According to the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys, (LAADDA), more than 9 out of 10 Los Angeles prosecutors support an effort to recall District Attorney George Gascon. The results of a vote among county prosecutors were released Tuesday.
The recall was approved by the LA County Registrar last year amid a spike in violent crime in the county that began in 2020.
Eric Siddall (Vice President of LAADDA) stated that it’s been one-year of Gascon’s social experiment. He believes people will have time to assess whether or not this has worked. Most people who live in Los Angeles and understand the politics here in LA feel this has been a terrible failure.
Siddall later stated that he didn’t expect 97.9% to vote in support of recall. Gascon refused to accept an invitation by prosecutors to defend himself during the recall effort.
He said that he had asked his members to endorse recall as an organisation. “We did this because we felt that rather than having multiple members of the board make this call, it should be one that all line prosecutions make collectively.
Gascon has been accused of violating state laws by the LAADDA.
“One of his first actions was to create a set directives, which were internal rules that DAs had to follow. Siddall said that some of these rules directly contradicted California’s state law. One was that strikes could not be filed under the three-strikes laws. The three-strikes law is a mandatory law. The prosecutors can’t ignore it.
Siddall said that the second violation was Gascon’s alleged request for prosecutors “to discredit existing charges that he personally disagreed”
He explained that “whole sections of the penal law he said were no longer enforceable.” That presents a problem. It is a legal problem from two sides. First, the prosecutor is part the executive branch. The law’s void sections are not something we can trust. He is in effect making it legal by not enforcing the law.
Siddall added that prosecutors cannot “just dismiss something” under a California state law because they “don’t like it.”
It must be legal. Siddall stated that a legal justification doesn’t have to be merely a declaration from your leader. It must be based on the law. These were the fundamental issues we had with his actions and the way [his directives] contradicted and misunderstood the law.”
Gascon has been voted out of confidence by more than 30 cities in LA County.
“This vote will be cast by those who are familiar with the day-to-day operations of Mr. Gascon’s policies.” “We believe that the votes of our members will resonate among the voters of Los Angeles when they decide whether or not to recall Gascon from power and restore public safety the priority of their office,” said Michele Hanisee, ADDA President.
