Arlo Smith served as San Francisco’s district attorney for 16 years.

Photo: Courtesy Arlo Hale Smith

Arlo Smith, a former San Francisco district attorney best known for leading the office in the aftermath of the 1978 assassinations of gay supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone, died October 8, the day before his birthday. He was 97.   Mr. Smith’s son, Arlo Hale Smith, a gay man, told the Bay Area Reporter that his dad passed away in a nursing home in Sonora, California. He had resided there since about May.   “He was alert and in pretty good shape until after his second wife, Jane Howell, died in August,” the younger Smith wrote in an email, adding that he had last seen his dad about six weeks ago.   Mr. Smith was elected district attorney in 1979. He was reelected three more ti

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