Hey Chronicle: Character Counts, Boudin’s Competency Does Not
Taxpayers need more than what they are getting from DA
Last week, the editorial board of the Chronicle weighed in against the recall of DA Chesa Boudin in an editorial titled: “Chesa Boudin is many things. Incompetent is not one of them.” To the thousands of San Franciscans that have been victims of crime, Boudin’s competence isn’t the issue. The concern is his level of integrity and whether he is even attempting to fulfill the duties he swore under oath to uphold. Heck, there is a guy in Russia that is knowledgeable and skilled, but it is his lack of integrity that the world is rallying against.
Apart from Boudin’s track record with an absence of felony convictions, I have previously written specifically about Boudin’s lack of integrity:
How Boudin lied in public records requests,
Obtained a sweetheart real estate deal from a donor,
Used his government account to retweet negative comments from a fake Twitter account demonizing ABC’s Dion Lim,
How his office leaked sealed information to the Washington Post to disparage Dion Lim,
How he hired attorneys with economic conflicts of interest that leaned on DA employees to withhold exculpatory evidence in his unsuccessful effort to prosecute SFPD officers, and
How Judge Eric Fleming excoriated Boudin for not even trying to prosecute a case.
As predictable as their pro-Boudin endorsement, the Chronicle blacked out every one of the aforementioned subjects from their readership. Should you now trust their endorsement of Boudin?
SF Standard’s recent interview with DA Boudin is a window into his character
On April 15, 2022, the San Francisco Standard and Editor Jonathan Weber published an eye-opening interview with DA Boudin. One doesn’t have to be a professional profiler to see that Boudin’s responses were evasive, dishonest, and manipulative, which increases the apprehensions about his character.
Here are three examples:
Boudin could not support the success of diversion programs:
No one is disputing that diversion as a substitute for convictions has been Boudin’s primary focus. However, the success of Boudin’s diversion experiment was even a concern in the Chronicle’s endorsement:
Scaling up diversion is an experiment — one that we are now in the middle of. Diversion data also showed promise. One San Francisco program boasted a 96% success rate in preventing recidivism — although some criminal justice experts cautioned that such results might be cherry-picked, because diversion programs at that time were typically reserved for offenders who showed the best chances of success.
Three times in his interview, Editor Weber asked Boudin on the success of diversion programs, and three times Boudin avoided answering:
At 2:10: Do you have evidence your program (diversion) is working?
First let me thank you for inviting me……. Boudin meandered onto other subjects for 2 ½ minutes.
At 4:27 Do you have evidence your (diversion) approach is working?
We do, and I’ll get to that…….
At 4:50: Do you have data on how many people have fallen out of diversion?
Not off the top of my head. I do know that diversion programs have existed in San Francisco for over 40 years. (Again, Boudin wandered.)
Consider that Boudin could not provide any statistics to document the success of his signature program. Does he sound like a trustworthy person?
Filing Cases (FCAP)
A 3:43: Boudin bragged, I’m filing cases at a higher rate than my predecessor of the district attorneys in the bay area.
Filing, charging, taking action, and prosecuting (hereafter: “FCAP”) are ambiguous terms that mean different things to different people. To the public, it means attempting to achieve a felony conviction. But to Boudin, FCAP merely means he window shopped an SFPD police report before kicking the case. That translates to: Boudin’s office reads and window shops more police reports than other DA offices.
Boudin, and his proxies at the Chronicle, Examiner, 48 Hills, and the local Mission parrot the misleading FCAP claim as the sole achievement of Boudin’s tenure. But nowhere is there is clarification to readers on what FCAP actually means, which raises the question whether the proxies are naïve or intentionally misleading their readerships. Either answer is not good, and weakens the validity of the Chronicle’s endorsement of Boudin.
Absence of narcotics convictions:
At (11:47), Editor Jonathan Weber asked Boudin,
How many convictions do you have of drug dealers?
We have prosecuted drug sales and possession for drug sales at a higher rate than any other crime police bring us. We have filed over 1,100 cases. It’s not working.
First, Boudin again is using filing from his FCAP collection of meaningless terms intended to mislead the listener.
Second, Boudin effectively made a bait-and-switch response. He answered the question “how many convictions” with how many filings he made. Definitely a Boudin con and tantamount to: How many baskets did I make? Well, I took more shots than anyone else on the team.
Third, if you have read my previous articles, you know that through public records requests to Boudin, he has not confirmed he has ever achieved a single felony conviction for drug sales. Rather than argue that drug dealers should not spend time in jail, Boudin prefers to confuse the listener with his FCAP ruse. Is this evidence of someone who has strong principles?
Defund the police
At (12:43) Boudin said, I never weighed in on the whole debate about defund the police. I know our mayor and our chief of police supported defund the police. (Throwing others under the bus.)
Here is Boudin’s August 7, 2020, post on Twitter:
That pretty much proves Boudin was lying in his interview with the SF Standard.
Do the opposite of the Chronicle
When investing, everyone wants to do the same as the smart money. I have found that if you don’t have access to what the smart money is doing, one solution is to just do the complete opposite of the dumb money--the late adopters-- the guy that heard fourthhand a great stock pick at a cocktail party.
Choosing investments parallels making voting decisions. Taxpayers need more than they are getting from our DA. We need more return on our investment.
If you trust the Chronicle, which endorsed The Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act (Prop 47), and don’t have a problem with Boudin and Chronicle writers duping their readers with words like filing, charging, taking action, or prosecuting, or censoring Boudin shenanigans, then by all means listen to the Chronicle editors. On the other hand, if you think that character counts, you have reread some of my links (above), and you think Boudin’s responses to the SF Standard interview were shady, do the opposite of the Chronicle’s endorsement.
Lou's fan club may not be enough to VOTE Boudin OUT!
The S.F. Chringicle is simply remaining consistent in their support for failed policies. Policies who's complete failure must always be the fault of someone else, or something else as ethereal as systemic racism.
Let's pray the Dems of S.F. have had it with DA Boudin, as step one. If he gets tossed, who is the best person to replace him?
Don't you think most people's mind's are made up, whether they understand any of the details
you listed or not? I think if your article were front page Chron or Examiner most would not fight through reading all of it. IMO this subject ought to just show bullet points or in the political ad format checked off boxes;
[X] Boudin Fails to support SFPD
[X] Boudin Fails to charge offenders
[X] Boudin Fails to prosecute
[X] Boudin Fails to win convictions
[X] Boudin Fails to protect San Franciscans
[X] Boudin Fails to take any personal responsibility for his failings
[X] Boudin Failures have resulted in preventable deaths
[X] Boudin is the problem, not the solution
Outstanding research and factual documentation. Very well written!