Featuring: Chesa Boudin
Chesa Boudin is the founding executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center at the University of California, Berkeley school of law. Boudin served as San Francisco’s elected district attorney from 2020 until his recall in 2022. During that time, Boudin implemented bold reforms to ensure that the criminal legal system delivered safety and justice for all San Franciscans. His achievements include a significant expansion of the office’s victim services’ division; eliminating prosecutors’ use of money bail; prosecuting police for excessive force; suing the manufacturers of ghost guns; expanding diversion to address root causes of crime, and an historic reduction in incarceration. During his time in office both violent and non-violent crime fell by double digits. Prior to his election Boudin clerked for two federal judges and worked for years as a public defender. He is a graduate of Yale college and Yale school and attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. His biological parents spent a combined 62 years in prison starting when he was a bab