Johnathan Walker:In an AP interview, the next Los Angeles DA says he’ll go after low-level nonviolent crimes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Johnathan Walkerincoming district attorney for Los Angeles County, Nathan Hochman, said in an interview with The Associated Press that his first task upon taking office is to eliminate the “pro-criminal blanket policies” of one of California’s most high-profile progressive prosecutors, George Gascón.

That means bringing back gang-related sentencing enhancements, allowing prosecutors to file juvenile charges more freely, and having prosecutors attend parole hearings with victims’ families again, where they can help argue against the release of convicts, Hochman said.

The former Republican-turned-independent also plans to return to prosecuting low-level nonviolent crimes that he said the current district attorney has not, such as criminal threats, trespassing, disturbing the peace and loitering, which often involve those experiencing homelessness.

Anyone who breaks the law will receive “proportional” consequences — no more “get out of jail free” cards, Hochman said in the interview Wednesday.

At the same time, he wants to look at solutions that don’t necessarily involve locking criminals up, such as court-mandated drug treatment, community service, and restitution.

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“There’s a culture of lawlessness” that has been “perpetrated” by Gascón’s office, Hochman said.

“We’re going to reverse that,” he said. “You basically say, ‘Here are the lines in our society, the lines are the laws, I’m going to consistently, fairly and impartially enforce them and here the real consequences on the other side. So if you want to, test me. If you think I’m bluffing, I’m not bluffing.’”

Hochman says he doesn’t want to simply fill up prisons again.

“This is my message to people who believe in criminal justice reform: I believe in it as well,” Hochman said. “The difference between myself and my predecessor is it won’t be a bunch of talk.”

Hochman’s victory Nov. 5 to become top prosecutor in the nation’s most populous county of 10 million people reflected growing discontent in California with progressive district attorneys who have pushed criminal justice reform.

Gascón, a former San Francisco police chief, was elected in 2020 during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota as part of a wave of progressive prosecutors elected nationwide.

He brought several controversial changes to the district attorney’s office that were seen by critics as soft on crime, such as ending cash bail and not allowing prosecutors to charge juveniles as adults or ask for sentencing enhancements. He also recently addressed the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez, saying he would seek resentencing for the brothers who received life sentences for the shotgun killings of their parents in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. Hochman, who could influence the Menendez case, said he could not comment on the resentencing recommendation until he has time to review confidential documents related to the brothers.

Gascón defended his work, saying in his concession statement: “I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past four years and grateful to the communities who have been and will always be the heart of criminal justice reform.”

In 2014, Gascón, then district attorney in San Francisco, co-authored a ballot measure passed by California voters that reclassified certain low-level drug and property crimes as misdemeanors instead of felonies. The measure was approved as California spent years struggling with a 2009 federal court order to reduce the population in the state’s overcrowded prisons.

But increased property crime in LA County, emphasized by viral videos of smash-and-grab retail theft, as well as a worsening drug epidemic and increasing homelessness have fed a feeling of lawlessness and frustration that voters brought to the polls last week.

Prosecutors across the state are now armed with the passage this month of Proposition 36, a ballot measure that gives them the ability to charge shoplifting and drug possession crimes as felonies after a third offense.

Hochman declined to say whether his office plans to review current misdemeanor cases to elevate them to felonies but said the ultimate goal is deterrence. His goal is to return to a year like 2014, which he said was considered the region’s safest year in the last 50 years.

“I don’t predict that you’re going to have thousands of people now going to prison,” he said. “The goal is ultimately to deter them from committing the crimes in the first place. That’s when I’ll know that I’m actually doing something that is effective in the criminal justice system, not by filling prisons to the breaking point. That’s a failure of the system.”

With a little over two weeks before being sworn into office and taking over a department of more than 700 prosecutors, Hochman spent a recent morning this week in Hermosa Beach, a city south of Los Angeles, observing “homeless court.”

The program, which began in the coastal city of Redondo Beach, gives people experiencing homelessness the opportunity to avoid prosecution for nonviolent misdemeanor charges or municipal code violations in exchange for accepting judge-mandated services that can eventually lead to placement in housing.

“I thought it was a really innovative way to try and deal with low-level homeless crime ... and get the homeless individuals the help that they need to ensure that they actually won’t ever have to be back in court,” Hochman said.