SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — One of the nation’s most progressive prosecutors will face a recall election in June after a petition was certified Tuesday in a city sharply divided over criminal justice reform and public safety.
City election officials verified that a campaign to oust progressive district attorney Chesa Boudin garnered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Campaign organizers submitted 83,000 signatures — 32,000 more than needed — in October.
A recall election will be held on June 7, 2022, the same day as a statewide primary election.
A former public defender and son of left-wing militants who went to prison when he was 14 months old for taking part in a deadly robbery gone wrong, Boudin, 41, ran for DA in 2019 on a platform of promising to end mass incarceration and boost nonprosecution diversion programs.
Boudin assumed office in January 2020, a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic shut down much of the city’s economy and shifted crime in San Francisco from rampant car break-ins that often targeted tourists to an increase in home burglaries.
Richie Greenberg, who organized a previous campaign to recall Boudin that failed to qualify for the ballot, said in a phone interview that Boudin “earned” this recall by failing to fulfil his role as a prosecutor and hold criminals accountable.
“Anyone that lives here or works here or is a tourist who has visited San Francisco, there is a tremendous surge in property crimes,” Greenberg said. “We see it. We live it everywhere.”
Within his first few months in office, Boudin made good on several campaign promises by eliminating cash bail for defendants, declining to press charges in cases stemming from “pretextual stops,” and ordering prosecutors to stop applying California’s Three Strikes Law and gang-affiliation sentencing enhancements, which he said contribute to mass incarceration and racial disparities in the justice system.
Boudin also followed through on his pledge to hold police accountable for misconduct. He has filed criminal charges against at least three officers for killing or assaulting suspects, allegedly without just cause. Most recently, he announced manslaughter charges against an officer who shot an unarmed Black man on his front steps in 2017.
But in a city with high rates of property crimes, overdose deaths, homelessness and mental health problems that many attribute to the prevalence of illegal drugs, Boudin’s critics argue that his policies have made the city less safe.
Boudin’s detractors were quick to blame him and his policies for the deaths of two women, 60-year-old Elizabeth Platt and 27-year-old Hanako Abe, who were killed in a hit-and-run on Dec. 31, 2020, by a parolee. The driver, Troy McAlister, was out on parole and had been arrested for a series of drug and theft crimes before the fatal incident, but Boudin had not filed charges against him.
San Francisco also made headlines in recent months for a viral video showing a man brazenly shoplifting in a Walgreens store while ignoring a security guard. That was followed by reports that the pharmacy chain is closing multiple locations in the city, citing the high cost of retail theft. While some have challenged that narrative and questioned Walgreens’ true motives for closing stores, data shows that Boudin has prosecuted fewer shoplifting cases than his predecessor, George Gascón. Boudin prosecuted 44% of shoplifting cases in 2020 compared to 70% prosecuted Gascón in 2019, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
Committees supporting Boudin have labeled the recall as an effort driven by Republicans, police and affluent people who want to roll back progress on criminal justice reform and undo the results of a fair election.
“After spending $1.4 million, and using shady and misleading tactics, it's no surprise that this radical recall has bought its way onto the ballot,” said Julie Edwards, of the Friends of Chesa Boudin Opposing the Recall committee, in a statement Tuesday.
Boudin's defenders also argue that most violent crime has gone down under the progressive DA's tenure, though homicides have risen in San Francisco and across the nation over the last two years. Burglaries have also increased dramatically in San Francisco since 2019, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Edwards claims the recall campaign used “dark money” to gather signatures. She noted steps Boudin has taken to make the city safer, including going after ghost gun manufacturers with a civil lawsuit.
“We are confident San Francisco voters will reject this Republican-funded and endorsed effort,” Edwards said.
Andrea Shorter, spokesperson for the San Franciscans for Public Safety Supporting the Recall of Chesa Boudin committee, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday, but the campaign’s website features a list of crime victims with claims that Boudin’s policies have made the city less safe.
“Chesa Boudin is failing all of us,” a statement on the website reads. “He doesn’t hold serial offenders accountable and has released them from custody without consequences. Most San Franciscans do not feel safer than they did a year ago, and enough is enough.”
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