The case that largely drove the recall of DA Chesa Boudin is still in the courts nearly five years later, and the attorney for the man accused of killing two women while driving intoxicated on New Year’s Eve 2020 is asking for diversion instead of a jail sentence.

One of the big driving factors behind the 2022 recall of SF DA Chesa Boudin recall was the case of Troy McAlister, whose New Year’s Eve 2020 hit-and-run crash took the lives of 27-year-old Hanako Abe and 60-year-old Elizabeth Platt. The driver Troy McAlister was charged with DUI for allegedly having both alcohol and meth in his system at the time of the crash, and he tried to flee the scene on foot.

But what turned the case into a media firestorm was the fact that Boudin’s office had struck a plea deal with McAlister to let him out of jail eight months earlier while McAlister was serving time on an armed robbery charge. McAlister had also been arrested two months prior with burglary tools on him. Oh, and the car he was driving in the hit-and-run accident had been carjacked from a woman McAlister was on a date with just two days earlier.  

McAlister was charged with DUI, vehicular manslaughter, driving a stolen car, possessing a concealed gun, and leaving the scene of a crash. The case is still making its way through the courts. But the Chronicle reports that McAlister's public defender is asking the court for a drug rehabilitation diversion program rather than jail, a diversion program that would put him in San Francisco Drug Court that focuses on treatment and counseling instead of incarceration.

McAlister’s attorney, deputy public defender Scott Grant, told the Chronicle that a diversion program would be a “proper and reasonable” sentence, and added, “Research tells us again and again that intensive, targeted treatment for people’s underlying problems — not incarceration — fosters long-term safety.”

DA Brooke Jenkins’s office did not respond to the Chronicle’s request for comment on the matter. There’s also an additional angle that Jenkins has been accused of illegally sharing McAlister’s rap sheet with a colleague as the Recall Boudin campaign was ramping up.  

The Chron notes that some tough-on-crime activists are planning a protest before Friday’s scheduled hearing on the matter at San Francisco Superior Court, though it’s highly unlikely that a decision will be made Friday. Interestingly, the judge on the case is Michael Begert, who was the target of a “report card” campaign seeking to oust him from the bench in last year’s elections, though Begert was reelected handily.

The diversion request may be depicted in some corners of the media as an example of the criminal justice system run amok, but this is not really unexpected or out-of-the-ordinary, and is a standard procedure for defense attorneys.

But if McAlister does eventually get a diversion sentence instead of a jail sentence, then yes, we would likely see another media firestorm unleashed over this case.

Related: DA Files Manslaughter and DUI Charges In Fatal New Year's Eve Hit-and-Run [SFist]

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