Once again, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is loudly complaining about a judge’s ruling—this time after publicly criticizing a judge’s decision to release a man on pretrial supervision following narcotics charges.
In a press release issued March 31, Jenkins announced that her office had filed felony charges against 34-year-old Francis Rivas-Garay for allegedly possessing fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine with the intent to sell. But beyond listing the charges, the DA’s office used the release to question the court’s judgment.
“This individual has been arrested and charged in four separate narcotics cases in San Francisco in less than one year,” Jenkins said. “While my office has charged each of these cases and argued for his detention, a judge has continued to release him each time. This individual poses a serious public safety risk and should not be freely walking the streets while these matters remain pending.”
Jenkins’s statement, however, appears to ignore key facts and long-standing legal principles.
According to his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Tatiana Howard, “Mr. Rivas-Garay has no prior convictions and has never missed a court date. A pretrial release assessment recommended that he be released, and the judge agreed. This will allow him to keep his job while charges are pending. Just like everyone charged with a crime, Mr. Rivas-Garay is afforded the presumption of innocence.”
Legal experts and reform advocates were quick to note that California law— In re Humphrey ruling from the state Supreme Court—requires courts to prioritize non-monetary release options and uphold the presumption that a person should be released pretrial unless there is clear evidence of significant danger or flight risk.
Humphrey was designed to prevent wealth-based incarceration and to ensure that the rights of the accused are not sacrificed to political rhetoric or public fear.
Yet Jenkins’s press release did not mention Humphrey or the standards judges must follow in deciding whether to detain someone pretrial—nor the pretrial assessment.
Instead, the DA’s office emphasized the presence of multiple pending cases and implied that release equated to a failure of public safety, stating, “The court must do its part to protect our communities. We will continue to do everything we can to hold this individual accountable.”
Jenkins has previously taken heat for public statements that appeared to prejudge people before trial, and this latest case adds to a growing pattern.
Just last week, LaDoris Cordell, a retired judge, resigned from the San Francisco Innocence Commission.
Cordell’s resignation letter cited Jenkins’ “shameful and unethical” public attacks on sitting judges. She accused the District Attorney of endangering judicial independence and the safety of judges through inflammatory statements and social media posts designed to score political points.
“The place for a prosecutor to disagree with a judge’s ruling is in the courtroom, not on social media and not in the streets pandering to voters,” Cordell wrote, referencing incidents where Jenkins publicly condemned judicial decisions and even joined protests outside the courthouse that led to death threats against a judge.
In response, Jenkins took to X (formerly Twitter)—the very platform Cordell criticized—to dismiss the judge’s concerns and instead suggest Cordell was motivated by politics, not principle.
Jenkins accused Cordell of hypocrisy, questioned her support for judicial transparency, and claimed Cordell’s resignation reflected her allegiance to former DA Chesa Boudin. Jenkins even posted a photo of a Chesa Boudin campaign rally to drive home the point.
“Judicial independence is the hallmark of a democracy,” Cordell wrote.
