District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ office can no longer refuse to try all of its cases before Judge Michelle Tong, a San Francisco judge has ruled.
On Thursday, Oct. 8, Superior Court Presiding Judge Rochelle East reversed her own ruling from just two days earlier, in which she’d allowed Jenkins to make a blanket objection to Tong. The first ruling came when the district attorney’s office said Tong, a former public defender, showed bias against law enforcement and prosecutors. After hearing more testimony on the 8th, East changed her mind, instead finding that the district attorney’s argument was in “bad faith.”
Her decision could signal an end to these blanket boycotts — which both defense attorneys and prosecutors have long used to push out particular judges they dislike.
In February, the public defender’s office filed, in-effect, a similar blanket objection against former Drug Court Judge Murlene Randle. The district attorney’s office filed a blanket objection against retired appellate justice J. Anthony Kline in 2022. Both judges were moved off those assignments.
But East’s decision, made possible by a recent California Supreme Court ruling, shows that this practice might be coming to an end in San Francisco.
Rose Mishaan, a private defense attorney who has opposed blanket refusals, called East’s decision a win for “the rule of law” and “the separation of powers.”
Judge Tong, the center of last week’s judicial drama, is no stranger to these challenges. In early 2025, when she was first transferred from civil to criminal court, the district attorney’s office issued a blanket refusal to appear before her, accusing Tong of incompetence. Over 340 cases were delayed before Tong was returned to civil courts. Tong also faced a blanket objection from the city attorney’s office earlier this year, which was sustained.
The new blanket challenge began on Tong’s first day back in criminal court, where she was mostly overseeing arraignments. The district attorney’s office repeatedly invoked what is called a “170.6,” a procedure that lets attorneys request a case be reassigned without offering a reason why.
The procedure was designed basically as a free “get another judge rule,” said Eric Fish, a law professor at UC Davis who has written about judicial disqualifications. Legally, he said, as long as “you’re able to truthfully state that the judge is biased against you or your client,” these objections are allowed for a single case.
But when blanket challenges are used to systematically disqualify certain judges from hearing all cases, the rules have changed. In May 2026, in J.O. v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court ruled that attorneys could claim that a blanket challenge was made in “bad faith,” and force the complainants to prove the judge’s bias.
Mishaan said that the ruling “prevents offices from basically trying to rig the system, by using those challenges as a way to get judges kicked out of the building.”
On Tuesday, Oct. 6, defense attorneys took advantage of that new ruling to challenge the district attorney’s blanket 170.6 against Tong, claiming it was illegal under the state court ruling. They brought the issue to the court’s presiding judge, Rochelle East.
Ana Gonzalez, chief assistant district attorney, argued that Tong had demonstrated prejudice in numerous cases, citing a time in which Tong called a police officer “shady.”
East sided with the prosecutors, finding the challenge to be “in good faith” after Gonzalez alleged that Tong, while she was still a public defender, had told assistant district attorney Aaron Laycook that she would “get even” with him.
Two days later, however, East reheard arguments, reviewing a written declaration from Tong and hearing testimony from Laycook.
This time, East determined that the district attorney’s blanket challenge was in “bad faith,” according to numerous attorneys who were in the courtroom. While individual prosecutors — Laycook in particular — might refuse a case before Tong, East ruled that the entire office could not.
When asked to comment on the reversal, the district attorney’s office wrote that it will “respect the Court’s decision.” Since then, the district attorney has rescinded its remaining challenges against Tong, and Tong’s courtroom has proceeded normally.
“When we have a good faith belief that we may not receive a fair and impartial hearing before a judge, we will exercise the rights provided to us under the law,” Jenkins’ office wrote.
Attorneys told Mission Local that this was the first time they’d seen the state court ruling take effect in San Francisco. Fish, the professor, said it can now apply to all attorneys — defense and prosecution — who attempt wholesale boycotts of judges.
“Presumably, this could work both ways,” he said.
