Chesa Boudin

Chesa Boudin (, ; born August 21, 1980) is an American lawyer who served as the 29th District Attorney of San Francisco from January 8, 2020 to July 8, 2022.

He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Boudin graduated from Yale University and was a Rhodes Scholar at St Antony's College, Oxford.

Boudin was born in New York City to far-left Jewish parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, Weather Underground members who, when Boudin was only 14 months old, were both convicted of murder for their participation in the 1981 Brink's robbery in Rockland County, New York.

His mother was sentenced to 20 years to life, and his father to 75 years to life, both for the felony murders of two police officers and a security guard.

After his parents were incarcerated, Boudin was adopted and raised in Hyde Park, Chicago by fellow Weather Underground members Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Boudin reports that he did not learn to read until age nine.

Kathy Boudin was released under parole supervision in 2003, when Boudin was 23 years old.

Gilbert was released in 2021.

Boudin descends from a long left-wing lineage.

His great-grand-uncle, Louis B. Boudin, was a Marxist theoretician and author of a two-volume history of the Supreme Court's influence on American government, and his grandfather Leonard Boudin was an attorney who represented controversial clients, such as Fidel Castro and Paul Robeson.

His uncle Michael Boudin was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and his grand-uncle Isidor Feinstein Stone ("I. F. Stone") was an independent progressive journalist.

Boudin attended University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and Yale College.

In 2003 he entered St Antony's College, Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship.

At Oxford, he earned a Master of Science in forced migration in 2004.

His book, Gringo: A Coming of Age in Latin America, was released in April 2009 by Charles Scribner's Sons.

The book received mixed reviews.

After obtaining his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2011, Boudin served as a law clerk to M. Margaret McKeown on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

He earned his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2011 and began work for the San Francisco Public Defender's Office as a Liman fellow in 2012.

Before law school, Boudin traveled to Venezuela and served as a translator in the Venezuelan Presidential Palace during the administration of Hugo Chavez.

After law school, from 2011 to 2012, Boudin served as a law clerk for M. Margaret McKeown on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

He went on to work at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office as a post-doctoral fellow in 2012.

He was a 2012–2013 Liman Fellow at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, and in 2013 and 2014, he clerked for Charles Breyer on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Boudin clerked for Charles Breyer on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California from 2013 and 2014 before returning to San Francisco as a deputy public defender.

In 2015, Boudin began working full time at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office as a deputy public defender.

While there, he argued on behalf of the office's clients that California's bail system is unconstitutional, leading to the published case In re Kenneth Humphrey, in which the state's First District Court of Appeals held that judges must give consideration to a defendant's ability to pay before setting bail.

Boudin also serves on the board of the Civil Rights Corps, a national non-profit organization, and is on the board of Restore Justice, a non-profit based in California.

Boudin translated Understanding the Bolivarian Revolution: Hugo Chávez Speaks with Marta Harnecker into English, co-edited Letters from Young Activists: Today's Young Rebels Speak Out, and co-wrote The Venezuelan Revolution: 100 Questions – 100 Answers.

Elected as San Francisco district attorney in 2019, Boudin implemented some criminal justice reform policies to reduce incarceration, including bail reform and alternatives to prosecution and sentencing.

However, he was heavily criticized for mismanagement of the office and for his perceived softness on crime, and was the subject of a recall election on June 7, 2022; 55% of voters chose to remove him from office.

Brooke Jenkins, who was a leading figure and critic of Boudin in the recall election, was chosen by Mayor London Breed to succeed him as interim District Attorney.

She would go on to win a special election to complete Boudin's unexpired term.

Boudin is the first district attorney in San Francisco to be recalled, and the first district attorney in the state of California to be successfully removed from office.

Boudin was elected San Francisco district attorney in the 2019 election, defeating interim district attorney Suzy Loftus.

Boudin campaigned for the office on a decarceration platform of eliminating cash bail, establishing a unit to re-evaluate wrongful convictions, and refusing to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with raids and arrests.

The San Francisco Police Officers Association (SFPOA) and other law enforcement groups spent $650,000 in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Boudin.

Attorney General William Barr criticized Boudin and like-minded DAs, accusing them of undermining the police, letting criminals off the hook, and endangering public safety.

In an interview during the COVID-19 pandemic, Boudin questioned whether the nation "can safely continue the national system of mass incarceration. Why do we need to take people to jail for non-violent offenses if what they really need is drug treatment or mental health services?"

Boudin was sworn in as San Francisco district attorney by San Francisco mayor London Breed on January 8, 2020 at the Herbst Theatre.

Shortly afterward, Boudin restructured the management team by firing seven prosecutors.