3 ms·

Judging from the chart, looks like about a 20% drop in felony prosecutions in 2020/2021 compared to a typical previous year, plus a larger drop in the number of

Judging from the chart, looks like about a 20% drop in felony prosecutions in 2020/2021 compared to a typical previous year, plus a larger drop in the number of misdemeanor prosecutions. (Which, note, are separate statistics from the number of reported crimes.) The once-in-a-century pandemic also had significant effects here, both on the DA office and courts, and on the level/types of crime in the city, making it hard to get a clear causal story about the relation between prosecution decisions vs. crime rates. What is the “actual purpose” of the DA’s office in your view: to prosecute as many cases as possible, irrespective of circumstances?

ak217 4y ago
Yes. In our adversarial justice system, we rely on the DA to eagerly prosecute, the defense attorney or public defender to eagerly defend, the judge or jury to render the verdict, and the legislature to pass laws. Trying to compensate for dysfunction in one system by introducing dysfunction in another only makes the issues worse. Boudin was a public defender, and a pretty good one at that. He carried the public defender mindset into the DA's office, and it didn't work well. (You edited your comment to add "irrespective of circumstances", which changes the meaning. There will always be gray areas where we rely on the judge or the DA to exercise discretion, but in a healthy system the scope of those areas can't amount to refusing to enforce entire statutes or reinterpreting statutes by executive policy.)
- itsdrewmiller 4y ago
  We expect eager prosecution in the courtroom, but DAs should exercise discretion about when to bring charges at all. I have not followed this story close enough to have an opinion about its application in San Francisco, but nationally I feel pretty confident we should be dialing the knob down not up.

3 ms·

Judging from the chart, looks like about a 20% drop in felony prosecutions in 2020/2021 compared to a typical previous year, plus a larger drop in the number of

by jacobolus 4y ago

ak217 4y ago
Yes. In our adversarial justice system, we rely on the DA to eagerly prosecute, the defense attorney or public defender to eagerly defend, the judge or jury to render the verdict, and the legislature to pass laws. Trying to compensate for dysfunction in one system by introducing dysfunction in another only makes the issues worse. Boudin was a public defender, and a pretty good one at that. He carried the public defender mindset into the DA's office, and it didn't work well. (You edited your comment to add "irrespective of circumstances", which changes the meaning. There will always be gray areas where we rely on the judge or the DA to exercise discretion, but in a healthy system the scope of those areas can't amount to refusing to enforce entire statutes or reinterpreting statutes by executive policy.)
- itsdrewmiller 4y ago
  We expect eager prosecution in the courtroom, but DAs should exercise discretion about when to bring charges at all. I have not followed this story close enough to have an opinion about its application in San Francisco, but nationally I feel pretty confident we should be dialing the knob down not up.