LA County public defender issues statement of support for new DA

New Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has a fan: County Public Defender Ricardo Garcia.

Garcia's office issued a statement supporting Gascón on Monday.

Gascón has faced a deluge of criticism from rank and file prosecutors, law enforcement and victims' groups for his policies, such as refusing to charge any juvenile as an adult, halting the seeking of the death penalty and banning his prosecutors from requesting sentence enhancements for prior convictions and gang membership.

This dissent hit a new peak last week when Gascón got in an ugly public confrontation with the family of a murder victim and others victims' relatives.

While some victims' groups have said Gascón has gone much further than county voters were led to believe during the campaign, Garcia's statement argued that Gascón won an election just seven weeks ago while running on these same policies. He defeated two-term incumbent Jackie Lacey, who ran on a more traditional law and order platform.

"The people of Los Angeles elected George Gascón to be the district attorney for their county," read the statement Garcia released Monday. "They did so with full knowledge that he would commit the office of the district attorney to the reforms that this community demands."

The statement praised Gascón for not requesting bail and for recognizing the disproportionate numbers of people of color held in the county's jails.

Some of his deputies have openly defied Gascón. The criticism appears to have had an effect. On Friday, Gascón issued new directives stating his deputies "would seek sentencing enhancements in hate crimes, crimes against children and the elderly and other crimes that meet certain criteria." His deputies won't seek gang and three-strikes enhancements, the statement said. On Thursday, Gascón announced a new Crime Victims Advisory Board.

"Nearly all of the concerns I have heard center around my policy of ending all enhancements," he said in a news release. "To be responsive to your input, I have decided to make some adjustments to my initial directives."

On Friday, Gascón got into a confrontation with protesters outside the Pomona Courthouse.

"It's unfortunate that some people do not have enough education to keep their mouth shut so we can talk," Gascón said on a widely distributed cell phone video.

One of those protesters was the mother of Joshua Rodriguez, who shouted at Gascón that her son had been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in 2015. Enhancements against Rodriguez's accused killers would have been dropped under policies previously announced by Gascón.

Gascón's office did not respond to a request for comments. However, his office released a statement attributed to him after the incident: "While speaking to colleagues outside of the office there were individuals yelling on opposite sides of the crowd. I did not understand what they were yelling about until later, let alone that they were victims. Regardless, it's not how I should have reacted. Clearly this family is in pain, and I will be contacting them to speak directly and hear them out. The defendants in this case are all facing life in prison."

The widespread criticism of Gascón has prompted talk of a recall movement. However, he defeated Lacey by a 7% margin less than two months ago.

Lacey was the first woman and Black person to hold the job. She easily bested Gascón and a third candidate in the March primary, only narrowly failing to win reelection with an outright majority.

But Lacey lost ground in the high-turnout general election after coming under fire from Black Lives Matter and others following a summer of protest sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In particular, critics slammed Lacey for sending 22 people of color to death row -- several of whom later claimed they had received inadequate defenses -- and for receiving at least $4.8 million in campaign support from law enforcement unions.

Gascón out-raised Lacey on the strength of large donations from liberal mega-donors like George Soros and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings.