LA DA race is closely watched barometer of national discourse

The Los Angeles County district attorney election has become one of the most closely watched criminal justice system races across the nation, serving as a barometer for understanding how national public discourse around police accountability and incarceration will impact criminal policy in the nation's largest prosecutorial office.

Jackie Lacey, elected in 2012 as the first woman and first Black district attorney for the county, is facing a contentious challenge from the former district attorney of San Francisco, George Gascon. Lacey ran uncontested in 2016.

Gascon, who spent nearly three decades as a police officer in Los Angeles, resigned from the DA's office in San Francisco in 2019 to challenge Lacey in the county he grew up in. Before his departure, he was embroiled in conflict with protesters over his refusal to prosecute officers involved in several high profile shootings of civilians.

The race pits two Democratic candidates who oppose the other's views on virtually every topic. Voters will have to decide whether they want to retain an incumbent who is pursuing a tough on crime public safety agenda or elect a self-described progressive running on an agenda that proposes changes in how or when crimes are prosecuted.

"When it comes to criminal justice, it's an ideological election," said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director for the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University in Los Angeles.

Lacey supports the death penalty in some cases, says certain juveniles should be tried as adults and has been reserved about when she believes it's appropriate to charge officers who kill unarmed civilians. Gascon has said he opposes the death penalty, pledged to be more aggressive in charging officers and vowed to never prosecute juveniles in adult court.

Both candidates say they support eliminating cash bail, which a measure on the November ballot -- Proposition 25 -- would do. And they oppose Proposition 20, which aims to roll back several changes to California's criminal sentencing and parole laws -- namely Propositions 47 and 57. Gascon co-sponsored Proposition 47, which Lacey did not support when it was on the ballot in 2014.

Campaign financing has further illuminated a divide between the candidates. Gascon has asked the State Bar of California to prohibit police union funding in prosecutor elections, arguing it creates a conflict of interest when considering charges against an officer. He has no declared support from law enforcement groups in LA County. Meanwhile, law enforcement unions have donated millions of dollars to Lacey's reelection campaign.

Lacey has similarly accused Gascon's largest donors -- billionaires who live outside LA County such as George Soros and Patty Quillin, wife of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings -- of trying to buy an election they have no stake in.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Gascon characterized the race as "the difference between continuing to do business the same way we have for the past 30 or 40 years, or moving into a different direction."

Over the last few years and on the campaign trail, Lacey has positioned herself as a champion for criminal defendants suffering from mental illness. She has routinely touted the creation of a unit in her office that's dedicated to diverting these types of defendants away from the criminal justice system. And she has said that dealing with mental illness within the court system is the "single biggest issue facing our criminal justice system and our county."

"The DA can play a significant role in addressing the critical issue of dealing with mental illness in the criminal justice system," Lacey said in an emailed response to questions. "When it is deemed safe, my office has diverted thousands of nonviolent offenders out of incarceration and into permanent housing."

Gascon agreed Tuesday that mental health is a big problem. But he stated, "She talks a good game about mental health, but her actions and those of her office go in a different direction."

He said if elected he would work with county departments to shift resources around to reduce what he sees as over incarceration by creating programs like he did in San Francisco, such as the diversionary program called Neighborhood Courts.

"Unquestionably mental health is a big problem," Gascon said. "So is homelessness. So is the fact that we continue to prosecute children as adults, almost ensuring that they're going to be coming back home unemployable and often becoming houseless."

Lacey on Tuesday accused Gascon of changing his position on prosecuting juveniles in order to align with the nation's political climate.

"I do not believe that rigid, political statements are effective in managing the largest prosecutorial office in the country," Lacey said. "There are rare instances when some of the most heinous crimes are committed by juvenile offenders. Very seldom does my office charge juveniles as adults, but when it comes to community safety, I will not make a false campaign pledge when it comes to protecting the people of LA county from violent criminals."

Born in Cuba and raised in Los Angeles after he moved to the United States at 13, Gascon is largely supported by younger voters, particularly those who identify with the Black Lives Matter movement and similar groups, Sonenshein said.

Meanwhile, Lacey, who was raised in the Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles, has attracted the vote of law enforcement groups, conservatives and older Black constituents who consider her to be part of the "historic rise of Black elected officials," Sonenshein said.

"I think that you'll find a lot of communities are not really united on this race," he said.

Still, voters in this election cycle appear to be turning out in big numbers, according to early voting data from Secretary of State Alex Padilla. More than 1.3 million mail-in ballots have already been returned in LA County. For the whole 2016 general election, 1.2 million mail-in ballots were cast in LA County.

It's hard to say how much the DA race has galvanized early voters amid a global pandemic and a presidential election. Over the last few months, several high profile Democratic politicians switched their support from Lacey to her challenger.

National public discourse around the question of when it's appropriate to charge officers who kill civilians has become a key policy issue in this race.

Lacey has drawn criticism from Black Lives Matter activists in recent years over her decisions not to prosecute officers involved in several high-profile police shootings. So has Gascon, who did not file a single charge against an officer while he was district attorney in San Francisco.

"I have held and will continue to hold police officers accountable," Lacey said Tuesday. "I have prosecuted over 200 on- and off-duty officers and have prosecuted 13 excessive force cases. I am also one of the few DAs in the state to have prosecuted an officer-involved shooting."

Gascon said he believed some of the police shootings that occurred while he was in office were unnecessary and that the officers involved should have been held criminally liable. However, he said the law at the time didn't support a criminal prosecution. A change in the law earlier this year created a stricter standard for justifying police shootings, he said.

If he wins, Gascon pledged to reopen four fatal police shooting cases that Lacey declined to prosecute -- two of which involve unarmed civilians.

When he became DA of San Francisco in 2011, Gascon said he would never seek the death penalty, and in 2012 he campaigned against it with Proposition 34. He said Tuesday he believes the death penalty is applied disproportionately to people of color, has too much potential for a wrongful conviction, is too costly for taxpayers and does not serve as a deterrent to criminals.

Although Gov. Gavin Newsom last year issued a moratorium on the sentence for as long as he is governor, Lacey and most of the state's prosecutors continue to seek it in some cases.

"My office has rarely sought the death penalty in cases that are eligible," Lacey said Tuesday. "In extreme cases, like the "Grim Sleeper," who murdered at least 10 African-American women, or the Gabrielle Fernandez case, involving a child who was tortured and murdered by his parents, my office made the determination that these heinous acts warranted the death penalty."

She said if California voters were to outlaw the penalty, she would support that decision. Voters in Los Angeles County have defected from the rest of the state in opposing it the last two times it came to a vote.