Well, Hardly Ever Seek Sentence Enhancements

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.”

Originally, Mr. Gascón had laid down an absolute rule that “sentence enhancements or other sentencing allegations, including under the Three Strikes Law, shall not be filed in any cases and shall be withdrawn in pending matters.” The reasons given were that the base sentences were supposedly sufficient to protect public safety and, of course, the reflexive race card supported by a bare citation of what percentage of inmates are black minus the essential context of the demographic makeup of the perpetrators.

What exactly is the exception? The ABC7 story says, “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.” The details are in the amendment to the sentencing enhancement directive, Special Directive 20-08.2.

Is this change really the result of “listen[ing] and learn[ing] from people who disagree with me,” as Mr. Gascón claims in his letter to the community? Very doubtful. If sentence enhancements do no good and cause harm, as Mr. Gascón’s original memo claims, that would be true regardless of who the victim is. If they are to be allowed in some cases, it must be (1) because they have valid purposes for incapacitation, deterrence, or retribution, or (2) because Mr. Gascón is under intense political pressure in these particular cases. If reason (1) is true in the cases within the amended policy, it is also true in cases outside that policy.

The letter noted above also spews bile and falsehoods at people who disagree with Mr. Gascón, in sharp contrast to the conciliatory tone of the initial paragraph, and it tells misleading half-truths about the time certain notorious defendants will actually spend in prison. I will have more to say about these subjects in other posts.