Progressive policies from Democrat leaders in San Francisco have only made the drug crisis in the city worse, according to a top criminal defense attorney.
Brian Claypool, managing partner and owner of Claypool Law Firm, recently spoke with Fox News and said the Golden City has become such a “train wreck” due to the policies of Democratic leaders over the last ten years. The criminal defense attorney said it was ultimately “a combination of a couple of things,” listing the “Democratic leadership” as the first reason, describing them as “left-wing” and “radical.” He called the mayors “very liberal” and then called out the prosecutors for not prosecuting offenders and backing a “no-bail system.”
Claypool for San Francisco’s decline is mainly because of the “very lenient laws” related to prosecuting crimes committed by the homeless popular “and drug dealers.” He specifically referred to Proposition 47, a 2014 legislation signed into law by Democrats a decade ago and which reclassified six offenses once considered minor felonies as misdemeanors. Among those reclassified offenses were possession of hard narcotics and shoplifting if the total value of the property stolen was below $950.
The result of this legislation isn’t hard to imagine. Shoplifting skyrocketed in California, and businesses in San Francisco and other cities began to lock more and more of their items behind lock and key in order to prevent thieves from cleaning them out while district attorneys let them off.
Claypool said Prop 47 majorly contributed to crime “across the state” because felons who would have previously been considered more dangerous were not classified as less of a threat. One example he gave was reclassifying fentanyl possession as a misdemeanor, which only puts addicts “back on the streets” and creates “more homelessness” rather than fixing the issue because homeless people are more likely to commit violent crimes and robberies, which the new legislation only emboldened them to do. According to Claypool, many of the homeless realize they won’t stay in jail for long or get locked up at all for certain offenses, so they aren’t afraid to commit crimes.
Another consequence of Prop 47, Claypool said, is that fewer DNA samples are taken and this has impacted law enforcement’s ability to solve more serious, violent crimes.
