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SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — San Francisco’s district attorney must explain to a trial court the reasons behind her attempt to withdraw a resentencing bid made by her predecessor, Chesa Boudin, who was recalled from the position.
A panel of justices from California’s First Appellate District on Friday vacated a lower trial court’s order directing the court to revisit a resentencing request Boudin made and which the current district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, withdrew.
Boudin filed the April 2022 request to resentence John Vaesau, who is serving two consecutive life sentences plus 14 years for attempted murder and other crimes. Vaesau was sentenced as an adult in 1992, at the age of 16.
Within days of Jenkins’ July 8, 2022 swearing-in — Mayor London Breed selected Jenkins to fill the spot after Boudin’s June 2022 recall — the new district attorney at Vaesau’s resentencing hearing moved to withdraw the request without offering a substantive reason for doing so. Another hearing on July 21, 2022 revealed that her office had fired the prosecutor in charge of the case.
Boudin’s request appears to have been based on a thorough evaluation of Vaesau’s suitability for resentencing, the court ruled. And while Jenkins was entitled to reconsider the recommendation, she gave no evidence that any substantive reevaluation occurred since she moved to withdraw the recommendation within a week of taking office.
District Justice Jim Humes, a Jerry Brown appointee, wrote for the majority with Associate Justice Kathleen Banke and Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Bowen, an Arnold Schwarzenegger appointee, concurring.
“Allowing a district attorney to withdraw a resentencing request without explanation, especially under the political circumstances here, raises the specter of arbitrary action and does not carry the appearance of fairness,” Humes wrote in the 24-page opinion.
While there could be procedural reasons for a trial court to deny or dismiss a resentencing request, Hume said Jenkins offered almost no justification for withdrawing the resentencing request.
Therefore, he agreed with Vaesau that a district attorney should not be able to “withdraw its recommendation on a whim, or due to a change in the political winds.”
Humes also said a district attorney’s ability to request resentencing does not imply an unfettered authority to withdraw the request, and withdrawal does not preclude a trial court from concluding that recall and resentencing is appropriate.
The trial court had granted Jenkins’ motion at an August 11, 2022 hearing, emphasizing that it was not ruling on the merits of whether resentencing was appropriate.
On appeal, Vaesau claims that Jenkins lacked authority to rescind the resentencing request and that the trial court violated his due process rights by failing to discuss his case’s merits. He noted that at a January 2022 parole hearing, a prosecutor argued there were several mitigating factors supporting release, including Vaesau’s age, remorse, intoxication at the time of the crimes and his lack of family support.
Humes in Friday’s ruling said a trial court has the discretion to end a resentencing proceeding where a district attorney provides a legitimate basis for withdrawal, but is not required to rule on merits before allowing a request to be withdrawn.
The judge agreed with California Attorney General Rob Bonta that if resentencing requests were “irrevocable,” it could discourage district attorneys from making such requests in the first place. However Humes was not persuaded by Bonta’s claim that the trial court’s order was not appealable without a resentencing petition.
Instead, the judge agreed with Vaesau that the trial court had jurisdiction to rule on the district attorney’s motion to withdraw the resentencing request. He said the court’s order affected Vaesau’s substantial rights, since it had the ability to deny the motion and instead proceed with resentencing.
The trial court’s prior Aug. 2022 ruling is vacated and the matter is remanded so the court can reconsider whether to permit Jenkins to withdraw the request.
Jenkins, who won reelection in November of 2022, and Boudin, now executive director of Berkeley School of Law’s Criminal Law and Justice Center, did not respond to requests for comment before press time.
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