A 17-year-old boy arrested following a deadly sideshow shooting in the San Francisco’s Excelsior district last year will be prosecuted in Sacramento County, in a move that critics called an attempt by police to bypass the San Francisco District Attorney’s reform policies for juveniles.
District Attorney Chesa Boudin pledged to never charge a minor as an adult, but that’s not the case in Sacramento or most other counties. The decision to bring the charges to Sacramento could have a significant effect on the minor’s sentence if he’s convicted — a difference between a handful of years in lockup versus decades in an adult prison. Because he’s a minor, his name has not been released.
Sacramento prosecutors are petitioning a judge to have the 17-year-old’s case tried in adult court, according to officials with the county’s District Attorney’s Office. The 17-year-old suspect, was arrested on suspicion of murder, two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, assault likely to produce great bodily injury and discharging a firearm in public, police said.
Boudin said police asked prosecutors in his office whether they would prosecute the case as an adult, or whether, in the alternative, they would agree to send it to Sacramento County so prosecutors there could try him as an adult.
When someone is accused of a crime, it’s up to police to investigate and make the case for prosecutors. Prosecutors then determine whether the suspect is charged with a crime in their venue. While each case is supposed to be tried locally, there are some exceptions to the rule, creating some leeway with where police present their case.
“I made it clear, first of all, that I want to prosecute it in San Francisco — it’s where the witnesses and victims are and it’s where the crime occurred,” Boudin said. “Second of all, I promised voters that I would never prosecute a minor as an adult, and I intend to keep that promise.”
Boudin said his office didn’t hear back from police after that conversation.
“The next thing I knew, the case had been taken to Sacramento,” he said.
San Francisco police officials did not respond to questions about why the case was taken to Sacramento County prosecutors, deferring to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. In a Jan. 15 press release announcing the arrest, police said alleged there was a “nexus” between the San Francisco killings and other crimes the boy is accused of in Sacramento County.
Deputy District Attorney Rochelle Beardsley, a spokesperson for the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, said it wasn’t uncommon for counties to prosecute cases that occur in other jurisdictions.
“The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office seeks to transfer minors to adult court only when the facts and circumstances of the case, along with the prior efforts at rehabilitation, demonstrate that the minor is not fit to be dealt with under the juvenile justice system,” she said.
Over the last two years Sacramento County prosecutors filed nearly 2,500 cases in juvenile court and sought to transfer a minor to adult court in about 1% of them, Beardsley said.
The San Francisco murder stemmed from a triple shooting that erupted at a sideshow at Persia and Ocean Avenues just after midnight on Sept. 7. Cesar Corza, a 21-year-old man from Sacramento was pronounced dead at the scene, and two other victims were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.
The boy, who is from Sacramento, was already in custody there facing two counts of attempted murder and an enhancement that alleges he committed those crimes as part of a gang. Prosecutors have petitioned to prosecute the boy as an adult in those cases as well.
Beardsley said the law favors trying juvenile cases in the county where the minor resides.
It’s not uncommon for prosecutions to take place outside the county where an alleged crime occurred. A robbery ring, for example, can often hit multiple counties in a few days, so it makes sense to bundle them into one case, tried in a single jurisdiction.
But in a case like the sideshow murder, where the crime occurred entirely in San Francisco, it’s highly unusual for any jurisdiction other than San Francisco to prosecute it, Boudin said.
“San Francisco voters have been very consistent about things like treating kids as kids and not seeking the death penalty, and it’s essential that San Francisco voters be able to elect enforcement leaders that reflect their values,” Boudin said.
A wave of reform laws have overhauled California’s juvenile justice system in recent years, as public sentiment has increasingly swayed in favor rehabilitation and second chances over punishment. Supporters point to multiple studies that show how brains aren’t fully developed until a person’s mid-20s, and say teens aren’t mature enough to be held as responsible as an adult — no matter what the crime.
In 2016, the passage of Proposition 57 took away prosecutors’ power to charge a youth as an adult, with judges now required to sign off on the decision. Prosecutors in most counties will still petition judges to try serious juvenile cases in adult court.
The sideshow case is being seen as the police department’s latest swipe at a DA viewed by officers as too light on crime and too tough on cops. Critics have said Boudin’s efforts to reduce mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system have gone too far and put public safety at risk.
San Francisco Police Commissioner John Hamasaki said it was concerning that police took the juvenile case to Sacramento County prosecutors, as it creates the optics that they’re shopping around for a more like-minded District Attorney.
“When the police are saying ‘we don’t agree with the policies,’ and go to another city, that really undermines the role of the prosecutor,” he said.
It can also signal to the public that their city’s key law-enforcement departments are at odds with one another. The issue has come up in the past, Hamasaki said, with regards to police taking drug cases to federal, rather than local prosecutors, who are more likely to seek stiffer penalties.
Hamasaki said he’s raised the issue with Police Chief Bill Scott and that fellow commissioner Cindy Elias has requested a hearing on the matter.
“It just looks like they’re fighting with each other and not serving the city,” he said.
Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
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