SF DA Brooke Jenkins took to Twitter to name and shame an SF judge who did not hand down the sentence that she wanted, though this has brought death threats against judges in the past, and maybe her office could have just argued their case better.
Mission Local has the story today of a 39-year-old man named Willie Johnson, who stole four packs of toilet paper from the Noe Valley Walgreens (apparently a total of four, between an unknown number of multiple visits where he stole them), and was convicted for misdemeanor theft, and faces up to a year in jail once he’s sentenced. A year in jail may sound harsh for four packs of toilet paper, whose maximum value would have been under $100, that is, even if they were 16-packs.
But Johnson had two previous misdemeanor theft charges, plus a first-degree robbery felony charge, so under the newly approved Prop 36, he was eligible to be charged with a felony and sentenced to three years in prison for the toilet paper thefts.
2/ This week a felony case for petty theft with two or more prior convictions (CRI 25001678) was reduced to a misdemeanor by Judge Gerardo Sandoval at arraignment over our objections and against the clear will of the voters.
— Brooke Jenkins 謝安宜 (@BrookeJenkinsSF) January 31, 2025
And boy was SF DA Brooke Jenkins not happy about this. “This week a felony case for petty theft with two or more prior convictions (CRI 25001678) was reduced to a misdemeanor by Judge Gerardo Sandoval at arraignment over our objections and against the clear will of the voters,” Jenkins tweeted, adding in a follow-up that “This behavior epitomizes the broken laissez-faire culture at the Hall of Justice that erodes the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system and emboldens criminals.”
Yes, she named the judge, even though her previous public attacks against judges have brought death threats against those judges, which drew a rebuke last March from the SF Bar Association. And the Chronicle reports that the legal community is up in arms over Jenkins’s public attacks against judges, when in fact, maybe her office just isn't doing the best job of prosecuting these cases.
It’s not unusual for lawyers to criticize judges who rule against them.
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) February 11, 2025
But S.F. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has raised concerns in the legal community with her wide-ranging criticisms of the city’s judiciary.https://t.co/x508mUDogK
And the judges are legally not allowed to respond to the attacks, as that would violate their code of conduct.
“It’s like having a fistfight with someone’s hands tied behind their back,” retired SF judge Ellen Chaitin told the Chronicle. “Never before has a San Francisco district attorney engaged in that kind of cheap political attacks.”
Jenkins has a long history of blaming judges for sentences that were not to her satisfaction, rather than her assistant DAs who failed to get the sentence that her office preferred. This is not an argument we’ve heard from previous DAs, including the 'tough-on-crime' Suzy Loftus.
And while the judge in the toilet paper case could have charged the defendant with a felony, Prop 36 did not require him to. Prop 36 merely gives judges the either-or option of charging those cases as felonies or misdemeanors.
So it’s disingenuous to say that the judge went “against the clear will of the voters,” as Prop 36 does not specifically require felony charges. Just about as disingenuous as saying you're a “volunteer” for the Recall Chesa Boudin campaign, when the nonprofit behind that campaign is paying you $153,000.
Image: @BrookeJenkinsSF via Twitter
