Tag Archives: George Gascon

Gascon to Judges: Go Along or Get Out

Los Angeles judges just got dragged in to the conflict between George Gascon’s policies and the Penal Code. Gascon already has his hands full compelling his own prosecutors to follow orders to dismiss all enhancements. These orders are unwise at best and illegal at worst. Meanwhile, independently elected judges are refusing to go along. Their permission is required and they are not giving it. Today, Gascon began threatening them too.

Gascon is Forcing Prosecutors to Move to Dismiss Enhancements

In a dramatic move, Gascon banned the use of enhancements on his first day in office. Enhancements lengthen prison terms for particularly bad conduct. They also lengthen the terms of people with bad records. Gascon claims that these laws are racist and drive mass incarceration. The legislature claims these laws make the punishment fit the crime and take dangerous criminals off the street.

Crime victims and prosecutors are generally in favor of the use of enhancements. Prosecutors are also aware that the California Constitution and the Penal Code require the use of enhancements in certain circumstances. There were rumors of widespread opposition to Gascon’s ban on the filing of enhancements. The opposition correctly pointed out that Gascon was ordered prosecutors to violate the law. Instead of backing down, Gascon doubled down, and began threatening to fire those prosecutors who continued following the law. As their supervisor, Gascon has a lot of leverage of prosecutors. Threatening to fire someone is an effective way to compel them to do things. Gascon can intimidate his employees in other ways. He can give them “freeway therapy,” by assigning them to a courthouse across the county from their home. He can prevent them from obtaining plum assignments. He can move them to difficult or boring assignments.

Gascon seems to be using each one of these tools to force compliance with his orders. And it seems to be working. Most prosecutors are going along. But there has been resistance from the bench.

Gascon Needs the Judges’ Permission to Dismiss Enhancements

The law clearly provides that a prosecutor may not dismiss an enhancement herself. She must move the judge to do it. The judge, in turn, must make a finding that it is in the interests of justice. The findings required may be even more complicated for a “strike” offense. Prosecutors have been reluctantly moving to dismiss enhancements pursuant to Gascon’s instructions. They are doing this to avoid being fired, even though many believe that such dismissals are both unjust and illegal.

But judges haven’t been going along. They have been denying the motion. Many believe the judges are on solid legal ground. Today, Gascon’s administration responded to the judges.

Gascon Threatens the Judges

Each party in a criminal matter may refuse to have their case appear in front of a judge. (Pen. Code section 170.6.) This is called “papering” a judge. The email above is an order to paper Judge Shellie Samuels for refusing to dismiss enhancements. At first blush, this doesn’t appear to be that big of a deal. After all, Judge Samuels probably has hundreds of cases on her docket. But consider this: the District Attorney’s Office is a party to every criminal case. That means they are a party to every single case on Judge Samuels’ docket. If the District Attorney papers Judge Samuels on every case, Judge Samuels will have no criminal cases at all. That is what Joseph Iniguez is ordering. He specifically says that no other cases should be assigned to her. He is ordering his prosecutors to use Penal Code section 170.6 to take Samuels entire criminal docket away.

Once these orders are carried out, and Judge Samuels’ docket is gone, she is useless as a criminal judge. She can’t be fired, because she is herself an elected official. The only place she is useful is Civil Court and Traffic Court. That’s where she will be moved.

Gascon and Iniguez clearly want to make an example of Samuels. No judge wants to lose their case load, be moved out of their courthouse, and forced to preside over civil or traffic cases. Some judges have never even practiced in these areas of law. In fact, most criminal judges are either former public defenders or former district attorneys. Most of them have no idea what goes on in civil court and shouldn’t be there. That’s the threat that Gascon is using.

The tactic worked. On December 17, Bill Melugin from FOX LA reported that Gascon will no longer be papering Judge Samuels because “she has subsequently started dismissing enhancements in accordance with his new policies.”

Why Is This a Big Deal?

Issuing an order to your employees to violate the law is a big deal. That’s what Gascon did when he ordered prosecutors not to file strike enhancements. Then threatening to fire them if they did not comply was an even bigger deal. Break the law or lose your job is a choice that no one should have to make. Still, the judiciary is an independent branch of government that is supposed to check the executive branch in these situations. So threatening the judicial branch is not only immoral but threatens our separation of powers. Those who think Gascon is a reformer should stop and ask themselves why he has to break the law threaten virtually every other person in the criminal justice system in order to accomplish his goals. Has he gone to far? Just ask Judge Shellie Samuels.

Gascon Walks Back the First of His Day One Orders

George Gascon began his term as DA last week and issued several controversial orders on his first day. Many of these orders appear to be at worst illegal and at best unwise. The most controversial was his order not to use the Three Strikes Law, even though the California Constitution and Penal Code require us to do so. That order remains in place.

But cracks are beginning to appear in the barrage of day one orders. Specifically, Gascon’s Special Directive 20-06 has just been walked back and qualified. This order directed prosecutors from requesting bail for any misdemeanor or felony, with the limited exception that we make seek bail on strikes offenses. In other words, bail is pretty much dead in LA.

This order didn’t last long, mostly because the people that wrote it don’t understand how criminal justice works. They forgot about arrest warrants. An arrest warrant is a complaint that is approved by a judge, and allows someone to be arrested for a crime. When they are arrested, they are held on bail and brought to court to face their charges.

The problem is, if you are not using bail, you can’t use arrest warrants. The courts will not issue arrest warrants without a bail amount. That’s because the arresting officer would have to immediately release the arrestee. This defeats the purpose of the warrant. “I’m arresting you!” would be followed immediately by “I’m releasing you!” and nobody would go to court.

Once this problem was brought to the new administration, the Interim Chief Deputy Joseph Iniguez sprang into action. You may have heard of Iniguez. He supported Gascon and contributed to his campaign. In return, he was made #2 at the office, even though he has virtually no experience. He has only prosecuted four felony trials, compared to hundreds by other deputies.

Iniguez partially reversed the earlier special directive. He reinstated bail for arrest warrants at $1. This will almost certainly not be enough for officers to retain custody of the arrestee. Many are predicting that bail will be back in full for arrest warrants. This may be the first of many corrections to day one policies opposed by prosecutors.

Can George Gascon Just Not File Strikes?

One of the most controversial policies implemented by newly-elected district attorney George Gascon is a directive to not file enhancements under the Three Strikes Law. You might remember this law: it provides that when a person is convicted of a third serious or violent felony they are “out,” meaning sentenced to 25 years to life.

Three Strikes has other provisions you may not have heard of as well. If you have been convicted of one strike, any subsequent felony conviction’s punishment is doubled. Strikes also keep people in prison for more of their term. With a strike the good behavior credit you get in prison is limited to 20% of your sentence. Without a strike, you could get much more, up to 75% credit. In other words, if you are sentenced to 10 years, you could get out in 2.5 years if you don’t have a strike. But you serve 8 years if you do.

The Directive: Don’t Plead and Prove Strikes

Three Strikes is an “enhancement.” It must be plead in the complaint. In other words, you must write down in the complaint that a defendant was previously convicted of these strikes on these dates and is thus in even more trouble. Then, before conviction, you have to actually prove this happened. You can use RAP sheets and prison documents and other things. Gascon has ordered his deputies to stop pleading these enhancements. In other words, if you find out that someone has a previous strike, you should just ignore it.

The Constitution: Plead and Prove Strikes

Here’s the problem. Article I of the California Constitution, at section 28(f)(4), says this:

 Use of Prior Convictions. Any prior felony conviction of any person in any criminal proceeding, whether adult or juvenile, shall subsequently be used without limitation for purposes of impeachment or enhancement of sentence in any criminal proceeding.

Cal. Const. Art. I, Section 28(f)(4).

You shall use strikes without limitation. “Shall” in the legal context means “must,” as in “no option.” There is no exception to this provision in the California constitution. It tells prosecutors: you must do this.

The Penal Code: Plead and Prove Strikes

The Penal Code has similar provisions.

Notwithstanding any other law, [Three Strikes] shall be applied in every case in which a defendant has one or more prior serious or violent felony convictions as defined in subdivision (d). The prosecuting attorney shall plead and prove each prior serious or violent felony conviction…

(Pen. Code section 667(f)(1).)

Because it’s the Penal Code, they put the exact same thing in another place, just for good measure.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, this section shall be applied in every case in which a defendant has one or more prior serious and/or violent felony convictions as defined in this section.  The prosecuting attorney shall plead and prove each prior serious and/or violent felony conviction…

(Pen. Code section 1170.12.)

Notice that “shall” pops back up in here. There’s one important difference between these laws and the California constitution. Prosecutors may ask the court to dismiss the strikes once they are plead, if it is “in the furtherance of justice.” But it’s up to the court, meaning the judge, to decide whether to do this. It’s not up to the prosecutor. It doesn’t just happen automatically. The judge has to agree that it is “in the furtherance of justice.”

Follow Orders and Be Disbarred or Follow the Law and Get Fired

This is a big deal because the new DA is ordering his deputies to violate the California Constitution. That puts them in a tough spot. They could choose to follow orders and not file strikes. But that has consequences. First and foremost, prosecutors don’t want to break the law. In fact, that’s the exact opposite of thing they signed up for. Even if you leave out the important principles at issue here, there are still pitfalls. Following orders puts them at risk of a bar complaint. This has happened already to the Head Deputy in Antelope Valley. Just imagine that your family member was shot but lived. Imagine the shooter had two strikes. The shooter was facing 25-life, or more, under the previous administration. Now, without the strikes, they are facing five years served at 50% – just 30 months prison. You can’t even get a law degree in 30 months. Victims are – and should be – upset about this. Deputies who follow orders have to face these victims on virtually every case.

Now imagine that you don’t follow orders. The constitution trumps an office directive, after all. You’ve read up on things, and you’re trying to do the right thing. Well, you are going to get put on a list. The defense bar is keeping a list of prosecutors that don’t go along. They are providing that list to the new DA. If you find yourself on that list, you can be disciplined or even fired for insubordination. Rumor is that your boss will be fired to for failing to control you.

Gascon has put prosecutors between a rock and a hard place. Follow his orders and be disbarred, or follow the law and be fired.

CDAA Letter

On January 12, 2021, the California District Attorney’s Association published an open letter discussing this issue. You can read it here:

CDAA Open Letter to the ADDADownload

The letter focuses more on the wisdom of the “no enhancements” policy, rather than its legality, but it is still worth reading.

Update

A Superior Court Judge ruled that Gascon must file strikes. He issued a new policy to that effect.

SD 21-01 – Revised PoliciesDownload

Public Defenders Blacklist LA Prosecutors

George Gascon recently replaced Jackie Lacey and brought dramatic policy changes with him. One of the most controversial is that Gascon ordered his prosecutors not to file any sentence enhancements for any reason.

The most famous sentence enhancement is the Three Strikes Law. Gascon has been clear from the beginning of his term that this law will not be used. His orders are to dismiss the enhancement from any pending case in which it applies.

Many prosecutors are reluctant to follow this order because they believe it is illegal. Whether they are justified is an important question. But the more salacious issue is how the defense bar has inserted itself into this dispute.

The public defender, alternate public defender and other criminal defense lawyers are keeping lists of prosecutors who refuse to dismiss strikes. The rumor goes on. The defense bar will provide these lists to Gascon and his administration so that these prosecutors, and their supervisors, can be fired. The prosecutors will be fired for insubordination. The supervisors will be fired for failing to control their employees. The rumored purpose of these firings is to create job openings that can be filled with prosecutors who believe in Gascon’s changes.

Shame on the defense bar for acting this way. They should not be creating blacklists. They should not inject themselves into disputes in someone else’s office over internal policies. One lawyer should not try to get another lawyer fired over a legal disagreement.

Criminal court has been different than civil court, an environment that is notoriously uncivil. Every little transaction between civil litigators is fraught with aggression, lack of mutual trust, an unprofessionalism. As a result, civil litigators waste their clients time and money with pointless bickering and posturing. By contrast, criminal lawyers, especially public defenders and prosecutors, often work together day after day in the courtroom. They know each other. Importantly, they have a chance to build trust with each other. That can lead to real communication, not the pointless bickering we find in the civil system. It helps the system work in a just way.

What the public defenders are doing now will break the trust and civility that used to exist in Los Angeles. An entire office is engaged in a coordinated campaign to get portions of the other office fired.