The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office is securing convictions and sending more violent and serious offenders to prison. Thirty eight percent more violent and serious offenders were sent to prison in 2004 and 2005 than in 2003. Our prosecutors secured convictions in 79% of felony trials in 2004, compared to 63% in 2003.
Gun Crime
One of the most important ways to reduce homicides is to crack down on guns. In 2001 and 2002, 60% of homicides were committed with guns. In 2003, that number rose to 70%. In 2005, around 85% of San Francisco’s homicides were committed with guns.
Faced with such grim statistics, the District Attorney’s Office is placing a high priority on getting guns off the streets of San Francisco with a specialized team of prosecutors and a tough new charging and sentencing policy. The Office also worked with the courts to increase bail amounts for gun possession and has created a gun specialist team of highly experienced, aggressive trial lawyers.
As a result, more offenders are being convicted of gun crime and sent to prison for longer periods of time. Misdemeanor gun offenders used to spend an average of ten days or less in custody for illegal gun possession. Since implementing the policy, however, we have been able to obtain sentences of as much as 90 days. In 2005, the Office nearly doubled the conviction rate on felony gun cases that went to trial, from 43% in 2003 to 84% in 2004 and 2005. We have also taken 35% more gun cases to trial since January 2004.
Juvenile gun crime is also a high priority. With the help of the US Attorney, District Attorney Harris recently secured the release of $400,000 in federal funding that is being used to prosecute juvenile gun offenders as well as adults who furnish juveniles with guns.
Improving the Homicide Unit
When she took office in January 2004, DA Harris inherited a backlog of 74 homicide cases—some more than four years old. Each of these cases represented justice delayed for not only the victim’s family but for the entire community. At the same time, San Francisco taxpayers were bearing a financial burden ($35,000 per inmate per year) to house these defendants in our local jail while they awaited trial or sentencing to state prison. In the past two years, the District Attorney’s Office has significantly reduced the homicide backlog, cutting it by nearly half.
DA Harris also enhanced the staffing of the Homicide Unit, increasing the number of prosecutors and investigators. To ensure coordinated investigation and communication with the SFPD Homicide Unit, a homicide prosecutor and investigator have been placed on 24-hour call.
As a result, the Unit’s prosecutors are securing more convictions at trial. In 2005, prosecutors secured convictions in a number of high profile cases, including a conviction in what is believed to be one of the oldest cold hit cases in the country. In another recent case, in December 2005, a man who killed his girlfriend, then set her on fire, was sentenced to 23 years to life in prison—the maximum under the law for the crimes.
Under the leadership of DA Harris, in 2005 the Office has placed an increased emphasis on reaching out to victims of violent crime and rebuilding the public’s trust in the criminal justice process. Our Office offers a wide range of services and support for every victim of violent crime, such as crisis intervention, access to grief and trauma counseling, crime scene clean up, emergency shelter, court accompaniment, and many other services.
The office is now able to provide all families of homicide victims with up to $7,500 toward burial costs. The state excludes families from burial assistance when the individual murdered was on felony probation or parole at the time they were killed. San Francisco recently became the first county in California to assist those otherwise excluded from state assistance.