S.F. DA has ‘pattern and practice’ of withholding evidence, public defenders allege

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The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office has, under Brooke Jenkins, made a “pattern and practice” of improperly withholding evidence in both misdemeanor and felony cases, the city’s public defenders assert. 

Under California law, prosecutors and defenders must disclose their evidence to one another at least 30 days before trial, during the discovery process. This ensures the opposing side has enough time to review evidence before a court hearing.

But in a six-month period between Sept. 1, 2024, and Feb. 28, 2025, the public defender’s misdemeanor unit says it tracked 50 incidents of the district attorney’s office failing to turn over evidence on time. 

The DA has had some of this evidence “in their possession for weeks, if not months or years, before disclosure,” wrote assistant chief public defender Angela Chan in a document sent to the State Bar last month and obtained by Mission Local.

At times, she added, evidence was withheld until the eve of a trial. And, “in a number of egregious cases,” important evidence was not disclosed until the middle of a trial, Chan wrote.

“That is the tip of the iceberg,” said Jacque Wilson, one of two misdemeanor managers at the public defender’s office. The 50 incidents of late discovery tracked by the public defender’s office is a conservative estimate, he said, since it only includes cases where public defenders are aware of a violation. “It’s a pandemic over there.” 

The only way to find out if evidence was withheld, Wilson added, is for it to be admitted during a trial or revealed to an appellate lawyer during the appeal process. “We can’t know what we don’t know.”

The DA’s office, for its part, wrote in a statement that the public defender was “trying to litigate in the court of public opinion” in an attempt to “score cheap political points.” 

“Issues with the timing” of evidence in 50 misdemeanor cases, the statement continued, would represent a “tiny fraction” of the total material given to defense attorneys.

“In 2024 alone we produced to defense attorneys 1.4 million pages of discovery transmitted in 30,953 separate packets, 242,265 body worn camera videos, and approximately four terrabytes of other media,” the office wrote. 

Due process

Chan listed several examples of evidence the DA’s office had reportedly failed to disclose in her statement to the State Bar:

• Body-worn camera footage 
• Photographs of alleged crime scenes 
• Police reports that contradict officers’ testimony
• Witness statements that contradict what was said in court 
• Evidence that “undercuts” the credibility of complaining witnesses’ testimony 

Suppressing evidence that may support a defendant’s innocence or reduce the severity of their punishment is a violation of the constitutional right to due process, per the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland.

Several public defenders contend that deputy district attorneys violated their clients’ Brady rights. They have documented these complaints in declarations to the court. 

During an October 2024 trial, a public defender wrote, “thousands of pages of text messages, photographs, and videos” retrieved from her client’s cell phone were not disclosed until 19 days after the start of trial. 

In another trial, the DA’s office reportedly “failed to turn over a critical police report” containing an officer’s observations of the alleged victim in a domestic violence and kidnapping case. 

The officer testified on the stand that the alleged victim was crying and appeared frightened, the public defender wrote. But in the withheld report, he had indicated the victim was calm. 

Only after the contradiction became apparent during trial did the public defender receive the police report, she added. The court told the jury they could consider the late discovery violation. 

Evidence can change attorneys’ arguments or keep defendants out of a jury trial altogether. Receiving it late either abridges the time an attorney has to prepare or forces clients to await trial longer. 

Sometimes, Wilson said, a defendant would rather plead guilty to a misdemeanor than continue to sit in jail during a lengthy investigation that might exonerate them. 

Delayed and dismissed

Wilson couldn’t be certain how evidence allegedly withheld by the DA would have affected jurors’ decisions. Regardless, he said, late discovery affects cases “all the time” by further delaying trial in an already overburdened justice system. 

Five cases involving late discovery were dismissed at trial during the six-month period tracked by the public defender’s office, Wilson said. 

One of these cases involved an October 2024 trial for domestic battery. According to public defender Charlie Dickson, the assistant district attorney “admitted in open court” that he had “simply ‘forgot’” to share a report documenting the alleged victim’s history of arrest for domestic violence and assault.

“Despite disclosure of the report,” Dickson wrote in a declaration to the court, “the prosecution failed to provide accompanying evidence referenced in the report itself, including photos taken at the scene and body-worn camera footage.” 

He further noted that “this late discovery pattern is part of a systemic issue within the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office” that judges have acknowledged in court. 

A ‘top-down’ problem

“From the top down, it seems like there aren’t any real consequences,” Wilson said. Last month, Jenkins was sent to a diversion program by the State Bar following a series of ethics complaints. This month, the State Bar received a pair of appeals of that decision, which argued diversion is an inappropriate and inadequate punishment.

Jenkins’ “leadership has affected day-to-day conduct,” Chan said in an interview. The point of her communique to the State Bar, Chan continued, is to show that a history of “unethical misconduct” is not just isolated to Jenkins. 

“It’s the norm, not the exception, over there,” Wilson added. The ongoing problem, he continued, has only gotten worse as the DA’s office has filed more misdemeanor cases. 

In January 2015, Chan said, 1,332 misdemeanor cases were filed. In May 2025, there were 2,947 cases, a 121 percent increase over the previous decade. 

“If the Public Defender really thinks there is a problem,” countered the DA’s office, “they will support our budget request for more staff to process and produce materials.” 

Chan said that the DA “can’t keep up with their own decision to file more cases.” And they “aren’t able to comply with their constitutional obligation to actually review all the evidence in their custody and turn it over.”