Former San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin takes new job, won't run for office

BERKELEY — San Francisco's polarizing former top prosecutor announced Wednesday he will not run for his old job, choosing instead to serve as executive director of a new criminal law research and advocacy center at University of California, Berkeley's law school.

Chesa Boudin was ousted as district attorney last year in a divisive recall election, driven by critics who said his progressive attitude toward crime was making the city less safe. He was replaced by Brooke Jenkins, who promised more consequences for criminal defendants.

Boudin is the son of leftist radicals who spent decades in prison for their role in a botched 1981 heist of a Brink's armored truck. Kathy Boudin died last year, soon after David Gilbert was granted parole.

Boudin said in an op-ed published in the San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday that his new job “is still consistent with my lifelong commitment to fixing the criminal legal system, ending mass incarceration, and innovating data-driven solutions to public safety challenges.”

He said the Criminal Law & Justice Center will evaluate the outcomes of specific policies and communicate to the public just what is needed to make communities safe.