Error connected to killing
Twin Peaks homicide followed faulty information to judge who released suspect
A judge who released a 19-year-old man just days before he allegedly murdered a 71-year-old stranger on Twin Peaks had been given a faulty risk score that understated the danger the defendant posed on the street, officials said Monday.
The mistake was made by the Pretrial Diversion Project, a city-funded nonprofit group in charge of calculating “public-safety assessment scores,” or PSA scores, that San Francisco has been assigning to jailed defendants for more than a year, according to the San Francisco district attorney’s office. The goal is to improve on the state’s traditional bail system.
The error apparently contributed to Judge Sharon Reardon’s July 11 release of Lamonte Mims of Patterson (Stanislaus County), who had been jailed on suspicion of being a felon with a gun. Five days later, police said, Mims and 20-year-old Fantasy Decuir of San Francisco killed photographer and film scout Edward French in a robbery on Twin Peaks.
Reardon had received a score for Mims that indicated he posed a medium risk of committing crimes or fleeing if released before trial, but the score was too low, officials said. It wasn’t immediately
clear how the mistake was made, and representatives of the Pretrial Diversion Project did not respond to requests for comment.
The risk assessment relies on a computer algorithm created by a Texas organization, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which advocates for criminal justice reform and opposes the traditional system of setting bail amounts primarily according to a defendant’s charges, regardless of his or her ability to pay.
The tool weighs factors such as criminal history and age to determine an offender’s public-safety and flight risk, but in the case of Mims, “It appears certain factors were not accurately entered, and this resulted in a miscalculation by the agency that generates the scores,” said Max Szabo, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office.
The program recommended that Mims be released on what is known as assertive case management, which requires routine check-ins with authorities. Reardon was not obligated to follow the recommendation, but apparently did so. She cannot comment on the case due to judicial ethics rules, according to a court representative.
The revelation of the error came on the same day that the two defendants pleaded not guilty to murdering French, a San Francisco resident. Their defense attorneys declined to comment on the allegations.
French’s sister, Lorrie French, said the miscalculation further underscored that Reardon made the wrong decision.
“The bottom line is she has to base her decision on facts, not on an algorithm,” French said in an interview. “How did she consciously put him back in the street, based on his history? She may not have pulled the trigger, but the trigger never would have been pulled had she done her job.”
Investigators said they connected the pair to French’s killing after the two were arrested for robbing a man and woman at gunpoint near St. Mary’s Cathedral on Gough Street on July 28. While prosecutors said they have surveillance video of Decuir pulling the trigger on Twin Peaks, Mims allegedly made statements to police indicating he was involved in robbing French.
Mims had been ordered to stay away from Twin Peaks as part of a plea deal following his arrest in November in connection with three car break-ins in the Twin Peaks parking lot. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor burglary and receiving stolen property in March, and was sentenced to probation.
Mims already was on felony probation in San Mateo County, having pleaded no contest to felony car burglary and misdemeanor identity theft in July 2016. His November arrest at Twin Peaks was considered a violation of his probation in San Mateo County, and he was sentenced to six months in jail. He served three months, with three months of credit for good behavior.
On July 4, San Francisco police reported finding Mims in a car with another man and two guns. City prosecutors filed a motion to revoke his probation July 11, but Reardon apparently followed the mistaken recommendation.
The risk-assessment tool has been embraced in many counties around the country, but also is controversial. San Francisco has been using it since the Laura and John Arnold Foundation provided it free of charge in May 2016. The city has not provided any statistics on its success. .
The program is said to use data from the criminal case histories of more than 1.5 million people, focusing on how they fared after being released. Proponents of the tool say the recommendations serve as one helpful input for judges to consider.
“Judges making tough decisions on who should be released and who should be held consider key information,” David Hebert, a foundation spokesman, said in a statement. “All systems are subject to human error, but the PSA represents a significant improvement over the days when nothing but money and subjective thinking determined freedom or incarceration.”
District Attorney George Gascón advocated for bringing the tool to San Francisco, though his prosecutors sometimes disagree with the assessments.
“We’re taking steps to ensure our partners properly calculate PSA scores, as they play an important role in custody decisions,” Szabo, the agency spokesman, said Monday.
Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who is representing Decuir, warned Monday against rushing to judgment in the Twin Peaks case. “Whether or not a person is released on bail or released because of a pretrial assessment tool, there is always a risk that a person could re-offend,” Adachi said. “It’s impossible to predict the future.”
Lorrie French said her goal is “to make sure this never happens to a family again.”
“I want justice for my brother, not just for his murder, but for the judicial system making a mistake and not following through the way it should have,” she said. “I want (Judge Reardon) to be accountable for what she did, whatever that may entail. She needs to be accountable because it was her decision that killed my brother.”