Brooke Jenkins

Brooke Jenkins (born 1981/1982) is an American lawyer serving as the 30th District Attorney of San Francisco. On July 8, 2022, Jenkins was appointed interim district attorney by Mayor London Breed following the successful recall of Chesa Boudin, for which she actively campaigned for. She was elected in her own right to fill the unexpired term the following November.

Early life and education

Jenkins grew up in Union City, California. She was raised by her mother because shortly after being born, her father had to leave the country due to his student visa status. Her father is from El Salvador. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley and a Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School.

Career

Jenkins previously worked in corporate law. Jenkins’ clients included domestic automakers and foreign car parts manufacturers, including Honda and Takata. Her firm, Bowman and Brooke, was named "Law360’s 2018 Automotive Groups of the Year".

Jenkins worked in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office from 2014 to 2021, where she was former lead hate crimes prosecutor. She faced controversy for ignoring the husband of a victim's family's wishes by insisting on trying to send Daniel Gudino, a mentally ill man, to prison rather than agreeing he was insane and should go to a hospital. A jury had hung 7-5 in favor of finding him insane after three experts deemed Gudino insane. The District Attorney ultimately decided to stipulate to insanity in accordance with the victim's family's wishes. She resigned in October 2021 to support the recall campaign against San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

Mayor London Breed announced on July 7, 2022 the appointment of Jenkins to serve in the interim until an election is held on November 8, 2022 to elect a District Attorney to serve the rest of Boudin's term through 2023. She was sworn into office on July 8.

Between her appointment and August 2022, Jenkins instituted policies such as allowing her attorneys to seek gang enhancements; allowing the conditional prosecution of minors as adults, and; making it so drug dealers are ineligible for community courts.

Jenkins is running for election in November 2022 to serve the remainder of Boudin's term through 2023 along with Joe Alioto Veronese, a civil rights attorney and grandson of former San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto and John Hamasaki, a criminal defense attorney and Police Commissioner known for his vocal criticism of the police.

Jenkins been paid six figures by the nonprofit, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, which shares a name and an office with the Chesa Boudin recall campaign. Jenkins had not previously disclosed these payments. In October 2022, a complaint was filed with San Francisco's Ethics Commission and California's Fair Political Practices Commission accusing Jenkins of failing to register as a campaign consultant. The complaint alleged that the $153,000 salary Jenkins received from the nonprofit, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, was intended for partisan purposes.

It was revealed in October of 2022 by reporter Joe Eskenazi that just before leaving the District Attorney's Office, Jenkins had sent sensitive files, including a RAP sheet, from the District Attorney office to Assistant District Attorney Don DuBain's personal email and used those materials in the campaign to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin. According to former District Attorney Boudin, neither Jenkins nor DuBain had a professional attachment to the case. In California, disseminating a rap sheet to a person who is unauthorized to receive it is a misdemeanor. Jenkins claimed that she accidentally sent the email to DuBain's personal email. Several legal experts dismissed this excuse as insufficient.

On October 13, 2022, retired Superior Court Judge Martha Goldin filed a State Bar complaint against Jenkins, outlining multiple misconduct allegations. One allegation was focused on a case Jenkins prosecuted in 2014. This conviction in this case was reversed in 2016 by an appellate court that found the Jenkins committed a form of prosecutorial misconduct known as a Griffin error. The complaint alleges that Jenkins lied in September 2022 when she claimed that she had never been found to have committed misconduct. A second allegation was focused on witness tampering in a 2019 case in which Jenkins was recorded instructing a child witness on what to say on the witness stand.

Personal life

Jenkins lives in Mission Bay with her husband, two children, and her stepdaughter.

References

1980s births
African-American women lawyers
African-American lawyers
District attorneys in California
Hispanic and Latino American lawyers
Living people
People from Union City, California
Politicians from San Francisco
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of Chicago Law School alumni

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