Pierre Constant was arrested in September 2024 for an assault in the Tenderloin that he did not commit. On April 10, 2026, a San Francisco jury acquitted him of all charges. He had spent 18 months in jail—in large part, his public defender says, because the police and district attorney’s office failed to turn over in a timely fashion evidence that exonerated him.
The case is yet another example of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins taking to trial cases that made no sense, overcrowding the jails and driving up the cost of handling public safety.
The PD’s Office said in a Tuesday press release that Constant’s arrest and prosecution were wrongful from the start. Deputy Public Defender Jared Rudolph, Constant’s lawyer, described “unreliable eyewitnesses, brazen police misconduct, and the District Attorney’s Office withholding and redacting exonerating evidence.”
The Sept. 16, 2024 incident involved an argument between two men on Ellis St. that became violent when a third man tried to intervene. One of the men attacked the intervenor with a knife…