Extracting Data From the District Attorney
My group spent eight months pursuing a public records request to get case outcome data from District Attorney Chesa Boudin. After facing refusals and resistance every step of the way, we finally prevailed.
The case outcomes Boudin tried to keep hidden are now public for everyone to see. They show a decline in convictions and a rise in diversion programs since Boudin took office.
Click here to find links to all data and documents obtained in the public records request.
When residents feel unsafe, they deserve to know what kind of job San Francisco’s top prosecutor is doing. Yet District Attorney Chesa Boudin refused to release data on his case outcomes until legally forced to. This is not the way to gain public confidence and trust.
Boudin touted the thousands of cases he charged. But charges can be dismissed, diverted, or reduced. The public deserves to know the outcomes of charges — the actual convictions, sentences, and releases. Yet case outcomes were missing from Boudin’s online data dashboard.
Boudin claimed “transparency” when his data was opaque. My group Stop Crime SF filed a public records request for all of Boudin’s sentencing outcomes. We retained attorney Karl Olson, a specialist in California Public Records Act litigation with two wins at the state Supreme Court.
Refusals, resistance, and excuses
Boudin’s office initially refused to release what is supposed to be public data and then resisted doing so at every step. Boudin had lots of excuses that our attorney Olson shot down based on past cases he won when officials didn’t want to comply with public records law.
When I wrote an OpEd asking why Boudin wouldn’t release all his case outcome data, his office published a rebuttal essay that blamed the “technological and administrative challenges we face.”
Yet Boudin’s excuses disappeared when he was forced to produce the data.
Stop Crime SF threatened litigation when Boudin gave the San Francisco Chronicle some cherry picked data that he withheld from us earlier. Suddenly, everything he gave the Chronicle arrived by email at 9pm the night before Thanksgiving.
After we threatened to sue, newly appointed City Attorney David Chiu got involved. He defends local officials against lawsuits. We want to thank Chiu’s office for facilitating the release of the data from Boudin’s office and avoiding a lawsuit Boudin would have lost.
Why meaningful data matters
It would take months of back-and-forth to get the most meaningful data — the case outcomes. We posted all correspondence and data received from Boudin’s office on the Stop Crime SF website for all reporters, researchers, residents, and crime victims to see.
The Chronicle was able to write an analysis of the case outcomes to show a decline in convictions and a rise in diversion programs since Boudin took office two years ago.
San Francisco offers many different types of diversion programs and a recent study by the California Policy Lab found that half of people released from jail before trial in San Francisco were accused of a new crime while free.
Boudin eventually released some data on diversion cases to Stop Crime and the Chronicle, which reported “a large increase in diversion under Boudin.” Several high-volume diversion programs were excluded because Boudin’s office “could not provide complete, well-structured data,” the Chronicle reported.
Boudin also did not provide information on how many people who complete a diversion program reoffend. With Boudin relying more on diversion, he must provide transparent data on how the programs are working. And if there are problems, we must focus on reforming the diversion programs.
This information matters to the San Francisco residents with a long list of reasons they feel unsafe: Attacks and murders of Asian seniors, hit-and-run killings by repeat offenders, open air drug dealing resulting in a record 1,300-plus overdose deaths, and a spike in home burglaries.
It’s unfair to blame Boudin for every criminal act in San Francisco. But as Boudin faces a recall, voters need to make informed decisions about his competence and job performance. That’s why seeing the full data is so important.
What San Francisco deserves
In Chicago, progressive district attorney Kim Foxx puts all her data in the open. She lets anyone track any case from start to end with a comprehensive, transparent, and accessible online database. San Francisco deserves this, too.
Boudin’s online dashboard finally offers some of the features that his counterpart in Chicago has always provided. And Boudin has finally hired someone to help with public records compliance. But it shouldn’t take threatened legal action to get Boudin to reveal his data.
Safety and justice should go together. Justice reform is necessary. For it to work, residents must feel confident public officials are doing their job to keep everyone safe. That starts with asking officials to put all crime data in the open.
Click here to find links to all data and documents Stop Crime SF obtained in the public records request.