could run for supervisor in the 4th district. Jew pleaded guilty in October 2008 to unrelated federal corruption charges (mail fraud, soliciting a bribe, and extortion) and pleaded guilty the following month in state court to a charge of perjury for lying about his address on nomination forms, as part of a plea agreement in which the other state charges were dropped and Jew agreed to never again hold elected office in California. Harris described the case as "about protecting the integrity of our political process, which is part of the core of our democracy". For his federal offenses, Jew was sentenced to 64 months in federal prison and a $10,000 fine; for the state perjury conviction, Jew was sentenced to one year in county jail, three years' probation, and about $2,000 in fines. Under Harris, the D.A.'s office obtained more than 1,900 convictions for marijuana offenses, including persons simultaneously convicted of marijuana offenses and more serious crimes. The rate at which Harris's office prosecuted marijuana crimes was higher than the rate under Hallinan, but the number of defendants sentenced to state prison for such offenses was substantially lower. Prosecutions for low-level marijuana offenses were rare under Harris, and her office had a policy of not pursuing jail time for marijuana possession offenses. Harris's successor as D.A., George Gascón, expunged all San Francisco marijuana offenses going back to 1975. Violent crimes In the early 2000s, the San Francisco murder rate per capita outpaced the national average. Within the first six months of taking office, Harris cleared 27 of 74 backlogged homicide cases by settling 14 by plea bargain and taking 11 to trial; of those trials, nine ended with convictions and two with hung juries. She took 49 violent crime cases to trial and secured 36 convictions. From 2004 to 2006, Harris achieved an 87-percent conviction rate for homicides and a 90-percent conviction rate for all felony gun violations. Harris also pushed for higher bail for criminal defendants involved in gun-related crimes, arguing that historically low bail encouraged outsiders to commit crimes in San Francisco. SFPD officers credited Harris with tightening the loopholes defendants had used in the past. In addition to creating a gun crime unit, Harris opposed releasing defendants on their own recognizance if they were arrested on gun crimes, sought minimum 90-day sentences for possession of concealed or loaded weapons, and charged all assault weapons possession cases