District Attorney

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has often described walking through steel gates to visit his parents in prison as a kid. Now a correctional officer who works at the prison in New York State where his father is in custody has tested positive for COVID-19.

Chesa Boudin was sworn in as San Francisco’s new district attorney yesterday. Boudin narrowly won the position against interim District Attorney Suzy Loftus, in a race that took days to resolve.

On tonight's show host Joseph Pace will examine the flaws in our legal system that have contributed to the mass incarceration of Americans, particularly impoverished Americans. 

The discussion will include San Mateo DA Steve Wagstaffe and lawyer Alec Karakatsanis, author of Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System, whose ideas often challenge our assumptions about justice, poverty, and opportunity in our country. 

Guests:

Steve Wagstaffe, District Attorney of San Mateo County. 

San Francisco’s next top cop, Chesa Boudin, made his experience as a public defender and the son of incarcerated radicals the center of his campaign. And he told voters he would end racial disparities in the city’s criminal justice system.

Nancy Tung is a longtime prosecutor running to be San Francisco’s next district attorney. She says San Francisco prosecutors need a leader who can make hard choices that aren’t necessarily politically popular. 

The race for San Francisco’s District Attorney is proving to be one of the city’s most surprising races in recent memory. A few days before early voting opened this week, Mayor Breed appointed Suzy Loftus as interim DA.

Chesa Boudin is running to be San Francisco’s next District Attorney. Both of his parents were arrested when he was just fourteen months old. That began a lifetime of involvement in the justice system — first as a young person visiting his parents in prison, then as a public defender and advocate for reform. 

Early voters in the San Francisco headed to the polls today. They’ll have the chance to choose the city’s next district attorney. 

The State Attorney General recently came to Marin County to announce the first settlement to desegregate a California school in five decades. Meanwhile, 65 years after Brown v. Board of Education, segregation is on the rise nationwide.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón has had a rapid rise in San Francisco politics. Gascón came into the city as Chief of Police, appointed by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom in August, 2009. After less than a year and a half, he was sworn in as the city’s first Latino D.A., replacing Kamala Harris. In 2011, voters elected him to the position.