Protecting and Serving Victims

Providing steadfast victim advocacy for crime victims. Created specialty units focused on Cold Cases and Human Trafficking. The unanimous choice for District Attorney by law enforcement associations and crime victims’ advocacy organizations.

Treatment Instead of Jailing – Mental Illness & Addiction

Mental Health Court and Addiction Intervention Court: Providing treatment instead of incarceration, with proven results, for those committing crimes due to their serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder. Learn more about our innovative programs.

Empathy for the Homeless

Developing law enforcement’s empathy for the homeless, by partnering with Glide Church in the San Francisco Tenderloin District. Prosecutors brought face-to-face with homelessness.

Transparency

Building Public Trust and Confidence. Launched a first-of-its-kind interactive webpage, created with Measures for Justice, for the public to explore the data and examine issues of racial and sentence disparity in the criminal justice system.

Engaging Diverse Stakeholders & Building Community Trust

Developed The DA’s Multi-Cultural Community Council: An advisory body of racially, religiously and culturally diverse residents. Also developed an annual Citizens Academy –an 8-week program to educate the public about our local criminal justice system.

Protecting All People

Enacting policies to protect communities and “all affected by crime” by always treating victims, witnesses, and defendants with respect and ensuring that truth, justice and fairness drive every decision today and moving forward.

Restorative Justice and Mass Incarceration

Neighborhood Court – Using restorative justice, rather than the traditional courtroom, to resolve incidents that occur in the community. Reducing mass incarceration for thousands of people in Yolo County! Steps to Success program. Treating those living with mental illness and substance use disorders by diverting them out of court. Youth Restorative Justice grant to divert juveniles, reducing racial and ethnic disparities.

Bail Reform

Reduce the use of cash bail with a bail reform policy drafted with input from The Vera Institute for those who pose a risk to public safety.

Conviction and Sentencing Review

Reviewing cases to both find and correct wrongful convictions and to consider reducing lengthy prison sentences where a Second Chance is justified. Conviction and Sentencing Review.

Immigration Consequences

Always considering the immigration impacts of deportation and family separation that the criminal justice system can have upon non-citizens, to ensure that the collateral consequences of convictions are fair.

Protecting the Environment

Dedicated unit which holds businesses and corporations accountable for unfair practices and damage they cause to the environment.

Addressing Bias and Disparity

First DA’s office in CA to put Race-Blind Charging into case management system and to require all Deputy DA’s to participate in full-day implicit bias training. Co-hosted with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative groundbreaking, 6-day, collaborative presentation on race bias in prosecution (content provided by For the People, Vera, & Public Rights Project. Change Without Labels.

Innovation

Eco-Friendly. First DA’s office in CA to become paperless. No paper files, all electronic files; easy access to data. Increasing efficiency to focus on public safety. Repurposed file room as Restorative Justice Partnership.

Schools to Prison Pipeline

Yolo DA Developed and Sponsors an Annual Youth Leadership Academy to attack the school to prison pipeline. Collaboration with law enforcement, judges, and local defense attorneys to educate at risk high school students about the criminal justice system and encourage leadership within the community. Enacted policy to reduce the use of gang enhancements. Learn More.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

District Attorney Initiated FOCUS Program. Focusing On Helping Children Exposed to Trauma – District Attorney helped create a notification system linking first responders to school district to reduce impact of trauma suffered by children.