The LA County Public Defender’s Prosecution Office

What if the Los Angeles County public defender was an elected position?

In San Francisco, the public defender is elected. In Los Angeles, the public defender is appointed by the Board of Supervisors. What would it be like if candidates contended for the position of public defender as an elected position, not an appointed one? One might expect slogans like:

"I promise to plead no one, and fight every case to the bitter end. I will ensure that felons are placed on juries. (That is actually a new piece of legislation.) I will ensure that everyone, no matter how dangerous, is released from custody pending trial. (There is a bail movement to accomplish this going on right now.) Vote for me and everyone will be back on the streets. The system is broken and I will finish dismantling it!"

I would like to assume that no one would vote for anyone who endorses platforms like these, but I am just not certain anymore. To win the vote of the people, perhaps the candidates would say things more like:

"My deputy public defenders will represent more criminals and handle greater caseloads than they currently are, thereby saving taxpayers money. We will resolve cases faster by pleading more criminals guilty as quickly as possible, saving court time and expenses. Let's face it, criminals are more likely to plead if they are in custody than if they are free so we won't press the court for pre-trial releases or to lower bail. As your new public defender, I will stop the nonsense. None of the rehabilitation programs really work, so we won't ask for those or waste money and time on them."

If the public defender was an elected position, you might actually have ideological prosecutors running for the position with platforms similar to the one above. And vice versa -- in fact, as of this writing, Chesa Boudin, a deputy public defender, is leading the race for San Francisco DA.

That is exactly what is happening right now in the race for the position Los Angeles district attorney: Defense attorneys wanting to be the DA. The battle for DA of L.A. pits a Democrat centrist female against three male far-left progressives, all prosecutors in title only. A fourth challenger has filed: A female former deputy public defender. What is the difference between this former deputy public defender and the three far left progressive DAs? She's female; otherwise ideologically they are the same. In other words, you have District Attorney Jackie Lacey on one side, an ideological prosecutor, and four opponents who are all ideological defense attorneys.

This current battle for DA is really a battle to establish two public defender offices. Why even have a separate DA's office? Why have an adversarial system? Why battle over the truth? Let's just have a partnership where DAs are no longer prosecutors, no longer lawyers, but just glorified social workers, and we all just agree. The victims don't need a champion, and criminals don't need punishment. How would deputy public defenders feel if a prosecutor ran to be their boss?

Lacey has prosecuted one cop for manslaughter but gets shouted at by people who don't understand how the law prevented her from filing on more cops. They just don't care about Lacey's duty to follow and apply the law to these difficult filing decisions. This is contrasted with her challengers who essentially say they would prosecute more cops, but never address the limitations of the law. They will say whatever is necessary to fire up their progressive base without regard for the legal legitimacy of their position. You can't honestly blame Lacey for not filing on more cops given the state of the law -- which she has nothing to do with.

Lacey has pushed for reform on mental health issues, and even created an innocence review department to re-examine some convictions. Her challengers chant mantras like "restorative justice" and "decarceration." This babble means nothing; it is simply new-age mysticism where crime is solved by hope and prayer, all of which is ultimately designed to reduce criminal charge filings and let more criminals out of custody so that they can reoffend.

Lacey's challengers claim the system is broken because criminals are actually going to jail, during which time they do not harm good people. They chant that "punishment" for hurting people and stealing from them is a bad word. That is how the system is supposed to work; it is not broken.

These challengers are the epitome of defense attorneys who want to dismantle the prosecutor's office with their reckless untested compassion for "justice involved people" (i.e., felons). Who are they? George Gascón is a dissembler who destroyed San Francisco as its DA. Joseph Iniquez is an inexperienced attorney who doesn't know what he is talking about. Richard Ceballos is a good person, I just can't support his far-left progressive positions. Rachel Rossi is the true embodiment of everything these other three believe in. She was, and essentially still is, a criminal defense attorney.

So we have a contest where the challengers are running on a platform of "elect a defense attorney to be your next DA." Their platform: letting criminals out of jail, not filing against them, not punishing them for their crimes, releasing them pretrial without bail, promising to help them reform -- which they have no idea how to do. There are no effective guaranteed tried-and-true methods of reform, and reading the history of efforts at rehabilitation demonstrates just that. The history of rehabilitation is the history of one failure after another. They haven't read the history, because it doesn't help them sell their bogus message to the people. It doesn't help them dismantle the criminal justice system; it just seems nice for them to say that they can save money by letting criminals out of jail and also help them improve their lives. They never talk about public safety. They never talk about victims. They never show compassion for those who are harmed. They never talk about the cost of releasing felons onto the street. They just feel deeply for criminals. How sweet.

If these same four contenders were running for the position of an elected criminal defense attorney -- that is, the public defender -- they would say the same things as they are saying in their campaign to be the next DA: "I will try to get criminals out of jail and into programs. I will decarcerate." 

This is Marc's personal opinion and probably the opinion of many others, though not necessarily the opinion of the DA's office, although it should be.