Category: Prosecutors

Leading Progressive Prosecutor Federally Indicted for Lying and Cheating

by · Jan 13, 2022 6:38 pm

Baltimore is a disaster area for its grotesque number of murders.  Almost all the victims are black.  The police force, at one time at least marginally effective, has been cowed ever since the Freddie Gray indictments.  In that case from 2015, the State’s Attorney charged six police officers with a variety of offenses stemming from the death, in police custody, of Mr. Gray, a small-time (though repeat) drug dealer.  The state obtained exactly zero convictions on any of the counts against any of the officers, but the damage to desperately needed robust policing was done.

The State’s Attorney responsible for that debacle of a prosecution and the consequent cratering of police morale is Marilyn Mosby.  I blogged about Mosby’s startling incompetence and leftist political grandstanding many times (too many to go back and retrieve right now).

Today Ms. Mosby was indicted by the Biden Justice Department for lying and cheating in order to get her hands on moola sufficient to finance  —  ready now?  —  a fancy rental property in Florida.

For those of you still wondering about the true mindset of “prosecutors” who favor the interests of hoodlums over those of ordinary citizens, welcome to the window into the deeper-than-you-thought embrace of criminality that this case gives us.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Continue reading . . .

Highly Questionable Lawyer Practices Have Found Their Way into Criminal Justice

by · Dec 20, 2021 10:56 am

Guest post by David Boyd

A company has a potential liability that they want off their books. An ethically questionable law firm has the solution. Initiate a class action lawsuit against the company, settle the case quickly with a hefty fee for the lawyers and little to nothing for the class. It does not have to be outright collusion; maybe they just each have incentives, but the incentives are entirely aligned with each other so that they are not on the opposite sides. They are not adversaries in the legal sense, and the true victims get left behind.

Something remarkably similar is going on in criminal justice here in California. Long final death sentences are being undone through the same kind of collusion of interests. Anti-death penalty forces and state funded lawyers have a responsibility to represent their death penalty clients. Progressive prosecutors like George Gascón do not believe in the death penalty, despite the fact that the voters of the State of California recently, twice (2012 and 2016), reaffirmed their desire for the ultimate sanction. Gascón does not have the power of the Governor to commute a death sentence, so what is he doing? He invites a lawsuit. Continue reading . . .

Bonta and Gascón Collude to Overturn All Los Angeles Death Sentences

by · Nov 16, 2021 9:46 am

CJLF issued a press release with the above title this morning. Here is the text:

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón are working together to overturn the death sentences of every condemned murderer convicted in Los Angeles County, according to the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

On November 5, Bonta’s office issued Notices of Withdrawal in at least four death penalty cases before county judges to consider new claims by murderers challenging their sentences. Gascón’s office then told the court that it agrees with (concedes) the murderers’ claims and asked the judge to vacate the death sentences and re-sentence the murderers to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP).

“The Constitution of California says that it is the ‘duty of the Attorney General to see that the laws of the State are uniformly and adequately enforced.’ Attorney General Bonta is doing exactly the opposite. He is facilitating collusive litigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney for the purpose of defeating the enforcement of the law,” said Foundation Legal Director Kent Scheidegger.

Update:  CJLF was on the Los Angeles drive time talk radio John & Ken show discussing this issue, available here.

Continue reading . . .

Under Gascon, Gang Murderer Released After Six Years

by · Nov 8, 2021 11:57 am

A gang member convicted in adult court of the 2015 murder of a man in Palmdale will be released from LA County jail thanks to a policy announced last year by Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon.  Scott Schweble of the Los Angeles Daily News reports that because murderer Andrew Cachu was two months shy of his 18th birthday when he shot and killed 41-year-old Louis Amela, under Proposition 57, the Soros backrolled Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016,  he became eligible for a hearing to determine if he should have been tried in juvenile court.  Among the “special directives” Gascon announced days after his election, is one which prohibits his deputies from calling witnesses, including a victim’s family, or presenting evidence supporting the conviction of a juvenile murderer tried in adult court.  With no argument to support Cachu’s conviction, the judge had no choice but to transfer the case to the juvenile court.  Under California law a murderer convicted in juvenile court must be released from custody by age 25.  While Cachu received a 50 year prison sentence for the murder, according to the article, he will be released in a few days having served six years .  “The victim’s family is devastated,”  said Kathy Cady, a former prosecutor representing them.

Continue reading . . .

Landslide in Seattle

by · Nov 3, 2021 10:53 am

Voters in the famously left-leaning city of Seattle rejected the defund/woke candidates by wide margins in yesterday’s local election. Alec Regimbal has this story for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

In the race to become Seattle’s next mayor, former Seattle City Council President Bruce Harrell is triumphing over M. Lorena González, the council’s current president.

Harrell’s decision to appeal to residents who are fed up with homelessness, as well as the way he distanced himself from a city council that vowed to cut the police budget in half last year, appears to have paid off. Harrell has secured 84,975 votes — 65% — while González has won 46,046 votes, just 35%.

Wow. A 2-to-1 landslide in a bastion of progressiveness. Continue reading . . .

Milestone Met in SF Recall of Chesa Boudin

by · Oct 25, 2021 10:29 am

Pigs were seen flying over San Francisco last weekend as the campaign to recall uber-progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin turned in 83,487 signatures to county officials last Friday.  Evan Symon of the California Globe reports that 51,325 signatures are required to put the recall on the ballot, which leaders of the Safer SF Without Boudin say is now nearly a certainty.  “It says a lot about the anger and the fear that San Franciscans have about what’s going on in the community,” said the Co-chairwoman of the group.  Boudin’s tenure as District Attorney has been marked by skyrocketing crime, including shootings, while his office has chosen not to prosecute thousands of offenders arrested for theft, drugs, assault and burglary.

Continue reading . . .

Gascon Punishes Deputies for Following His Policy

by · Sep 20, 2021 12:10 pm

Two deputies district attorneys (DDAs) in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office have been punished for following a parole policy announced last December by newly elected District Attorney George Gascon.  The reason;  following his policy to allow the release of a serial rapist would have made Gascon look bad.  Shortly after his election last fall, Gascon issued a group of “Special Directives” that prosecutors in his office were required to follow.  Directive 20-14 states; “This Office’s default policy is that we will not attend parole hearings and will support in writing the grant of parole for a person who has already served their mandatory minimum period of incarceration…However, if the CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) has determined in their Comprehensive Risk Assessment that a person represents a “high” risk of recidivism, the DDA may, in their letter, take a neutral position on the grant of parole.”   There are no exceptions for violent criminals, including murderers and rapists, in the written policy.

Continue reading . . .

Seattle Attorney Wins Primary, Vows to Abolish Office

by · Sep 17, 2021 1:21 pm

Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, a Democratic abolitionist favoring eliminating the police, and an adamant supporter of groups such as Antifa, has won the primary to be on the ballot for election to the Seattle City Attorney’s Office. If elected, Thomas-Kennedy, will “single-handedly become the greatest threat to Seattle” says Seattle-based talk show host, Jason Rantz.

Continue reading . . .