LAPPL NEWS WATCH FOR WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

LA's Three Strikes Legal Battle May Impact SF Rules

 

San Francisco’s controversial sentencing policies may end up getting caught in an unusual legal battle that pits Los Angeles county prosecutors against their new boss – former SF District Attorney George Gascon – over his newly adopted policies against pursuing cases under the state’s Three Strikes law. 

 

That battle down south comes as San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is under fire for the release of a parolee now blamed for the hit and run deaths of two pedestrians on New Year’s Eve. The man had faced a possible life term, but the Three Strikes allegations were dropped last year after Boudin deemed such enhancements as unfairly promoting racial disparities. 

 

A similar “Three Strikes” policy imposed just last month in Los Angeles, meanwhile, prompted prosecutors there to go to court last week to sue their own boss. They allege it is illegal for newly elected prosecutor George Gascon to issue what they consider a blanket rule that bars them from seeking sentencing enhancements under the Three Strikes law.

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San Francisco DA Under Fire After Pedestrians Killed

 

Chesa Boudin took office as district attorney in San Francisco a year ago, part of a politically progressive wave of prosecutors committed to seeking restorative justice over mass incarceration. But now the former deputy public defender and son of one-time Weathermen radicals is under fire for the deaths of two pedestrians on New Year’s Eve who were run down in an intersection by a 45-year-old parolee, fueling criticism in a city plagued by rampant drug dealing and a surge in break-ins. 

 

Distraught and fed-up residents have taken to social media to highlight burglaries and attempted home invasions in their communities. Police say Troy McAlister was intoxicated when he ran a red light in a stolen car, killing Elizabeth Platt, 60, and Hanako Abe, 27. 

 

The San Francisco police officers union says a plea agreement for a robbery set McAlister free on parole in April, and that Boudin’s office failed to prosecute McAlister’s multiple arrests in the aftermath, including one Dec. 20 for alleged car theft. 

 

McAlister has been incarcerated in state prisons numerous times, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terri Hardy said by email. In April 2020, he was sentenced in San Francisco County to five years for second-degree robbery and was released on parole for time served.

 

Boudin has defended his office’s choices, saying that charging McAlister with a new, nonviolent crime would not have necessarily put the serial offender behind bars. He said multiple law enforcement agencies could also have acted differently to avoid “a terrible and devastating tragedy” and vowed to make “concrete changes” in his office.

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California Supreme Court Takes A Step Toward Abolishing Cash Bail At Hearing

 

Two months after California voters refused to abolish cash bail, the state Supreme Court appeared ready Tuesday to take a step toward abolition by requiring pretrial release without bail unless a defendant was likely to commit violent acts or flee. Justices expressed varying viewpoints hearing the case of a San Francisco man who was held in jail for a year on a robbery charge because he was unable to afford $350,000 bail, but they seemed to agree that any future bail system should not discriminate based on a defendant’s financial status. 

 

Until recently, California law allowed judges to set bail based on the seriousness of the charges and the defendant’s record, a system that kept hundreds of thousands of low-income defendants in jail awaiting trial while those who could afford bail were released. 

 

Proposition 25, a ballot measure to eliminate cash bail and allow judges to decide whether defendants should be freed without bail, was rejected by 55% of the voters on Nov. 3. But in August, the state Supreme Court took the unusual step of requiring judges in all 58 counties to follow standards set by an appellate court in the San Francisco case and set bail only in amounts a defendant could afford to pay, at least while the case is pending before the high court.