{"id":457863,"date":"2026-09-09T03:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T03:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/457863\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T03:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T03:32:10","slug":"san-franciscos-da-wants-to-change-the-california-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/457863\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco\u2019s DA wants to change the California constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The San Francisco district attorney\u2019s office is looking to change California\u2019s constitution, after a recent state Supreme Court decision made it harder for the office to hold people charged with low-level offenses in jail before trial, DA Brooke Jenkins said on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since the April 2026 ruling, <a href=\"https:\/\/civilrightscorps.org\/case\/kowalczyk-california-bail-pretrial-detention\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">In re Kowalczyk<\/a>, judges must find that defendants fall within the state constitution\u2019s limited definition of a \u201cno-bail\u201d case. The latter applies primarily to violent crimes and is the bar for holding suspects in jail while awaiting trial. Before that ruling, a defendant could be detained for a number of other reasons, including previous failures to appear in court.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The result has been far fewer people in jail \u2014 San Francisco on Saturday recorded <a href=\"https:\/\/missionlocal.org\/2026\/09\/san-francisco-jail-count-plummeting-kowalczyk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">its lowest jail population<\/a> in three years \u2014 and many more pretrial releases.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At a Tuesday morning press conference on the city\u2019s response to retail theft, Jenkins said that the Kowalczyk ruling has made it harder to prevent repeat offenders from further committing crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201dWe are limited in being able to do what we need to do to keep those people from committing more theft in our stores,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cSo we will work on this to make sure that we get the California Constitution changed so that we, as a court system, can do what we need to restrain those who refuse to follow the law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"520\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_4642.jpg\" alt=\"A group of officials and police officers stand at a podium with San Francisco Police insignia, flanked by US, California, and city flags, during a press conference in a blue-walled room.\" class=\"wp-image-869477\"  \/>District Attorney Brooke Jenkins at Tuesday\u2019s press conference. Photo by Frankie Solinsky Duryea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a subsequent statement from the DA\u2019s office, Jenkins confirmed that she is \u201cworking to advance legislation\u201d to give judges more power over detention, but did not explain how that legislation is being pushed forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She said the limits to detention resulting from Kowalczyk are \u201crooted in our state Constitution,\u201d and that \u201cCalifornia voters have the power to change\u201d those limits.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI believe we need to do exactly that,\u201d Jenkins wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the Sept. 8 press conference, city officials introduced plans to address retail theft, noting that they have heightened enforcement and increased collaboration with retailers. Mayor Lurie pointed to a \u201cnearly 20% decline in larceny cases so far this year,\u201d adding that \u201cSFPD officers have made 844 retail theft arrests,\u201d in the last six months, \u201can increase of 27% over the previous six months.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Jenkins said there is still work to do. And that starts with keeping the \u201cmost prolific thieves in our city\u201d in jail while their cases are being investigated, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s no public data yet that can confirm rising rearrest rates result from the Kowalczyk decision, but Jenkins said that her office is tracking re-arrest rates of those released pretrial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have seen [re-arrests] a fair amount, but we are waiting until we can collect enough data to really talk about that more openly,\u201d Jenkins said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The San Francisco public defender\u2019s office said it was disappointed in Jenkins\u2019 words.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe California Supreme Court\u2019s Kowalczyk decision was a powerful endorsement of our state and federal Constitutions\u2019 most basic tenets \u2014 that people are innocent until proven guilty and have a right to due process,\u201d the office wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt is disappointing and telling that the district attorney appears to oppose these most basic of rights.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The best thing the DA\u2019s office can do for now, Jenkins said at the press conference, is make sure that individuals released pretrial are quickly arrested if they commit another crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, she added, her office is preparing to make the case in court and to the public \u201cthat something does need to change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco district attorney\u2019s office is looking to change California\u2019s constitution, after a recent state Supreme Court&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[3622,7359,101,103,102,104,106,105,4736],"class_list":["post-457863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-court","tag-district-attorney","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sfpd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}