George Gascon wants to empty the prisons. He wants social workers, not cops. He is trying to close jails and open “restorative justice villages”—resorts for criminals. Instead of punishment, government apologizes to criminals for living a bad life.
“Unlike all the other elected rogue prosecutors, Gascón’s policies apply not only to future cases, but also to all ongoing and even past cases. Let that sink in. And once it does, it becomes obvious that the cumulative effect of Gascón’s radical new policies is to eviscerate the ability of the District Attorney’s office to protect the public, to defang the enforcement of criminal law in Los Angeles County, to let many criminals (including violent ones), go free—and even to unwind many past convictions. If the goal of a prosecutor is to seek justice, Gascón certainly has a perverted sense of it.
If Gascón’s policies remain in force, other rogue prosecutors currently in office, and those running in the future, may well adopt the Gascón playbook, to the detriment of public safety around the country.
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Authors: Charles Stimson and Zack Smith, Heritage Foundation, 1/24/21
Summary
George Gascón, the Soros-backed former District Attorney of San Francisco, is now the District Attorney for Los Angeles County. He has, in mere weeks, put into place radical pro-criminal and anti-prosecution policies and is, in a twisted way, the gold standard for rogue prosecutors. The impact of his reckless and dangerous policies is just starting to be felt—and will come into full bloom in the months and years ahead.
Key Takeaways
Financial backing by George Soros and Soros-affiliated organizations has led to a rise in rogue prosecutors, including George Gascon.
Gascón’s radical, pro-criminal, anti-prosecution policies make him a “gold standard” for rogue prosecutors.
Gascón’s dangerous policies will impact public safety for decades to come.
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The rogue prosecutor movement, which some, mostly liberals, call the “progressive prosecutor” movement, has made significant electoral strides in the past year—in large part because of overwhelming financial backing by George Soros, Soros-affiliated organizations, and other far-left mega-donors.1
See, e.g., Charles D. Stimson and Zack Smith, “Progressive” Prosecutors Sabotage the Rule of Law, Raise Crime Rates, and Ignore Victims, Heritage Found. Legal Memorandum No. 275, 18–25 (Oct. 29, 2020) (discussing the funding of rogue prosecutor candidates), https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/report/progressive-prosecutors-sabotage-the-rule-law-raise-crime-rates-and-ignore [hereinafter Stimson and Smith, “Progressive” Prosecutors Sabotage the Rule of Law].
In recent election cycles, several rogue challengers won their races against independent, traditional prosecutors, many of whom are from the same political party as these new challengers.2
See, e.g., Zack Smith and Cully Stimson, Meet Steve Descano, the Rogue Prosecutor Whose Policies Are Wreaking Havoc in Fairfax County, Virginia, Daily Signal (Dec. 14, 2020), https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/12/14/meet-steve-descano-the-rogue-prosecutor-whose-policies-are-wreaking-havoc-in-fairfax-county-virginia/; Cully Stimson and Zack Smith, Meet Rachael Rollins, the Rogue Prosecutor Whose Policies Are Wreaking Havoc in Boston, Daily Signal (Nov. 12, 2020), https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/11/12/meet-rachael-rollins-the-rogue-prosecutor-whose-policies-are-wreaking-havoc-in-boston/; Zack Smith and Cully Stimson, Meet Kim Foxx, the Rogue Prosecutor Whose Policies are Wreaking Havoc in Chicago, Daily Signal (Nov. 2, 2020), https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/11/02/meet-kim-foxx-the-rogue-prosecutor-whose-policies-are-wreaking-havoc-in-chicago/; Cully Stimson and Zack Smith, Meet Larry Krasner, the Rogue Prosecutor Wreaking Havoc in Philadelphia, Daily Signal (Oct. 29, 2020), https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/10/29/meet-larry-krasner-the-rogue-prosecutor-wreaking-havoc-in-philadelphia/; Cully Stimson and Zack Smith, Meet Marilyn Mosby, the Rogue Prosecutor Wreaking Havoc in Baltimore, Daily Signal (Oct. 27, 2020), https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/10/27/meet-marilyn-mosby-the-rogue-prosecutor-wreaking-havoc-in-baltimore/. See also Stimson and Smith, “Progressive” Prosecutors Sabotage the Rule of Law, at 19, 26 (discussing other rogue prosecutors, such as Monique Worrell in Orlando, Florida; Kim Gardner in St. Louis, Missouri; and Eric Gonzalez in Brooklyn, New York). This list is not exhaustive of all rogue prosecutors around the country.
These elected rogue prosecutors occupy the offices of the district attorney (DA), but their goal is not to be the best prosecutors they can be, nor to “increase public safety,” as outlined under the American Bar Association’s professional standards for a prosecutor.3
See standard 3-1.2, function and duties of the Prosecutor (Am. Bar Ass’n 4th ed. 2017), https://www.americanbar.org/groups/criminal_justice/standards/ProsecutionFunctionFourthEdition/.
Rather, their goals, dressed up in deceptive Orwellian language, is much more sinister: to “fundamentally reverse engineer” the role of the prosecutor.4
See, e.g., Rachel E. Barkow, Three Lessons for Criminal Law Reformers from Locking Up Our Own, 107 Calif. L. Rev. 1967, 1968 (2019).
In practice, that results in favoring and benefitting defendants, attacking police officers, shunning victims, and cozying up to criminal defense attorneys and radical decarceration zealots.5
See Stimson and Smith, “Progressive” Prosecutors Sabotage the Rule of Law, supra note 1.
Earlier Rogue Prosecutors
Until November 2020, the most radical rogue prosecutors, like Boston’s Rachael Rollins,6
See Stimson and Smith, Meet Rachael Rollins, supra note 2.
Baltimore’s Marilyn Mosby,7
See Stimson and Smith, Meet Marilyn Mosby, supra note 2.
Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner,8
See Stimson and Smith, Meet Larry Krasner, supra note 2.
and Chicago’s Kim Foxx,9
See Smith and Stimson, Meet Kim Foxx, supra note 2.
implemented policies that favored defendants, ignored drug laws, prohibited prosecutors from filing certain misdemeanor charges, and cut sweetheart deals with defense attorneys, all of which contributed to spikes in crime (including homicides) in their cities and damaged their relationships with local police and victims’ rights groups.
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It their policies, which have resulted in more deaths and victims, have not eviscerated the entire architecture of the prosecutor’s office and powers—not yet anyway. In most instances, they continue to prosecute violent felons and seek lengthy sentences for the worst of the worst. Though some, like Chicago’s Foxx, are not even doing that as well as their predecessors.10
David Jackson, Todd Lightly, Gary Marx, and Alex Richards, Kim Foxx Drops More Felony Cases as Cook County State’s Attorney Than Her Predecessor, Tribune Analysis Shows, Chicago Tribune (Aug. 10, 2020) (showing that Foxx’s office won felony convictions at a lower rate than her predecessor), https://www.chicagotribune.com/investigations/ct-kim-foxx-felony-charges-cook-county-20200810-ldvrmqvv6bd3hpsuqha4duehmu-story.html.
They defend the cases in which they earned convictions on appeal. They use the laws, passed by their state legislatures, to protect the vulnerable and special categories of victims, like children and the elderly. They seek enhanced sentences when appropriate, charge recidivists with long criminal records accordingly (most of the time), and do not seek to unwind prior convictions won years or decades before. And as much as career prosecutors in their offices may disagree with the policy choices of their rogue bosses, they are not forced to side with defendants, ignore victims and state laws, and violate their oaths of office.11
Of course, that could be because many assistant or deputy district attorneys in some of these offices do not enjoy any type of civil service protection and can be forced out by these newly elected DAs. See Stimson and Smith, “Progressive” Prosecutors Sabotage the Rule of Law, supra note 1, at 9 (citations omitted) (noting that “Immediately after he was elected and sworn into office, [newly elected Philadelphia DA Larry] Krasner fired 31 career prosecutors in the office, many of whom were in the homicide division and highly experienced”).
That changed when George Gascón, the Soros-backed former District Attorney of San Francisco, was elected District Attorney for Los Angeles (LA) County, California, in November 2020. The breadth and scope of his radical policies, imposed by diktat his first day in office, are breathtaking.
Gascón’s Special Directives and Their Impact
Gascón’s policies, issued in a series of Special Directives, which all prosecutors in the office are required to read and know and which have been incorporated into the office’s Legal Policies Manual, are nothing short of nuclear explosions aimed at his own office and prosecutors, undercutting and undermining them in the performance of their duties. Written by or with the assistance of his “transition team” or “public policy advisors”—virtually all of whom are criminal defense attorneys or radical pro-criminal activists—these policies benefit murderers, cop killers, child and adult rapists, career felons, and other dangerous criminals. None of his policies benefits victims of crime.
While this might sound hyperbolic, unfortunately, it is not. Gascón is a rogue among rogues.
Unlike all the other elected rogue prosecutors, Gascón’s policies apply not only to future cases, but also to all ongoing and even past cases. Let that sink in. And once it does, it becomes obvious that the cumulative effect of Gascón’s radical new policies is to eviscerate the ability of the District Attorney’s office to protect the public, to defang the enforcement of criminal law in Los Angeles County, to let many criminals (including violent ones), go free—and even to unwind many past convictions. If the goal of a prosecutor is to seek justice, Gascón certainly has a perverted sense of it.
If Gascón’s policies remain in force, other rogue prosecutors currently in office, and those running in the future, may well adopt the Gascón playbook, to the detriment of public safety around the country.
But more immediately, the residents of Los Angeles will suffer in ways no modern American city has suffered. Don’t believe us? Just ask those who lived in San Francisco while Gascón served as DA there—and that was before he went fully rogue.
A Horrendous Track Record as San Francisco DA
If accomplishments mattered, Gascón would never have been elected as the Los Angeles DA in the first place. Gascón was DA in San Francisco from 2011–2019.12
See Evan Sernoffsky, SF District Attorney George Gascón Decides Not to Seek Re-Election, S.F. Chron. (Oct. 1, 2018), https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-District-Attorney-George-Gasc-n-13276393.php.
Under his tenure as the San Francisco DA, crime exploded. He was, on the merits, a complete failure. Ask virtually any resident of San Francisco, and they will tell you how dangerous the city became under Gascón’s tenure.13
See, e.g., Jason McGahan, Why Do Officials Who Worked with George Gascón in S.F. Appear to Be Snubbing Him Now?, L.A. Mag. (Nov. 23, 2019) (noting that the San Francisco Mayor’s and elected City Attorney’s endorsement of Gascón’s opponent in Los Angeles served as a tacit rebuke of his positions and performance as San Francisco’s District Attorney), https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/george-gascon-london-breed-snub/; Erin Stone, SF District Attorney Hosts Symposium on Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault, S.F. Chron. (Aug. 2, 2018) (noting that “Advocates and victims have criticized the district attorney’s office handling of sexual assault cases), https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/SF-district-attorney-hosts-symposium-on-13127817.php; Jonah Owen Lamb, SF Prosecutor Dedicated Solely to Stalking Cases Reassigned, S.F. Exam. (Jun. 9, 2016) (noting that while he was San Francisco District Attorney, Gascón reassigned his office’s only assistant dedicated to handling stalking cases, a move which caused police officials concern), https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/sf-prosecutor-dedicated-solely-to-stalking-cases-reassigned/.
Gascón was a rape victim’s nightmare in San Francisco.
Rape. In the five years before he took office in San Francisco, there were 757 reported rapes—an average of 151 per year.14
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the U.S., 2010, https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tbl05.xls (last visited Jan. 11, 2021); Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the U.S., 2009, https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2009 (last visited Jan. 11, 2021); Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the U.S., 2008, https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2008 (last visited Jan. 11, 2021); Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the U.S., 2007, https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2007 (last visited Jan. 11, 2021); Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the U.S., 2006, https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2006 (last visited Jan. 11, 2021).
In his last five years in office, after his policies had time to take root, there were a stunning 1,731 rapes, an average of 346 per year. In 2017 alone, there were 367 rapes, and every year from 2014 to 2019, when he left office, there were more than 300 rapes per year. Gascón cannot explain why rapes went up under his tenure,15To see whole article click here.
