LA's Progressive Prosecutor May Face Recall For Not Throwing Enough Kids In Adult Prison

San Francisco's Chesa Boudin was recalled in June.

Yet another progressive prosecutor is in peril in California after Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón's "hard on crime" foes turned in petitions with 717,000 signatures on Wednesday demanding a recall election — which they will get if about 567,000 of the signatures turn out to be legit. This comes on the heels of the successful recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and the unsuccessful recall of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

For such a "progressive" state, California has a truly horrific criminal justice system, largely due to a slate of "tough on crime" laws passed in the 1990s. Still, just last week the state decided to keep involuntary servitude (aka slavery) in its prisons, requiring all prisoners to work without being paid minimum wage. There's been some progress — in 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law some limits on the state's 150+ sentencing enhancements — but it's still not great. And as much as progressive prosecutors are trying to change things for the better, a lot of people out there don't want to see that happen.

Since the beginning of his term, Gascón has faced significant pushback from other prosecutors and "crime victim's rights" groups who were angry that he put a stop to prosecutors seeking the death penalty, charging juveniles as adults, and implementing three strikes laws and other sentencing enhancements that have led to people being sent to prison for decades longer than is proportionate to the actual crime committed. They also led, obviously, to incredible overcrowding in the state's prisons, which is a major health and safety issue and has been for decades. He faced another recall attempt last year, which failed.

Gascón has let up on some of his directives , but this has yet to appease more bloodthirsty, throw everyone in prison forever types from demanding his ouster.

The effort to recall him this time was galvanized by public anger over a case in which a man who killed police officers would have previously been sentenced to three years in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm but was sentenced to 20 days in prison and two years of probation instead because Gascón barred prosecutors from seeking enhancements for "strikes," as well as another case involving a 26-year-old trans woman who was charged as a juvenile for having sexually assaulted a child when she was 17, prior to coming out. Gascón has apologized for the sentencing decision. .

That being said, as horrific as these crimes are, the policies are not wrong. Sure, we could probably prevent some crime by putting everyone who ever commits a crime in prison forever, but that's kind of a human rights violation. As horrific as the second crime is ... if we agree that teenagers cannot meaningfully consent to sex with people older than they are, if we agree that their brains are not developed enough to make certain decisions like buying cigarettes or booze or lottery tickets, then how can we say that when they commit crimes, they are as responsible for those crimes as they would be if they had committed them as an adult?

We are the only country in the world that does this — and our crime situation is not better for it. Our crime rate is several times higher than those of European countries, all of which are far less heavy-handed with their sentencing.

According to the US Department of Justice:  

U.S. crime rates for the three violent crimes homicide, rape, robbery) were several times higher than the averages for reporting European countries. The U.S. homicide rate was 10.5-7.9 per 100,000 population compared to Europe's less than 2 per 100,000. The U.S. rate for rape was approximately seven times higher than the average for Europe. United States robbery rates were approximately four times higher than those in Europe. Theft and auto theft in the United States were approximately twice as high as in Europe. The U.S. rates for violent crime were also higher than those for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but differences were smaller than those for Europe.

To be fair, these countries also have gun control and reasonable social safety nets, which could also be factors in why they have so much less crime than we do. Still, clearly we're doing something wrong and overly harsh prison sentencing really doesn't seem to be helping anything, even if it makes certain people feel really good.

Prosecutors who are upset with Gascón say that not allowing them to charge juveniles as adults is a violation of the California Victim's Bill of Rights/Marsy's Law, which allows crime victims and their families to "have input" on whether or not the defendant is charged as an adult. This is, however, a good thing, as Marsy's Law is a horrific piece of legislation that denies due process and the presumption of innocence to defendants in favor of imaginary "constitutional rights" of victims — that not only allows them input on sentencing and charges but also allows them to keep exculpatory evidence from the defense.

This may sound callous to say, but "victim's rights" laws are, for the most part, some very well-intentioned very bad ideas. The reason defendants have rights is not because we love criminals and think they are great, but because they are rights against the state . They are meant to keep the state in line, they're checks against abuse, and they are meant to prevent the state from just imprisoning anyone, anytime they feel like it.

George Garcón is doing a good job. He's doing what needs to be done. Hopefully, the fact that Los Angeles just chose Karen Bass over Rick Caruso (who donated $50,000 to the recall effort), or at least awarded her more votes in LA's mayor "jungle primary," is a sign that more reasonable minds will prevail over those seeking punishment for punishment's sake.

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