By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Contributing Columnist
The day after New Year’s I received an email from the office of the new Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman. The email was a note and an invitation to serve on one of the district attorney’s citizen advisory committees. The list of committees was exhaustive. It represented just about every ethnic, gender and same sex group.
What was especially curious was that the pitch to be on one of the committees came barely two weeks after Hochman declared that he would scrap the nearly identical advisory committees that reform-minded former District Attorney George Gascón had set up. Hochman’s announcement touched off a mild stir.
Did this mean that reform, a main one being citizen input from minority communities, was either out the window or would be given short shrift to be replaced by a top heavy if not sole emphasis by Hochman on crime fighting and prosecutions?
If that was the case, then the citizen advisory committees would be no more than window dressing to give the appearance that the D.A. was seriously interested in receiving, listening to and acting on citizen demands for fairness, justice and accountability within the D.A.’s office. That hope was tough to square with Hochman’s repeated, relentless and compelling pledge to reverse much of the reform measures put in place by Gascón. One of the main ones being curbing police abuse.
Gascón, the reformist, set up a special unit tasked with investigating and, where warranted, prosecuting police misconduct. First and foremost, that meant prosecuting cops who blatantly overuse deadly force against unarmed civilians.
During the campaign, Hochman surged to the top in the district attorney race almost exclusively on one issue: crime. He loudly promised to do what he claimed Gascón didn’t do and that was crack down on violent criminals.
Hochman understood that the law-and-order mania, crime in the streets, lawless anarchy theme would always stoke fear, anxiety, passions and anger. Countless law and order drum beaters harking back to Richard Nixon in 1968 well understood this issue was a sure fire vote getter. As Hochman amply showed, it was no different this time around.
Hochman had two added advantages. One he could ride the crest of Proposition 36, which toughened penalties for repeat offenders and almost certainly was bound to pass. That was a heaven-sent initiative for a district attorney candidate hoping to bag votes from fearful residents.
The second advantage Hochman had was Gascón. Hochman relentlessly ripped him as a district attorney who practically created a permanent wide-open door to let violent criminals back on the streets to sow terror in their communities.
Hochman’s restore the rule of law campaign capitalized on a public up in arms on an issue. He drew political strength from the well-funded and well-orchestrated campaign by prison guard associations, police unions, victims’ rights groups, disgruntled deputy district attorneys and a legion of conservative talking heads to nail Gascón.
It was a near textbook campaign stuffed with the usual healthy dose of fear-mongering, half-truths, distortions and out-and-out lies about Gascón’s proposed reforms.
Gascón’s greatest sin to them was that he believed district attorneys should not simply be about the business of locking up as many folk as possible, the overwhelming majority of whom are poor, Black and Hispanic. He was one of an increasing number of reform-minded district attorneys nationally who believed that equal protection under the law was something more than just noble words on a scrap of paper.
It meant enforcing the law in a fair, impartial, even-handed, and — most importantly — just way.
In that sense Gascon was an outlier. District attorneys almost to a person have been the loudest proponents of get tough three-strikes laws. They have loudly campaigned for a rash of new laws that toughen sentencing and give prosecutors even more legal weapons to crack down on even the most minor criminal violations.
The fear card is even easier to play with middle-class to wealthy people, business owners and homeowners. Toss in the conjured image of packs of poor young Blacks and Hispanics running roughshod through their neighborhoods, and that part of the public is off to the races demanding a crackdown.
This was not to say Gascón did not make mistakes. To some, his failure to prosecute some repeat offenders, and violence prone youth clearly set off justifiable warning bells. He failed to explain what his reforms in the district attorney’s office were meant to do and how they would not jeopardize public safety.
Hochman has no such concern. His mandate is a single-minded emphasis on crime fighting and prosecutions. This almost certainly will clash with the still compelling need for even handed and fair application of the law.
And yes, that means continued emphasis on reform. That will take much more than rubber stamp citizen advisory committees.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is “Day 1 The Trump Reign” (Middle Passage Press). He also is the host of the weekly The Hutchinson Report Facebook Livestreamed.
