Chesa Boudin, the son of Weathermen radicals, is the nation's most progressive prosecutor in one of the country's most liberal cities. And now, 18 months into his term, many residents are trying to throw him out. Danielduane reports
Photo: Ian Allen When Chesa Boudin was sworn in as district attorney of San Francisco on January 8, 2020, he seemed perfectly cast for the moment. Since 2016, a new class of progressive prosecutors had been claiming victories in liberal cities from Chicago to St. Louis, pledging to undo decades of tough-on-crime policies.
The argument is especially pitched in San Francisco, where police-department data shows that overall crime actually decreased 23 percent in 2020, but surges in burglary and car theft have many convinced that the city is headed for disaster. A poll conducted recently by the Chamber of Commerce found 70 percent of San Franciscans saying that quality of life in the city was deteriorating and 40 percent saying they planned to move away.
Boudin typically begins with his parents, who joined the militant organization known as the Weather Underground in the 1960s to fight against American apartheid and the war in Vietnam. In 1981, when Boudin was 14 months old, they left him with a babysitter to serve as unarmed getaway drivers while members of another revolutionary group robbed a Brink’s armored car in Nanuet, New York.
After graduating from Yale Law School in 2011, Boudin clerked for a federal judge in San Diego . The next year, Boudin moved to San Francisco and took a fellowship with the public defender’s office, where, he jokes, he learned that local juries “will acquit anybody. There’s no better place to try a case if you’re a defense lawyer.”
During Gascón’s tenure, a booming real-estate market pushed squatter and homeless communities out of empty lots and abandoned buildings and into sidewalk tent cities. Car break-ins and other property crimes worsened, and public defecation and intravenous-drug use became commonplace. Gascón’s policies, fairly or otherwise, took much of the blame.
With ranked-choice voting, Boudin won by a margin of less than 2 percent after three rounds. Upon taking office in January 2020, he started making exactly the reforms he had promised. He became the first district attorney in America to eliminate the practice of requesting cash bail. He announced a diversion program aimed at keeping parents out of jail.
That same month, Cyan Banister, a prominent venture capitalist who formerly worked at the Peter Thiel–backed Founders Fund, released security-camera footage showing a burglar stealing what she claimed was more than $30,000 worth of computer gear and appliances while her 9-year-old son was home. Banister changed her Twitter name to “Recall Chesa Boudin” and donated thousands of dollars to Greenberg’s recall effort.
Shorter’s case against Boudin hinges less on specific policies or data than on the contention that Boudin prioritizes reform over public safety — and that San Franciscans don’t have to make that choice. Her recall organization insists it favors progressive reforms like reducing prison sentences. Boudin’s approach to reform looks good on paper, she says, but is much too lenient toward serious repeat offenders.
Take, for example, the case of a highly publicized double murder, which spurred a blame game that played out in local media. Police told the press that the suspect, a man named Robert Newt, had been arrested weeks before the killings in a stolen car and with a gun that were both linked to earlier homicides but that Boudin’s office had declined to press charges.
The perception of increased crime under Boudin’s tenure does not necessarily correlate to an actual increase, at least in overall crime. The San Francisco Police Department’s official statistics show that crime has fallen steadily during Boudin’s time in office. Burglary and car theft did spike in 2020, but larceny, a broader category of theft that includes shoplifting, has plummeted.
The success of the recalls will not hinge on whether the traditional or progressive approach is more effective but rather on whether recall backers can capitalize on the city’s anxieties to oust Boudin. But correctly reading a voter’s mood around criminal justice and crime is tricky. Just a few weeks ago, New York City chose progressive prosecutor Alvin Bragg and tough-on-crime former cop Eric Adams on the same day.
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