Los Angeles County voters fired their district attorney, George Gascón, on Tuesday – with prejudice. As of Thursday morning he was down more than 20 percentage points to challenger Nathan Hochman, a Republican running as an independent who served as assistant attorney general under George W. Bush.
As it turns out, even blue voters have reached a tipping point with crime and have lost confidence in prosecutors who are conducting real-time sociological experiments they call reform. They’re ready for Hochman to reverse Gascón’s policies.
Gascón leaves behind a tarnished legacy – though it’s possible he could land a cushy sinecure in the style of former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Boudin was recalled in 2022 for the same reasons Gascón lost: He was ineffective and more dedicated to a political agenda than confronting crime. The radical non-prosecutor now runs the Criminal Law & Justice Center at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
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Not many decades ago, Los Angeles was serious about law and order. Like the rest of the state, it was no place to commit a crime because the consequences were significant. But the county eventually came to be dominated by progressives, who transformed the sprawling megalopolis into something of a criminal’s paradise.
Gascón, a progressive’s progressive funded by hard-left philanthropist George Soros – who believes crime is a symptom of racial and economic inequality and shows little compassion toward victims – assumed office in December 2020. His transition team featured civil rights lawyers and bail reform activists, wrote the Los Angeles Times, and at least one environmental justice activist.
As the new district attorney, Gascón promised modernization that would produce a system that would “enhance our safety and humanity.” Yet, on day one, he blocked prosecutors from asking for cash bail in non-serious or nonviolent felony cases, filing sentencing enhancements that would increase penalties and charging minors as adults even when arrested for vicious crimes.
Low-level crimes, such as trespassing, disturbing the peace, making criminal threats and public intoxication were to be ignored altogether.
Over the next two years, Gascón faced a pair of recall efforts. The disaffected saw in him not a “top cop” committed to the law, but instead a charlatan who, upon swearing in, started “issuing directives to his prosecutors, instructing them to go
soft on crime, coddle criminals, and trample upon the dignity and rights of crime victims.”
He dodged both, as the campaigns fell short of the required number of signatures to place the recalls on the ballot. Voters just weren’t feeling as charitable in 2024, though.
One of the more notable blots on Gascon’s record is the murder of Jacqueline Avant, shot in the back in 2021 in her Beverly Hills home. Aariel Maynor, who pleaded guilty to the crime, had been released early under Proposition 57, a Gascón-supported measure that set offenders free. After his arrest, Maynor bragged that he was “going get out of jail … probably do like 20 … 25 years,” because, wrote PRI senior fellow Steve Smith,”word was out that Gascón was soft on crime.”
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Not only did Gascón favor Prop. 57, he also co-authored Proposition 47, which watered down some felonies to misdemeanors and became so despised that voters overwhelmingly amended it this week in the form of Proposition 36.
Before wearing out his welcome in Los Angeles, Gascón spent eight years as San Francisco’s district attorney doling out a brand of justice fueled by “coffee house politics perpetuated by wealthy donors and pseudo intellectuals with little personal experience in ordinary life for average Americans,” says Smith.
Just as he has in Los Angeles, Gascón refused to prosecute quality-of-life crimes, because they are merely a “nuisance” to residents. He also decided it wasn’t worthwhile to separate criminals from society.
His act grew stale, even in progressive San Francisco. When Gascón announced he was resigning as district attorney, the local Police Officers Association’s response was “good riddance.” Officers were happy he was leaving, though they lamented him “taking his record of failure to an even larger county where he can cause even more harm.”
Where Gascón goes next is unknown. But no matter his destination, he remains a threat to public safety.
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