Chesa Boudin (, ; born August 21, 1980) is an American lawyer who served as the 29th district attorney of San Francisco from January 8, 2020 to July 8, 2022. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Boudin graduated from Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at St Antony's College, Oxford. After obtaining his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2011, Boudin clerked for two federal judges and became a deputy public defender in San Francisco.
Boudin was elected San Francisco district attorney in 2019. In an effort to reduce incarceration, he implemented criminal justice reform policies such as bail reform and alternatives to prosecution and sentencing. However, he was heavily criticized for mismanagement of the office and for his perceived softness on crime. Boudin was the subject of a recall election on June 7, 2022. The recall election was successful, as 55% of the electorate voted to remove him from office.
Early life and education Boudin was born in New York City to Jewish parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert. Boudin and Gilbert were Weather Underground members who were arrested when Boudin was 14 months old. The two were later incarcerated for the felony murder of two police officers and a security guard in the 1981 Brink's robbery in Rockland County, New York. His mother was sentenced to 20 years to life, and his father was sentenced to 75 years to life.
After his parents were incarcerated, Boudin was adopted and raised in Hyde Park, Chicago, by fellow Weather Underground members Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Boudin reports that he did not learn to read until age nine. Kathy Boudin was released under parole supervision in 2003, when Boudin was 23 years old. Gilbert was released in 2021.
Boudin descends from a long left-wing lineage. His great-grand-uncle, Louis B. Boudin, was a Marxist theoretician and author of a two-volume history of the Supreme Court's influence on American government, and his grandfather Leonard Boudin was an attorney who represented controversial clients, such as Fidel Castro and Paul Robeson. His grand-uncle Isidor Feinstein Stone ("I. F. Stone") was an independent progressive journalist.
His uncle, Michael Boudin, was a well-regarded judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit who did not share his family's penchant for leftism. Boudin was appointed by George H.W. Bush.
Boudin attended University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and Yale College. In 2003 he entered St Antony's College, Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship. At Oxford, he earned a Master of Science in forced migration in 2004. He earned his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2011 and began work for the San Francisco Public Defender's Office as a Liman fellow in 2012.
Early career Before law school, Boudin traveled to Venezuela and served as a translator in the Venezuelan Presidential Palace during the administration of Hugo Chavez.
After law school, from 2011 to 2012, Boudin served as a law clerk for M. Margaret McKeown on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was a 2012–2013 Liman Fellow at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, and in 2013 and 2014, he clerked for Charles Breyer on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In 2015, Boudin began working full time at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office as a deputy public defender. While there, he argued on behalf of the office's clients that California's bail system is unconstitutional, leading to the published case In re Kenneth Humphrey, in which the state's First District Court of Appeals held that judges must give consideration to a defendant's ability to pay before setting bail.
Boudin also serves on the board of the Civil Rights Corps, a national non-profit organization, and is on the board of Restore Justice, a non-profit based in California.
Boudin translated Understanding the Bolivarian Revolution: Hugo Chávez Speaks with Marta Harnecker into English, co-edited Letters from Young Activists: Today's Young Rebels Speak Out, and co-wrote The Venezuelan Revolution: 100 Questions – 100 Answers. His book, Gringo: A Coming of Age in Latin America, was released in April 2009 by Charles Scribner's Sons. The book received mixed reviews.
San Francisco District Attorney 2019 election
Boudin was elected San Francisco district attorney in the 2019 election, defeating interim district attorney Suzy Loftus. Boudin campaigned for the office on a decarceration platform of eliminating cash bail, establishing a unit to re-evaluate wrongful convictions, and refusing to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with raids and arrests. The San Francisco Police Officers Association (SFPOA) and other law enforcement groups spent $650,000 in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Boudin. Attorney General William Barr criticized Boudin and like-minded DAs, accusing them of undermining the police, letting criminals off the hook, and endangering public safety. In an interview during the COVID-19 pandemic, Boudin questioned whether the nation "can safely continue the national system of mass incarceration. Why do we need to take people to jail for non-violent offenses if what they really need is drug treatment or mental health services?"
Tenure Boudin was sworn in as San Francisco district attorney by San Francisco mayor London Breed on January 8, 2020 at the Herbst Theatre. Shortly afterward, Boudin restructured the management team by firing seven prosecutors.
On January 26, Boudin suspended the process of prosecuting Jamaica Hampton, a man who was shot and seriously injured in an altercation with police, during which he was captured in body camera footage striking an officer with a liquor bottle in San Francisco's Mission District. The charges were pulled without prejudice, which allowed them to be refiled at a later date. Alex Bastian, a spokesman for the office, stated that this was to avoid a conflict between the prosecution of Hampton and the investigation and potential prosecution of the officer, who could potentially be charged for the shooting. The police union criticized the decision as "giving criminals a green light" to attack police officers. The District Attorney’s Office ultimately charged Hampton with assault with a deadly weapon and other felonies related to the incident on April 29, 2021.
Boudin announced on February 28 that his office would no longer seek charges for contraband found during "pretextual" traffic stops and would not charge status enhancements that increase jail sentences, such as those imposed for gang membership or for having three strikes, with the intent of diminishing racial disparities in policing and sentencing.
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.
On April 9, 2020, Boudin, Mayor London Breed, and San Francisco's Human Services Agency announced that they had acquired 20 temporary housing units for survivors of domestic violence from the city's largest landlord, Veritas Investments, during the 2020 stay-at-home orders in San Francisco during the COVID-19 pandemic in San Francisco. Boudin also announced partnerships with Lyft and AirBnB to provide transportation and temporary housing services to survivors during the pandemic.
Boudin's office launched the Economic Crimes Against Workers Unit, which is led by Assistant District Attorney Scott Stillman, in April 2020. In June 2020, Boudin and the unit filed a motion against food delivery service DoorDash, alleging the company illegally classifies its delivery workers as independent contractors. DoorDash argued that the suit would "disrupt the essential services Dashers provide" and threaten their "flexible earning opportunities". This followed similar suits against gig companies Uber and Lyft by other public attorneys in California such as Xavier Becerra and Dennis Herrera.
Federal civil rights lawsuit On January 24, 2022, the Alliance of Asian American Justice filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the San Francisco District Attorney's office on behalf of 69-year old Ahn Lê. The lawsuit alleged that Lê was the victim of a baseball bat assault by a father and teenage son in November 2019 and that his rights as a victim of violent assault were denied when the sentencing of his attackers failed to consult him under Marsy's Law.
SFist noted that Lê was a contributor to a neighborhood newspaper, the Marina Times, "a virulently anti-Boudin publication."
Four days later, on January 28, 2022, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that along with multiple emails to Lê asking if he wanted to testify, "a victim advocate from the office documented that she reached out to the victim, Anh Lê, more than two dozen times." The Chronicle and SFist also reported that the perpetrator of the attack was using a wheelchair, the teen described by Lê's lawsuit was an 11 year old, and the baseball bat was actually made of plastic.
Ahn Lê dropped his lawsuit on March 1, 2022.
Decarceration Boudin's first policy as district attorney was the implementation of a diversion program for persons charged with misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies who are primary caregiver parents of minor children, in accordance with SB394. The bill, which was authored by State Senator Nancy Skinner, was signed into law by Gavin Newsom in October 2019. If accepted into the program, the police would suspend criminal proceedings for up to 24 months, allowing the defendant to undergo various classes and training. After completing the program, the court would drop their charges. It is similar to the mental health and drug diversion program in San Francisco. It is supposed to reduce trauma for children who would have otherwise had a parent incarcerated. Critics have raised concerns about potential loopholes for abusers and sexual offenders.
In January 2020, he eliminated cash bail and replaced it with a "risk-based system", in which prosecutors evaluate whether or not a defendant poses a threat to public safety as a condition for their pretrial release. John Raphling, a senior researcher at the Human Rights Watch, praised the decision, stating that bail and pretrial incarceration has been used "as leverage to pressure people to plead guilty regardless of actual guilt." Conversely, Tony Montoya, president of the SFPOA, condemned the decision, arguing that the risk-based system is an "arbitrary math equation" and that the change would create a "criminal justice revolving door".
In March 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Boudin reduced the San Francisco's jail population by 25%, from around 1100 to 840, following outbreaks in other American cities such as New York City. Older inmates or those with medical conditions were prioritized, while those almost done with their sentences or were charged with misdemeanors were considered for home detention or probation. This was increased to approximately 40% in April 2020.
Police accountability policies In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests that demanded more police accountability, Boudin and other prosecutors across the country implemented new policies to address police accountability.