OC DA to argue in LA County against dropping special circumstances

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer will argue at a preliminary hearing against a Los Angeles County prosecutor’s motion to dismiss special circumstances and enhancement charges for a convicted sexually violent predator accused of abducting and killing two children.

The unusual move adds Spitzer to a growing list of county prosecutors who have publicly rebuked DA George Gascón’s special directives.

Spitzer’s anticipated out of jurisdiction court appearance follows his own filing of special circumstance murder charges in Orange County on Tuesday in one of those two slayings.

In his charging documents, Spitzer accused Kenneth Rasmuson, 60, of kidnapping, molesting and then killing a 6-year-old boy who was riding his bike near his Anaheim Hills home in 1981. The case was cold until 2015, when prosecutors in Los Angeles said DNA evidence from the child’s shirt linked Rasmuson, who had since been in and out of prison and state hospitals for a series of sexual assaults against juveniles, to the crime.

Because the boy’s body was found in Pomona, in eastern Los Angeles County, former LA DA Jackie Lacey initially took the case and filed murder charges with special circumstance allegations that Rasmuson committed the crime during the commission of a lewd or lascivious act upon a child. He was set to stand trial with the death penalty on the table when Gascón took office in December.

But with Gascón’s election came a sweeping list of special directives, among them the prohibition against filing special circumstance allegations and other enhancement charges that can increase a convict’s prison sentence. Court filings show Los Angeles County prosecutors moved to dismiss the special circumstances under Gascón’s special directives ahead of Monday’s preliminary hearing.

In an amicus curiae brief filed in Los Angeles County following that motion, Spitzer wrote that Gascón’s attempt to dismiss enhancements in the case “is manifestly contrary to the furtherance of justice,” the legal standard for a judge to allow enhancements to be dismissed.

Spitzer said the allegations against Rasmuson, who is concurrently facing murder charges in connection with the kidnap, sexual assault and slaying of another 6-year-old boy who was abducted in Agoura Hills in 1985, “are the stuff of parent’s nightmares.”

“I refuse to allow the LADA’s ‘one-size fits all approach’ to prevent the family of a 6-year-old murdered child from achieving the justice that they deserve,” Spitzer said in a statement.

Spitzer is now the fourth elected DA who has sought to revoke jurisdiction from Gascón in cases involving both counties since Gascón became LA County DA.

In January, San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan successfully petitioned a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to take back a case involving a defendant charged with committing a series of robberies in San Diego before driving to Los Angeles and murdering two people.

Fresno County DA Lisa Smittcamp and Sacramento County DA Anne Marie Schubert have also sent letters to Gascón notifying him that they would never grant him jurisdiction over their cases.

It’s unclear whether Gascón will continue to pursue dismissal of the special circumstance and enhancement charges that make Rasmuson eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted. That’s because Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant recently enjoined several of Gascón’s directives and held prosecutors are no longer able to move to dismiss enhancement allegations or special circumstances that would result in a sentence of life without the possibility of parole unless they have legal grounds to argue doing so would be in the interest of justice.

Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for Spitzer, said by phone Wednesday that Spitzer has not heard from Gascón about the case nor about how Chalfant’s ruling might affect it. She said the only thing Spitzer wants in this case is justice, and that if Gascón chooses to pursue the enhancements that were filed while Lacey was in office, the Orange County DA would be fine with that.

“This is a poster child case, just because of the heinousness of the crimes and because this individual has shown over and over again that they cannot be rehabilitated,” Edds said. “So if LA goes ahead and pursues the special circumstances, and it’s either life without parole or the death penalty, it doesn’t matter who prosecutes it, we just need that to happen.”

Gascón did not respond to inquiries Wednesday.