Vanguard News Desk Editor
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Law enforcement has “scapegoated immigrants for the tragic overdose crisis in our city (that) has resulted in the double victimization of many of our clients who are charged with drug-related offenses,” said San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju this week after his office announced the acquittal of a labor-trafficked man coerced to sell drugs.
San Francisco PD said the “complete acquittal last month” was the first time in the Bay Area and maybe the state “where a jury has fully acquitted someone of drug-related charges because the person was labor trafficked and their life and loved ones were threatened with harm.
“These are individuals whom a jury of impartial San Franciscans has now found to be not guilty of offenses they committed, and who deserve support and compassion, not cages,” add Raju.
At a news conference Tuesday, speakers called for “evidence-based, public health solutions to the substance use and overdose crisis in San Francisco—proven solutions such as overdose prevention centers, mental health and substance use treatment, stable housing, and job training and opportunities.”
The public defender said the group demands “the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office change the way it treats survivors of labor trafficking,” and provide a T-Visa or U-visa crime victim certification for the acquitted client to allow them to remain in the U.S. if they are victims of human trafficking.
The speakers also asked the DA to “treat labor trafficking survivors the same way it treats sex trafficking survivors…stop colluding with federal prosecutors to keep state court juries from hearing clients’ stories and to evade Sanctuary Law.”
The PD Office also demanded DA Brooke Jenkins “follow her oath to protect victims of crime and stop offering coercive plea deals that leave our clients open to ICE detention and deportation.”
“With this verdict of not guilty, the jury sent a resounding message to the DA that they will not allow the criminalization of labor trafficking victims,” said Deputy Public Defender Elizabeth Camacho. “They are demanding that the DA do her job and protect the people, including these people who are victims.”
“Unfortunately we live in a reality where labor trafficking is still not well known or recognized,” said Lindsey Marum, a senior staff attorney at Justice at Last, a Bay Area law firm that serves people who have survived trafficking.
Marum added, “We are heartened by the jury’s validation of the survivor’s experience as a victim of labor trafficking through their verdict of ‘not guilty.’ We are encouraged and applaud the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office for helping survivors of sex and labor trafficking break free of a vicious cycle of injustice where they are criminalized for the actions they were forced to take.”
According to the SF public defenders, the man, 27, was forced to leave school and work to help provide for his family. At 17, the teen went to the U.S. for a “well-paying” construction job, but when he got to the U.S. he was told he owned a coyote around $10,000.
“Our client is a real human being who is vulnerable,” said Deputy Public Defender Kathleen Natividad, the lead defense attorney on the case. “He has been taken advantage of. Several of the jurors in this case were so moved by his testimony that they came here today to support him and to help people understand that human trafficking is real.”
The public defender client, said Natividad, tried to “work off the debt, was moved to different cities by the cartel, and frequently threatened, often via text, that the cartel knew exactly who his family members were and where they lived. When he took legitimate jobs, members of the cartel would threaten him and tell him he was not paying down his debt fast enough.”
The defense team said the youth was arrested multiple times in SF, but did not tell police he had been trafficked from Honduras.
At trial the young man used an “affirmative defense” under California Penal Code §236.23, which, said the defense, “holds that a person charged with a criminal offense is not guilty if they were coerced into committing the offense as a result of being a victim of human trafficking.”
The San Francisco Public Defender’s Office said it has used this affirmative defense in seven trials of labor-trafficked accused, threatened with harm from cartels if they do not sell drugs. “Two juries have found our clients guilty, four juries have deadlocked and hung, and now, a jury has fully acquitted a client.”
“My Not Guilty vote was based on a feeling developed through the course of the trial … that ‘a job’ at which your bosses carry guns and have threatened to kill your family is not one you can easily quit,” said Al McKee, one of the jurors in the client’s trial. “I am comfortable that our verdict achieves justice for [the client], who I firmly believe was a victim.”
“Study after study has shown that cities with larger immigration populations are safer, and that local collusion with ICE undercuts public safety,” said Deputy Public Defender Francisco Ugarte, who heads the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office Immigration Unit.
Ugarte added, “And yet law enforcement has doubled down on targeting and scapegoating immigrants. The DA’s office even has a designated attorney who refers local cases to federal court. Federal agents have several times seized young mothers in the hallways of our local court as part of this scheme.
“San Franciscans value our Sanctuary Ordinance, which protects due process for everyone, including our immigrant neighbors. The actions of prosecutors fly in the face of these values.”
“We at Legal Services for Children have been and are working with youth who have survived perilous journeys to the U.S. to try and help their families,” said Fernando Antunez, a social worker and a member of the FREESF Coalition.
Antunez added, “And if they make it to the Bay Area they are targeted by law enforcement for profiling, surveillance and victimization. Singling out immigrants is racist and provides a very inaccurate picture of the drug trade. In fact, nearly 9 in 10 of those convicted of trafficking fentanyl are U.S. citizens driving cars and commercial vehicles through legal ports of entry, not undocumented immigrants or asylum seekers.”
“Like all of us, migrant community members want safety, stability, and an opportunity for a better life,” said Lariza Dugan Cuadra, executive director of Central American Resource Center — CARECEN of Northern California.
“Here’s how we get there: We welcome and connect people seeking refuge, we fund proven, public health solutions that break the cycle of addiction. We uphold our Sanctuary Ordinance. And as a city we uphold our commitment to protect survivors of trafficking, rather than prosecute them,” Cuadra added.
