Interim District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is projected to defeat former San Francisco Police Commissioner John Hamasaki and civil rights attorney Joe Alioto Veronese, ending the possibility that ousted San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin would be replaced by a similarly reform-minded prosecutor.
Jenkins declared victory last week on the day after the election. Although ballots are still being counted, by Tuesday she reached an insurmountable lead over Hamasaki, the second-highest recipient of votes.
Jenkins previously worked as a prosecutor in the San Francisco district attorney’s office under Boudin, a former public defender who implemented sweeping criminal justice reforms during his time as DA. Jenkins quit in 2021 after Boudin allowed a man with severe, unmedicated mental illness who was convicted of killing his mother go to a state psychiatric hospital instead of prison. Despite describing herself as a progressive, Jenkins became a vocal critic of Boudin and said she would volunteer to help recall him from office. Jenkins was paid more than $100,000 for her work on the recall campaign, the San Francisco Standard reported earlier this year.
The campaign to recall Boudin raked in $7.2 million, pulling in money from law enforcement, the real estate lobby and Republican mega-donors. Proponents of the recall pushed a false narrative that San Franciscans were suffering from a crime wave and that Boudin was to blame. It worked. Boudin was recalled in June in a low turn-out, off-cycle election — just 26% of the electorate showed up to vote, and 60% of them opted to oust him.
Mayor London Breed appointed Jenkins as Boudin’s interim replacement, and she quickly fired 15 people in the district attorney’s office, including people who investigate wrongful convictions and police misconduct. Jenkins also called for reversing many of the reforms implemented by Boudin, including around the use of pretrial detention, sentencing enhancement, prosecuting kids as adults and offering alternatives to incarceration for people convicted of drug offenses.
Last month, a retired judge filed a complaint with the California State Bar accusing Jenkins of “publicly and falsely claiming that she has never been found to have committed misconduct” and misrepresenting her role in Boudin’s recall campaign. The complaint noted that a San Francisco appellate court found Jenkins guilty in 2016 of improperly commenting to jurors about a defendant not testifying ― a finding that led to the conviction in that case being overturned.
Days before the election, Mission Local reported that after giving notice but before leaving the San Francisco DA’s office, Jenkins sent sensitive case files to another departing prosecutor’s personal email, apparently to use in the upcoming effort to recall Boudin.