By: Ryan Khojasteh
This article was originally published in The San Francisco Examiner.
San Francisco mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie made a number of important points in a July 9 Examiner op-ed in which he called for The City to use electronic-monitoring systems to prevent arrested drug dealers from returning to neighborhoods where they were caught.
While I share Lurie’s commitment to eradicate our open-air drug markets and hold drug dealers accountable, some of his frustration is misdirected at the Mayor’s Office.
In fact, the District Attorney’s Office deserves much more scrutiny over its poor performance in the courtroom — and the public deserves to know the facts.
While the Mayor’s Office has jurisdiction over the police department, it is the responsibility of the District Attorney’s Office to bring charges that hold drug dealers accountable. It is District Attorney Brooke Jenkins who is failing at this task — made evident not only by the ongoing conditions in parts of the Tenderloin and SoMa, but also by simple facts on Jenkins’ performance.
So, let’s look at the facts.
In the entirety of 2023 — Jenkins’ first full year in office — only one convicted drug dealer received a prison sentence. And it was a case former District Attorney Chesa Boudin filed.
Despite the recent media buzz around the rise in felony drug-dealing convictions this year, the trend is meaningless when the office is concealing vital information on the convicted charges and subsequent sentences. This tells us that dealers are back on the streets dealing again.
According to the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, more than 2,000 cases were dismissed under Jenkins’ tenure between July 15, 2022, and April 1 of this year. That includes more than 1,000 felony cases. Just imagine how many of those cases were against alleged drug dealers who are now back on our streets, having faced no consequences and emboldened to continue their dangerous activities.
For all the time and money Jenkins has spent signaling that she’s getting tough on drug dealing, this is the outcome. We need results, not rhetoric.
Jenkins’ mismanagement of the office has recently drawn appropriate scrutiny, with a turnover rate now at 42% since Jenkins took office. This city is losing experienced prosecutors, and she hired a personal friend who is not a lawyer as her chief of staff without even advertising the job.
This chief of staff has no experience with law enforcement, criminal justice or the court of law. She is not qualified to run a law-enforcement agency and criminal-law office.
The dysfunction goes to the very top, as Jenkins herself has a history of prosecutorial misconduct.
She concealed evidence in a murder case, which led to a dismissal. A state Court of Appeal has found her guilty of prosecutorial misconduct on more than one occasion, with a conviction once overturned. As an assistant DA, she sent files to the personal email of a colleague, using the police reports and rap sheet in the recall campaign against Boudin. Jenkins currently has numerous pending complaints against her by the State Bar of California.
I recently observed court proceedings and witnessed firsthand that between the overwhelming caseloads, unjustified promotions, lack of adequate training and shuffling of qualified personnel, staff are not prepared in the courtroom — and San Franciscans are paying the price.
This administration is losing too many cases, yet it still has the audacity to blame others for the worsening drug crisis instead of immediately addressing the internal management problem that is leaving prosecutors ill-equipped to do their jobs.
Her office is also failing to utilize technologies that can help create a safer city, including tools such as the electronic monitoring systems Lurie discussed in his op-ed.
Currently, the District Attorney’s Office is not consistently seeking electronic monitoring for first-time alleged drug dealers as a condition of release. This is a missed opportunity to require first-time drug dealers to stay away from the vicinity in which they were arrested, such as the open-air drug market at Seventh and Market and the surrounding blocks — a simple measure to decrease their chances of reoffending.
Jenkins isn’t just failing at taking major drug dealers off the streets. She is failing at her office’s foundational task to make all our neighborhoods safer.
Upon taking office, Jenkins cut vital programs that were successfully reducing crime in our city — programs such as Make it Right, which reduced recidivism among kids in our city’s juvenile-justice system by up to 66%. Her administration has also significantly reduced referrals to local treatment courts that have been proven to stabilize people and get them back on track.
Jenkins is clearly a practiced politician. She certainly has mastered the art of the press release and passing the buck — but that doesn’t keep us safe. Doing so takes professional management, focused prosecutors and effective courtroom advocacy to get the job done.
Ryan Khojasteh, an Alameda County prosecutor, is a candidate for San Francisco district attorney in the November election.
