San Francisco District Attorney rebukes predecessor for “travesty” resentencing of ‘life without parole’ convict, who tortured and murdered 15-year-old boy, days ahead of his parole hearing

September 9, 2024

A man sentenced to life without parole after he bound, tortured and murdered a 15-year-old San Francisco boy will appear for a parole hearing this month – thanks to a resentencing exercise championed by ex-district attorney Chesa Boudin that was today branded a “travesty” by his successor Brooke Jenkins.

In 1996 Edward Kennedy brutally assaulted 5’1”, 100-pound Sergio Crockett, to force him to reveal where he kept a stash of drugs.

The boy was stabbed, stripped and tied up in Kennedy’s Outer Sunset home.

After reassuring him he was being driven to the hospital, and as Sergio pleaded for his life, Kennedy “wailed” on the child, inflicting another 44 stab wounds, before dumping his body on the street at 12^th and Anza and ditching the knife in a Golden Gate Park lake.

Kennedy was convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances and sentenced to life without parole. The conviction was affirmed by the California Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court refused to review it.

In 2008 a federal court roundly rejected a habeas corpus petition in which Kennedy complained about the quality of his legal representation and procedural matters at his trial.

But at a hearing on July 18 2022, in response to a motion filed by Boudin’s prosecutors, Judge Brendan Conroy vacated Kennedy’s life without parole sentence and resentenced him to a minimum term of 25 years’ imprisonment.

Jenkins, who had assumed office ten days earlier, says she did not know it was happening.

“Had this administration known,” Jenkins said in a statement, “we would have taken action to prevent this travesty.”

“To be clear, the Kennedy case should never have been resentenced,” she added. “Against the well-established law enacted by the electorate, Boudin’s administration moved to dismiss the special circumstances finding by a jury of 12 San Franciscans. Sadly, the court failed to correct this error and prevent this injustice.”

“Unlike the Boudin administration, my administration has fought hard to make sure that child killers who pose a continued danger to public safety are not released,” Jenkins continued.

Kennedy became eligible for parole as a result of the resentencing, and will appear at a parole hearing on September 24 2024 at 10:30am by videoconference from High Desert State Prison.

At the July 18 2022 hearing the District Attorney’s Office was represented by Alex Bernstein – one of a cadre of public defenders brought to the prosecutor’s office by Boudin. Bernstein would go on to blindside the family of a murdered San Francisco schoolgirl by supporting parole for the man who strangled her to death.

In the drive to resentence Kennedy, Bernstein worked with another public defender-turned-prosecutor, Dana Drusinsky. She told the court in a motion that Kennedy’s age, and the amount of time he had spent in custody, represented a changed circumstance that warranted revisiting his sentence.

She also pointed out that the convict’s disciplinary record in prison did not include any rule violations for violence.

Drusinsky is now employed by Alameda County District Attorney’s Office where she continues efforts to secure release for murderers. Earlier this year she successfully persuaded the parole board to free Terrance Varner, who shot 18-year-old Clarence Ogden in the back while he was running away.

At no point in the two hour hearing did Drusinsky mention the dead victim.

A succession of recent laws, signed by Governors Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom, lowered barriers to resentencing, not least by expanding the number of officials who can launch resentencing bids, and by creating a presumption in favor of cutting sentences that can be difficult to overcome.

The case leaves Jenkins open to criticism that she was slow to excise the group of progressive activists from the prosecutors’ office, whose approach she opposed but whose work continued after her appointment.

In November she faces voters for the second time since being appointed to the top prosecutor’s office by Mayor London Breed in the wake of Chesa Boudin’s recall.

Her opponent, Boudin-protégé Ryan Khojasteh, accuses her of playing politics with public safety and pledges to “bring law enforcement and violence prevention teams together to implement evidence-based solutions that will protect us and create lasting public safety.”

Jenkins, for her part, remains contemptuous of Boudin’s approach while in office.

“We have worked diligently to undo the damage that they did to our city and will continue fighting for justice on behalf of victims and survivors of crime,” she said. “We will not go back to the failed Boudin-era policies and practices that harmed our city and did not protect public safety.”