Just a year after being recalled from his role as San Francisco district attorney, Chesa Boudin has been tapped to lead Berkeley Law’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center.
An ex-public defender, Boudin won a plurality of votes in 2019 running against three prosecutors. The policies he instituted in office, including significantly reducing the jail population, backfired and his recall election was led by Democrats in San Francisco.
“A lifetime of visiting my biological parents in prison and my work as a public defender and district attorney have made clear that our system fails to keep communities safe and fails to treat them equitably,” Boudin said of the UC Berkeley announcement. “I’m thrilled to join the nation’s premier public law school and engage with brilliant scholars and students to drive meaningful change by elevating the lived experience of those directly impacted.”
Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky explained a national search had been conducted to fill the role and Boudin was chosen for his substantial experience across the criminal justice system.
“He has thought deeply about the system, and I cannot think of anyone better to create and direct this important center,” Chemerinsky said.
Boudin is the son of Weather Underground terrorists who were convicted for their role in killing two police officers and a security guard. He was also a translator in Hugo Chávez’s presidential palace in Venezuela.
Richie Greenberg, a San Francisco community activist who helped lead the recall effort, criticized the move, pointing to the reasons Boudin was ousted from office.
PROFOUND INDEED. That @chesaboudin exploited loopholes to get elected with no prosecutorial experience, shut down accountability for even most violent repeat offenders, defended drug dealers, got a few residents killed- and was thrown out of office, well, you’re an embarrassment! https://t.co/rZaRJGeCm2
— Richie Greenberg (@richieSF2016) May 31, 2023
Boudin’s decision to reduce the jail population by 25 percent and his call to deemphasize property crimes were particularly unpopular. Critics pointed to murders allegedly committed by several inmates who had been released. They also drew attention to the significant rise in burglaries, both for residents of the city and business owners. The city has not been able to properly address the problem since, with stores like one downtown Whole Foods pulling from San Francisco due to spiraling crime.
He also lightened penalties even for more heavy drug offenses like dealing fentanyl, as the country grapples with an opioid crisis.
The announcement presented Boudin’s policies in San Francisco without challenge and also quoted Chicago district attorney Kim Foxx, who has been criticized for her own progressive policies on crime.
“[Boudin] knows that criminalizing poverty and homelessness entrenches racist policies and power structures, and that this approach fails to uphold the values of equal rights and due process we supposedly hold dear,” Foxx said.