Category: Prosecutors

Well, Hardly Ever Seek Sentence Enhancements

by · Dec 20, 2020 10:09 am

Rob Hayes reports for ABC7:

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon on Friday said he was reversing course on some of the sweeping changes he announced when he took office earlier this month.

In a memo, Gascon said that effective immediately he would now allow deputy DAs to seek sentencing enhancements for hate crimes, child abuse, elder abuse, sexual assault, sex trafficking and certain financial crimes.

Gascon said he was amending his original directive “to allow enhanced sentences in cases involving the most vulnerable victims and in specified extraordinary circumstances. These exceptions shall be narrowly construed.” Continue reading . . .

Sentence Enhancements and Prosecutor Discretion

by · Dec 18, 2020 3:50 pm

The just punishment for a crime depends primarily on two factors: what the defendant did and what he has done before. The first step is determining what crime the defendant committed. One problem is that the crimes defined by statutes typically cover a broad range of conduct, and two defendants convicted of the same crime may have very different levels of culpability. Dividing crimes into degrees helps, but only up to a point. Another problem is that nearly everyone agrees that repeat criminals should be punished more severely than first offenders.

This is where sentence enhancements come in. They are essential parts of California’s current sentencing law to make the punishment fit the offense and the offender.

Newly elected Los Angeles DA George Gascón has directed all deputy DAs to never charge sentence enhancements under any circumstances. Is that legal? Can anything be done about it? Continue reading . . .

First, They Came for the DA …

by · Dec 16, 2020 12:08 pm

Now, they are coming for the deputies.

Next, they will come for the judges.

But all is not lost.

The Metropolitan News-Enterprise has this article on an effort by the Los Angeles Public Defender’s Office to get its deputies to report deputy district attorneys who do not abide by new DA George Gascón’s directives and judges who refuse, among other things, to strike sentence-enhancing allegations. One deputy PD reported in a tweet that “our office received an email link from Mr. Gascón’s transition team instructing us to report every DA who is disobeying the new policy directives…with case details. It is very sad that the process has become Gestapo-like.” (Emphasis added.) Continue reading . . .

LA’s New DA: Hugs for Thugs, Snubs for Victims

by · Dec 8, 2020 10:09 am

The new District Attorney for Los Angeles County yesterday issued a series of criminal-friendly policies. There is so much wrong with them, it will take multiple posts to describe it all. Among other things, the office will not seek any sentence enhancements under any circumstances, and the office will take the criminal’s side in seeking to remove already imposed enhancements in prior cases. That includes the ultimate sentence enhancement, capital punishment.

One of the things that strikes me about all the sentencing policy memos is how they almost completely ignore the victims of the crimes. Continue reading . . .

How “Progressive” Cities Can Claim They Lower Their Crime Rate

by · Oct 30, 2020 12:38 pm

The view here at C&C is that if you shred and demoralize the police force, and have lax prosecution policies, sooner or later (probably sooner) your crime rate will increase; prospective criminals will notice when the cost of doing business goes down.  Still, that might not always be the case.  Seattle  —  as progressive a city as there is  —  may be on the cusp of showing us how to dramatically decrease the number of convictions no matter how much you shrink and demoralize the police force.

Continue reading . . .

Buying A District Attorney

by · Sep 29, 2020 2:46 pm

For the last three election cycles, ultra liberal hedge fund billionaire George Soros has been bankrolling the campaigns of district attorneys across America.  In 2016 he financed progressive, pro-criminal Kim Foxx’s election to Cook County State’s Attorney, the top prosecutor in Chicago.  Two years later his Illinois for Safety and Justice group underwrote  Larry  Krasner’s takeover of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.  Crime in both cities has skyrocketed.  As reported by Katie Grimes in the California Globe, this summer Soros dropped $2.5 million into the Los Angeles District Attorney’s race to put an anti-law enforcement progressive in  Office.  The candidate, former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, presided over that city’s transformation into an open air sewer, with thousands of drug-addicted homeless sleeping and going to the bathroom on the streets.

Continue reading . . .

USCA-DC Orders Flynn Case Dismissal

by · Jun 24, 2020 8:55 am

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today ordered the district judge in the Michael Flynn case to grant the Government’s motion to dismiss. The opinion is by Judge Rao, joined by Judge Henderson. The decision is not a surprise, given the strong language in the Circuit’s Fokker precedent. See this post. Judge Wilkins dissents in part, disagreeing with the majority’s decision to go forward on the merits now rather than wait for the district court to rule on the motion.

Continue reading . . .

Can the President Fire a Court-Appointed US Attorney?

by · Jun 21, 2020 6:54 am

Geoffrey Berman was appointed interim US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan) by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  After his 120-day interim appointment had run its course, he was re-appointed by the US District Court.  Over the last couple of days, we have seen quite a drama as Attorney General Barr announced Berman’s “resignation;” Berman said he had never resigned and was staying put until a successor was confirmed; Barr then fired him, saying it was at the direction of the President; and (yesterday) Berman said he was resigning forthwith.

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing to look into this.  No doubt it will be chock full of politics and accusations that the President and/or Barr were trying to derail potentially damaging investigations in the run-up to the election.  In this post, however, I’m going to put the politics to one side and address the quite interesting question whether, under the governing statutes and the Constitution’s separation of powers principle, the President can fire a court-appointed US Attorney. Continue reading . . .

The Standard under which the Flynn Case Should Be Decided, and the Correct Result

by · Jun 10, 2020 5:12 pm

On Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit will hear oral argument on the petition for mandamus to require the district court to grant the government’s motion to dismiss the case against Gen. Michael Flynn.  Fed. R. Crim. P. 48(a) permits the government, “with leave of court,” to dismiss the prosecution.  The key question, then, is how much discretion the district court has under the “leave of court” language and under what standards that discretion should be exercised. Continue reading . . .