• Budget Re-Allocation: San Francisco's charter gives the District Attorney power to both "investigate all allegations of violations of laws" and "prosecute in court or before any other trier of fact." Currently, the District Attorney's Office is allocated approximately $39 million of the city's annual budget, and this number continues to decrease. This figure is more shocking when compared to the more than $400 million dollar budget allocated to the San Francisco Police Department. While it is understandable that the police department requires a larger budget to manage its thousands of employed officers, the District Attorney's Office will be unable to effectively prosecute captured perpetrators with such a budgetary handicap, making moot the police officers' contributed efforts. All players in the criminal justice system have an interest in protecting the innocent, and budgetary allocations should more or less reflect this shared burden. With a larger budget, the district attorney can better do its job of investigating and prosecuting.
• Modernization of Investigative Strategies by Empowering the People: Department of Justice statistics show that pouring more city money into the police department to create a larger force derives marginal benefit. We need to modernize the law enforcement organ with effective technological tools to ensure that policies and practices employed to investigate, charge, and prosecute individuals are appropriate, effective, and accurate pursuant to the District Attorney's investigative mandate. I propose implementing an innovative, effective, and cost-efficient passive, high-definition video surveillance program in our public areas. My "San Francisco Safety Zone" program will create a 1,000 ft. perimeter around our most populated public areas like schools, and anyone stepping into the zone will be warned that their conduct will be caught on camera. This voluntary program will empower the People with state of the art technology to capture the truth and protect their persons and property from harm.
   
  This is a necessary because San Francisco is the most densely settled large-city in the state of California and the second-most densely populated large-city in the United States. Also, more than 16 million visitors arrive in San Francisco each year. This will not only minimize mistaken eye-witness identification and improve the capture rate of perpetrators, but will deter criminal behavior. I will ensure to protect our 4th amendment right to privacy by allowing video footage only to be pulled upon showing of probable cause. The goal of the criminal justice system is to protect the public and punish the blameworthy. Thus, we must provide our police force with the technological tools to capture perpetrators who engage in criminal activity in our public areas, schools, and residential areas. In the long run, this program will save us millions of dollars and help us effectively fight crime.
• Hiring the Best Legal Team: Even though the public perceives the California bar examination to be very difficult, in reality, it is a low bar to meet. There is no minimum qualification standard for assistant district attorneys. I believe that government officials should be minimally qualified, evaluated, and examined to make sure they are highly proficient in their positions. This is why the bar should be raised much higher for assistants of the San Francisco District Attorney. They should be examined and evaluated by the State Bar of California's Board of Legal Specialization in the specialized area of Criminal Law. In addition to hiring the best legal team, openness should be practiced whereby each assistant is required to have a public profile that details his or her experience, showing to the public that they are highly proficient in the area of criminal law. The District Attorney's Office should have the best and brightest prosecutors that understand their mission in ascertaining the truth, and skillfully prove the truth of the charges to the satisfaction of a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Further, assistants do not have civil service protection and work at-will, but they should have such protection so that they will be free from fear that they will lose their livelihood if they make mistakes while trying to do justice.
• Implementation of a New Independent Crime Lab: San Francisco should create a new and independent crime lab headed by scientists, not law enforcement. This new crime lab will be independent from other criminal justice agencies and will be available to law enforcement, the District Attorney's Office, the Public Defender's Office, private criminal defense attorneys, and the Superior Court. This new crime lab will implement rigorous professional standards to minimize wrongful convictions arising from forensic evidence errors. I would encourage the certification and continuing education of forensic experts for employment and promotion. I would also implement an ethics code and disciplinary procedure whereby negligent acts or misconduct by forensic personnel are reported to the District Attorney for prosecution.
• Use of New Forensic Science Methods: Our city is home to some of the best colleges and universities in the world so there is no reason not to employ the best forensic team to assist in the investigation of a crime and to accurately identify the perpetrator. According to a California Commission report, "Mistaken eye-witness identification was involved in 88% of the rape and assault cases." Every time we wrongfully convict someone, the true perpetrator is on the loose, free to commit more crimes and often does. To solve this problem, we must train our investigators to gather and analyze touch DNA. The touch DNA method is named for the fact that it requires analysis of skin cells left behind when assailants touch victims, weapons, or anything else at a crime scene. It only requires analysis of seven or eight cells from the outermost layer of our skin. Employing this method will allow police enforcement to more quickly, effectively, and efficiently capture perpetrators.
   
  Employing new methods will also decrease dependence on incentivized testimony. This is important not only in convicting the correct perpetrator, but in making sure that an innocent person is not wrongfully convicted. According to a Northwestern University School of Law study, "false informant testimony [was] the leading cause of wrongful convictions in U.S. capital cases" from 1973 to 2004.

• Freedom of Information in the Courts (A More Visible Information System): The District Attorney's Office and the court should make the information it keeps on record more easily visible and available to the public. Google-like search engines should allow people to search for the types of charges filed, litigants, case names and numbers, judges, and lawyers. With a more open and accessible system, the court will be able to ensure that the administration of justice system is fair, accurate, effective, and cost-efficient. Such a system will protect, promote, and strengthen transparency and openness of local government, which is vital to the functioning of a democracy.
• More effective and cost efficient law practice: The Superior Court of San Francisco should immediately adopt a case management system similar to the case management/electronic filing system (CM/EFS) utilized by our federal courts. Further, most pre-trial proceedings should be conducted electronically without the need for defendants, defense attorneys, and prosecutors to physically appear in court. The requirement for physical appearance sometimes leads to individuals standing idly by for hours on end.

• Reform for Juvenile Offenders: The misguided policy of prosecuting youths as adults needs to change. Treating a 14-year-old as an adult only obscures the definitions of "adult" and "minor." The people most affected by these obscure definitions are the poor, downtrodden, and orphans. They are essentially victimized because in the adult criminal justice system, they are often abused and suffer from depression, and without any rehabilitation, they are more likely to offend upon release.
• Community Support in Eliminating Street Gangs: The criminal justice system needs to engage in a collaborative effort to educate the public about identity issues and the role that identity plays in the development of a criminal street gangs. Attachment to signs and symbols is a psychological issue that needs to be addressed in early education.
• Victim's Rights and a Restorative Justice Approach: On March 23, 1991, An Trinh, my sister, was hit and killed by a drunk driver while attending school at Boston University. I was attending law school in San Francisco at the time and was enjoying life in the city. After An's death, I channeled my hate and self-pity into motivation, pushing myself to becoming the best and most honorable criminal defense attorney that I could possibly be. The decision to become a defense attorney was my own personal decision and I never brought hate, judgment, or self-interest to my work.
   
  I believe in Victim's rights, but I do not believe that revenge and retribution are the only ways to deal with those convicted of crimes. Victim's rights and restorative justice are concepts that focus on repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior, and require examining and addressing the rights and responsibilities of victims, courts, and the community. These concepts should be applied to individual cases in which courts concentrate on restoration by assisting the victim or their families in their recovery. The District Attorney's Office should create policies that provide mechanisms for effective practices of restorative justice, victim assistance, and victim compensation.

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3. Justice White, dissenting in United States v. Wade (1967) 388 U.S. 218.

Paid for by Vu Trinh for SF District Attorney 2011, FPPC #1339732  |  101 California Street, Ste 2450, San Francisco, CA 94111  |  Support  |  Donate  |  Volunteer  |  Contact