Op-Ed: Good Riddance to Gascón

The official photo of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. Voters turned him out of office in the Nov. 5 election.Los Angeles County DA

One of the most important outcomes of the 2024 November elections has been lost in the jubilation and/or outrage over Donald Trump defeating Kamala Harris for the presidency. Two progressive district attorneys were tossed out on their ears by California voters. Los Angeles County DA George Gascón was crushed in his bid for reelection and Alameda County (Oakland) DA Pamela Price was recalled.

Gascón is kind of the poster boy for criminal justice reform, which is strange given his personal history. He served in the LAPD, rising from patrol officer to assistant chief; was police chief of San Francisco and of Mesa, Arizona, and DA of San Francisco, all before he was elected the 43rd DA of Los Angeles County. Somewhere in all that criminal justice background, Gascón came to view the prosecution and incarceration of criminals as oppressing the offenders rather than protecting society. And he believed he could fix the system.

His proposed fix for California’s criminal justice system was Proposition 47. Gascón co-authored that infamous get-out-of-jail-free proposal while he was serving as San Francisco DA. And when voters made the proposition law in 2014, it essentially made thefts involving less than $950 in value into misdemeanors, misdemeanors that are rarely prosecuted.

Immediately after crime became “legal” in California, criminals ran amok. Many folks in San Francisco got new cardboard car windows as auto burglary became the city’s most popular pastime. It’s estimated that property crime in San Francisco rose more than 35% from 2011 to 2019 when Gascón was the city’s top prosecutor.

San Francisco was left in such a mess after Gascón left office in 2019 that officials from the most progressive municipality in the country tried to warn voters in Los Angeles County not to elect him. But 2020 was the year of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and defund the police, so Gascón defeated incumbent LA County DA Jackie Lacey 54% to 47%.

On day one in office Gascón announced his social justice warrior agenda for the LA County DA’s office. In a press conference he stated that the office would not seek gang or firearm enhancements, would not try juveniles as adults, would not ask for cash bail in most cases, would not seek the death penalty, and would not be opposing any parole requests. Period.

This list of decrees was met with vocal and public resistance from some of the 1,000 prosecutors that Gascón was supposed to lead. Of course, he also announced that a focus of his office would be prosecuting police.

Gascón acted quickly to free criminals. Just 100 days into office, he announced that he had eliminated 8,127 years of “unnecessary, excessive, and expensive exposure to prison time.” Los Angeles focused news outlet LAist called that “a statistic no previous LA DA would have wanted, much less touted.”

Very quickly, Gascón’s coddle criminals approach to prosecution met with resistance from crime victims and from law enforcement. It also led to more dangerous repeat offenders on the streets of not only Los Angeles but other California cities and even other states.

Some encounters between police and criminals released by Gascón led to extreme violence and even deadly exchanges of fire. In one 2022 case, two El Monte, California, officers—Corporal Michael Paredes and Officer Joseph Santanna—were shot and killed by a convicted felon who had been arrested for gun offenses in 2020 and was on probation because of Gascón’s policies.

Gascón’s policies and their effects led to two attempted recalls that failed to make the ballot because of technicalities. But he finally got removed on Nov. 5, 2024.

The new Los Angeles County District Attorney, Nathan Hochman, is a former federal prosecutor who vows to be tough on crime. Time will tell.

What we do know now is that Hochman has a huge task ahead. The prosecutors now under his direction are said to be demoralized and divided between Gascón loyalists and Gascón haters. There’s even two-dozen lawsuits claiming that Gascón retaliated against prosecutors who opposed his agenda. Worst of all, there are reports of some 10,000 cases that have not been reviewed to determine if charges should be filed.

As for Gascón, he took two major blows on election night. He was voted out of office. And his baby, Prop 47, got a serious rewrite from the voters when they overwhelmingly approved Prop 36.

Some 70% of California voters said “yes” on 36, which makes repeat shoplifters eligible for felony prosecution, adds sentence enhancements for group theft, and creates the category of a treatment mandated felony for some drug crimes. The goal of Prop 36 is to stop the epidemic of shoplifting in the Golden State and reduce drug use.

With progressive DAs like Price and Gascón sent packing and Prop 47 rewritten, maybe California’s leaders will finally address the crime and other quality-of-life issues that plague the state. And maybe, just maybe, police and prosecutors will be allowed to do their jobs and get the bad guys off the street.