Bonnie Dumanis

Bonnie Michelle Dumanis (born December 16, 1951) was the District Attorney of San Diego County, California.

She received her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Western State University College of Law (now Thomas Jefferson School of Law) in 1976, and was admitted to the bar in 1977.

Her first job was as a junior typist in San Diego County while she studied law at night.

Following her admission to the State Bar of California, she served as a Deputy District Attorney from 1978 to 1990.

In 1994, she was elected to the Municipal Court where she served for four years and started the first Drug Courts in San Diego.

In 1998, she was elected to the San Diego Superior Court where she started the Domestic Violence Court program to reduce recurrences by perpetrators.

In 2002 she ran for District Attorney and defeated incumbent Paul Pfingst.

She held the office 2003 to 2017.

Dumanis is a Republican, though the office she held was officially nonpartisan.

She was the first openly gay or lesbian DA in the country.

She was the first woman and the first Jewish District Attorney in San Diego.

Dumanis grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, the daughter of Ann and Abraham "Abe" Dumanis.

Her father was a truck driver as well as a professional musician; her mother worked for a government program assisting women and children.

Dumanis received a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

She ran for re-election unopposed in 2006 and 2010.

In 2006 she campaigned for California Proposition 83 (2006), California's version of Jessica's Law, which restricts where paroled sex offenders can live and requires them to wear tracking devices.

Dumanis said her office acted based on available evidence when it charged Sommer with murder in March 2006 and tried her in January 2007.

In April 2008, a woman accused and convicted by Dumanis's office of murder, was released, after over two years of incarceration.

Cynthia Sommer was convicted of fatally poisoning her Miramar Marine husband with arsenic.

Charges were dropped on reasonable doubt after conclusions reached by toxicology experts during a review, prompted by the defense, of the evidence used for trial and conviction.

In 2008, Dumanis was inducted into the Women's Museum of California's Hall of Fame honoring her career and achievements.

In February 2009, the District Attorney's office filed charges against 33 individuals charged in a drug investigation called Endless Summer.

In a press conference for the operation, Dumanis said the investigation was to protect military housing.

After further investigation it was revealed that 14 of those arrested are medical marijuana patients who were the initial target of the investigation named Green RX.

Most of those charged were shown not to have any ties to the military, as initially claimed by Dumanis' office.

Since that time at least two of the 14 medical marijuana defendants have been acquitted by juries; jurors said the law was unclear or ambiguous.

One of those defendants was acquitted in 2009 and tried a second time in 2010 based on a different raid; he was convicted but the conviction was overturned.

In 2012, Dumanis ran for Mayor of San Diego, did not advance from the primary election, and later endorsed Carl DeMaio in the general election.

Dumanis ran to become the mayor of San Diego in 2012 and lost.

Not long after, Dumanis was accused of accepting illegal donations.

She testified in a federal court trial for José Susumo Azano Matsura, a wealthy Mexican businessman, who was charged with making $600,000 in illegal political donations.

Although it is illegal for foreign nationals to make donations to U.S. political campaigns, he donated to officials including Dumanis and Bob Filner.

In October 2013 Dumanis' office took him to trial a third time in San Diego Superior Court.

The case has been described as "a symbol of the effort by Dumanis and other prosecutors across the state to criminalize storefront medical marijuana dispensaries".

In 2013 the Log Cabin Republican Club of San Diego named her "Woman of the Year".

She faced two challengers when she ran for a fourth term in 2014, but won re-election in the June primary, getting 55% of the vote.

In January 2017 she said she would not run for a fifth term when her current term expires in 2018.

In April 2017 she announced her intention to resign her office effective July 7.

In 2018 she ran for a seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, but lost to former state Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher.

Dumanis filed an amicus curiae brief in the case D.C. v. Heller, supporting the District of Columbia's ban on keeping functional firearms in the home for self-defense, and on the possession of handguns.