San Quentin News

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New CA laws may erase pot convictions

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If other counties follow San Francisco’s lead, district attorneys’ offices across the state can erase pot convictions under California’s new legal marijuana laws.

“Our vision is to help government clear all eligible criminal records starting with convictions under Prop. 64,” said Jennifer Pahlka, executive director of Code for America, a non-profit with the goal of making government more efficient, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

The November 2016 passage of Proposition 64 prompted San Francisco’s District Attorney (DA) to announce in January that his office would dismiss and seal more than 3,000 misdemeanor marijuana convictions dating back to 1975. As of May, the DA has only been able to prepare 962 motions to dismiss, with the courts granting 428 of these according to the Chronicle.

Dealing with the city’s 4,940 felony marijuana convictions, however, is more difficult. District Attorney George Gascón announced a partnership with Code for America to use a computer algorithm to identify which felonies the courts can reclassify.

“A lot of what we do is antiquated….We’re very excited to partner with Code for America,” said Gascón at the press conference. By using this new algorithm, the DA’s office will not have to use attorneys to pull the file and review each case.

In contrast, it costs Contra Costa Public Defender’s Office over $400,000 per year to clear about 1,100 convictions in 2016, according to Safe and Sound a report by Californians for Safety and Justice.

“We heard from prosecutors around the state…(they) don’t have the resources” to review, reduce or seal decades of marijuana convictions, said Gascón. With this algorithm, that argument goes away.

Gascón said he hopes their work will serve as a template that other jurisdictions can use to review past cases in states where marijuana is now legal, reports the Chronicle.

Criminal justice reform advocates have long complained that marijuana convictions dis- proportionately affect the poor and people of color. In San Francisco, even with similar use patterns, Blacks were more than four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as Whites according to a 2013 American Civil Liberties Union study.

Marijuana convictions can be erased

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If other counties follow San Francisco’s lead, district attorneys’ offices across the state can erase pot convictions under California’s new legal marijuana laws.

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“Our vision is to help government clear all eligible criminal records starting with convictions under Prop. 64,” said Jennifer Pahlka, executive director of Code for America, a non-profit with the goal of making government more efficient, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
The November 2016 passage of Proposition 64 prompted San Francisco’s District Attorney to announce in January that his office would dismiss and seal more than 3,000 misdemeanor marijuana convictions dating back to 1975. As of May, the DA has only been able to prepare 962 motions to dismiss, with the courts granting 428 of these according to the Chronicle.
Dealing with the city’s 4,940 felony marijuana convictions, however, is more difficult. District Attorney George Gascón announced a partnership with Code for America to use a computer algorithm to identify which felonies the courts can reclassify.
“A lot of what we do is antiquated….We’re very excited to partner with Code for America,” said Gascón at the press conference. By using this new algorithm, the DA’s office will not have to use attorneys to pull the file and review each case.
In contrast, it costs Contra Costa Public Defender’s Office over $400,000 a year to clear about 1,100 convictions in 2016, according to Safe and Sound a report by Californians for Safety and Justice.
“We heard from prosecutors around the state…(they) don’t have the resources” to review, reduce or seal decades of marijuana convictions, said Gascón. With this algorithm, that argument goes away.
Gascón said he hopes their work will serve as a template that other jurisdictions can use to review past cases in states where marijuana is now legal, reports the Chronicle.
Criminal justice reform advocates have long complained that marijuana convictions disproportionately affect the poor and people of color. In San Francisco, even with similar use patterns, Blacks were more than four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as Whites according to as 2013 American Civil Liberties Union study.

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San Francisco DA Gascόn stands apart from law enforcement to endorse bill

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Warden Kevin R .Chappell, D.A. George Gascón accompanied by
the S.Q. News staff and others on the Lower Yard

Former Los Angeles Assistant Police Chief and current San Francisco District Attorney George Gascόn announced his support for a new bill in the California Assembly that would change a necessary force standard for police shootings under state law—and was the only representative of California law enforcement to do so, according to Southern California radio station KPCC.

Under the proposed bill, introduced by Senator Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) and Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego),  prosecutors could question officers involved in shootings about their decision-making process, whether they tried to de-escalate the situation, or if their actions contributed to the incident in any negative way. Current law limits these questions to only a few seconds before or after any use of force.

The Los Angles Police Department (LAPD) doled out almost $81 million in the last fiscal year to settle lawsuits, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Gascόn told KPCC the bill would “move policing in California into the 21st century” and called the present standard “absurd.”

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascόn

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascόn

“I think that as the community feels that officers are less likely to use force, people are going to be more receptive to cooperation and submitting to police direction,” he said.

Public support for such reform may have been sparked by the March 2018 police killing of Stephon Clark, an unarmed 22-year-old Black man, in Sacramento, the state capital.

“The rules for governing when police can use force are not working. Too many people are being killed by police. Too many are unarmed,” ACLU attorney Peter Bibring said.

The standard being proposed statewide is already in place in Los Angeles, after a five-member civilian panel that oversees the department decided a shooting in South Los Angeles was in part caused by the officer.

The panel concluded that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to make the stop in the first place, and the city settled a federal civil rights lawsuit with the family of the victim, Ezell Ford, for $1.8 million, KPCC reported.

Gascόn advocates that putting the “necessary force” standard in state law would force a domino effect, changing the relationship between civilians and officers in police departments statewide. He believes promoting de-escalation will make both parties safer.

However, Craig Lally, head of the L.A. Police Protective League, which represents the rank and file officers, disagrees.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld a three-decade old ruling that a deadly threat does not have to be real to justify the officer’s shooting, Stoltze reported. In that case, Arizona officers shot a woman who was wielding a kitchen knife on her front porch.

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“Last time I checked, the Supreme Court was the law of the land,” Lally said.

Still, Lally has not read the details of the proposal, KPCC reported.

“We look forward to talking to the bill’s authors,” Lally said.

According to USC political analyst Dan Schnur, voters were once heavily aligned with law enforcement interests; as crime declined in the 21st century, they started to view criminal justice reform more favorably. In this case, current events may be driving public support for the reform of force standards.

Particularly as unrest over Clark’s shooting continues in the state capital, the discussion is driven by current events.

“What may have changed here is there is a particularly compelling story,” added Schnur, referring to Clark’s killing.

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Arnulfo with Marisa Rodriguez, George Gascón and Advisor Steve McNarmara

Arnulfo with Marisa Rodriguez, George Gascón and Advisor Steve McNarmara


San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon’s attempt to reform law enforcement is generating an all-out battle with police officers and deputy sheriffs, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Gascon is a former career cop, who ascended to become the city’s top prosecutor. He finds himself in an ugly dispute with Police Chief Greg Suhr and the police officers’ union. This animosity stems from how he proposes to set priorities for fighting crime in the city, according to the Chronicle.
The rift escalated when Gascon lambasted the Police Officers Association early this year in a statement to a blue ribbon panel of retired judges he used to investigate corruption in the San Francisco Police Department, the story said.
Gascon described the city’s law enforcement community as “an old boys club.” These remarks upset the rank-and-file, and many cops were angry about Gascon coming in and they never have let him forget it, the story continued.
“You have to understand, if you sit in my place and you see the trajectory of all this stuff, it’s been one thing after another,” Gascon said of police criticism.

District Attorneys George Gascon and Jeff Rosen support Proposition 47


Vivian Ho, who wrote the story, said the union representatives blasted back at him, denying that there is racism in their ranks. However, they accused Gascon at a dinner in 2010 of “making racially insensitive remarks.”
John Eagan, Susan Shannon, George Gascón and Joan Lisetor

John Eagan, Susan Shannon, George Gascón and Joan Lisetor


Retired police officer Chris Breen accused Gascon of making disparaging statements, after Gascon consumed a great deal of red wine, about Black officers he worked within the Los Angeles Police Department. This caused an African-American man seated nearby to ask him to quiet down because he was offending his family. Gascon denies the allegations.
To complicate matters, the Gascon recently charged three San Francisco deputy sheriffs with staging “a fight club” for jail inmates. That prompted the deputies’ union to join its police counterpart in accusing Gascon of padding his resume for higher office, Ho wrote.
Gascon told the reporter, “If I really wanted to look at future electability, would I be pissing off every single police union in the country and certainly in this state? If you’re looking for a position in the state, you want their support.”
This confrontation has created uproar in the city’s law enforcement community. “It’s not surprising that many cops feel that they’re being painted by a broad brush,” said Tony Ribera, a former San Francisco police chief and director of the International Institute of Law Enforcement Leadership at the University of San Francisco. Others applauded Gascon’s scrutiny at a time of heightened concern over racial profiling and police brutality, according to the story.
According to Ho’s story, “A prime source of friction emerged when Gascon co-authored Proposition 47, a ballot initiative that reduced six nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors. It passed in November 2014, and supporters and opponents are increasingly debating whether it’s helping people or spurring a surge of property crime.” The police union is sponsoring radio ads attacking Gascon for his practices.
Ho revealed that Gascon faces discord in his own office where he took control of that department after never prosecuting a single case.
There are some prosecutors who opposed their boss’ support of Proposition 47. Some think it was political grandstanding at the cost of their ability to do their jobs. The story said, “Their boss’ growing police reform efforts hold the potential to further complicate their relationships with police detectives and other officers, whom they rely upon to testify in court.”
At trial, police officers must disclose information that affects an assistant district attorney’s ability to prosecute the defendant. The competency of police and prosecutors to work together day-to-day has been bruised by “a lot of generalizations about the police department that are not fair to the rank-and-file,” said Ribera.
County Public Defender Jeff Adachi said, “You have the district attorney and the (police union) arguing about racism when five years ago, they wouldn’t even acknowledge it; that’s progress.”

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