The Killer SF DA | Hacker News Reader

The Killer SF DA

davidsacks.medium.com

41 pointsnutwani9121 comments

> To back up his claim that decarceration doesn’t threaten public safety, Boudin boasted that, “Our year-to-year data show that through April, the city and county crime rate has fallen.” To be sure, the period between mid-March and the end of April, representing the most severe seven weeks of total lockdown in the city, did show a trail off in criminal activity. Unfortunately for Boudin, time didn’t stop on April 30. I doubt he still wants to brag about his city’s crime statistics.

> Compared to the prior year, homicides increased 32%, burglaries 49%, and motor vehicle thefts 35% in 2020 according to SFPD statistics.

Seems Chesa was speaking of overall crime rate. From the dashboard linked, SF overall crime rate is down 24.5% in 2020, compared to 2019.

Just came across this article about another serial violent criminal in SF.

https://missionlocal.org/2020/12/sf-man-arrested-in-connecti...

This guy, Jose Rodriguez, 29, was arrested for killing a mother with a newborn while burglarizing a house and also charged in several other "incidents" including:

Following his arrest earlier this month, Rodriguez was also identified as the shooter in connection with an attempted homicide near Jackson Playground in Potrero Hill on Oct. 27. He has been booked on attempted murder and firearms charges related to that incident.

Rodriguez and Martinez are also suspects in a residential burglary on Peralta Avenue in Bernal Heights on Nov. 11, and the two were charged with burglary and conspiracy in connection to that incident.

So there's the double hit-and-run murderer in David's piece and this guy. How many other serial violent criminals are on our streets?

The author's larger point about the situation in SF seems reasonable enough (I don't live there, so I'm taking his word for it - obviously I'd change my mind if his facts turn out to be false), but I don't buy this logic of "this guy killed someone, and if we had incarcerated him then we wouldn't have, so therefore we obviously should have incarcerated him earlier." By that logic, you should just keep everyone who has ever committed a crime in jail, because some portion of the people who you release will eventually do something awful. That road leads to madness.

I’m no longer a SF resident because of garbage polices and obvious corruption in San Francisco public offices, but can the people still roughing it out start a recall? How did this clown think people wouldn’t uncover that he was the murderers PD and that it was obvious conflict of interest to not recuse himself instead he is basically an accessory, by refusing to file charges multiple times that would have put the murderer away for 25 to life

Looks like a recall effort is underway based on this event.

https://abc7news.com/chesa-boudin-san-francisco-district-att...

http://recallchesa.org/

It's honestly refreshing to see a rich person write, under his own name, an opinion that we should use high bail amounts to ensure that poorer people should not be considered innocent until proven guilty.

Usually rich people tiptoe around making the argument this directly, but Sacks cuts right to the chase: we should have different systems of justice for poor people and rich people.

If Sacks were ever charged with a crime, he would make bail and be free the same day. He would be free until he was proven guilty in a court. And yet here he argues against that most basic liberty for people who do not have as much material wealth as he does.

I disagree with Sacks in that I think we should have a single system of justice. But I applaud him for arguing stridently that rich people should have different rules. We take too many of our Constitutional protections for granted, so it's good in a way to have people like Sacks argue against those protections. Hopefully it will generate discussion around where things are now and how our laws should be applied in the future.

I don't think it's as clear-cut as you make it out to be.

The middle class and wealthy have more "skin in the game" when it comes to law enforcement. Put differently - they have a lot more to lose.

If you are a white collar working schmoe then a conviction can be a big and real problem for you, affecting your employment and this flows on to your financial commitments.

If you have deep pockets and you clearly wrong somebody then you have a very big target on your back. Any number of lawyers will be tripping over themselves to make sure justice is served (... for a percentage).

An addict with no assets, no reputation and no relationships on the line has zero reason not to commit more crime, and plenty of reason to do it (addiction).

I'm strictly speaking of people who have been accused and not convicted. (Keep in mind that in the US, all of these people fall into the category "innocent.")

From arrest to trial can easily be over a year. The simple fact is rich people like Sacks will not ever stay in jail during that period, while the poor and middle class often do (because they don't have access to the money to pay bail). This is very clearly a two-tiered system.

To be clear: even facing a $1m or $5m bail, someone like Sacks would walk free the day after arrest and be free until convicted in court. This is simply not true for most people, who will sit in a cell for months to over a year waiting for trial. Where Sacks is innocent until proven guilty, poorer people are guilty until proven innocent (because they will have served time either way).

> If you have deep pockets and you clearly wrong somebody then you have a very big target on your back. Any number of lawyers will be tripping over themselves to make justice is served.

This is naive thinking at best. Rich people are also a prime source of campaign donations. Nobody wants to impair a potential donor.

> Chesa Boudin was only fourteen months old when both his mother and father... were arrested... Perhaps because of this personal history...

Even if the author is correctly inferring Boudin's private motivations, what does that have to do with the quality of Boudin's policies? Introducing this type of guesswork undercuts the rest of the analysis.

I would think personal motivations greatly effect policy.

Edit: Why else would anyone want to become a lawmaker? It's all about getting into a position of power at the end of it all. You put yourself into a position where you can impose your motives and will on others, either "because what I want is the right thing", or "because it is simply what I want".

But it's irrelevant to the quality of the policy, which is what is in dispute here.

EDIT: I suppose personal motivations would be relevant if they were part of a conflict of interest, e.g. in cases of bribery or when the public official's associates benefit.

Absolutely. He should just have called out that being a child of unrepentant terrorists is what influenced Cheasa to be a nutjob.

It matters because for the same reason some people are concerned with Osama bin Laden's son. If you grew up in a household where violence was an accepted form of expression, then it may have desensitized him to the fact that violence is violence, people are hurt, and people get killed, leading to was may be his lack of appreciation for such crime.

This reads like a simple hit piece.

Chesa is right to eliminate cash bail. Whether or not someone should be released from jail should have nothing to do with money -- it should be based entirely on flight risk and the threat to society people present.

America has a full quarter of the world's prisoners (but only 4% of the overall population). Chesa should be commended for attacking the problem.

Throwing out the baby (societal safety) with the bathwater (financial situation of the accused).

Bail also helps prevent repeat offense while they are held until their court date, which is exactly what the article is talking about. If they were held and prosecuted, history would be different, these 2 would not have been murdered.

> Bail also helps prevent repeat offense while they are held until their court date

This only works for people who can't afford bail. The bail amounts routinely assigned in our system effectively do not prevent repeat offense by people like the author of this article. A $1 million bail is steep, but not steep enough to keep any established VC in jail for the 4-18 months until trial.

Part of the point of eliminating cash bail is to eliminate this disparity and make the system more equivalent regardless of the wealth of the accused.

Getting rid of cash bail does not mean never holding people in jail until their court date. It's not like paying a large deposit to get out of jail is stopping someone from murdering a person before their court date.

Supervisor Stefani (a rare voice of sanity in the benighted SF BOS) calls for a hearing:

https://twitter.com/SupStefani/status/1346580223928614913

Unfortunately I think much discussion will get lost in attacking Chesa or focusing on the specific case at hand. However, I think the conversation should be focused on the systemic issues that have caused us to arrive at this point. This is an inevitable result to the backlash created by our broken justice system.

For years now we've used the justice system and prison to attempt to put an band-aid over or ignore the ills of our society. We've built a morally repugnant justice system that we should be ashamed of and which only serves as a feedback loop to exacerbate the ills of our society. Of course people are pissed off and tired of this system and desperate for reform. It's no surprise that there will be consequences to this, and policies will be put in place that have side effects.

I don't want to prescribe an answer as a silver bullet, but I do think that investing in our society (education, health-care, housing, jobs paying a living wage, etc...) is a better means to an end than just throwing people in jail and pretending to ourselves that it will solve the problem. Throwing people in jail doesn't reform them, and when they come out they're worse off than they were before and have no safety nets to get their life together, unless they're rich or white in which case they have a much better chance.

Excited to find out just how much degeneracy and crime San Franciscans are willing to put up with! So far, there's no bottom.

I appreciate the left's desire to reduce the prison population, but they need to come up with something else that functions better before they start trying to deconstruct the current system. Otherwise, their youthful naivete may result in more incarceration as the backlash takes hold.

Also, while I understand many of the 'hit pieces' against Boudin arise from the right, please do not assume that any criticism of him, his policies, or ideologies are simply partisan attacks.

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