Free Republic

The program operated by the San Francisco district attorney's office targeting customers of prostitutes has ill-defined goals and no way to determine its effectiveness, according to a new audit by the city's budget analyst. Despite being touted as a national model that comes at no cost to taxpayers, the audit said the program didn't cover its expenses in each of the last five years, leading to a $270,000 shortfall. The program has first-time offenders arrested for soliciting a prostitute pay as much as $1,000 for a one-day class taught by sex-trafficking experts, former prostitutes and others in exchange for having...

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris will not seek the death penalty for an alleged gang member accused of murdering a father and two of his sons last year, a prosecutor said today. The announcement in San Francisco Superior Court means that Edwin Ramos will at most serve life in prison without parole if convicted of the June 22, 2008, slayings of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, Matthew, 16. The decision is in keeping with Harris' campaign promise never to seek the death penalty. There had been speculation, however, that with Harris running for...

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Tuesday that half a dozen illegal immigrants whose drug convictions were expunged as part of a job training program that she oversaw were "following the rules" and deserved to be exonerated even after prosecutors learned of their status. Prosecutors tightened guidelines, the district attorney said, after learning last summer that a man enrolled in Harris' Back on Track program was an illegal immigrant who allegedly robbed and assaulted a woman in Pacific Heights. The suspect in that case, Alexander Izaguirre, was the only one of the seven enrollees who turned out to be...

D.A.'s office let illegal immigrants go Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, June 23, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris' office on Monday defended allowing about a half dozen first-time drug offenders to clear their records by going through a job-training program, even after prosecutors learned they were deportable as undocumented immigrants. But Harris' aides said they have since made changes in the program that would prevent a recurrence of instances in which illegal immigrants got their criminal records cleared by going through the Back on Track jobs program, which trains offenders for jobs that...

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris' office on Monday defended allowing about a half dozen first-time drug offenders to clear their records by going through a job-training program, even after prosecutors learned they were deportable as undocumented immigrants. The L.A. Times first reported Monday that illegal immigrants had been enrolled in the program and that Harris' office had let several graduate and go free even after learning of their status. Harris was quoted in the Times as saying that enforcing federal immigration law was not the job of local authorities. The district attorney was explaining how her office handled the...

Is the incoming Obama administration interesting in stealing San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris? KGO's Jon Bristow caught up with her today for more on the possibility.

Keep your eyes open - the Barack Obama campaign has given rise to a constellation of rising stars here in California. Former state Controller and eBay millionaire Steve Westly, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and fast-rising lawyer Tony West were all on board the Obama bandwagon early and big. Westly has already made one dash for the governor's office, and he tells us he is "seriously exploring" another gubernatorial run in 2010. (That is, if Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn't run.) Other top Dems predict Westly might be in line to be Obama's Treasury secretary - although he insists to...

How is it possible that chronic behavioral malcontent George Miley assaulted a female police officer three weeks ago, but only ended up spending four days in jail? After all, his July 6 attack on Officer Lisa Frazer was followed by his 106th arrest since 2001. Most everyone says the system for punishing quality-of-life crimes like public drunkenness and aggressive panhandling is broken in San Francisco, but Miley seems like an extraordinary case. How can he be on the streets today? The answer is both complicated and simple: Lenient San Francisco juries, clogged courts, and judges who are more willing to...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The man charged with murdering a San Francisco father and two sons during a traffic incident appeared in court today and listened quietly as he was ordered held without bail. --snip-- He appeared shackled at the waist in a jail jumpsuit, a large tattoo of the Salvadoran national crest visible on the back of his closely shaved head. ... --snip-- The three murder counts carry special circumstances of multiple murder and murder as part of a street gang, which both carry the potential of life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty. Police say Ramos is a...

She says home is cold and silent after husband, 2 sons slain in S.F.Danielle Bologna can't go back home. Just a week ago, her two-story house on a quiet street in San Francisco's Excelsior district was a bustling place, crammed with sports gear and trophies and team portraits, where she and her husband of 21 years were raising their four children.But in just seconds on Sunday, her family was torn apart: Her husband, Tony, 48, and the couple's sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were shot and killed as they drove home from a family barbecue in Fairfield.What is left...

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Monday that she is trying "to get to the bottom" of how her office obtained millions of dollars from a grant program for prosecution of border crimes that federal auditors have concluded the city had no right to receive. Federal officials said last week that San Francisco had received $5.4 million since 2004 in grant money intended to reimburse local jurisdictions for prosecuting crimes on behalf of federal authorities. In 2006, the $3.7 million that San Francisco received from the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative was the most of any county in four states...

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco's controversial handgun ban, approved by city voters in 2005, suffered another legal setback Wednesday when it was overturned by a state appeals court panel that ruled it conflicted with state law. Appeals Court Justice Ignazio Ruvolo was critical of the measure, known as Proposition H, in the unanimous 3-0 decision. Ruvolo wrote for the court that "local governments are well advised to tread lightly" when regulating firearms. The justice wrote further that the state laws were intended to balance the "interest of the general public to be protected from the criminal misuse of firearms" and...

Nearly 22 years after a woman was raped and stabbed to death in her Potrero Hill home, a San Francisco man who lived near the victim was convicted Monday of first-degree murder. The only evidence against John Davis was the DNA left behind during the rape of Barbara Martz, 28. But that was enough for the jury of seven women and five men to convict Davis, 40, of murder in the commission of rape and burglary in connection with the slaying Dec. 4, 1985, in Martz's home on 25th Street. The panel deliberated more than four days before coming back...

Mayor Gavin Newsom and District Attorney Kamala Harris have sent a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asking him to halt gun shows at the Cow Palace. The Crossroads of the West Gun Show happening there this weekend. The letter follows a Thursday announcement by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, that he would introduce legislation to ban gun shows at the arena. The officials say that the shows attract people who sell guns illegally and that those guns are being used in crimes in the city. They have no evidence to support those claims, however.

San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew and District Attorney Kamala Harris are certainly at odds now -- she's trying to throw him in prison, after all -- but it wasn't always that way. In fact, the two have a relationship that goes back to 2003, when the Harris campaign paid Jew between $15,000 and $20,000 to help get out the Chinese American vote. Harris' campaign manager Jim Stearns credits Jew with helping to produce Chinese-language ads, putting together events with the Chinese American press and recruiting volunteers for Chinese-language phone banks. It apparently paid off big on election day. Harris not...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Barbara Boxer on Tuesday called for the death penalty for the killer of a San Francisco police officer and asked the U.S. Attorney's office to prosecute the case. "I hope you will come into this case as a prosecutor to assure the public that the full force of the law will be brought to bear and that the killer pays the ultimate price for his actions," Boxer wrote in a letter to Kevin Ryan, U.S. Attorney for the Northern California. The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week, citing unnamed sources, that the U.S. Attorney's office was...

Chief Heather Fong has put the weight of the San Francisco Police Department's leadership behind a rank-and-file push to force District Attorney Kamala Harris to change her mind and seek the death penalty in the killing of a police officer. Fong, named full-time chief by Mayor Gavin Newsom last week, raised tensions between police and the district attorney to a new high late Monday when she sent a memo to the department labeling the April 10 killing of Officer Isaac Espinoza as a "blatant attack on our system of law" that merits the death penalty. "We, the command staff of...