Patterico's Pontifications

7/14/2022

DA Gascón Drops Victim Notification Requirement in Parole Hearings

Filed under: General — JVW @ 1:28 pm

[guest post by JVW]

Note: Check out the above line. This post is being written by me, guest blogger JVW, not by the site’s host. I have not discussed this post at all with the boss, nor sought any comment or feedback from him. Thus, what follows is 100% my perspective, and my perspective alone.

Los Angeles Magazine reports that embattled Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón is yet again up to his usual tricks:

At a Tuesday meeting, a representative of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón told prosecutors that a long-held policy in which the office notifies victims of crime (or next of kin) that a parole hearing is scheduled for the inmate that harmed them or their loved ones, has been repealed.

This news was then dispersed through an email that was sent by a supervisor who’d attended the meeting of the Parole Division Bureau of Prosecution Support Operationsknown collegially as the “lifer” unit. According to the email, the DA feels it is “not appropriate” for prosecutors to notify victims of crime and next of kin of these upcoming hearings.

In that email, the supervisor added that Gascón also directed staff to “wind down the Lifer Unit” in the months to come.

The article goes on to note that this change in policy has yet to be officially announced. The DA’s office emailed Los Angeles Magazine an Alice-in-Wonderland statement suggesting that notifying victims and their families could end up being harmful:

“After consulting with victim experts, we do not believe this is a trauma-informed approach. Contacting victims and their next of kin can be very triggering, especially if they do not welcome the intrusion. We consulted with the CDCR and they have advised and confirmed that it is their responsibility to contact victims who have registered for notifications and provide information and support to those victims,” the statement reads.

Note the favored progressive buzzwords “experts” and “triggering,” just the sort of psychobabble we have come to expect from these fraudsters. The CDCR referenced in the statement is the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation [note to the magazine’s editors: once upon a time you would have thought to have mentioned this], so in essence the Gascónistas are telling us that their office no longer has the responsibility to reach out to victims and their families — indeed to do so may be harmful — but for whatever reason it is incumbent upon the prison system to do so. Imagine trying to make that claim with a straight face: it’s “not appropriate” for the DA’s office to keep crime victims and their families informed about the potential parole of their assailant, but it’s hunky-dory for a huge state bureaucracy — widely criticized for being wasteful, corrupt, and unresponsive to reform — to be handed that task.

One might be able to make an argument that the CDCR is indeed the proper agency to contact victims, but given the fact that the DA’s office also participates in parole hearings and is thus made aware of them, and given the fact that the Gascón Regime has already been criticized for being grossly insensitive to crime victims, neither the DA nor his enablers deserve the benefit of the doubt here.

Interestingly enough, this story has been reported on Fox News, in the New York Post, and in all sorts of right-leaning blogs, but other than Los Angeles Magazine no local left-leaning media outlet — not the Dog Trainer, none of the local TV networks, not even the Los Angeles Daily News Group — has made mention of this change of policy. Make of that what you will. Here’s hoping we recall this clown first chance we get.

– JVW

Comments (24)

24 Responses to “DA Gascón Drops Victim Notification Requirement in Parole Hearings”

Hey hey, ho ho, DA Gascon’s got to go!
norcal (da5491) — 7/14/2022 @ 1:32 pm
I demand that we move county and municipal elections to non-Presidential election years.
JVW (020d31) — 7/14/2022 @ 1:34 pm
Forever a sewer with zip codes. =sigh=
DCSCA (cffc86) — 7/14/2022 @ 1:42 pm
Is parole hearing info public? Perhaps some enterprising soul will publish the list weekly.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 7/14/2022 @ 1:50 pm
I demand that we move county and municipal elections to non-Presidential election years.

If you do that you will increase the control that county and municipal workers have in the election. Moving the LA city elections to the biennial November dates has made them more responsive to the voters. Before it was just city workers, activists and maybe some retired people who voted in February or April. That the scumbags lengthened their terms by a year and a half was just the price that had to be paid.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 7/14/2022 @ 1:55 pm
I see that Gascon is siding with Polanski’s lawyers in Polanski’s appeal process.

An appeals court ruled Wednesday that transcripts related to Roman Polanski’s criminal case must be made public, a decision that could bring an end to a legal saga the acclaimed film director set in motion when he fled the U.S. after pleading guilty to sexually abusing a child in 1977.

One day after the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said it was no longer opposed unsealing the records, the 2nd District Court of Appeal issued a three-page ruling accepting “the concession.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-13/roman-polanski-transcripts-must-be-unsealed-court-rules

Their argument is that 42 days in jail for raping a child is enough.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 7/14/2022 @ 2:00 pm
If you do that you will increase the control that county and municipal workers have in the election.

I used to think that too, until the voters of the Los Angeles Unified School District shot down a parcel-tax increase in a special election which would have thrown billions at the schools. The thinking was that the unions would turn out the vote, but quite the opposite happened: the anti-tax folks were the ones who were motivated to show up at the polls.

If anything, moving county and municipal elections to November from odd years to even years guarantees that the Dems and left-wing advocacy groups can drive low-information voters to the polls to enact their agendas, and the sheer number of items on the ballot will make it easier for them to dominate the narrative. I say let’s challenge them to do the same in an odd year with a much more lean ballot and see how that goes.
JVW (020d31) — 7/14/2022 @ 2:22 pm
“After consulting with victim experts, we do not believe this is a trauma-informed approach. Contacting victims and their next of kin can be very triggering, especially if they do not welcome the intrusion.

And what they don’t know can’t hurt them?

Triggering here means anyway, reminding them of the crime. o it’s not the possibility of the criminal being freed that could hurt them, but simply reminding them of the crime! (which presumably would otherwise never be brought to mind, or at least less often)

Ofcourse 90% of this triggering business is nonsense.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 7/14/2022 @ 2:53 pm
given the fact that the DA’s office also participates in parole hearings

Not any more.

Generally, opponents of Gascón have criticized his policies…….barring prosecutors from opposing the release of previously convicted defendants now eligible for parole.

Source
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 7/14/2022 @ 3:00 pm
If Gascon isn’t recalled, I would get the hell out of LA.
norcal (da5491) — 7/14/2022 @ 3:09 pm
Ethically and morally challenged; he sounds like Kermit the Frog when he speaks, but that does NOT win him anything.
Colonel Haiku (8b99b0) — 7/14/2022 @ 3:17 pm
In other criminal justice system news:

1. In Michigan the court signed an agreement with the ACLU to limit cash bail.

2. In Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, mayor of Philadelphia from 2008 to 2016 wrote an op-ed piece, maybe some time in the past that turned the phrase “white privilege” against its proponents.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pursuit-of-social-justice-killed-testing-stop-frisk-gun-policy-biden-administration-11657658420?mod=trending_now_opn_4

…When Michael Nutter was mayor of Philadelphia, from 2008 to 2016, he supported stop and frisk, and “its use—combined with other law-enforcement strategies—coincided with the city’s lowest murder rate in 50 years,” according to the Inquirer. Under pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union and other activists, however, the current mayor curtailed the practice, the number of stops plummeted, and violent crime spiked.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s district attorney, Larry Krasner, prides himself on not prosecuting lawbreakers, and the results are what you might expect. The city set an all-time record for homicides in 2021 with 562 deaths. Blacks are a little more than 40% of the city’s population but about 85% of those killed. In addition, 1,800 people were shot and wounded last year, which might be related to the fact that more than 60% of people arrested on gun charges faced no penalty and were turned loose.

After Mr. Krasner nevertheless insisted that “we don’t have a crisis of lawlessness, we don’t have a crisis of crime, we don’t have a crisis of violence,” Mr. Nutter unleashed on his fellow Democrat in an Inquirer op-ed. “It takes a certain audacity of ignorance and white privilege to say that right now,” Mr. Nutter wrote. “I have to wonder what kind of messed up world of white wokeness Krasner is living in to have so little regard for human lives lost, many of them Black and brown, while he advances his own national profile as a progressive district attorney.”

3. Boston seems to be an exception to the rule that progressive or iberal Democrats lead to more crime.

They are doing something different there (and maybe they didn’t impose the same handicaps):

https://nypost.com/2022/07/10/boston-shows-new-yorkers-what-their-city-could-be-like

….Boston is one of the only American cities not to have experienced a double-digit increase in violent crime over two years.

In 2020, Boston had 57 murders, matching the 2017 number. In 2021, it had 40 murders — matching the 2015 number, and 16% below the five-year pre-COVID average. This when New York, in 2021, saw 488 homicides, 53% above the five-year pre-COVID average.

In Boston, rape, robbery and assault are all down since COVID (with the sad exception of domestic violence).

The good news has continued this year.

It’s not that Boston escaped COVID unemployment: It lost nearly 18% of its jobs, more than the nationwide level of 15%.

But: First, during the critical “defund” movement of summer 2020, Boston was lucky to have a longtime, moderate Democrat mayor, Marty Walsh. “I think that just arbitrarily cutting the budget isn’t the answer,” Walsh said in early June 2020.

This was during the worst of the protests-cum-riots. It was hard to take this stance — but Walsh showed cops that though he would insist on police self-discipline, he wouldn’t throw his force under the bus.

This moderate stance has continued, under supposedly progressive Mayor Michelle Wu. She killed police budget cuts this year, winning praise from the conservative Boston Herald: “People got the message. Wu is supporting the cops,” the paper’s contributor Peter Lucas wrote.

Then there’s Boston’s supposedly progressive prosecutor — who wasn’t all that progressive. Rachael Rollins, who headed the office until earlier this year, had a long list of “do not prosecute” offenses, including shoplifting — but then promptly prosecuted repeat offenders who wouldn’t cooperate with diversion programs.

“Contrary to what she seemed to initially suggest, Rollins has not implemented a wholesale policy of waiving prosecution of lower-level misdemeanors,” Commonwealth magazine reported.

In April, Rollins’ successor, Kevin Hayden, bragged about revoking the bail of an “unarmed” robber after repeat second chances. Can you image Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg doing that?

There’s no mystery to Boston’s success: Be lenient when you can. Don’t, when it harms public safety. I look forward to a trip back — to walk around without looking over my shoulder.

By Nicole Gelinas
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 7/14/2022 @ 4:35 pm
There’s a case they are talking about in New York:

https://www.complex.com/life/bodega-owner-allegedly-stabbed-customer-to-death-during-fight-over-potato-chips

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/bodega-owners-push-manhattan-district-attorney-to-drop-charges-against-jose-alba-11657804661

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10999939/New-video-shows-NYC-bodega-worker-trying-calm-customer-later-fatally-stabbed-self-defense.html

I don;tknow if these stories capture all the details.

Someone called a radioo station saying that girlfriend,mother of the child whose potato chips were snatched back when she couldn;t pay $3 – should be prosecuted, not just for stabbbing the clerk when he was struggling with her boyfriend – they were together 10 years – bit for bringing him to the store to pick a fight – that was a felony and getting him killled was felony murder
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 7/14/2022 @ 4:41 pm
@7: A few years, like when Riorden tried to fix the school board, lots of people showed up to vote. But mostly not. If you hide the elections, only those mostly affected will vote, and while the unions don’t dominate every election, they are certainly hard to beat. Every union member is aware of the election and how to vote, and are reminded often. Moving it to the general election makes their power minimal.

Now, perhaps all the other dumb-asses show up and vote dumb, but that’s pretty much due to living in Los Angeles than any particular election date.

I wonder if Caruso stands a chance. I’m sure that the Los Angeles ~~Daily Worker~~ Times has left no stone unturned dissing him while lauding Bass. Maybe electing the worst possible people is the way out.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 7/14/2022 @ 4:57 pm
So, Gascon consulted with “victim experts,” but did he consult with actual victims and their families?? After all, they have the most skin in the game. They should’ve been at the top of the priority list. Also, shouldn’t it be expected that contacting victims might be “triggering”? After all, they’re victims for a reason. But that still doesn’t mean that they don’t want to know about parole hearings, and it doesn’t mean that they don’t want an ADA speaking up. on their behalf.

It makes me angry that victims of crime are not Gascon’s priority and focus.
Dana (1225fc) — 7/14/2022 @ 6:13 pm
Contacting victims and their next of kin can be very triggering, especially if they do not welcome the intrusion.

Gee, if only there were a way that victims and next of kin could indicate whether they wanted these notifications or not. Maybe we’ll have the technology by the 22nd century.
norcal (da5491) — 7/14/2022 @ 7:19 pm
Why is my comment @16 in moderation?
norcal (da5491) — 7/14/2022 @ 7:20 pm
Ethically and morally challenged; he sounds like Kermit the Frog when he speaks, but that does NOT win him anything.

‘It ain’t easy being green’ for a D these days, Haiku. 😉
DCSCA (20814a) — 7/14/2022 @ 7:33 pm
If Gascon isn’t recalled, I would get the hell out of LA.
norcal (da5491) — 7/14/2022 @ 3:09 pm

no LA county resident should pin their hopes on a recall

another woke moron will just replace him
JF (5b6297) — 7/14/2022 @ 8:24 pm
another woke moron will just replace him

JF (5b6297) — 7/14/2022 @ 8:24 pm

Eventually that is likely to happen, but a recall would engender a more reasonable interlude. That’s my guess.
norcal (da5491) — 7/14/2022 @ 8:36 pm
another woke moron will just replace him

Maybe there’s a chance for Giuliani’s last ditch plan to make Trump president again.

1. Giuliani is elected LA County DA
2. ??????????
3. Trump PRESIDENT!!!!

It’s as reasonable as all the other plans.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 7/15/2022 @ 12:15 am
@15 I wonder what’s more triggering, finding out someone who attacked you or someone you care about might be getting parole or finding out they did, and you weren’t told or given a chance to speak against it, when you meet them face to face.
frosty (6844fa) — 7/15/2022 @ 2:26 am
Politico:

Gascón compares the DDAs to Trump’s cabinet:

In LA the deep state is real. Gascón can’t fire the deputy district attorneys who are so hostile to his agenda that they have publicly endorsed the recall. “Think about Biden coming in and keeping Donald Trump’s cabinet,” he said. “That’s what it’s like.”

What Gascón learned for the Boudin recall:

“One of the mistakes that Chesa made that I learned from it — and he’ll readily recognize — is he was trying to talk to people about data,” Gascón said. “People don’t care about data. This is about emotions. This is about how you perceive and feel. And you cannot use data to deal with feelings. And I think that was a failure. And by the time he kind of woke up to that, it was too late for him.”

So, the problem is that the voters are just too stupid to see the important data. It’s a communication issue!

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/15/george-gascon-deep-dive-00045603

What I’ve learned: Never vote for anyone with funny accent marks in their name. It’s even worse than having a hyphenated last name.
Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 7/15/2022 @ 10:06 am
@23 George Carlin was ruthless when it came to hyphenated names.

“Pick a f*cking name!”
norcal (da5491) — 7/15/2022 @ 2:51 pm

7/14/2022

DA Gascón Drops Victim Notification Requirement in Parole Hearings

24 Responses to “DA Gascón Drops Victim Notification Requirement in Parole Hearings”

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