SF legal battle looms as anniversary of Oct. 7 attack passes

A San Francisco court will consider later this month whether The City’s prosecutors are breaking from local precedent as it weighs a motion to disqualify the District Attorney’s Office from prosecuting pro-Palestine protestors facing felony charges for shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge in April.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office in August charged eight demonstrators with felony conspiracy charges , another 18 protesters with misdemeanor counts, and all 26 with 38 counts of false imprisonment following an April 15 protest that shut down The City’s iconic span for hours. They all pleaded not guilty .

A legal filing on behalf of the arrested protestors that a judge will consider Oct. 24 said “no nonviolent protesters have been charged with felony conspiracy in the last 35 years.”

“It's completely unprecedented in terms of the charging decision, and just reveals that it's an attempt to chill political speech,” said Jeff Wozniak, one of 26 attorneys representing the group. “We depend on prosecutors, on DAs, to make nonpolitical and fair charging decisions that are equitable under the circumstances, to the extent that similar alleged crimes will be charged in a similar fashion, not based upon the people who are involved in the action, or what the message is in the action.”

The case is making its way through The City’s legal system as the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel passes, with the San Francisco Superior Court set to hear defense attorneys’ motions to disqualify District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ office from prosecuting the case as soon as Oct. 17.

Protesters around the world have called for a cease-fire in the subsequent war in Gaza and Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon. Hamas militants killed 1,200 Israelis and abducted another 250 on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli officials. More than 41,000 Palestinians have died in the subsequent war in Gaza, according to health officials there, while Lebanese officials say more than 2,000 people in that country have been killed during the last year of the conflict.

Jenkins has repeatedly stated that the April 15 demonstration left Golden Gate Bridge pedestrians in danger. Two days later, in a post on X, she directed residents who “were trapped on the Golden Gate Bridge” that day to contact the California Highway Patrol so they could “be alleged as a victim.” Jenkins said such victims could “be entitled to restitution” and “have other victim rights guaranteed under Marsy’s law,” which provides additional rights to victims of crime.

The district attorney then said in August, following the charging of the protestors, that “ the exercise of free speech can not compromise public safety .”

“The demonstration on the Golden Gate Bridge caused a level of safety risk, including extreme threats to the health and welfare of those trapped, that we as a society cannot ignore or allow,” she said. “We will continue to ensure that appropriate avenues for the expression of free speech and social advocacy exist and are protected in San Francisco.”

On Oct. 21, Wozniak said a San Francisco Superior Court judge will consider a motion from lawyers representing the protestors charged with felonies to disqualify the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office from prosecuting the cases “on the grounds that District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ bias against the Palestine movement has undermined her office’s ability to prosecute this matter fairly.” The motion could be heard as soon as Oct. 17, Wozniak said, while the court will consider a similar motion for the misdemeanor defendants Oct. 24.

The filing pointed to Jenkins’ since-deleted post on X likening an October 2023 rally in support of Palestinians a “pro-Hamas” gathering , as well as her attendance of multiple meetings with — and acceptance of gifts from — the Israeli Consulate.

Jenkins’ office has denied that such meetings represent a conflict of interest and that the charges against the 26 demonstrators were politically motivated. When The Examiner asked her to comment on those allegations, Jenkins pointed to a Sept. 24 statement issued in the wake of the defense attorneys’ filing that said “[this] case will be tried in the court of law not in the court of public opinion or the press.”

“We do not pursue political prosecutions under any circumstances at any time,” she said at the time. “This case is being handled like every other case based on the facts, evidence and the law.”

Wozniak, alleging that Jenkins broke local precedent with the decision, pointed to the arrests and citations of Black Lives Matter protestors who shut down the Bay Bridge on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2016 to call attention to police violence, as well as the misdemeanor charges ultimately faced by pro-Palestine protesters who shut down the Bay Bridge in November 2023 during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Jenkins wasn’t San Francisco’s district attorney during the former case, nor was she leading the office when, in 2020, 27 protestors were cited and released by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office after shutting down the Bay Bridge during a protest in the wake of George Floyd’s death. She did head the office in November 2023, however, and Wozniak said “the charging decision was dramatically different” than in the April 2024 protests.

“Nobody was hurt in either case,” he said. “There was no dramatic difference in the inconvenience caused by the blockade.”

Jenkins’ office initially charged each of the 80 arrested protesters from the Nov. 16 demonstration with five misdemeanors, including false imprisonment. In March, The San Francisco Standard reported that 78 of those protesters agreed to complete five hours of community service in order to have the charges dismissed. She said her office dismissed the charges against another protester, while one declined the offer.

“We remain committed to ensuring that San Francisco is a safe city for everyone who lives and enters our city,” Jenkins said in a statement at the time. “We will continue to ensure that appropriate avenues for the expression of free speech and social advocacy exist and are protected in San Francisco. I truly believe that we can achieve engaging in free expression while maintaining the safety of our communities.”

Activists supporting the demonstrators, as well as civil-rights advocates, argue that Jenkins’ decision to press felony charges signals a departure from The City’s past welcoming demonstrations for civil rights and justice.

Wassim Hage, a community leader with the San Francisco Arab Resource and Organizing Center, said “[blocking] roads, disrupting public infrastructure and civil disobedience are time-honored tools.”

Chessie Thacher, the senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, said she couldn’t speculate as to why Jenkins decided to press those charges because the ACLU is not involved in the case. Thacher nonetheless Jenkins’ decision “raises questions.”

“There's something that's different here than the prosecutions of other protesters in the past,” she said.