Prosecuted as Adults

San Francisco’s DA Wants Two Kids to Be Prosecuted as Adults

Brooke Jenkins replaced Chesa Boudin after he was recalled—and has come under fire for seeking harsher penalties for teens.

Samantha Michaels

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is trying to transfer two children, both 16 years old, to adult court. The case comes just over a month before voters will decide whether to keep Jenkins in office, and marks the first time in at least several years that the city’s prosecutors have attempted to move a kid out of the juvenile system, which is supposed to be more rehabilitative than the adult one.

Jenkins may also be considering moving a third child to adult court—the 17-year-old who shot 49ers receiver Ricky Pearsall near Union Square in August. The shooting attracted national media attention. In early September, Jenkins said at a press conference that her team had not made a decision about whether to request that transfer.

The teens Jenkins’ office sought to transfer today, who I am not naming because they are minors, are accused of murder. At least one of them has a history of being abused and neglected. On Thursday at a hearing in juvenile court, Judge Roger Chan said he received the prosecutors’ motion for the transfer but did not yet make a decision. One of the teens, who is Black and wore a green T-shirt, appeared in the courtroom with his attorney, Brian Ford.

“My client does not meet the factors required to transfer to adult jurisdiction under the law,” Ford told me before the hearing. “Brooke Jenkins’ decision to seek adult treatment is emblematic of her ongoing inclination to attack the most vulnerable persons in society,” he added, alluding to her pledge to crack down on drugs, her support of homeless encampment sweeps, and her prosecution of undocumented migrants. “First she went after the addicts, then it was the homeless, then the immigrants. And now she is going after the kids.”

The other teen appeared for the hearing over Zoom. The case had been scheduled to go to trial in juvenile court next week; it is fairly unusual that prosecutors are requesting a transfer to adult court at this late stage.

“I decided to file this transfer motion because I do not believe the Juvenile Court can ensure that the minors will be rehabilitated by the time they are released from custody in no more than a few short years,” Jenkins told me in a statement.  She said she believes juvenile court is appropriate “in many cases” for kids. “Nevertheless, when I believe that the Juvenile Court is not suitable, it is my duty to seek a transfer to ensure public safety is protected and that justice is done for the victims.”

Jenkins said the teens are charged in connection to a shooting that left a 17-year-old dead outside the Powell Street Bart Station. “I will not allow us to return to the days where blind loyalty to a failed dogma reigned supreme and perpetrators were not held accountable or faced consequences for their crimes,” she told me of the case, taking a dig at her predecessor, Chesa Boudin, who campaigned on a platform of trying to reduce mass incarceration. “My office will always be a champion for justice and stand with victims of crime.”

Jenkins was appointed DA in July 2022 after the recall of Boudin, promising to take a tougher approach to crime in San Francisco. In September 2022, she announced that her office might seek to charge children as adults in certain “heinous” cases that shocked the community’s conscience, like a mass school shooting or a violent sexual assault. This announcement was a departure from Boudin’s policy, which banned the practice. Jenkins drew criticism from justice reform advocates for the change. “Putting them into adult prisons all but guarantees they will lose the opportunity to get the care that kids need,” Anne Irwin, executive director of Smart Justice California, told the San Francisco Chronicle at the time.

Advocates have pointed out that Black and Latino teens are the most likely to be charged as adults; for every white child prosecuted in adult court in California from 2010 to 2016, there were about 12 Black kids prosecuted there. Emily Goldman, who leads the juvenile unit at the public defender’s office, described Jenkins’ policy as “a step backwards that ignores scientific research” about how children’s brains are still developing until their mid-20s. “Youth accused of serious crimes often are the victims of trauma, violence, and abuse themselves, and are among those needing the most support and intervention,” she added in a statement, noting that kids serving time in adult prisons have worse mental health outcomes and are significantly more likely to face sexual or physical abuse by other prisoners or correctional staff.

San Francisco prosecutors have not tried a kid in adult court in at least several years. From 2010 to 2016, 11 youths were transferred out of San Francisco’s juvenile system to adult court: Six of them were Black, three were Latino, and none were white, according to the ACLU of Northern California.

Under California law, children ages 15 and younger cannot be transferred to adult court. In 2016, voters passed a statewide proposition that also made it harder for DAs to move 16- and 17-year-olds out of the juvenile system: Instead of directly charging them as adults, prosecutors must file a petition requesting the transfer; a judge has the final say, basing the decision on whether the kid seems capable of rehabilitation in the juvenile system, which can have custody over someone until age 25. Children convicted in adult court can be transferred from juvenile hall to an adult prison after they turn 18.

Jenkins is up for reelection in November. Her challenger, Ryan Khojasteh, is a prosecutor who specialized in juvenile cases under Boudin. He helped Boudin divert more children away from incarceration toward a restorative justice program called Make It Right, which requires kids to work with a caseworker and talk with their victims about how to make amends, often through community service. Kids who went through the program were 44 percent less likely to get arrested again compared with those who were prosecuted in a traditional way, according to a 2021 study by the nonprofit California Policy Lab.

At the hearing regarding the fate of the two teens on Thursday, Judge Chan ordered the juvenile probation department to prepare a report about the kids and their history and make a recommendation about whether to proceed with the transfer to adult court. That report will be one piece of information that Chan considers when making a decision. If the transfer is ultimately approved, defense lawyers will likely appeal, so this case could be one to watch for months.

If convicted of all counts in adult court, the kids face a possible sentence of 25 years to life in prison.