DA changes course on sentencing enhancements
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced a change of course Friday, saying he’ll allow some exceptions to a recent directive limiting prosecutors from pursuing longer sentences for some violent criminals.
Earlier this week, Gascón said he would allow no exceptions to his elimination of “enhancements,” a legal term used by lawyers to modify charges for reasons such as prior convictions, gang involvement, etc.
Now, in a statement issued Friday afternoon from his office, Gascón has said he won’t eliminate prior-conviction enhancements, gang enhancements, special circumstances enhances or out-on-bail enhancements.
“Where aggravating factors exist, I believe existing sentencing schemes provide sufficient latitude to prosecutors to seek higher sentences, but some victims remain concerned, and I want you to know that we are listening,” Gascón said in a letter to the public on Friday. “To be responsive to those concerns my office will adjust its policy to enable enhancements to be brought in a limited range of circumstances.”
The decision comes after a deluge of pressure and criticism from a number of people from across the local law enforcement spectrum, including criticism from his own deputy district attorneys.
“I think the community of Angelenos from all over L.A. County came together to fight for justice and to fight these special directives by the district attorney that would have hurt
vulnerable victims, would hurt children and would hurt people of color,” said Jon Hatami, a Santa Clarita resident and prosecutor for Los Angeles County. “However, this is just one step, and there are many other directives that have been put out that could hurt public safety, that could hurt our community.”
Hatami said he would continue to work to change some of Gascón’s other recent orders that he’s enacted or pledged to enact since he defeated former District Attorney Jackie Lacey in November.
“I think the issue regarding bail is a very dangerous issue, allowing zero bail or presumptive zero bail, for domestic violence and child-abuse cases,” said Hatami. “I think he’s still not allowing the out-on-bail enhancement, so somebody gets released on bail because they’ve already committed a crime, and then they go and commit another crime. He doesn’t think that that requires an out-on-bail enhancement.”
The Santa Clarita resident said Gascón is not allowing risk assessment when dealing with bail, nor allowing deputy district attorneys to go to parole hearings to represent the interest of crime victims.
Hatami emphasized Gascón also needs to begin looking at reaching out to victims before allowing the courts to start the process of dismissing things or moving forward with changes in the legal process.
Gascón has said in the past week that he hopes his policies will still result in people being prosecuted for their underlying crimes, but that by eliminating some enhancements that he can begin to end mass incarceration.
“It seems Mr. Hatami has made a profound discovery rather late in his career,” read a statement from Gascón’s office that was disseminated Friday. “Like any other workplace, if you don’t do what your boss tells you to do, you may be disciplined.”
In reference to Hatami alleging that the district attorney’s office sent out a form to public defenders, asking them to report infractions of the new policies by prosecutors to the district attorney’s office, Gascón’s office denied creating the form.
“Mr. Gascón nor any of his aides generated, approved of, or otherwise disseminated the form in question,” read the statement.
The Association of Deputy District Attorneys came to their colleague’s defense in a statement they issued on their own, saying the statement from the District Attorney’s Office was authored by Maxwell Szabo, a lawyer in the office.
“Deputy District Attorney Hatami, like all of our members, is a tireless advocate for victims. He is a veteran prosecutor with a wealth of experience in prosecuting child murderers. As a prosecutor, he has tried over 70 cases before a jury,” the ADDA statement said. “This attack by Mr. Szabo, who was admitted to the bar in May 2019, who is not a prosecutor nor even employed by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, and who represents that he is the spokesperson for Gascón’s ‘transition team,’ is not only unwarranted but entirely without merit.”