Former DA Chesa Boudin accepted $250,000 gift from USF School of Law Racial Justice Clinic

Board of Supervisors set to "retroactively" authorize funds secured by clinic's director Lara Bazelon, appointed by Boudin to chair his Innocence Commission

Lara Bazelon (right) director of University of San Francisco Law School’s Racial Justice Clinic, was named chair of Chesa Boudin’s San Francisco Innocence Commission, She secured a $250,000 gift to hire USF attorneys for the project, which Boudin accepted without city approval.(Photo: USF website).

In September of 2020, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin launched the San Francisco Innocence Commission, charged with reviewing potential wrongful conviction cases in conjunction with the Post-Conviction Unit. If the Commission votes by a majority to vacate a conviction, members prepare a findings of fact and conclusions of law memorandum that serves as the basis to seek to vacate. The District Attorney retains the final decision-making power on each case, but, Boudin said in his press release, he would “afford great weight to the determination of the Commission.”

Boudin chose Professor Lara Bazelon, director of University of San Francisco Law School’s Racial Justice Clinic, to lead his Innocence Commission. In July of 2021, the University of San Francisco Racial Justice Clinic (RJC) received a gift of $125,000 from the Vital Projects Fund for a staff attorney, employed by USF School of Law, to work on section 1170 cases (felony sentencing statute) in cooperation with the SFDA Post-Conviction Unit. The funds, secured by Bazelon, were used in November 2021 to pay for one year of full-time work for one of her RJC attorneys.

The duties of Bazelon’s staff attorney were to (1) screen, review, and evaluate cases eligible for relief under PC 1170; (2) train and supervise clinic students to screen and review an even greater volume of eligible cases; and (3) appear in court as a deputized assistant district attorney to litigate section 1170 cases.”

Boudin accepted the gift, with a total estimated value of $250,000, without city approval. In November of 2021 the RJC attorney began assisting the Office of the District Attorney’s Sentencing Review Unit and Wrongful Conviction Unit, and the Innocence Commission, led by Bazelon.

On March 25, 2022, Bazelon and Boudin both sent letters acknowledging the gift and proposed retroactive acceptance. “Attached please find a copy of the proposed Resolution for the Board of Supervisors approval, which retroactively authorizes the Office of the District Attorney to accept and expend an in-kind gift estimated at $250,000 from the University of San Francisco School of Law’s Racial Justice Clinic to continue to fund two staff attorney positions to support the RJC’s work assisting the Office of the District Attorney’s Sentencing Review Conviction Unit and Wrongful Conviction Unit, which is supported by an all-volunteer Innocence Commission from November 2021 through November 2022,” Bazelon wrote to Eugene Clendinen, Chief of Administration and Finance for Boudin (clearly Bazelon anticipated Boudin would still be in office as of the funding’s end date).

That same day, Boudin sent a letter to Board of Supervisors clerk Angela Calvillo and attached a copy of the “proposed Resolution for the Board of Supervisors approval,” explaining the retroactive request was “due to the receipt of the in-kind gift letters in 2022 which is after the funding start date of November 2021.”

On June 29, 2022, Board of Supervisors president Shamann Walton sent a memo to Calvillo granting the request to “transfer the matter from the Budget & Finance Committee to the Government Audit & Oversight Committee due to the impacted schedule of the Budget & Finance Committee.” He copied Supervisor Dean Preston, chair of the Government Audit & Oversight, along with Deputy City Attorney Anne Pearson and Tom Paulino in Mayor London Breed’s office.

If Bazelon’s name sounds familiar, she debated now-District Attorney Brooke Jenkins as Boudin’s surrogate prior to Boudin’s recall in June of 2022. She also narrated the infamous campaign video entitled “Do You Know Your Rights? Police Interaction and the Fourth Amendment” in which Boudin belligerently challenges police officers making an arrest in the Tenderloin. The video, available here, was filmed by Boudin on his cellphone when he was a deputy public defender. The slickly produced campaign version periodically breaks for Bazelon, sitting in her office surrounded by law books, to insert commentary (“Chesa does not have to hand over his ID or his cell phone…”) and to inform the viewers that Boudin is running to be the city’s next district attorney.

While Bazelon may have been volunteering her time, the longstanding friendship and working relationship between her and Boudin should have been questioned, particularly considering the cases her commission presented would ultimately be decided by Boudin. To believe a $250,000 “gift” couldn’t influence decision-making seems naive.

Despite the inherent conflicts of interest and the appearance of Bazelon buying influence with a $250,000 in-kind donation, the Board of Supervisors is set to approve acceptance of the money retroactively on Tuesday, Sept. 6, which just happens to fall after the long Labor Day weekend.

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