SF DA Brooke Jenkins: California’s Supreme Court Just Stripped the Tool That Drove the 2025 Crime Drop.
On April 30, 2026, the California Supreme Court ruled 7-0 in In re Kowalczyk (S277910) that trial courts must set bail in amounts “reasonably attainable” given a defendant’s circumstances, and may not set bail “objectively unattainable based solely on indigency.” Before any monetary bail can be imposed, judges must find by clear and convincing evidence that no nonfinancial conditions can adequately protect the state’s interests. The opinion was authored by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA)and sworn in on January 2, 2023 as the first Latina chief justice in the court’s history.
Within days, defense lawyers filed release motions for more than 90 inmates. Judge Lianne Dumas became the first San Francisco Superior Court judge to apply Kowalczyk, reducing one defendant’s bail from $20,000 to $10,000. SF District Attorney Brooke Jenkins (D)— appointed by former Mayor London Breed in July 2022 after voters recalled her predecessor Chesa Boudin — told the New York Post (May 16-17, 2026) the ruling is “devastating” for her office, her state, and her city.
The honest tension is the editorial spine of this story. San Francisco crime dropped sharply in 2025 under Jenkins’ aggressive pretrial detention regime — homicides fell to 28, the lowest mark since 1960; total crime fell more than 25%; the jail population rose from 777 to 1,245. But 2026 is already running 14 homicides year-to-date versus 4 in the same period of 2025— per CalMatters and NBC Bay Area reporting on SFPD data. The Newsom-appointed chief justice on a unanimous California Supreme Court just stripped the tool Jenkins credits for the drop. Whether the 2026 spike is causal or coincidence is the live question. Jenkins is calling it now, publicly, while a Trump executive order from September 2025 directs the DOJ to defund cashless-bail jurisdictions.
- 7 – 0California Supreme Court vote — In re Kowalczyk, April 30, 2026
- 90+defense release motions filed within days of the ruling
- 14 / 4SF homicides YTD 2026 vs. same period 2025 — +250% (CalMatters / NBC)
- 4y 8marmed-robbery sentence Judge Brian Ferrall imposed on Gerardo Saavedra — DA asked for 23y 8m (Feb 5, 2025)
- 28SF homicides in 2025 — the lowest in any year since 1960 (SFPD)
- 777 → 1,245SF jail population growth under Jenkins’ pretrial-detention doctrine, 2022-2025
SF District Attorney: Brooke Jenkins (D) — appointed July 2022 by Mayor London Breed (D) after the recall of Chesa Boudin; won election in her own right November 2022. Built her tenure on aggressive pretrial detention.
SF Mayor (now): Daniel Lurie (D) — sworn in January 2025.
SF Mayor (then): London Breed (D) — appointed Jenkins to the DA seat July 2022.
California Chief Justice: Patricia Guerrero — appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA); sworn in January 2, 2023 as California’s first Latina chief justice. Wrote the 7-0 Kowalczyk opinion.
Associate Justices (Newsom-D appointees): Kelli Evans, Joshua Groban.
Associate Justices (pre-Newsom): Goodwin Liu, Leondra Kruger, Carol Corrigan, Martin Jenkins — concurred in the unanimous 7-0 decision.
CA Attorney General: Rob Bonta (D) — co-authored the failed 2018 bail-elimination SB 10.
State Senator (SF): Scott Wiener (D-SF) — reform-friendly on bail and criminal justice.
SF Superior Court bench (named in this story): Judge Brian Ferrall — sentenced Saavedra to 4y 8m on five counts of armed robbery; Judge Lianne Dumas — first SF judge to apply Kowalczyk.
In In re Kowalczyk (S277910), the California Supreme Court held unanimously that the state constitutional bail clauses and the federal Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require trial courts to set bail in amounts “reasonably attainable” in light of a defendant’s actual financial circumstances. Bail that is “objectively unattainable based solely on indigency” is unconstitutional. Before imposing any monetary bail, a court must find by clear and convincing evidence that no nonfinancial conditions of release will adequately protect public safety, victim safety, and court appearance.
The opinion was authored by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero. Justices Liu, Corrigan, Kruger, Groban, Jenkins, and Evans concurred; the result was 7-0. Guerrero was a Newsom-D appointee elevated to chief justice in 2022 and sworn in January 2, 2023 as California’s first Latina chief. Newsom also appointed Kelli Evans and Joshua Groban; Justices Liu, Kruger, Corrigan, and Martin Jenkins predate his tenure or were elevated under Brown.
“Bail must be reasonably attainable. Courts may not set bail in an amount that is objectively unattainable based solely on indigency.”
Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero · In re Kowalczyk · April 30, 2026
The factual posture that brought Kowalczykto the high court was unusually small. The petitioner had been held on bail in an amount he could not pay after a low-dollar property offense — KTVU framed the case around “a lost credit card and a $7 cheeseburger” — and his pretrial detention stretched on for months because he could not post. The court used that record to articulate the broad constitutional rule: bail cannot function, in practice, as automatic pretrial detention for indigent defendants when nonfinancial conditions would do the job.
The Marshall Project, the California Courts newsroom, NBC Bay Area, and Davis Vanguard all read the opinion the same way: the ruling does not abolish cash bail, but it forecloses the routine practice of setting numbers high enough to guarantee a particular defendant cannot pay them. As the California Courts press release put it, “bail must be reasonably attainable for nonviolent offenders.”
SF District Attorney Brooke Jenkins gave a long interview to the New York Post over May 16-17, 2026, picked up by the Daily Caller, in which she did not mince words. She said the ruling was “devastating” for her office, the state, and the city of San Francisco, and predicted it would unleash a crime wave by stripping prosecutors of the principal mechanism they had used to hold dangerous repeat offenders pretrial.
“Not only is this a devastating ruling for the DA's office, but a devastating ruling for our state and for San Francisco.”
Brooke Jenkins (D) · SF District Attorney · to NY Post · May 2026
“We are going to continue to be the brunt of every joke and attack on Fox News, and rightfully so.”
Brooke Jenkins (D) · SF District Attorney · May 2026
The California Supreme Court's ruling in In re Kowalczyk has already triggered 90+ release motions in our county. We will keep fighting for victims and for public safety with every tool we still have.
California Supreme Court rules 7-0 that bail must be 'reasonably attainable.' Defense lawyers move immediately to seek release for inmates held on bail they cannot pay.
CalMatters and NBC Bay Area reporting on SFPD year-to-date data shows San Francisco running 14 homicides so far in 2026 versus 4 in the same period in 2025 — a 250% increase off a small base. That is a real and significant change in a city that just posted its lowest homicide year since 1960. Whether Kowalczyk is causally connected to the spike, or whether the 2026 numbers will revert as the year matures, is genuinely unsettled.
Jenkins is unambiguous about her view of the mechanism. She has been arguing for months — in the SF Standard, KQED, the Washington Examiner, Fox News, and her own press conferences — that the SF Superior Court bench has drifted toward leniency in drug court and bail-setting, and that the 2025 crime drop in her city was driven by aggressive pretrial detention of repeat offenders. Kowalczyk, she argues, removes the lever she pulled.
“What is new is that the court has become complicit in this by now stating that they are going to release potentially dangerous and violent felons back into the community.”
Brooke Jenkins (D) · on SF drug court · KQED · October 2025
Three cases — pre-dating Kowalczyk but emblematic of the pretrial environment Jenkins says Kowalczykwill worsen — are useful to keep on the table:
Per CBS Bay Area, Graves was arrested after surveillance and loss-prevention records tied her to roughly 120 visits to the Stonestown Target, totaling more than $60,000 in stolen merchandise. She was charged with 8 felony counts of grand theft and 120 misdemeanor counts of petty theft. She was initially released on zero bail. Presumption of innocence applies until verdict.
Per SFist (May 14, 2026), Boswell is alleged to have committed 27 thefts from two San Francisco Walgreens — the North Beach and Noe Valley stores — totaling roughly $40,000. He was arrested three separate times between December 24, 2025 and April 16, 2026 before remaining in custody. Presumption of innocence applies until verdict.
Per ABC7 News, Saavedra was convicted on five counts of armed robbery following a September 2023 spree in which he allegedly used a ghost gun against five women in San Francisco. On February 5, 2025, Judge Brian Ferrall sentenced him to 4 years 8 months. The DA’s office had asked for 23 years 8 months. The disagreement here is about sentence length after a jury conviction, not about whether the conduct occurred.
“We are dealing with a culture in our courthouse of judges being excessively lenient.”
Brooke Jenkins (D) · on the Saavedra sentencing · ABC7 · February 2025
Here are the numbers behind Jenkins’ doctrine, per SFPD and KTVU’s reporting on the 2025 year-end data:
Total reported crime: down more than 25% year-over-year.
Homicides: 28 — the lowest in any year since 1960.
Robberies: down 44.2%.
Burglary: down 12.5%.
Larceny: down 21.8%.
Assaults: up 28.6% — the year’s clear outlier and the data point Jenkins’ critics emphasize.
Jail population: grew from 777 at her appointment to 1,245 by year-end 2025.
The case for Jenkins’ approach, as she frames it in the SF Standard’s April 10, 2026 profile of “the Jenkins doctrine,” is that pretrial detention of a small repeat-offender population produces an outsized crime-reduction effect. The case against, made by Mission Local and others, is that the 2025 drop tracked national post-pandemic trends and would have appeared regardless of bail policy. Kowalczyk is, in effect, the natural experiment.
The state ruling lands in a federal context that complicates California’s position. In September 2025, President Donald Trump (R) signed executive orders directing the Department of Justice to identify and defund jurisdictions that operate “cashless bail” systems or that systematically release violent felons pretrial. After AG Pam Bondi’s April 2026 departure, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche (R-appointed) inherited enforcement of the orders.
Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has signaled he will sue the federal government if California funding is withheld, the same posture he has taken in his standoffs with the Trump administration over National Guard deployment to California cities.
FRIENDS HAVE CALLED. DANIEL LURIE IS MAKING SUBSTANTIAL PROGRESS IN SAN FRANCISCO. HOLDING OFF ON SENDING IN THE GUARD FOR NOW. WE ARE WATCHING.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrased from coverage of the President's October 2025 Truth Social post, as reported by NBC News and Al Jazeera.
We are ending cashless bail. Federal grants will be terminated to any jurisdiction that refuses to keep its people safe. The day of the revolving door for violent criminals is OVER.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrased from coverage of the President's September 2025 executive orders on cashless bail and pretrial release.
Author of opinion: CJ Patricia Guerrero — Newsom (D) appointee, sworn in January 2, 2023.
Concurring justices: 7-0 unanimous. Newsom (D) appointees: Guerrero, Evans, Groban. Pre-Newsom: Liu, Kruger, Corrigan, Martin Jenkins.
State AG: Rob Bonta (D) — previously co-authored SB 10, the 2018 bail-elimination bill voters rejected at the ballot box.
Governor: Gavin Newsom (D-CA) — appointed the chief justice; threatened to sue the federal government over National Guard deployment and cashless-bail funding penalties.
Local target of the ruling’s effect: SF DA Brooke Jenkins (D) — the one Democrat in this chain saying it publicly: “devastating.”
National pressure: President Trump (R) September 2025 executive orders directing DOJ to defund cashless-bail jurisdictions, enforced by Acting AG Todd Blanche.
The clean political read on Kowalczyk: a unanimous California Supreme Court, led by a Newsom-D appointed chief justice, just stripped the principal pretrial-detention tool that SF DA Brooke Jenkins (D) credits for the city’s 2025 crime drop — and Jenkins, a Democrat herself, is the one saying so on the record. Her predecessor Chesa Boudin (D) was recalled by SF voters in June 2022, just as Pamela Price (D) was recalled in Alameda in November 2024 and George Gascón (D) lost his LA County re-election to Nathan Hochman the same month. The throughline is voters and prosecutors pulling one direction while state-court doctrine pulls another. Kowalczyk is the doctrine pulling back hard.
The California Supreme Court ruled 7-0 in In re Kowalczyk that bail must be “reasonably attainable.” The opinion was written by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA). Within days, defense lawyers filed 90+ release motions in San Francisco alone. SF DA Brooke Jenkins (D), the Democrat who replaced the recalled Chesa Boudin and rebuilt SF’s crime-drop on aggressive pretrial detention, calls the ruling “devastating.” Homicides in San Francisco are already running at 14 year-to-date versus 4 in the same window of 2025. Whether the spike is causal is the live question. Jenkins is on the record now.