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by NorthTheRock 659 days ago
> DA refuses to prosecute crime

Have there been any actual documented instances of this? I see it cited a lot, but rarely any specific names of DAs or cases attached to it, and it feels like an easy excuse for police to not even attempt to do their jobs.
2 comments
toast0 659 days ago
Even without a specific policy to not prosecute crimes, there's a pipeline problem.

Courts are backed up and jails are full. DAs have to prioritize cases so that important cases are prosecuted within the statutes of limitations and constitutional speedy trial limits. Arresting people under suspicion of crimes that are unlikely to be prosecuted isn't very effective and nobody likes doing ineffective work.

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skeeter2020 659 days ago
or everything goes perfectly but the punishment is time served, a fine they can't pay anyway or some sort of service & promise not to do it anymore. I believe police and prosecuters want to do good work, but they also want the biggest impact of their work.
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newfriend 659 days ago
read all about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesa_Boudin

You can disagree with me all you want, but this guy was recalled as SF DA for letting criminals go. His wikipedia enumerates several cases of him doing just that.

> In March 2020, Boudin charged 20-year-old Dwayne Grayson with elder abuse after he filmed 56-year-old Jonathan Amerson in February 2020 swinging a metal bar at an elderly Asian man in Bayview–Hunters Point, San Francisco and stealing his aluminum cans. Amerson was charged with elder abuse and robbery. The video later went viral online. Boudin dropped charges against Dwayne Grayson after a spokesperson in Boudin's office said the victim expressed his intent to pursue restorative justice.

> Boudin has been criticized for his alleged lack of prosecution of drug-related crimes, with only three drug convictions in 2021, none of which were for fentanyl dealing. Boudin has defended his actions saying that many of the drug dealers in the Bay Area are from Honduras, and would face deportation if convicted of drug dealing.

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abeppu 659 days ago
Except that even when the DA was trying to pursue stuff, the SFPD refused to help, and forced the DA's office to do stuff like move evidence in a U-haul truck.

https://www.ksbw.com/article/sfpd-refused-to-help-stop-san-f...

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newfriend 659 days ago
I agree with you on this one case. But this was after years of him letting criminals go. This case was in the run up to the recall in which he was removed from office by SF voters for being too soft on crime.
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abeppu 659 days ago
That was the narrative that was presented. However, though the data made available by the DA's office is limited and flawed, I don't think the story is really borne out.

1 year after the recall, violent crime was up.

https://missionlocal.org/2023/06/one-year-after-recall-viole...

After a little more than a year in office, she had raised the conviction rate slightly, but had a lower charge-filling rate -- i.e. charged fewer things but won more.

> in her first 15 months, raised the city’s conviction rate for the first time in eight years, according to data from her office.

> Despite the reversal in conviction rates, it appears that Jenkins is taking fewer individual cases to court. Her charge-filing rate is about eight percent lower this year than last.

> While conviction rates have risen slightly, the total percentage of cases charged, or prosecuted, by the DA has remained relatively flat.

This also came with a shift towards more convictions for petty theft and narcotics, and less use of diversion programs. But given that the charging-filing rate actually decreased, I think this implies that other more serious stuff was being charged less. So the "soft on crime" guy actually was filing charges at a higher overall rate, and was prioritizing the more serious crimes.

https://missionlocal.org/2023/09/sf-da-brooke-jenkins-revers...

Note, I tried to view the DA data dashboards today and none of them even load for me. The article above shows top-line rates but not with a breakdown by the type of violation.

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JumpCrisscross 659 days ago
> 3 downvotes? really?

"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading" [1].

> guy was recalled as SF DA for letting criminals go

Your comment would be stronger if you cited something from the article, versus just presenting it unadorned. (And at risk of being a hypocrite, I upvoted your comment.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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