The announcement by Sheriff Michael Hennessey that he won’t honor federal deportation holds for undocumented prisoners accused of low-level crimes is a great illustration of local control – which is the reason why we elect our sheriff and district attorney – but it is a concept that District Attorney George Gascon doesn’t seem to understand.
As the Guardian recently reported in a cover story by Sarah Phelan, Gascon ignored local control, civilian police oversight, and even standing police general orders as police chief by taking a highly deferential stance with the FBI and its domestic spying operations. Then, in a Chronicle op-ed on the death penalty last weekend, Gascon went even further in declaring himself to be merely a minion of higher government authorities.
While stating his opposition to capital punishment, Gascon said he wouldn’t rule out seeking the death penalty because he doesn’t think his own view or that of the vast majority of San Franciscans should determine his office’s actions. “I don’t believe district attorneys should be allowed to supplant the views of the state with those of their own,” he wrote.
That is a rather astounding statement that only an inexperienced prosecutor and an individual who has spent almost his entire career in the rigid hierarchies of police departments – rather than actually working as an attorney – would make.
“That’s where rookies make mistakes because they don’t have the experience to use their prosecutorial discretion,” said Sharmin Bock, a career prosecutor who works in the the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, and who is running against Gascon (who did not return our calls for comment). “The DA has discretion over charging decisions and when you pick a DA it is for their discretion.”
For example, Bock cited the Three Strikes You’re Out law, which allows prosecutors to seek a sentence of 25 years to life even for the most minor crimes when they are committed by two-time felons. If all prosecutors used that full authority in every case, California’s severely overcrowded prison system would be even worse, which is one reason why prosecutors in places like San Francisco, Alameda County, and Los Angeles use their discretion and only seek Three Strikes sentencing standards for violent felons.
Similarly, in San Francisco, former DA Kamala Harris upheld her campaign pledge to never seek the death penalty, just as her predecessor Terence Hallinan used his prosecutorial discretion in dealing with local medical marijuana dispensaries or refusing to throw the book at those who committed low-level drug crimes.
Otherwise, the DA is nothing more than an administrative position, and San Francisco is forced to endure the same prosecutorial standards and values that are promulgated by intolerant conservatives from rural counties who have loaded up the Penal Code with costly and unjust new crimes and sentencing enhancements.
Hennessey understands that San Franciscans don’t want the same harsh treatment of our immigrant neighbors that the intolerant residents of Fresno, Orange, or Placer counties might demand. That why San Francisco’s elected officials made this a sanctuary city, and it’s why Hennessey told the Examiner, “I’m just doing our best to enforce local law. That’s my job.” But if Gascon thinks it’s his job to simply be an agent of the state and federal governments, perhaps San Francisco voters should cast their ballots accordingly.