“I’m not sure you’d want to shop for a better judge than Justice Kline.”

Lee Heidhues 10.26.2022

Brooke Jenkins needs only to con San Francisco voters for another 13 days.

Brooke Jenkins continues to show herself to be totally in over her head, totally unqualified, and little more than a political creature at the service of Mayor London Breed, the San Francisco Police Department and the the Police Officers Association (POA).

Her latest bizarre stunt of firing one of the most respected jurists in California, Tony Kline, from his role in the Juvenile Court lays bare Jenkins total lack of qualification to be District Attorney. Jenkins said “sometimes we have to make very tough strategic decisions based on the need to promote more public safety.”

How does firing a widely respected jurist “promote more public safety”?

Jenkins wants the voters to forget that she called herself a “Volunteer” as she worked to to destroy her former boss Chesa Boudin. Only coming clean after Chesa was politically lynched. After the Coup d’etat telling the public she actually was paid over $153,000 in “Volunteer” wages by the MAGA reactionaries who ousted the Progressive DA.

Jenkins is now under investigation by the San Francisco Ethics Commission as it looks into her 153K “Volunteer” wages.

Jenkins is also the subject of a Complaint filed with the State Bar for her prosecutorial misconduct.

Bob Egelko is one of the most respected legal affairs writers in the country. What he has to say must be taken seriously.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 10.26.2022 – Bob Egelko

Tony Kline is “one of the most thoughtful people we’ve had in the California courts, ever,” said Justice Stuart Pollak, a 20-year veteran of the First District court.

He said the state law allowing each side to challenge a trial judge “encourages judge-shopping,” but added, “I’m not sure you’d want to shop for a better judge than Justice Kline.”

Associate Justice Tony Kline’s removal from newly filed juvenile cases by interim DA Brooke Jenkins leaves only two other judges to handle the cases, and, according to local court observers, is the first “blanket challenge” by San Francisco prosecutors to any judge in recent years.

She initially refused to discuss her challenge to Appellate Justice Tony Kline, but confirmed her action Thursday October 20 in a short-lived debate at San Francisco State University.

Asked by the moderator why she had removed Kline, Jenkins refused to discuss individual cases or past rulings by the judge. But as reported by Mission Local, and confirmed by her office, Jenkins then said, “sometimes we have to make very tough strategic decisions based on the need to promote more public safety.”

Lawyers who have defended juveniles in Kline’s current court say he rules for the prosecution just as often as for the defense and has shown no sign of bias. And Kline is drawing strong support from his former colleagues on the appeals court.

“He’s very thoughtful and he tries to do the right thing in every case,” said Justice Alison Tucher, who served alongside Kline for five years. “He’s interested in a wide range of ideas and he thinks about things deeply.”

Young protesters in the audience brought the proceedings to a halt by repeatedly shouting the names of people killed by San Francisco police. Their leaders said afterward they were angry about Jenkins’ apparent lack of urgency in prosecuting police and her stated willingness to charge 16- and 17-year-olds as adults for serious crimes, reversing policies of Chesa Boudin, in whose office she had worked.

John Hamasaki and Joe Alioto Veronese both told The Chronicle this week that Brooke Jenkins’ removal of Kline was wrong and her criticism of him was unfair.

As the protests continued, Jenkins walked off the the stage, leaving her opponents, John Hamasaki, Joe Alioto Veronese and Maurice Chenier, to debate without her.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Citing-public-safety-S-F-D-A-is-still-17536945.php