Last September, Judge Chan tore into the competency of DA Boudin’s office,
We simply cannot have the current levels of inadvertence, disorganization, and expect there to be any confidence in what we do here collectively. Constant turnover, constant managerial reorganization, all these things, whether it’s intentional, whether it’s reckless, whether it’s excusable neglect, that’s not in front of me today. I cannot express in any certain terms my disapproval of the manner in which the Office of the District Attorney is being managed. Not to make light of the situation, but you can’t run an airline this way.
The DA’s office defended Boudin with an undocumented and unprovable apology telephone call from Judge Chan. By law, Judge Chan cannot have discussions with Boudin outside of court, nor is he allowed to speak to the media on a case. The media site 48 Hills spun an article with a headline, High Praise for Boudin From Judge Whose Words Have Been Used To Attack Him, yet the author concluded, “I reached out to Judge Chan through the court’s media office, but he hasn’t responded.” So essentially, we are left having to trust Boudin about the phone call.
Union Square Looting
After the November 2021 nationally-shown videos of Union Square looting incidents, Boudin promised he would prosecute the thieves. Not to be confused with those November incidents, in the spring of 2020, a group of young women similarly overwhelmed a Union Square Dolce & Gabbana and stole over $40,000 in merchandise.
Ladajah was arrested after the incident. A preliminary hearing was held, Ladajah was identified, and it was determined that it was probable that she committed the crime. The case was set for trial and a jury was selected.
Judge Eric Fleming’s Court February 1, 2022
Judge Fleming is the presiding judge of Department 16. He formerly was the chief trial attorney in the San Francisco DA’s office where he concentrated in homicide and gang prosecutions—all before Boudin’s tenure.
On the eve of the trial of Ladajah, assistant district attorney Mark Koo moved to dismiss the case because he just found bodycam footage that he had not provided to the defense. The bodycam footage was not of the crime being committed, but of Ladajah after she had been arrested. Thus, booking photos—or as Judge Fleming stated, even a photo taken on February 1st— would be sufficient.
Judge Fleming had Koo present him with the stills taken from the recently discovered SFPD bodycam footage and Fleming found the photos pretty much undiscernible, immaterial, and thus not exculpatory.
Here are Judge Fleming’s comments from the transcript:
She’s here. She has a booking photo. I don’t understand why you need the body-worn camera footage still. Are you telling me that the body-worn camera footage is….. were you going to put that side to side and say, look, it’s an exact match?
Looking at a photo: I can’t really make out the person. Regarding another photo: You can’t see anything in this side profile. There is nothing—you can barely see it. I can barely see her nose. I can’t see her eyes. I can barely see her lip. You were going to compare her side profile to what?
I am just going to be very clear about this because this is a problem that is happening in the City and County of San Francisco. There is…the business district has been really upset with individuals going in and taking things brazenly like this with no regards for anyone, and it’s more like a coup of taking over a shop. You finally have someone you are going to prosecute for this, and now you are saying because the court has excluded body-worn camera footage still pictures you are unable to do that?
(Note how Judge Fleming refers to “prosecution” as pursuing a conviction, whereas Boudin misleads the public with “prosecution” meaning he merely pondered a case.)
Public defender Sliman Nawabi lectured Judge Fleming, “I think you know that they (ADA) ethically cannot proceed.”
Judge Fleming asked Koo:
Do you ethically believe that you cannot proceed?
Koo responded, “We’ve reviewed the evidence, and we don’t believe that we would….” But Judge Fleming cut Koo off:
It's not we, Mr. Koo. Mr. DeGui in not prosecuting the case. Mr. Tal Klement is not here prosecuting the case.”
Tal Klement
Tal Klement spent 16-years in the SF Public Defender’s Office before joining the DA’s office immediately upon Boudin’s swearing in. Many SFPD investigators and employees of the DA’s office have told me Klement is Boudin’s right-hand man and ensures that cases are dismissed or plead to unreleated misdemeanors. This appears to be Judge Fleming’s acknowledgment that the former public defender Klement has an outsized influence over ADA’s laying down.
Judge Fleming’s Perspective:
Judge Fleming was forced to accept Mark Koo’s “ethical rationalization” for dumping the case. But not before making a statement equally as excoriating as Judge Chan’s on the state of Boudin’s prosecutorial vandalism.
THE COURT:
So it's a discretion from the Court. The court has discretion whether to accept the dismissal.
One, I am dealing with a case that so much body-worn camera was not discovered. However, the People were not aware of most of it that wasn't discovered and was going forward with the case. The Court cannot tell the People how to proceed with the case. The Court is going to grant the dismissal, but the Court -- I disagree that you cannot proceed. One, the only probative value you get from these pictures is a side profile of her with her hair being long. That can come into evidence. Any officer that was at the scene can say did she have long hair, at the time, like this picture? Yes. We can't see it in People's 5F, but you can see her profile. Then all you have to ask the officer is does she have long hair that goes down to the back like in the pictures at the store?
That's the only probative value you get from those profile pictures. That's it. It's called evaluating the case, understanding how to prove a case. You could have proceeded on this case ethically. That's the only probative value you get, but I am not going to force you because I would never want to be forced to proceed on a case that I don't believe I can ethically prove. But if you evaluate a case properly and understand what limited probative value those pictures have, you get in her side profile. You get in that she has long hair like at the Dolce and Gabbana store. That's all you get from those pictures. You have everything else. You have her car. You have her boots that she was wearing. You have consciousness of guilt. You had evidence that you could have proven this case beyond a reasonable doubt.
It's your office's inability to provide discovery like is needed to be provided. This is a rampant problem that's happening in the financial district. Every juror has come in here and seen something like this on the news. Now, the District Attorney's office marches in, tries to prove a case, has not discovered all the evidence to the defense and then can't even properly evaluate the case and realize that they still could have proceeded beyond a reasonable doubt. There is plenty of evidence here that the jury could have found her guilty.
Case dismissed.
What are promises worth anyway? Well - if you are a person of high integrity, then they are like gold, because you can always count on them no matter what. Then again, if you happen to be a
person who only keeps their promises when its convenient for them, or when they score whatever points they want out of the deal, then you are dealing with a scorpion or a snake. That's not what most people used to want from a DA. Now I'm not in a position to say how good our past DA's were prior to someone named Harris, but I'm pretty sure its all gone downhill since then.
Maybe DA Boudin and DA Gascon can have a joint RE-CALL party, and both be thrown out of the offices that neither of them ever deserved to be voted into? It would be even better if somehow VP Harris could get thrown out as well, and they could all party together over not being appreciated.
That judge Chan has plenty of experience. It seemed to me the most important comments were the first and last paragraphs of this store. The rest of it was not as clear, and maybe not needed to show the level of incompetence that was frustrating the judge. Yet DA Boudin has succeeded in convincing many of his loyal voters that he is doing a bang up great job in the face of a tremendous lack of support and resistance from SFPD. See the Bros. Grimm for more fairy tales.