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District Attorney’s Office Will, on Rare Occasion, Seek Death Penalty, Abandoning Gascón’s Policy
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Office of Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman declared yesterday that it has dumped the policy of the former administration against ever seeking the death penalty.
George Gascón, the immediate past district attorney, announced the policy on his first day in office, Dec. 7, 2020, in one of several special directives.
Yesterday, the District Attorney’s Office said:
“Effective immediately, the prior administration’s extreme and categorical policy forbidding prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in any case is rescinded. In its place, the new murder with special circumstances policy will consider pursuing the death penalty only after an extensive and comprehensive review and only in exceedingly rare cases. This new policy recognizes an evolving determination that the death penalty should be restricted to the most egregious sets of circumstances.
“Additionally, under the new policy, defense counsel will be offered enhanced opportunities to share information about the defendant with the Special Circumstances Committee and the District Attorney when the death penalty is under consideration. Murder victims’ survivors’ views will be sought and considered prior to any final determinations being made.”
It continued:
“The infrequency with which the death penalty will be sought in special circumstance murder cases will, in most cases, allow the District Attorney’s Office to inform the Court at an early stage that the Office is pursuing the only other sentence available under such prosecutions, a sentence of life without the possibility of parole rather than death. In addition, the standard to charge such death penalty cases at all stages of review will be beyond a reasonable doubt, not the prior standard of probable cause.”
Gascón’s Directive
Gascón said in his special directive 20-11:
“A sentence of death is never an appropriate resolution in any case. The office will strive to ensure that all actions taken are consistent with this policy, including refraining from filing letters stating an intention to seek the death penalty, filing briefs, seeking discovery, or making arguments in court that indicate that the death penalty is an appropriate sentence.”
He went on to declare:
“In any case charged from this day forward, the District Attorney’s Office will not seek the death penalty….The Special Circumstance Committee is hereby permanently disbanded.”
The then-district attorney added:
“The District Attorney’s Office will not seek an execution date for any person sentenced to death.
“The District Attorney’s Office will not defend existing death sentences and will engage in a thorough review of every existing death penalty judgment from Los Angeles County with the goal of removing the sentence of death.”
Campaign Statement
Yesterday’s action was consistent with the view expressed by Hochman during his campaign to unseat Gascón. He said on his website:
“The death penalty should be subject to the highest level of scrutiny by the DA’s Office, a jury, and the courts and should only be used in the rarest of cases. However, there are such extreme cases—for example, where police officers are assassinated in cold blood, where mass shootings at a school occur, where terrorists kill hundreds through a bombing — when the death penalty should be on the table for consideration.”
He continued:
“I am well aware of the troubled history of the death penalty, of those who have later been vindicated, and of the philosophical issues concerning its implementation. However, as District Attorney, I take an oath to uphold all the laws, not just the laws I like. As long as the death penalty is the law of California—having prevailed on the ballot twice in the last 12 years—I will honor my oath and subject it to the highest level of review, considering its charging in the most heinous of cases to which it applies.”
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