George Gascón Lays Out Initiatives For Term As Los Angeles County District Attorney

Los Angeles District Attorney-elect George Gascón outlined the initiatives for his upcoming term including stopping the practice of trying minors as adults and ending the use of the death penalty.

After serving eight years as district attorney for San Francisco, Gascón was elected as the new Los Angeles County district attorney, replacing Jackie Lacey who had served in the position for eight years.

“Los Angeles County has voted decisively for a new vision for our criminal justice system, and I am incredibly honored to have earned the support of so many to be your next district attorney,” said Gascón in a statement.  “I returned to L.A. to be closer to my family, but after decades of working to modernize public safety institutions elsewhere, I entered this race because I felt my life’s work would be incomplete if I failed to bring reform to my hometown.”

When Gascón entered the race for the largest county in the U.S. in October 2019, he was facing two-term incumbent Jackie Lacey.

As of Monday morning, Gascón had received 1.7 million votes. On Friday, Lacey conceded the race to Gascón.

See Related: Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey Concedes, George Gascón New D.A.

Gascón’s address included a myriad of changes and commitments, all of which were taken from 11 policy papers previously released with the help of his policy committee. These initiatives plan to commit Gascón to:

• Immediately end juvenile transfers to adult court.
• End the use of the death penalty and work to resentence those condemned to death.
• Join efforts to hold oil and gas companies accountable for the harm they have caused to the environment.
• Create an alternative sentencing planner program.
• Implement neighborhood and behavioral health courts programs.
• Support parole, Clean Slate efforts, and a fines and fees task force.
• Expand Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD).
• Institute restorative justice diversion programs.
• Work to implement a county-wide deadly force standard that allows lethal force to be used only when necessary and as a last resort, ensuring a strong implementation of Assembly Bill 392.
• Collaborate with law enforcement across the County to make police officer misconduct records accessible to all of the public, not only those who request them.
• Establish a county-wide “do not call” policy, including a registry of disreputable law enforcement officers.
• Establish county-wide standards for police body-worn cameras and in-car video systems that take into account the public’s trust, privacy concerns, and regulatory restraints.
• Create and lead a county-wide Police Sentinel Event Review Board.
• Create an Independent Investigations Bureau and hire and train attorney specialists to enhance its ability to investigate and review all officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths and to investigate and review all other excessive use of force cases.
• Establish an Open Data Unit that will make data and information publicly available about police stops, arrests, uses of force, deaths in custody, homicides, hate crimes, law enforcement officers killed or injured in the line of duty, lawsuits, civilian complaints, and other key areas on the DA’s website.
• Make the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office’s policies and procedures public and call for all Los Angeles County law enforcement agencies to do the same.
• Advocate for changes to state law that would give the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) the authority to decertify law enforcement officers who have engaged in serious misconduct.
• Adopt a policy of no retaliatory charging of individuals or their family members for speaking out against the police.
• Adequately staff the District Attorney’s Wrongful Conviction Unit and build collaborations with local law schools, like Loyola Law School, that already have these programs to right injustices of the past.
• Ensure resolution parity for undocumented defendants.
• Expand the Los Angeles County Homeless Court Program and more fully integrate the District Attorney’s Office in a leadership role in the program.
• Implement a CONNECTion To Services Program (the CONNECT Program), that supports diversion to services and prioritizes alternatives to enforcement, citation, or arrest for low-level quality of life crimes or life-sustaining activities.
• End the practice of body attachments.
• Contact victims of domestic violence within 24 hours of an incident to offer support and services.
• Advocate for victims of uncharged cases to have the opportunity to read a victim impact statement at the sentencing of a serial sex offender.
• Develop a sexual assault response team.
• Demand every rape kit be tested.

In addition to the many planned policy changes, Gascón has also pledged to reopen at least four fatal officer-involved-shootings.

Gascón plans to announce a transition team in the days ahead. He will be sworn in as the 43rd District Attorney of Los Angeles County on Dec. 7.

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