Chesa Boudin

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin acquired his criminal justice reform chops visiting his parents in prison. Both were Weather Underground members sentenced to lengthy terms for the felony murders of two police officers and a security guard. His father remains behind bars.

A Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law School graduate, Boudin clerked for federal judges, worked as a deputy public defender, narrowly won the district attorney post and took office in January 2020.

"My earliest memories are of waiting in line to go through the metal detector," he said.

"Seeing my parents in prison profoundly impacted the way I think. I grew up with an intimate and personal awareness of the need for reform. My experiences gave me concrete ideas for building a criminal justice model that would focus on prevention and uplifting victims."

One of Boudin's controversial proposals has been described as a ban on police donations to district attorney election campaigns, but Boudin sought to clarify the plan. "It's not a ban on police unions giving to DA candidates, it's a ban on what DA candidates can accept," he said.

At a State Bar ethics committee meeting in August to consider the measure, Boudin said via Zoom that the proposal "seeks to cure the conflict that exists when prosecutors accept support from law enforcement unions directly and then are asked to investigate and prosecute officers in those same unions. It also seeks to clear the appearance of that conflict, even when an actual conflict may not exist."

Boudin has some backing in Sacramento for a policy he established in San Francisco in June that expands access to victim compensation for people injured or killed by police, even if they weren't cooperating or contributed to the incident in which they were hurt. Assembly Bill 767 lists excessive use of force by police among the crimes eligible for compensation. It passed the Senate Public Safety Committee 6-1 in August; its fate in late August was uncertain.

"It's a model for the state to follow," Boudin said of his local policy. "It will likely not pass this cycle, but I'm excited to see it taken up at the state level." Earlier he vowed the plan would not limit his prosecution of legitimate cases of resisting arrest or obstructing police.

Soon after Boudin took office, he put in place a primary caregiver diversion program that allows some pretrial nonviolent criminal defendants with minor children to have their cases dismissed following successful participation in parenting classes. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a statewide version, SB 394, in 2019.

"From my life and the lives of other children I saw visiting their parents in prison, we see the importance of parenting and we want to break the intergenerational cycle," Boudin said. "If we fail, we increase the likelihood of recidivism and put children at risk of committing crimes themselves."

-- John Roemer