Gascon to GasGone
The Race to Replace Awful LA DA
Los Angeles County has a terrible district attorney.
His name is George Gascon and he was elected in 2020 with piles of George Soros money, Hollywood funding, and a slew of late endorsements – changed to him after the George Floyd riots – from local nabobs and solons.
Gascon spent $12.5 million to unseat Jackie Lacey, a black female district attorney who apparently was not black or female enough for the hardcore woke/progressive/criminal justice reform/decarceration crowd.
Because crime has skyrocketed in LA under his watch, his re-election is far from a sure thing, especially because the woke white “west side” women who are typically entranced by woke-o-babble are irritated with Gascon because they can’t wear their jewelry out in public for fear of being robbed (true fact, actually.)
And Gascon has so far three lawsuits brought by his own deputies district attorneys – two for retaliation when a pair of deputies tried to do their job and put criminals in jail, and a third based on is illegal and unethical “directives” he put in place the day he took office.
While weakened, Gascon could still squeak through the spring primary – California has what is called a jungle primary and everyone – no matter the party – is lumped together and the top two finishers (if no one gets more than 50% of the vote) move on to the general election in November and face off one-on-one.
Right now there are nine challengers to Gascon, a half-dozen or so being credible candidates. This means a multi-split vote amongst them, which could allow Gascon to at least make it to the fall ballot by getting about 20-25% of the vote, a number even the worst of the worst electeds can usually scrounge up based on their incumbency alone. Then again, he could collapse utterly and the hard left of LA politics could coalesce around another candidate – specifically Jeff Chemerinsky (son of famed uber-progressive Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky) – if they see Gascon as wounded beyond repair.
Chemerinsky has been a been a successful prosecutor, but still holds tight to woke ideals. From his website: “As part of his commitment to upholding justice, Chemerinsky strongly believes in criminal justice reform because mass incarceration does not work.”
In other words, Chemerinsky may be the acceptable face of a Soros/woke DA – they are everywhere and they are a menace - now that Gascon has so completely destroyed his own credibility.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been chatting with the candidates – except for Gascon and Chemerinsky, neither of whom deigned to reply to my interview requests – so I thought it might be a good idea to put together some of the highlights from those articles for this piece. Again, while this is very Los Angeles, what starts here moves very very quickly outward and the outcome of the election could impact others around the nation.
Let’s start with Eric Siddall:
Siddall, the Vice President of the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys for the past decade until he stepped aside last week to run, has been an unrelenting critic of current District Attorney George Gascon.
In the past, Siddall has hammered Gascon for basic incompetence, running the “office like a TV show,” and being guided by “ideology and politics” rather than by the law or ethics.
“The time for real change–actually fighting crime and restoring the public trust with the DA’s office—is now,” Siddall said.
Siddall has recently hammered Gascon for his close ties with the Democratic Socialists of America, a far progressive group that has sided with Hamas in the the terrible events currently occurring.
And we have John McKinney:
John McKinney knows temptation.
Before becoming a lawyer, before rising through the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to a position as deputy district attorney in Major Crimes (he successfully prosecuted the murderer of rapper Nipsey Hussle,) he was just another kid in Passaic, NJ trying to figure out which way to turn.
Thanks to his upbringing – his older sister raised him after his parents’ death – he chose work and school and not crack and bling.
That’s why he is running for district attorney – that and the fact that George Gascon is a menace to the community.
“Gascon has a fundamental misunderstanding of the criminal justice system,” McKinney said. “The state of public safety is of deep concern and we need a dramatic change in policy and direction.”
An example of Gascon’s ideologically-driven cluelessness were the “day one” policy directives –unethical in many cases, hence their being rolled back as a result of lawsuits. Not only were they improper, Gascon imposed them without consulting anyone in the DA’s office and, more troublingly, McKinney said “the public defender’s office had copies of them before we did.”
“Gascon has asked us to minimize criminal conduct and it continues to this day,” McKinney said. “And he has stopped informing crime victims of upcoming parole dates (of the offender.) He wants as many people out of jail as possible.”
And Judge Craig Mitchell:
He is not a proponent of the death penalty (he said his Roman Catholicism informs that stance) and does see the need for certain reforms but is distressed at how Gascon’s policies have impacted victims.
Mitchell said one victim in a relatively recent case – the man had been stabbed 13 times, seemingly at random – was visibly stunned when he discovered his assailant had been charged with assault with a deadly weapon – four years max sentence – as opposed to attempted murder.
In another case, a defendant who already had four strikes committed another armed robbery but Gascon’s office did not – per policy – add a gun enhancement, shifting the penalty from 25 to life to 8 years.
“The pendulum has swung too far to the left,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell also criticized Gascon’s for his day-to-day operation of his office, noting the loss of 20% of the prosecutors and Gascon having three years to fill the spots but hasn’t.
“He is so clueless as to the requirements of hiring,” Mitchell said.
Failing to consult with experienced prosecutors when he implemented his initial directives was also a bad management choice, let alone continuing to freeze them out of internal processes (Gascon has been sued by his own staff rather often and he is, so far, losing those suits.)
As to the current crime wave, Gascon’s approach to misdemeanors – the shoplifting/smash and grab craze – “offends our basic sense of what it means to live in a civilized society.
And Maria Ramirez:
Maria Ramirez has worked in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for more than 30 years.
Now, for the first time, she’s sad – and angry.
“It breaks my heart what is happening in our office and it breaks my heart what that is doing to our community,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez is running to replace current DA George Gascon, who she says is simply not serving the community and has placed too much emphasis on ideology.
She acknowledges the need for criminal justice reform, but said Gascon has gone about it completely wrong.
Gascon’s focus on “de-carceration” – keeping people out of jail – should not “be the goal” of a district attorney’s office.
There need to be certain alternatives for certain offenders rather than jail or prison, but Gascon has shown “no concern with what happens on the tail end” because of his strict ideological path, said Ramirez, adding that the removal of even the threat of jail for low-level addiction-related crimes undercuts the premise of diversion and treatment.
“There’s no incentive now to participate in the alternative,” Ramirez said.
And Nathan Hochman:
“I have a unique skill set to beat Gascon,” Hochman said. “I’ve served on all sides of the courtroom: as a judge’s law clerk, a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and a plaintiff’s attorney.”
As to Gascon, Hochman said the DA’s hard-left policies have seriously damaged the community.
“The DA is there to enforce, not create, the law,” Hochman said. “The DA cannot let political ideology determine who you prosecute and who you don’t.”
For example, Gascon’s policy of charging everyone up to 17 years and 364 days old as a juvenile has directly led to gangs using juveniles for hits and murders because they know the gang member will be out – at the latest – on his 25th birthday.
Additionally, refusing to use gun enhancements and ignoring theft actually incentivizes criminals to continue to commit crimes.
Another pro-criminal stance of Gascon’s targeted by Hochman is refusing to send an attorney to attend parole hearings. While it does follow Gascon’s decarceration ideology – don’t put people in jail, put them only if you have to, put them in for the least amount of time possible, and don’t try to prevent them getting out – it is a horrible and unprecedented disservice to the community and to the victims of the crime.
And Jon Hatami:
George Gascon had been the Los Angeles County District Attorney for two weeks and already Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami had already had enough.
Angry enough about Gascon’s day one “policy directives” that he went public, blasting Gascon and saying he was forcing deputy DAs to lie in court.
For speaking out, Gascon called him unfit for his job and promised disciplinary action. Not having any idea how to properly run a district attorney’s office, Gascon seemed not to realize he really couldn’t do that. Hatami sued him, but the case is still in the courts, largely due to Gascon switching his defense attorneys after losing two other deputy DA lawsuits and having to settle a third.
Gascon has never tried a case in court – ever. He has never filed a motion or even appeared in a court room as part of a case.
“He’s done nothing any other attorney would have done” just in the regular course of the job, Hatami said.
Gascon runs the office like a politician, not a district attorney, Hatami said.
“He came in with this ideology and didn’t understand what a district attorney does,” Hatami said. “We’re supposed to prosecute criminals, make the community safer, and support victims. He doesn’t prosecute, he doesn’t support victims, and he’s made the community less safe.”
Seems to me, any of them would be better…a lot better…a much very really a lot better.
Gascon is a tiny man with a huge ego. Thankfully he’s no longer menacing San Francisco.