A habitual criminal released from prison last April has been charged with a New Year’s Eve hit-and-run which killed two pedestrians in San Francisco.  Katy Grimes of the California Globe reports that after Troy Ramon McAlister was released on parole after serving time for armed robbery, San Francisco police arrested him several times, most recently on December 20, but DA Chesa Boudin never charged him with any crimes.  McAlister was driving a stolen car while intoxicated when he ran down 27-year-old Japanese-born Hanako Abe and 60-year-old Elizabeth Platt.  Boudin, a former public defender, blames state parole office for not adequately supervising the criminal.

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California’s First District Court of Appeal has granted a gang murder suspect access to the names of zip codes of prospective jurors in his trial.  Gary Klien of the Mercury News reports that attorneys representing Edenilson Misael Alfaro, an MS-13 gang member, won the unanimous appellate court ruling so that they can explore the under-representation of Latinos in the Marin County jury pool list.   The December 9 opinion by Judge Mark Simons brushed aside concerns about juror privacy noting, “We find no basis to conclude that privacy rights preclude disclosure of the names and zip codes on those lists.”

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A civil lawsuit filed the Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA) in Los Angeles Superior Court this morning is seeking a writ of mandate to prohibit newly-elected DA George Gascón from forcing the prosecutors in his office to violate California charging and sentencing law.  In those directives, the District Attorney ordered deputy district attorneys to dismiss pending strike priors, special circumstance enhancements, gang enhancements, firearm allegations, and certain other “felony prior” enhancements. The directives prohibited the filing of strike prior enhancements in new cases.   A statement regarding the lawsuit from the AADA notes that the directives violate California law, which imposes a mandatory duty on prosecutors to plead and prove strike priors. Dismissals of those priors can only be based on individual circumstances, not a blanket policy. Similarly, special circumstance allegations that will result in a life without parole sentence cannot be dismissed under the section cited by the directive.

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At a December 15 preliminary hearing in Los Angeles, a top advisor for the newly elected District Attorney George Gascón, offered a plea deal giving an alleged gang murderer 7 years in prison.  Bill Melugin of Fox 11 reports that a transcript of the hearing indicates that Mario Trujillo, a special advisor to Gascón, went behind the back of the Deputy District Attorney assigned to the case, offering a plea deal to the defense attorney of seven years with no enhancements or special circumstances.   When the deputy prosecutor assigned to the case announced that under a special directive issued by Gascón, the DA’s office would not be seeking any sentencing enhancements or special circumstances in the interest of justice, the judge questioned the interest of justice behind reducing the murderer’s sentence.  The deputy replied, “I believe that it is the new D.A.’s position……that extended prison sentences in Los Angeles county are far too long;  that they are costly and ineffective and harm people in underserved communities.”

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