Brooke Jenkins, a one-time San Francisco prosecutor who resigned from the district attorney’s office last year to support the recall of her former boss, Chesa Boudin, was named Boudin’s replacement on Thursday.
San Francisco mayor London Breed officially announced during a 5 p.m. PDT press conference that she had selected Jenkins, 40, to be San Francisco’s next district attorney. Breed said she considered several candidates for the position, but that Jenkins “stood out the most.”
“She sacrificed her career to fight for the people in this city, to fight for victims who needed a voice in this city,” Breed said of Jenkins, a political novice, who became a leading voice of the Boudin recall.
Jenkins, a one-time Boudin supporter, quit her job in protest after she said Boudin pressured prosecutors in his office to give lenient plea deals and that he acted more like the public defender that he had been than a prosecutor. During an introductory speech Thursday, Jenkins said the “paramount mission of the district attorney’s office is to promote public safety.”
Jenkins vowed to “restore accountability and consequences to our criminal-justice system.” She said hate crimes will not be tolerated, and “violent and repeat offenders will no longer be allowed to victimize our city without consequences.” She said a top priority will be ending open-air drug markets in the city and enforcing drug laws, “so that we can take back our streets.”
Jenkins, who is black and Latina, said she knows firsthand about inequities in the criminal-justice system and has “had family members on both sides of the courtroom, as offenders, and as victims.” She said the district attorney’s office can both hold offenders accountable and move forward with important criminal-justice reforms.
“We are a city of second chances,” she said, “but the truth is, we have to draw a line with people who choose hate, violence, and a life of crime.”
Boudin, the son of Weather Underground terrorists, was a leading figure in the progressive-prosecutor movement. He was elected with a plurality of votes in 2019. In office, he instituted a number of progressive policies: He ended cash bail, stopped prosecuting drug-possession cases stemming from “pretextual” traffic stops, stopped using enhancements to extend prison sentences for convicted gang members, and stopped prosecuting so-called quality-of-life crimes — things such as prostitution, public camping, public defecation, and open-air drug use.
Opponents said Boudin sent a message that San Francisco was a consequence-free place to engage in low-level crimes, which simply encouraged more crime in the city generally.
San Francisco voters overwhelmingly voted to oust Boudin from office during a special election in June, with about 60 percent supporting his recall.
Jenkins is one of dozens of prosecutors who quit during Boudin’s tenure. Her critics argue that while Jenkins was seen as an up-and-comer during her seven years at the D.A.’s office, she does not have a long track record of leadership. And to some, her vociferous support of the recall smacks of opportunism and the naked politicization of the office she will now lead.
When searching for Boudin’s replacement, Breed said she had “countless conversations” with people around the city — prosecutors, judges, and everyday people.
“And in almost every single instance, in talking to those who supported and opposed the recall, in talking to those who were victims and former perpetrators of crime in our city, people from all of the spectrums, what they wanted most out of a district attorney in this city was someone who, yes, would make sure that reforms are not forgotten, but that accountability had to be an important part of the equation,” Breed said, before taking a slightly veiled swipe at Boudin. “And the fact that we have seen people try to impress upon us that we would sacrifice either one by choosing either one is something that is absolutely false. We can and we should have both in a city like San Francisco.”