Chesa Boudin is the founding executive director of Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, a policy and advocacy hub. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the president of the board of the Prison Law Office, and a winner of the 2025 Eleanor Swift Award for Public Service. He served as San Francisco’s elected district attorney from 2020 until 2022. Prior to his election Boudin clerked for two federal judges and worked for years as a deputy public defender. He is a graduate of Yale college and Yale law school and attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. His biological parents spent a combined 62 years in prison starting when he was a baby.
Boudin’s work has appeared or been profiled in The Yale Law Journal, The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The LA Times, The Chicago Tribune, and many more. View his scholarly publications.
Education
JD, Yale Law School (2011)
MSc, Oxford University (2006)
MSC, Oxford University (2004)
BA, Yale University (2003)
Above and Beyond: Three Berkeley Law Standouts Receive Top Honor Given to UC Berkeley Staff
Sophia Wang, Toni Mendicino, and Amina Kirby are recognized for leading immigration rights advocacy, amplifying Berkeley Law’s international law work, and advancing technical innovations in the school’s classrooms and event spaces.
Building a Ripple Effect: Novel Immigration Liberation Practicum Helps Immigrants in Federal Detention
Stood up on a quick timetable, the project fits perfectly into the Criminal Law & Justice Center’s work at the intersection of immigration detention and the criminal justice system.
Sunshine, Golf, Pickleball and … Scams?
Retirement communities are often idyllic places to spend your older years. But they can also be hot spots for fraud.
Opinion: A Grand Jury Will Indict a Ham Sandwich? Not in the Trump Era.
“Federal grand jurors are showing that they will use their power wisely,” write Criminal Law and Justice Center Executive Director Chesa Boudin and UC Davis Professor Eric S. Fish. “We should embrace this trend and give them the procedural protections they need to serve as true checks on government power.”
How Alameda County’s stonewalling legal approach has cost taxpayers millions
“There is a long-term strategy that many big entities, government and private, subscribe to, which is, if we settle every case, then people will keep suing us with increasingly frivolous cases,” Boudin said. “Sometimes it is worth paying lawyers more than it would cost us to settle a case to fight and deter future copycat litigation.”
Service Stars: UC Berkeley Law’s Pro Bono and Public Interest Award Winners Make an Indelible Impact
Their wide-ranging work reflects the school’s deep commitment to public service that champions justice, equality, civil rights, transparency, fairness, and accountability.
Opinion: Trump’s hypothetical Alcatraz plan is scary. His move to end prison rape protections is scarier
Chesa Boudin, executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center at the UC Berkeley Law and Kenneth E. Hartman, a formerly incarcerated lifer weigh in on Trump’s Department of Justice’s decision to terminate all funds for an effort to stop prison rape by defunding the national Prison Rape Elimination Act Resource Center.
UC Berkeley Law Experts Outline the Latest Developments at the Intersection of Technology and Criminal Law
Criminal Law & Justice Center Executive Director Chesa Boudin and Professors Colleen V. Chien ’02, Andrea Roth, and Rebecca Wexler spoke at a recent webinar for lawyers across the state.
Chesa Boudin represents former prisoners suing California for reportedly withholding ‘gate money’
UC Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law & Justice Center and Edelson PC file lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, for alleged unlawful failure to provide some or all of the $200 “gate money” to possibly more than a million people.
New Resentencing Practicum Among a Slate of Fascinating, Varied Fall Course Offerings
The lineup is “a remarkable mix of classes covering topics relevant to practice areas old and new,” Professor and Associate Dean for J.D. Curriculum and Teaching Jonathan D. Glater says.
Blast Off: New Fellowship Launches Criminal Justice Careers for Recent Grads
Four Class of 2024 alums form the inaugural cohort of the Chris Larsen Justice Fellowship, which will fund their first year of public interest work on criminal justice issues.
Does the quashing of Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction spell hope for Trump?
“The legal precedent set by the Weinstein appeal should not have any direct bearing on Donald Trump’s case,” said Chesa Boudin, executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center at Berkeley Law.
Opinion: The Supreme Court could make homelessness worse in America
Chesa Boudin, the founding executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center at Berkeley Law School, Brendan Cox , and Miriam Aroni Krinsky write about the Supreme Court case City of Grants Pass v. Johnson.
An Illuminating Exchange on Crime, at Berkeley of All Places
A commentary about a criminal-justice conference at the University of California, Berkeley organized by Professor John Yoo and Chesa Boudin.
Opinion: San Francisco is punting its failures on homelessness to Trump judges
“The city’s inability to provide shelter for the homeless is a failure of San Francisco leaders, not the courts,” writes Chesa Boudin, founding executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center at Berkeley Law School.
Implementing Equality: Packed Symposium Addresses California Racial Justice Act
Over 500 people registered for the event, where lawyers, computer scientists, scholars, government officials, and criminal justice leaders probed the act’s early impact and future landscape.
Prosecuting Police: Berkeley Law Hosts Training for Attorneys Handling Fatal Use-of-Force Cases
Prosecutors from across the country recently gathered at Berkeley Law for the first-ever national conference on how to effectively prosecute police officers accused of using excessive force.
Ex-DA Boudin still opposes early recalls, but says he’s moved on
“I’m committed to a life of public service,” said Chesa Boudin, executive director of Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law & Justice Center. “It’s not an accident that I am working at a public university, but I have no plans to run for office. I’m laser focused on building and growing our center to make sure that it is successful.”
The Progressive Prosecutor Movement with Chesa Boudin
Chesa Boudin, founding executive director of Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law & Justice Center discusses his familial experience with incarceration, the backlash he received while in office, building out alternative infrastructures, and rethinking decarceration.
Angela Davis, Chesa Boudin discuss decarceration, activism in Criminal Law and Justice center event
Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law and Justice Center, or CLJC, held its inaugural event Tuesday, hosting UC Santa Cruz professor Angela Davis in conversation with Chesa Boudin, the center’s executive director.