Ousted San Francisco DA Boudin Lands New Gig at Berkeley Law

Chesa Boudin, who voters booted from his role as San Francisco’s district attorney last year, has been hired by the University of California Berkeley to run a new criminal justice center.

Boudin is the executive director of the criminal law and justice center, the law school announced Wednesday. The center will support the law school’s criminal justice reform research and tackle issues stemming from structural inequities and racism, according to Berkeley.

Boudin was voted out of office in June 2022 in a recall referendum that gained national attention for highlighting homelessness and mental health issues in San Francisco. His critics painted the liberal prosecutor—an advocate for restorative justice and reentry for formerly incarcerated individuals—as soft on crime.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed appointed the city’s first Latina district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, to replace Boudin.

“As DA, I had a steep learning curve,” Boudin said in a statement, referring to his two-plus years as the city’s top prosecutor. “I saw how politics kept getting in the way of good policy that I cared deeply about implementing to make the system more just and the city more safe.”

Boudin isn’t the only progressive district attorney who recently has been targeted for removal. Republicans in the Pennsylvania legislature earlier this year led a failed impeachment bid against Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner.