D.A. drops motion on lifer’s release

Resentencing off table for man incarcerated as teenager in 1980

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, which recently filed a motion to review the life sentence of a man convicted of a rape and attempted murder committed when he was a 17-year-old in 1980, suddenly withdrew the request before a hearing Thursday.

The motion could have led to the resentencing and release of Clyde Jackson because of a California law that passed in 2014 and gives second chances to people serving life sentences for crimes they committed as children or as young adults up to age 25.

Jackson’s attorney said she and her client were blindsided by the move.

“Mr. Jackson is hearing about it for the very first time on record this morning,” said Danielle Harris of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office.

Kasie Lee, head of the district attorney’s juvenile unit, didn’t offer an explanation during the hearing. Lee said the victim had given her position on Jackson’s release in a hearing last week, but the prosecutor didn’t disclose the victim’s opinion.

A district attorney’s spokesperson said the office has decided not to explore resentencing for Jackson.

“Our office’s process for resentencing is to thoroughly review all relevant documents and information and then determine what relief, if any, should be sought. Based on this review, our office does not believe resentencing is appropriate in this case,” Rachel Marshall said in an email.

The move by prosecutors comes five days before District Attorney Chesa Boudin faces a recall election, a bruising contest set into motion by opponents who argue he hasn’t been tough enough on crime and shows too much leniency. Boudin, for his part, campaigned on a platform of decreasing incarceration and increasing alternatives, such as treatment and diversion programs.

Boudin’s office doesn’t charge children as adults. The rationale is that the brain, including portions that control reasoning and impulsiveness, continues developing into early adulthood.

Jackson, along with three other teens, was convicted of abducting a Golden Gate University student on Oct. 6, 1980, as she walked to her car. The 24-year-old woman testified in the 1981 trial that the group raped her over the course of four hours, shot her twice and tried to run her over.

“I was in fear for my life,” she testified.

A then-recent change to state law made teenagers eligible for prosecution as adults if they had a record, failed at rehabilitation efforts and the crime was sufficiently grievous.

During deliberations, jurors agonized over convicting the defendants on charges that could send them away for life, according to the San Francisco Examiner. Some jurors cried. Others screamed. At one point, they asked a bailiff to take the group on a walk to cool down.

“Some (jurors) thought the defendants were not totally responsible because of society, their families and their backgrounds,” one juror said after the trial. All four were Black teens who lived in the Sunnydale public housing development.

In the end, the jury convicted the four on 50 of 52 counts.

Jason Williams, associate professor of justice studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey, said such cases present a complex challenge because a person may have caused great harm but then no longer be dangerous.

He said research has consistently shown that people are less prone to crime the older they get, particularly during long periods of imprisonment. “Many of them have had time to actually think through the harms that they pose as well as become better person,” he said.

In 2017, one co-defendant in this case, Michael Brown, who was said by his lawyers to be intellectually disabled, was paroled due to legislation requiring the board to give special consideration to people who were underage when their crime occurred.

Many cases across the state are resentenced without much notice, but Brown’s release was opposed in 2017 by both Gov. Jerry Brown and Boudin’s processor George Gascón.

The victim “experienced a night of horrors at the hands of Mr. Brown and his co-defendants,” the then-governor wrote in a letter opposing Michael Brown’s release. “I’m not convinced Mr. Brown has confronted how he came to commit such a heinous crime.”

Gascón said the man could endanger the public, but parole officials stuck to their decision, allowing Michael Brown’s release.

Co-defendants Larry Shepard, who was 17 at the time of the crime, went up for parole this March but was denied for at least three years, according to state prison records. Damont Miller, who was 16, has a parole suitability hearing on June 22.

Judge Roger Chan set a June 23 hearing for argument over the state’s request to withdraw the motion for Jackson’s resentencing.