moved from a series of hotels, first in Rosemead and then to San Jose, in both Ma’s vehicle and a van Duong, the Duong in Los Angeles had stolen. Tensions between Nayeri and Duong exploded in a violent altercation in a Bay Area hotel room over whether to kill the cab driver, prosecutors say. Ma credited Duong with saving his life and said he talked Duong into driving the two back to Orange County so Duong could turn himself in.

A day later, Nayeri and Tieu were arrested in San Francisco.

In his testimony, Nayeri described the cab driver not as an involuntary kidnapping victim — but as an accomplice who agreed to take the Southern California fugitives away and house them when they tried to evade law enforcement for $10,000.

Nayer’s original plan to have an unnamed man pick him up outside the jail and take him to Los Angeles International Airport with a passport and plane ticket to Turkey fell through when the alleged accomplice “ghosted” him. Nayeri said he had no choice – he would stay with Duong and Tieu.

Nayeri denied that the fugitives had a gun and claimed they made the trip to the Bay Area so Ma could speak to family members and see if they could accommodate the three men. Nayeri said his fight with Duong came after learning Duong stole the van in Los Angeles rather than buying it, potentially drawing more attention to the fugitives. Nayeri’s attorney told jurors that the cab driver decided to go with Duong after realizing he could make more money by collecting part of the reward for capturing the fugitives, which had swelled to $200,000.

In court, Assistant District Attorney David McMurrin repeatedly challenged Nayeri’s story — pointing to Internet searches for shooting ranges that at least one of the men had done in the Bay Area. The prosecutor also noted that after Nayeri and Tieu were arrested, 17 bullets were found in a plastic bag inside the van, with the van owner saying he completely evacuated the vehicle before it was stolen.

McMurrin told jurors that Nayeri and the others needed the cab driver: He had ID they could use to check into hotel rooms and pick up money orders, including cash Nayeri’s grandmother had cabled from Iran.

The taxi driver was often combative and outraged during his own testimony at Nayeri’s recent trial, sometimes contradicting statements he had made at a previous trial and during police interviews, including his description of the reported firearm.

Nayeri was acquitted of the kidnapping charge, which carried the heaviest penalty of the trial, a potentially life sentence.

But Nayeri had already been found guilty of kidnapping and torturing the owner of the marijuana dispensary that landed him behind bars in the first place, and had been sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus an additional seven years in prison.

Prosecutors and attorneys representing Nayeri’s co-defendants in both the torture and prison escape trials have portrayed him as a master manipulator. Nayeri spent much of his testimony in both trials alternating between calmly denying he was a mastermind and verbally battling with prosecutors.

Duong had previously been convicted for his role in the prison escape, as well as the car theft and kidnapping. Ma, who credits Duong with saving his life, asked that Duong show mercy. A judge sentenced Duong to 20 years in prison last year.

Tieu is still awaiting the jailbreak trial.

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Hossein Nayeri was sentenced to an additional two years and eight months in prison on Friday, March 24, 2023 in Santa Ana, Calif. after being convicted of escaping an Orange County jail and a related theft auto. At the time of his escape from prison, he was awaiting trial for kidnapping and torturing a marijuana dispensary owner, for which he has since been convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A convicted torturer and former international fugitive accused of plotting a daring escape from an Orange County jail in 2016 was sentenced to two years and eight months behind bars on Friday, March 24, for his role in the headline-grabbing prison break sentenced.

A week after an Orange County Superior Court jury found Hossein Nayeri guilty of taking part in the brazen breakout from Santa Ana’s Central Men’s Penitentiary and also found him guilty of stealing a van while on the run, Nayeri’s lengthy legal process appears to have come to an end.

This case is unlikely to affect Nayeri’s future much – he has already been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Over the past decade, Nayeri, now 44, has become one of Orange County’s most notorious inmates — a man whom District Attorney Todd Spitzer recently called “one of America’s most dangerous criminals,” whom previous prosecutors have labeled a “psychopath” and a “really demonic one.” Criminals” and compared to the fictional Hannibal Lecter.

• Hossein Nayeri listens to Judge Larry Yellin during sentencing Friday March 24, 2023 in Santa Ana, California. Nayeri was sentenced to an additional two years and eight months in prison after being convicted of escaping an Orange County jail and a related theft auto. At the time of his escape from prison, he was awaiting trial for kidnapping and torturing a marijuana dispensary owner, for which he has since been convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Hossein Nayeri listens as his attorney Michael Goldfeder speaks in court during the sentencing hearing in Santa Ana, California on Friday, March 24, 2023. Nayeri was sentenced to an additional two years and eight months in prison after being convicted of escaping an Orange County jail and a related theft car. At the time of his escape from prison, he was awaiting trial for kidnapping and torturing a marijuana dispensary owner, for which he has since been convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Judge Larry Yellin speaks to Hossein Nayeri during sentencing on Friday, March 24, 2023 in Santa Ana, Calif. Nayeri was sentenced to an additional two years and eight months in prison after being convicted of escaping an Orange County jail and a related theft auto. At the time of his escape from prison, he was awaiting trial for kidnapping and torturing a marijuana dispensary owner, for which he has since been convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Hossein Nayeri (seated, left) listens as his attorney Michael Goldfeder speaks in court on Friday, March 24, 2023 during the sentencing hearing in Santa Ana, California. Nayeri was sentenced to an additional two years and eight months in prison after his conviction. Escape from an Orange County jail and a related theft car. At the time of his escape from prison, he was awaiting trial for kidnapping and torturing a marijuana dispensary owner, for which he has since been convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Hossein Nayeri speaks briefly with his attorney, Michael Goldfeder, following the sentencing in Santa Ana, Calif., Friday, March 24, 2023. Nayeri was sentenced to an additional two years and eight months in prison after being convicted of escaping an Orange County jail for a related auto theft. At the time of his escape from prison, he was awaiting trial for kidnapping and torturing a marijuana dispensary owner, for which he has since been convicted and sentenced to multiple life terms. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Orange County Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin Friday, just a block from where the escape took place, cited the sophisticated nature of the jailbreak while handing out the effectively maximum penalty available under current state law .

“‘Shawshank Redemption’ didn’t have anything against you guys,” Yellin told Nayeri, referencing a dogged prison escape in the 1994 film. “It played out like a movie.”

Nayeri did not speak during Friday’s hearing. He kept his eyes downcast as he sat next to his attorney, hands tucked in his suit pockets as he was led in and out of the courtroom.

Nayeri has openly admitted to escaping prison with two fellow fugitives, starting an intense week-long manhunt that ended with the re-arrest of three men. But during his trial, Nayeri repeatedly denied kidnapping and holding against his will an independent cab driver who had driven the three to various hotels in Southern California and the Bay Area while fleeing.

Prior to his most recent trial, Nayeri was already serving multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole for plotting one of Orange County’s most violent and shocking crimes in recent memory. In 2012, Nayeri and two high school friends abducted a marijuana dispensary owner from his Newport Beach home.

They wanted him to hand over a non-existent $1 million they believed he had buried in the Mojave Desert. They beat him with plastic hoses, cursed at him and burned the man with a blowtorch before severing his penis and leaving him tied up in the desert. A woman who was also kidnapped escaped and found a police officer who probably saved their lives. The missing body part was never found.

Nayeri fled to his native Iran before police identified him as a suspect. His then-wife – who was working with the police unbeknownst to Nayeri – persuaded him to travel to another country where he could be arrested and extradited to the United States.

Once in local custody, Nayeri was housed in a dorm-style unit at the Men’s Central Jail, part of the Central Jail Complex adjacent to the Sheriff’s Department Headquarters in the Civic Center near downtown Santa Ana.

Nayeri worked for months with other inmates – including his later fellow fugitives Bac Tien Duong and Jonathan Tieu – on an escape plan. Nayeri filmed the escape using a smuggled cell phone.

The inmates cut through 1/2-inch steel bars to gain access to the installation tunnels. They made makeshift ropes out of bed sheets to get to the prison roof. On at least two occasions, they made their way to the roof so they could use the makeshift ropes to haul up backpacks full of supplies, including real ropes and cell phones. Duong had tricked a friend into taking the contraband right in front of the jail.

On January 22, 2016, in the early hours of the morning, the three men used the ropes to rappel from the five-story prison and then slipped into a Santa Ana neighborhood.

Nayeri continued to call the shots, prosecutors said.

The refugees were picked up by a friend of Duong’s. Then, prosecutors say, they contacted an unsuspecting, unlicensed cab driver named Long Ma, who would testify driving the men to Rosemead before they pointed a gun at him.

Ma said the escapees held him against his will for five days while moving between hotels, first in Rosemead and then north to San Jose in Ma’s vehicle and a Van Duong he stole in Los Angeles. Tensions between Nayeri and Duong exploded in a violent altercation in a Bay Area hotel room over whether to kill the cab driver, prosecutors say. Ma credited Duong with saving his life and said he talked Duong into driving the two back to Orange County so Duong could turn himself in.

A day later, Nayeri and Tieu were arrested in San Francisco.

In his testimony, Nayeri described the cab driver not as a kidnapping victim — but as an accomplice who agreed to take the fugitives away from Southern California and house them as they attempted to evade law enforcement for $10,000.

Nayer’s original plan to have a man pick him up outside the jail and take him to Los Angeles International Airport with a passport and plane ticket to Turkey fell through when the alleged accomplice “ghosted” him. Nayeri said he had no choice then – he would stay with Duong and Tieu.

Nayeri denied that the fugitives had a gun and claimed they made the trip to the Bay Area so Ma could speak to family members and see if they could accommodate the three men. Nayeri said his fight with Duong actually happened after learning Duong stole the van in Los Angeles rather than buying it, potentially drawing more attention to the fugitives. Nayeri’s lawyer told jurors that the taxi driver decided to go with Duong after realizing he could make more money by collecting part of the reward for capturing the fugitives; it had grown to $200,000.

In court, Assistant District Attorney David McMurrin repeatedly challenged Nayeri’s story — pointing to internet searches at least one of the men in the Bay Area had made for shooting ranges. The prosecutor also noted that after Nayeri and Tieu were arrested, 17 bullets were found in a plastic bag inside the van, with the van owner saying he completely evacuated the vehicle before it was stolen.

McMurrin told jurors that Nayeri and the others needed the cab driver: He had ID they could use to check into hotel rooms and pick up money orders, including cash Nayeri’s grandmother had cabled from Iran.

During his own testimony at Nayeri’s recent trial, the taxi driver was often combative and outraged, sometimes contradicting his testimonies at a previous trial and in police interviews, including his description of the reported firearm.

Nayeri was acquitted of the kidnapping charge, which carried the heaviest penalty of the trial, a potentially life sentence.

But Nayeri had already been convicted of kidnapping and torturing the owner of the marijuana dispensary that got him behind bars in the first place, earning him those two consecutive life sentences plus an additional seven years behind bars.

Previously, Duong was convicted for his role in escaping prison, stealing a car and kidnapping. Ma, who credits Duong with saving his life, asked that Duong show mercy. A judge sentenced Duong to 20 years in prison last year.

Tieu is still awaiting the jailbreak trial.

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Seven people were arrested this week for allegedly running a criminal operation linked to a variety of felonies including vehicle theft, firearms trafficking, insurance fraud, money laundering and criminal profiteering at several locations in San Mateo and San Francisco, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

The suspects allegedly played various roles within the organization to obtain illicit funds from stolen or embezzled property and establish and operate a nonprofit organization to launder the illicit funds.

They are Boen Liu, Helena Nong, Louis Lee, Immenson Liu, Natalie Huntington, Nicholas Lanchinebre and Mickey Rivera. Seized were more than 30 vehicles and motorcycles, more than $30,000, five illegal firearms, large quantities of narcotics and marijuana, documentation with fraud and grand theft crimes, numerous bank and business accounts and more than $40,000 in stolen property.

Agents linked the organization to a residential burglary and grand theft of a residence in the city of San Mateo. The owner of the residence had recently died and numerous suspects lived there without the new owner’s knowledge. They stashed narcotics, stolen property and firearms there, which were seized, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

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San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is fighting for his job, with a recall election on Tuesday’s ballot. 

Mr. Boudin is part of a recently elected wave of similarly minded progressive prosecutors in Seattle, Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Their movement seeks to prevent certain offenders from repeatedly churning through the system by, for example, diverting them to mental health, drug misuse, or education programs. They seek accountability of rogue police officers and greater post-conviction justice. They support better victims’ services and treating juvenile suspects as juveniles – not as adults.

Why We Wrote This

A recall vote facing San Francisco’s district attorney may indicate an underlying doubt that criminal justice reforms across the country can handle the challenges posed by rising crime rates.

But crime rates across the United States went up during the pandemic. And in a midterm year when crime and violence have edged up to rank third among the list of Americans’ top concerns – behind inflation and the economy – Mr. Boudin and other reformist prosecutors are under attack.

“Voters fundamentally understand that the reason they elect DAs is to put the bad guys behind bars,” says veteran Democratic strategist Garry South, in Los Angeles. If Mr. Boudin is recalled – and several polls point to that likelihood – “it sends a message to Democrats that even in a very liberal bastion like San Francisco, prosecutors have to do their job, and they have to be perceived as doing their job. If they just come off as reformers of the criminal justice system, that’s not what they’re hired to do.”

San Francisco

It’s been a mixed day for Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s embattled district attorney. One of the nation’s most progressive prosecutors, he’s fighting an unprecedented recall election – a test of criminal justice reform in America’s most liberal city, and, Mr. Boudin argues, an unfair test. 

On one of his recent “merchant walks” in the ethnically diverse Excelsior neighborhood, many shopkeepers happily take a campaign sign for their window. They appreciate his personal attention, fluent Spanish, and efforts to speak Chinese, Russian, and even Farsi. Pedestrians stop him for a photo or to offer encouragement. A passing driver shouts support.

But he also hears from critics. More than one business on his sidewalk tour of taquerias, auto shops, and small retailers has been burgled – a hardware store just the day before. People have witnessed unchecked retail theft at two nearby Walgreens. One of them closed last year. Mr. Boudin backtracks to talk with a man who is hosing down a bright blue Yamaha motorcycle in the driveway at Pro Image Auto Collision on Mission Street. “I understand you support the recall. What’s your concern?” he asks.

Why We Wrote This

A recall vote facing San Francisco’s district attorney may indicate an underlying doubt that criminal justice reforms across the country can handle the challenges posed by rising crime rates.

The worker says the district attorney has had “all these years” to change the city – and Mr. Boudin interrupts, talking over him. “How many years have I had?” he quizzes. The shop worker keeps speaking, driving to the point that people who commit crimes need to be held accountable. “I agree,” says Mr. Boudin, pointing out that he’s been in office less than 2 1/2 years, and was almost immediately shut down by the pandemic. Despite that, he tells the man he has been able to increase the rates that charges have been brought in cases of homicides, sexual assaults, and drug sales, compared with his predecessor.

The employee continues hosing down the bike, unconvinced. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  

This “seeing is believing” is Mr. Boudin’s challenge, and to some extent, a challenge for Democrats in a midterm year when crime and violence have edged up to rank third among the list of Americans’ top concerns – behind inflation and the economy, according to a March survey by Gallup. Political and criminal justice experts warn not to extrapolate a national trend from a single locale. And yet, Mr. Boudin is not the only progressive prosecutor under attack, with George Gascon in Los Angeles and Alvin Bragg in Manhattan having to backpedal on some reforms. Mr. Gascon is also being hounded by a second attempt at a recall. Even when reformist prosecutors have voter support, some state legislatures are trying to clip their wings. That’s the case in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner won reelection last year.  

“Voters fundamentally understand that the reason they elect DAs is to put the bad guys behind bars,” says veteran Democratic strategist Garry South, in Los Angeles. If Mr. Boudin is recalled – and several polls point to that likelihood – “it sends a message to Democrats that even in a very liberal bastion like San Francisco, prosecutors have to do their job, and they have to be perceived as doing their job. If they just come off as reformers of the criminal justice system, that’s not what they’re hired to do.”

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin talks with business owners and residents in San Francisco on May 17, 2022. Mr. Boudin is one of a number of progressive prosecutors across the U.S. who are under fire for their attempts at criminal justice reform.

A reformer whose parents were incarcerated

When Mr. Boudin ran for district attorney in 2019, he emphasized his upbringing as a child of incarcerated parents. David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin were members of the militant, leftist Weather Underground. After a 1981 botched armored truck heist, they were convicted of felony murder for their supporting roles. His mother was released in 2003. She died in May. His father was released late last year.

The toddler was raised by adoptive parents in Chicago, who had also been members of the radical group. He grew up to graduate from Yale Law School and eventually became a public defender in San Francisco – driven by his personal experiences with the criminal justice system. But he switched roles to pursue the top prosecutor job, running on a reform platform to end racist, mass incarceration. 

Mr. Boudin is part of a wave of similarly minded district attorneys in Seattle, Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere who were elected over the past five years or so. Their movement seeks to prevent certain offenders from repeatedly churning through the system by, for example, diverting them to mental health, drug misuse, or education programs. They seek accountability of rogue police officers and greater post-conviction justice. They support better victims’ services and treating juvenile suspects as juveniles – not as adults. 

A lightning rod for the city’s ills

In a city with a history of progressive prosecutors, Mr. Boudin barely won his race, besting his opponent by 1.6 percentage points.

Now it’s not his background, but his performance that’s up for discussion. The debate boils down to a charge that he’s too lenient with criminals, but the reality is more complex. In a city where two-thirds of voters recently polled say they feel less safe than in 2019, and 57% want to recall Mr. Boudin, the DA has become a lightning rod for everything that ails San Francisco, from homelessness and rampant open-air drug use and overdoses, to auto burglaries, hate crimes, and spectacular smash-and-grab retail theft. 

Homicides in the city were up during the pandemic, from a half-century low. In the first five months of 2022, they’re slightly down, while assaults and rape are up, and larceny and theft up substantially.

“There are so many moving parts” behind crime trends and the recall, says Magnus Lofstrom, policy director of criminal justice at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. The pandemic interrupted lives and included a period of “wild fluctuations” in crime that affected people’s feelings about public safety, he says. 

Nationally in 2020, residential burglaries plunged by more than half but homicides rose by nearly 30%, and hate crimes against Asians surged by 76%, according to the FBI. Gun sales flourished and so did gun deaths. To control contagion, homeless shelters reduced their populations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encouraged encampments; jails and prisons released certain inmates early, and courts operated at far below capacity.  

Given the many factors influencing crime, Mr. Loftstrom says that “there’s a limitation [to the effect] a district attorney can have on crime rates.”

“We cannot do it alone”

When Mr. Boudin is campaigning, he works the personal angle – if a shopkeeper is Taiwanese, he mentions a glorious trip surfing on the Taiwanese coast. He expresses empathy for a difficult last two years, and hands out his business card for people to email him directly. But many people want to know what he’s doing about crime, about cleaning up the city. That’s when he delves into the workings of government: He’s not the sanitation department, the mayor, the board of supervisors, or the police. That he can only prosecute the cases that police send him.

“We cannot do it alone,” he told the Monitor about lessons learned in his brief tenure. “We have to work with other agencies.” When asked what he’s most proud of, he says, “I’m most proud of how we handled the pandemic.”

Since taking office in 2020, he as well as his supporters say, the DA ended cash bail, reduced the jail population, added Chinese speakers to victims services, charged police officers for abuse of force, went after ghost guns, and set up an Innocence Commission to review wrongful convictions. Joaquin Ciria – in prison for 32 years for a murder he did not commit – was the first person exonerated after a review by the commission. He was released in April.  

Mr. Boudin and his campaign point to misinformation and fearmongering from the recall side, which they describe as an aggressive drive by Republicans and the police union. They are pushing “a false narrative of rising crime and an ineffectual DA. That’s not true,” says John Avalos, former representative for the Excelsior neighborhood on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors – which overwhelmingly supports Mr. Boudin. “We know he’s done what he’s promised.” 

The initial recall effort was started by Richie Greenburg, who ran as a Republican for mayor in 2019. It’s since been taken on by some high-profile Democrats, including a former San Francisco Democratic Party chair, Mary Jung. Republicans are contributing to the recall, but its organizers say 83% of donors are Democrats or people not identified with a party.  

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

Brooke Jenkins, a former assistant district attorney for San Francisco, speaks at a literature drop-off rally in the city’s Portola neighborhood, May 21, 2022. She quit her job last year to help lead the recall effort against her former boss, District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

“Balance. That’s my word.”

Democratic leaders who support the recall say they still advocate criminal justice reform. Just not Boudin-style.

“One of the main issues is that Chesa has taken a one-size-fits-all approach,” says Brooke Jenkins, a former homicide prosecutor who quit last year to join the recall campaign. She says she is among 40 colleagues who have left the office under Mr. Boudin. “Balance. That’s my word.”

In an interview before setting off with volunteers for a literature drop, she says Mr. Boudin started off with several blanket policies: never charge juveniles as adults, never use gang charges, never use prior serious and violent felonies as a punishment enhancement, never use cash bail. While she supports “the spirit” of such changes, the problem is that “you never leave yourself the room for exceptional circumstances.”

Ms. Jenkins mentions a homicide case in which there was video evidence, but the exact identity of the shooters was indiscernible. Prosecutors could have persisted with gang conspiracy charges used specifically for these kinds of cases, but didn’t because of the policy, she says. Over the next 11 months, two of them shot people. “Chesa’s alternative [to incarceration] is release, release, release.”

If Mr. Boudin is recalled, Ms. Jenkins and others hope the mayor will appoint someone with experience as a prosecutor. Mr. Boudin still has his public defender’s hat on, she says.  

Mr. South, the Democratic strategist, reaches back in history, to the failed campaign of President George H.W. Bush in 1992. A recession had not yet officially started, but people felt economic pain. “People felt it, but he kept saying, ‘Look at the statistics.’” Whether it’s a district attorney like Mr. Boudin or LA’s Mr. Gascon, if the perception is that crime is out of control, homelessness is taking over the sidewalks, and people are stealing catalytic converters, “it doesn’t matter what the statistics are.”

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On its face, the effort to recall San Francisco Dist. atty Chesa Boudin is a debate about how a relatively small, atypical city battles crime, a philosophical dispute about how often to lock up offenders and the relative success of efforts to divert nonviolent criminals into treatment programs that keep them out of jail.

In reality, the recall is a battle over facts versus feelings, a case study in the power of millionaires to set a political agenda, a lesson on the limits of enacting reform through progressive prosecutors and the difficulty of changing the status quo.

That’s why the June 7 referendum on Boudin holds significance far beyond the 47 square miles of San Francisco, where violent crime rates are near historic lows, viral videos of smash-and-grabs and the twin crises of homelessness and drug deaths notwithstanding.

Since his upset victory, Boudin has made the establishment uneasy: Yale-educated public defender, son of imprisoned Weather Underground leaders, relative newcomer and political novice in a city where politics is a blood sport and people proudly trace their local lineage back generations. He emerged from obscurity in 2019 to campaign on a detailed platform that promised to upend a system that disproportionately prosecutes black and brown people.

As Democrats across the country face voters’ fears about rising crime rates, many have retreated from reforms — including Los Angeles Dist. atty George Gascón, who faces a likely recall himself later this year. Boudin has instead implemented the ideas that got him elected: Jail as a last resort. No cash bail or gang enhancements. Not prosecuting juveniles as adults. Charges against police who use excessive force. Increased victim services. Review of lengthy sentences handed down under obsolete laws during the war on drugs. Charges against employers for wage theft.

Boudin’s policies have won him newspaper endorsements, but he faces an uphill battle in the recall election. His core mission — to rethink crime and punishment — is a jolt to the status quo at an already fragile moment. The rush to blame him for myriad long-standing ills has resonated amid the frustrations and anger at all the life-altering changes of the last two years. Tragedies and mistakes are easy to exploit, especially in the wake of a pandemic that has exacerbated the city’s glaring inequality, upset its economic base of tourism and tech, and heightened fears of crime.

His agenda does not lend itself to sound bites, while the reverse is true for his opponents. Allowed to collect donations in unlimited amounts, they have spent millions, first to pay signature gatherers to get the recall on the ballot and now on a television advertising blitz.

The names on the five- and six-figure contributions on file with city and state agencies — a who’s who of tech, finance and real estate moguls — signal the extent to which those accustomed to exerting influence in the city view Boudin’s agenda as a threat . Executives with Blockchain, Lyft, Y Combinator, Grove Capital, Twin Tree Ventures, Route One Investment, Prime Finance, Initialized Capital. The three largest contributors have been the California Assn. of Realtors, Shorenstein Realty and Republican billionaire William Oberndorf.

Boudin, whose parents spent decades in prison for their role as getaway drivers in a 1981 robbery that ended with three shot dead, is an easy figure to caricature and a convenient target in a city grappling with visible, intractable problems — spreading homeless encampments, record drug overdose deaths, increased burglaries, gun violence and car break-ins.

The recall attempt also illustrates a lesson with national ramifications about the limits of relying solely on reform prosecutors to enact change.

District attorneys have enormous power; they alone decide what charges to file. That unchecked power has ripple effects in a system where most cases never go to trial. If prosecutors overcharge, they have more leverage to get plea bargains. If they seek diversion, fewer people end up behind bars. If they prosecute police officers, that conduct becomes subject to public scrutiny.

But a district attorney trying to change the country’s reliance on incarceration has little or no control over either the key drivers of the problem or the infrastructure that could help solve it. City, county and state officials determine housing policy, drug and mental health treatment options — all the ancillary services needed to reshape a world where the county jail is often the largest provider of drug and mental health counseling and the largest homeless shelter. In many ways, the recall is a proxy battle for how a liberal city deals with poverty.

Boudin was not naïve about the challenges, both internal and external.

“In many ways, getting here tonight was the easy part,” he warned amid the cheers the night of his victory party. “What comes next is essential …. We have our work cut out for us. This is not going to be easy.”

But he reckoned without a pandemic that shut down the city and transformed patterns of crime. He could not have anticipated the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in a city almost one-third Asian. He expected to have four years, which might be just enough time to show that his policies could reduce recidivism rates, one of the clearest measures of criminal justice success.

Nor do facts carry weight the way they once did. It is not only the far right that has embraced the idea that truth is what you think it is, that facts are what you experience. Recall supporters mock data that shows that crime is down; they post photos of broken car windows and ask, are you going to believe statistics, or your own eyes? Boudin, whose crusade is proving that locking up more people does not make the rest of us safer, makes an attractive target.

Here are some facts.

According to FBI and San Francisco police statistics, overall crime — and violent crime — has decreased from 2019 to 2022. Homicide increased from a historic low, but less steeply than in nearby jurisdictions with traditional law-and-order prosecutors.

The jail population in San Francisco dropped by about 40% since Boudin took office, a decrease spurred by the urgency of COVID-19 but maintained as the pandemic subsided.

Boudin has charged crimes presented by police — who are making arrests in only about 8% of the crimes reported — at roughly the same levels as his predecessor, but he has sent more cases to diversion courts that allow offenders to avoid criminal prosecution if they successfully complete programs.

Those are nuanced messages to impart amid a blizzard of television ads that blame the city’s ills on a wide-eyed radical who lets dangerous criminals roam the streets. Crimes make headlines; Success stories are less well-known, and perhaps of less import to those pouring millions of dollars into the recall. A man wrongfully convicted of murder and freed after 32 years was front-page news. But not the 58 San Franciscans, serving lengthy prison sentences they would not receive today, resentenced and sent home with reentry plans and regular visits from a social worker. (Only two have been arrested, according to the DA’s office.)

Like much of the country, San Francisco is struggling to find a post-pandemic equilibrium, complicated by its reliance on tourism that has dried up and tech companies that have gone remote. Two-thirds of the workers have not returned to offices. San Francisco International Airport, once one of the busiest in the country, has regained barely half its pre-pandemic volume. The median sale price for a home was $1.6 million in April, while the city spent millions on a tent village for the homeless that has filled United Nations plaza in the shadow of City Hall.

If Boudin’s grassroots campaign to keep his job beats the odds, he will have a reprieve of 18 months to make his case before the next election, and a bully pulpit to leverage the notoriety of San Francisco for national reform.

If the status quo triumphs, his enemies will have to find a new scapegoat for the anguishes of a divided city in the throes of reinvention.

Miriam Pawel is the author, most recently, of “The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation.”

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