San Francisco, CA – The Public Defender’s Office held a rally and press conference on Tuesday announcing an unprecedented trial victory—a complete acquittal last month—for a young man who was labor trafficked and coerced to sell drugs in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
Public Defender Mano Raju said this was the first time in the Bay Area and possibly 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.
“We’re also here to talk about the context of this victory. How law enforcement in San Francisco has targeted and scapegoated immigrants. This tactic has resulted in the double victimization of some of our immigrant clients who’ve been arrested for drug related offenses when they themselves are the victims of a form of human trafficking called labor trafficking,” said elected San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju. “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.”
Raju explained, “This young man’s defense team put forward what’s called an affirmative defense under California law, which holds that if a person is a victim of human trafficking and they commit a crime while being coerced under threat of harm, they should be found not guilty of those crimes.”
Raju added that there have been seven of these human trafficking trials over the last two years in San Francisco.
“To our knowledge, this is the first acquittal based on a human trafficking defense in the Bay Area and likely this is the first in the entire state, and we have to keep in mind that these defenses unfortunately aren’t put forward as often as they should be because most of the times the people charged are afraid to put forward that defense,” he said.
He concluded, “We demand that the District Attorney’s office takes seriously labor trafficking claims and that they treat labor trafficking survivors the same way they’ve evolved to treat sex trafficking survivors. We demand that the District Attorney’s office stop colluding with the feds to keep state court juries from hearing our client’s stories, from hearing their truths and comply with our local and state sanctuary laws.
“And we demand that the District Attorney’s office actually do their job to protect victims and stop offering coercive plea deals that are putting our clients in harm’s way with ice detention and deportation.”
Explaining that she is a proud immigrant, “that came here with a dream, a dream to help other people, to help other immigrants, and then I started seeing the human tragedy that was happening here in San Francisco,” said Deputy Public Defender Elizabeth Camacho.
She noted, “(W)here immigrants who are victims of forced slavery, coercion threats were being treated as scapegoats instead of victims and survivors, I knew that we had to make their voices heard, that the law would not allow that, that our office would not permit that, somehow we had to listen to them to find a way for them to express what was happening, to give them a voice and to not continue to silence them”
Deputy Public Defender Kathleen Natividad defended the man that they are not naming due to concerns about future actions.
She said, “I want to tell all of you about our client, a 27-year-old young man who survived a harrowing journey from Honduras into the United States and was coerced, who was forced to sell drugs on our streets by the cartels. Our client was born into poverty in a small pueblo, a small little town in Honduras where his family all still lives.”
She explained he was so desperate that, after dropping out of school at the age 8 to work to support his family, he followed an older man to the US.
His was a harrowing journey to the US.
“Our client survived this journey. Our client witnessed. Many people die, many people lose limbs and many people become victims of violent crime during this journey. When he got to the United States, he was forced to sell drugs. He was arrested various times and he did not tell the police, and that is because he did not trust the police,” she explained.
She continued, “So he took those arrests, he took his punishments over and over only to continue being trafficked by the cartels, continue being forced to sell drugs.”
They played an audio of him, “I want to thank the judge for listening to my story and allowing me to testify. I also want to sincerely thank the jury members who listened to what I had to say and listened when I asked them to help me and they helped me.”
He added, “I hope that after today the San Francisco prosecutor listens to my plea and signs the paper so I can get a visa and finally be free and find a way to work, to live freely and to fulfill the dream of helping my family.”
“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 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. “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.”
“Our client is a real human being who is vulnerable,” said Natividad. “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.”
In the last two years, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office has used this affirmative defense in seven trials on behalf of clients who have been labor trafficked and 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. “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. “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.”
Speakers also demanded that the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office change the way it treats survivors of labor trafficking. Their demands are:
- That the DA’s office sign a T-Visa or U-visa crime victim certification for the acquitted client. (A T-Visa allows a person to stay in the U.S. if they were the victim of human trafficking; A U-Visa allows a person to stay if they have been the victim of certain crimes.)
- That the DA’s office treat labor trafficking survivors the same way it treats sex trafficking survivors.
- That the DA’s office stop colluding with federal prosecutors to keep state court juries from hearing our clients’ stories and to evade Sanctuary Law.
- That 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.
