Crime, Punishment, & Justice in Los Angeles

Published Feb 4, 2022, 4:27 PM

A conversation with Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney John McKinney and criminal defense attorney Shawn Matian. Matt and his guests go deep into the crime wave currently gripping Los Angeles. They discuss how we got here, and, most importantly, how to fix it. It’s a conversation you don’t want to miss.

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Calvary Audio. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the prevailing narrative. We have today what will be a very important conversation on a topic that I've been harping on quite a bit, which is crime in America's big cities, in particular Los Angeles where I live. UM. Today we have with us, UH John McKinney. He's been a deputy district attorney in the city of Los Angeles for going on twenty three years now, UM, and he's been impressively unapologetic in speaking out publicly on some of what's been going wrong with criminal justice and law enforcement in Los Angeles recently. UM. And that's how he and I connected, And we're going to get into the depths and the details of what's going on in the city of Los Angeles and criminal justice more broadly, UM, in America's big cities in just a moment. Also with us is a good friend, UM and colleague of mine, Shawn Maytian UM, who has been a criminal attorney currently the president president of the Matian Law Firm without over five hundred employees and attorneys in nationwide. UM. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. Thank you, thank you, and so to give people a little framing on on where my particular interest in this topic comes from. UM. I remember, you know, growing up in l A in the eighties, and the other city that I spent a lot of time in as a child was New York, and these were dangerous places. It was an article of faith that was just accepted that being mugged, robbed, murdered was always something. It was always a possibility when you were in these cities. But that was a pretty consistent condition in America's big cities from the late sixties through the early to mid nineties. Then magically, all of a sudden, kind of towards the middle of the nineties, the crime rates in these cities start to plummet. They keep they start going down, they keep going down, and by the two thousands, by the time we're in the twenty one century, we pretty much have stable, safe cities in America. New York, l A, Chicago. UM, these things do not resemble the cities that they were in the eighties and into the early nineties. Now, suspiciously, over the past five to six years since some movements have sprung up around reimagining law enforcement, criminal justice UM and some other you know of regard what we'll get into the validity or invalidity of them UM in depth in this conversation. But some movements UM that are more critical of how we have addressed these problems have sprung up in the towards the end of the two thousand tens and into the two thousand twenties, and kind of suspiciously that is coincided with an increase in crime, in particular in America's big cities. UM. L A is experiencing its worst year, It got worst phase in criminal justice and crime in a couple of decades. New York having some issues as well, and we're trying to see where did it go wrong, What lessons did we unfortunately unlearned UM, And we want to really in this conversation get into the details and understand why right, these things don't just happen. Cities don't just go from unsafe to safe and back to unsafe by accident. They happen for specific reasons. So first want to take us back to two thousand thirteen. Uh, Los Angeles announces that for the tenth straight year, crime has decreased, and we are not Los Angeles now the safest city of its size, meaning any city of more than two million residents has no no city has a lower crime rate than Los Angeles. Things seem to be going very well. Um. Obviously things have not continued on that trajectory since so uh, John, you were in the District Attorney's office for that phase that ten years that crime was going down each year and and reached a in nator um in two thousand thirteen. What were we doing right? What was keeping our city and driving the the decrease in crime um and the better handling of criminal justice in the city at that time? All right, thank you? Yeah, you know, Um, there are a lot of factors that factor into the rise and fall of the crime rate. But I got to l a in I started in the days office, and it was bad in l a Um. We had a game problem that was out of control, and most people said we would never get it under control. Now, ten years before I got here, the California legislature passed was what was called the Step Act, which was the legislation that we used to target game crimes. In four we got the three strikes law, and in n we got a major piece of anti gun legislation, which is sometimes referred to now as the big Gun allegation, the ten twenty life law. I think all of those laws working together and synergy helped to bring down the crime rate. Now there were other factors underaladly, but those three laws targeted hardcore criminal offenders um. And the way I the crime works is, I mean, if you know anything about gains and street crime, you know that there is a small but very active element of individuals who drive most of the violent crime. Most crime is driven by a small concentrated group of criminals, correct absolutely, Like you know, even most gang members are not shooters. You know, they might sling a little dope, they might get engaged in other kinds of crimes, but it takes a rare individual that's able to take a gun and pull a trigger on another person. Every game has those people, but they're not in large numbers. So these laws were designed to target that population. And I think what happened is over time, enough of those people were taking odd of society for a long period of time and such that you got some momentum going against the games and going against crime in general. So I like to say when I got to l A, every young person was running around in baggy clothes, some were carrying guns, and fifteen years later kids were running around and skinny jeans, carrying skateboards. It was an incredible transformation. Incredible and I want to make note not just in well to do areas, because this is the where I think. Uh the recent criminal justice reform movement has distorted some of what transpired during the crime drop in America. It crime didn't just dropped in nice areas. It dropped in the cities that were most the neighborhoods that were most harmed by crime. Okay, in l A. It wasn't just Beverly Hills and Brentwood that became more more safe, Compton, Inglewood, South Los Angeles. These places became far more livable and their citizens far more insulated against crime and harm on a day to day basis. Yeah. No, you know, law enforcement tends to direct its resources to where the crime is happening most in the most serious serious and uh so I think those laws persistent. Law enforcement UM L A p D ramped up its staffing. You know, there's nothing like having more police officers on this three engaged in what we hold this constitutional policing along with no nonsense prosecutions helped bring down that crime rate, which we enjoy from. I think you pointed out crime peaked in like the early nineties, and all of a sudden, once the law started kicking in, we saw a steady and precipitates dropping crime up until very recently. Yeah, and just to give people context here, los Angeles peaked. Los Angeles murder rate peaked in nineteen ninety two. There was one thousand and ninety two murders in the city of Los Angeles that year two thousand twelve at the low point two, So we went from a thousand ninety two to two hundred and nine. Okay, New York experienced a similar decline from I think there was twenty one murders in New York proper in two is a bad year for big city crime. Another seventy dropped to its low point in the early two thousand tens. Um. Another thing I also noticed at that time the politicians and the police department, the police administration working very much in sync and incredibly loudatory of each other. Um. In the piece that I read about the announcement of the low crime rate in Los Angeles, then Mayor Antonio via Ragoza, who may may have his faults, but he presided over in incredibly good air in terms of public safety, and he and Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck were just speaking glowingly of each other. That is not how you hear politicians and law enforcement administrators and officials speak in recent years. And it's interesting that they that this has completely changed over the course of a decade. Yeah, we have a district attorney who doesn't even speak to the l A County share who just disrespects them and disregards them at every turn. Yeah, So, I you know, I don't know how how public safety is supposed to move forward when you have a district attorney who's not willing to work with the other law enforcement partners and justice system parts. Absolutely, and we're going to get to him, don't don't you fret um. Another piece of addressing gang issues that that seems to have it seems to be a piece of the pie in the nineties and odds um were, uh, we're gang injunctions. This was initially instituted by l A City Attorney James Han, specifically in regards to the Blath Street gang in the San San Fernando Valley. Um, there were some pushback in terms of civil rights organizations, but um, these gang injunctions were were kind of acknowledged as a key piece of attacking the gang problem and and you know and catalyzing that that drop in crime. Could you tell us a little bit about the gang injunctions, how they worked, and you know your view on their usefulness. Well, the gang injunctions worked primarily by law enforcement officers contacting and identifying what they believed to be gang members. Um, they named them in an injunction. They were later served with notice that they were named in an injunction and it could no longer loiter or gather with other gang members in certain areas. It was highly effective and allowing law enforcement to uh break up group gatherings in certain areas. But he had some constitutional problems and ultimately the courts found that it was a flawed system, partly because people didn't have a way of challenging their identification as a gang member and being put in the adjunction. And and so those went away. I think it's probably been about what five six seven years ago we lost And so the gang injunctions, they seem to be a somewhat adjacent to a concept known as broken windows policing, which a lot of people attribute the big drops in crime in l A and New York to UM. The way the broken windows policing is described as that visible signs of crime, anti social behavior, and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, and that target that targeting minor crimes such as vandalism, loitering, public drinking, and fair evasion, not specifically in New York in terms of public UH, public transportation the subway create an atmosp fear of order and lawfulness. UM. This during the periods of low crime, as the crime situation was getting better, it was somewhat accepted that the the theory of broken windows policing, the proof was in the pudding. We had the results. You could theorize it back in whether or not it was gonna work, but we saw that it did. It was instituted in l A and New York, and it worked. It got results. UM. To what extent would you attribute the UM the the the improvement in UH in public safety too broken windows policing, and to what extent is it being followed her or disregarded? At this point well, I'm a big believer in the broken windows theory of community safety. We all know that when you're in an area that's dirty, you don't think anything about throwing trash on the street. When you're in the area that's clean, you can't act a little differently. You put it in your pocket. Now, that's a very simplistic analogy, but it works on a broader races as well. People live up to the expectations that are set for them, and so um. Broken windows was the theory of policing that took seriously that we can get to some very bad places taking very short steps. Now, these these kinds of crimes and isolation seemed rather minor, but these are the kind of kinds of things that happen quite often in the aggregate. It can be a big problem, especially in certain neighborhoods. Now, you know, if you live you know how l A is broken down. You can be in the one area two blocks later the entire you know, characterization of the neighborhood changes so totally different atmosphere. Loitering is a big problem. I mean, if you're a homeowner, a business owner, having people hanging out and disrupting the enjoyment of your property or your business can be a big problem when it happens every day, when it happens for hours at a time, and when especially young people lloyd in the same place as they tend to get into a lot of mischief. So um, taking that kind of behavior seriously, not to the extent that you're really looking to punish people for it. You just want to break it up, you know, you just don't want to have it become a mainstay of the environment. M h. I saw it termed as criminalizing certain activities that are precursors to crime. Or maybe that was where the civil rights where the civil rights issues came in in regards to the gang injunctions. But you're looking, you know, and maybe you can explain the notion of basic privab probable cause that the cops need to have probable cause to go and approach a citizen, make an arrest, or explore a crime. Um, and that certain behavior that at first glance appears innocent is actually grounds for probable cause. That perhaps that you know, if you know that a corner, if if there's information that a corner is a grounds for a drug ring of some to a certain extent that. You know, back in the nineties, the usage of a pager, for instance, was indicators that you might be participating in that drug in that uh, in that drug business on that corner, or that loitering might indicate the same thing, and that by snuffing out the seemingly more innocently the lower level offense prevented a more significant offense. Yeah. I think the public had a legitimate concern that some of the policing around the broken windows approach attended to be a little too aggressive, UH and maybe didn't respect the constitutional rights of people who were just gathered in a place where they had a right to be. You know, it was a fine line, and our law enforcement I don't think was as good then as it is today. I think, I think both of our major agencies in l a O are very good and getting better. You know, there were legitimate concerns about how that policing UH was put into effect, probably cause, you know, a reasonable suspicion, even a lower standard, requires that police officers have a reasonable and articulable suspenseion something more than a hunch before they detained a person um, you know, to to engage a police investigation but oftentimes the complaint was that officers were just picking on people. Yeah. So, and that is that is the fine line that we we have to we have to walk, and that is the balance to be conscious. Uh. And you know, have law enforcement be irrational observers of activity that does that is grounds for reasonable suspicion or probable cause with not picking on people and not you know, impeding on their basic civil rights. UM. You know, Sean and your experiences, you know, as a criminal defense attorney, UM, and you were handling a lot of cases in southern California. You know what were you seeing, um during you know, during a period in which there was decreasing crime in terms of you know, how the law was being enforced, whether rightly or wrongly. Where you know, where we were trying, where society was was finding that balance between UM taking a very stern approach towards criminality, UM with people's civil rights. That's that seemed to be UM striking a better balance than it is today. Yeah. You know, as a criminal defense attorney, I'm on the opposite side of John right, but not only the opposite side in terms of defending people while while he's prosecuting people, but you know, John is in one um county, right, He's in one court house most of the time, unless you're in a special unit and you're going around different court houses within the same county. But as a criminal defense attorney, I'm hitting different courthouses, different counties, seeing different judges, seeing different types of deals for the same crime charged. And the interesting thing about that is l A has historically been a very lenient county when a client would come to me and they commit a crime time, whether it was you know, a serious felony or a low grade misdemeanor. Anytime they showed me that their citation or their bail work is out of l A. Whether you know l A was tough on crime at the time or not tough on prime l A has historically been very liberal compared to the surrounding counties in terms of how harsh they prosecute crimes. And you know, the counties that are surrounding us, like Ventura County has a huge sign in their jail. I think they were forced to take it off recently, but there's a huge sign when you walk in and it says this is not l A County UM. So you know, those types of counties. For example, when I was practicing in l A County, if you got a first time d U y, this is just a very minor example there, and there is no accident or no you know, aggravating circumstances. You're not going to jail. And Orange County, excuse me. In Ventura County there's a mandatory minimum forty eight hours for first time d u I. So you know, although l A has seen um, you know, rises in law like ganging junctions. Now they're ganging enhancements, three strikes, other types of other types of laws that they would take advantage of. No matter where we were in the curve, l A has always been very liberal when it comes to when it comes to punishment. And you always when you would get a case as a criminal defense attorney, you always before you look at the location, you're like, I hope it's in l A. And I hope it's these few courthouses because you know you're going to get an easier and easier right at it. But in terms of how tough laws, where that balancing act is. You know, to me, when I was practicing for over a decade, you know, year and year out, handled every case from a you know, simple uh misdemeanor all the way to you know, murders and ganging junctions and everything and everything else that goes along with it. The more power you give people, unfortunately, the more they take. And so when you give you know, the police power, when you give district attorneys a lot of power, sometimes it's hard for them to check themselves, you know, And it's very important for the for the city that the district attorney's office and law enforcement you know are lockstep in their prosecution and their handling of cases. But sometimes certain police officers, sometimes certain d as, take that power and they push the limits, you know, they push the limits and push the limits and see how far they could get to make to make that arrest. And as a criminal defense attorney, truly it's our job to you know, be the person sounding the alarm that you know, yes they do have this power, yes they do have you know, the right or possibly they could be right in there, you know, uh cost statement for making an arrest. But it's it's our obligation to constantly push back and to constantly make sure that um, the balances you know are equitable, that you know, yes, crime, there's a line for crime. But there's also a line for a police officer walking up to someone and making an arrest or making a detention just because they have a hunter belief of a crime or a hunter of belief that they're in a gang. There's always that tough balance. But you know, I think my point is that l A has always been on the far liberal side of this all. You know, if you go to the outside counties, crime never spikes really the way it spikes in l A and UM, even though they all have they have the same loss for the most part. You know, they come from the state. But the way they you know, the way you prosecute, the way you conduct yourself as an officer. You stick to the law, and you know, the more you stay within the confines and don't push, the longer you're going to get away with being able to be a strict police force in a strict city. And so and that's an interesting point because despite Los Angeles being on a relative basis less less harsh and its penalties and its consequences and it's you know, baseline deterrent effects, that did not stop us from experiencing, you know, a monumental drop in crime from the early nineties through the nineties and then that ten year period that that hit a little you know, that led us to a low point in our our safest period ever in two thousand and thirteen. So you know, we're trying to bounce. We have an advert the adversarial nature of you know, criminal defense attorneys and trying to um pump the brakes on prosecutorial and police power. Um that pushing back against you know, the cops and uh law enforcement and prosecutors, you know, trying to be more strict. And we found a balance that seemed to um that cultivated safe communities in a safe city. Okay. So that that's two thousand thirteen that brings us to is so let's now look at where the inflection point is and and where things started to go in another direction. So two thousand fourteen, a a ballot measure makes the ballot in California in the elections that year. It is Prop forty seven. It is described as the Safe Neighborhoods in School in Schools Act. Oh wow, that sounds pretty good. The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act. Who doesn't want safe neighborhoods and in school um? And so what was that in practice, not just in name. It was a law that changed certain low level crimes from potential felonies to misdemeanors, claiming that the savings from reduced incarceration costs will be invested into drug and mental health treatment programs for at risk students and victim services. So essentially, what we were saying was, Okay, we've solved crime, we have safe communities in safe streets. Right now, we're obviously, you know what, we're incarcerating too many people. It cost the state and the cities a lot to keep people in jail. We can take our foot off the gas pedal a little bit, be less incarce rate less people, be less strict in enforcing criminal penalties, and shift some of that money to mental health, to drug programs, to after school programs and things of that nature. And we are going to have We're going to maintain safety and have a more just, more equitable society. That was the promise of Prop forty seven. John, if you could tell us a little bit about the tangible impact of Prop forty seven and did it live up to its promises? No, I think Prop for seven has been an abysmal failure. In two major ways. You talked about how Prop. Forty seven worked to reduce a lot of felony crimes to misdemeanors, both on the theft side and on the drug side, and to most people outside of the criminal justice system, that sounds perfectly reasonable, especially when you're living in a low crime environment relative to what we saw in the nineties. Um and I'm no different, you know. I am of someone who thinks that we have to our criminal laws have to be nimble and be adapted to what's happening in real time. So in the nineties we had a crisis, we needed tough to deal with it. But as we brought that crime right down, then it was appropriate to go back in and make modifications. Prop forty seven made to row modifications. First on the drug side, which isn't talked about as much. It reduced felony possession crimes, which carry basically a high term of about three years in state prison, probation to up up to three years and state prison for possession of cocaine, meth and heart street drugs. The reason that that time was important is because our criminal courts had adapted drug courts to deal with hardcore drug offenders and to foster treatment for them. And the way our drug courts were working is to um use that confinement time up to three years as inpatient treatment time for the offenders. So it was all voluntary. Person had to want to go into treatment. They go into treatment, the court would start them off, usually in patient treatment for a period of a month, maybe two months, whatever that particular person needed before moving to outpatient. That time would come off of that three years confinement time. So it was just like credits for being usty. And so I want to be very clear because there's one of these recent myths in the discourse around criminal justice is that you can either incarceerate someone or give them help. You can't do both. But that's not true, right, and you can. You can incarceerate them, remove them as a threat to innocent people, and also give them help simultaneously. It's the false choice to think that you can't do bold and particularly in the case of our drupe courts, the confinement was less in a jail setting and more in a therapeutic setting. And what would happen is they would they would move to outpatient, they go a period of time clean and sober, fall off the wagon and start over again. But the courts had the confinement time to start them back in patient treatment and work with them until those periods of sobriety got longer and longer. But when we reduce those crimes to misdemeanors, we lost that three years of confinement time. So now, I mean the most that a court can do, it's confined somebody for six months, and that's just not enough time to help with the hardcore drug addiction. I know people weren't thinking that when they voted for Prop. Forty seven. They were thinking, oh, you know, drugs were too hard on drug offenders. It's a health problem, it's not a crime problem. So let's reduce these two misdemeanors. But when they did that, they pulled the rug right out from under the drug course on that side. You know, it reduced a lot of of of that crimes which were wobblers. Basically, they turned the wobbler as a crime that can be charged as either misdemeanor or a felony at the discretion of the prosecutor. And typically what happens is, you know, the case of a wobbler, the prosecutor will charge it as a misdemeanor the first couple of times a person commits the offense, but after about the third time it gets ramped up to a felony foil obvious reasons. But Prop. Forty seven reduced a lot of those crimes to straight misdemeanors, and it's something eliminated some chronic Yeah, and so everyone, And this is the one that's made made the rounds and that a lot of people are aware of. In the essential ostensibly the decriminalization of stealing up to nine and fifty dollars of of merchandise or or anything in the state of California, I believe it or not. And I was like supprised to know this. There had always been a threshold between misdemeanor and felony. It was four hundred dollars. This increased it to nine hundred and fifty dollars. But once again, I imagine most people when they they first encountered this proposition and this change, they figured, well, Okay, if they're stealing eight hundred and seventeen dollars, there's still gonna be some punishment. Just because it's reduced to a misdemeanor doesn't mean that they can just go. All this retail theft can just happen without consequence. But that isn't quite how it's played out, right, You've got so much petty theft that's simply apparently correct me if I'm wrong, If I'm wrong, pleauseing me. No, that doesn't get punished at all. No, that's true. We have you know, now we're getting into some of Gascon's local he's here in l A County. I can't speak to what the other das are doing around the state, but I know they're not doing what he's doing, at least not yet correct outside of San Francisco, of course. But he's not prosecuting misdemeanors um for adults or juveniles. Now, let me go back and clean that up a little bit. He's not prosecuting juveniles for any misdemeanor crimes at all. So the message that's being sent to fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year olds is you can go out and steal up to a thousand dollars for the merchandise. The d A is not going to prosecute you in a traditional sense. So I want people to I want listeners to understand what's going on here. This means the Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon. If you are seventeen years and eleven months old and you go and steal eight hundred dollars worth of merchandise, you may be detained, but you will be let go and he will not charge, he will not prosecute you. You will be let back out on the street essentially with no consequence. It for all intents and purposes, for a minor, theft up to a certain point, has been essentially decriminalized. That's correct, And he's diverting a lot of adults to at least on their first you know, theft crime for for misdemeanor theft, you know, not hunt. There's a lot of money to a lot of you know, I don't know to whom that's petty. I mean, I make pretty good money, but a thousand dollars there's a lot of money, you know, that's in a candy bar, and stealing a candy bar from the from the shop, this is legitimate theft. And you know, I've a I've criticized this policy for incentivizing or encouraging uh certain criminal behavior that some young people might not get involved in. And maybe that's too strong of an indictment to use the word encourage, right, but incentivize and sympabize. I think it is appropriate because I think of what I was like in my youth and what was going on around me, and what kept me from engaging in certain behaviors was this healthy fear of the law of some consequence if I got caught. If that had been removed from my life, then I'm not so sure that I wouldn't have been out there engaged in a lot of this activity, and it probably wouldn't be in the d a's office today. So I'm worry about the junk. People absolutely don't have the structure in the direction that they should be getting from our county's top law enforcement officer. It's kind of ridiculous when you think about. And the one thing that I'd add to even though I'm on even though I'm on the defense side, and these you know, lessening of punishments has always been like you know, candy to defense attorneys because we walk in and our job is so much easier. Um, not only are people you know who have the propensity to commit crime, not only are they more incentivized to do so because there's nothing on the other end. But it also gives and what you guys were talking about earlier gangs and other people in the community that are influencing younger people to come and enjoying. What what a lot of people don't know is that a lot of kids from l A are influenced to do crime and when when policies are put in place that basically decriminalizes things for them. Gangs are very smart, not just gangs from l A, gangs across the country. These are very very smart people be they know what they're doing, they know the law. They have lawyers like you know, myself and other people I used to do it, but in other people telling them what the laws are, what the punishments are, and they're very smart at exploring it. And a lot of kids that get caught up in this, you know, some of them were forced to do it, some of them are influenced to do it. And something that doesn't get talked about enough when someone from a different state sees that a neighboring state or a state that too easily could yield a bigger profitability for their gang because their foot soldiers, Uh, if we're gonna call them that aren't going to go to jail. They don't have to pay for attorneys, they don't have to pay to you know, make situations right. People won't get punishing stay in jail if they know a state is essentially you know, having a ribbon cutting for theft under nine fifty bucks. Then guess what, you know, the same way business people leave California to go somewhere else to pay less taxes. Gangs are gonna send their criminals to commit crimes that are in that caveat that window of we're gonna be okay if we commit this. And there's a reason why malls in San Francisco are being looted, in l A are being looted, in Detroit are being looted. There's a reason why you don't hear about them all in Ventura County being looted. There's a reason why you don't hear about them all in Orange County being looted, even even though it's you know, a thirty minute drive for us here in l A. And it's strictly because they can't get away with it there. It's gonna cost them a ton of money to you know, the bad end. If they get caught, it's going to cost them lot more money than they than they would cost him here in l a. M. No. Criminals and gangs they think about things, They talk to each other, they strategize, they think about it in a very business like manner, and when they they find the vulnerabilities in the legal system, they find And if you're creating the vulnerabilities, it only incentivizes them further. You think, gang members, who are you think that they don't see that a district attorney is no longer essentially decided not to prosecute miners, no matter the circumstance. What do you think they do? They go and recruit miners to go commit the crimes, right, And it's an easier sell because they tell you, hey, what, what's the worst thing that's gonna do? You get get a mark on your record, You're not even going to juvie. It's a lot easier sell that way. It's easier for for them to corrupt the youth um. And so I think this is the type of really just common sense, obvious stuff that people find that they think there's no way that we could be removing these guard rails from public safety because they so obviously will be taken advantage of. But No, that's that's those are the guardrails that we have removed, um in electing uh the gentleman George Gascon, who, by happenstance, I'm sure you'll find it be incredibly surprised to find out was the co author of Prop forty seven. Once again, we're gonna get to him in a lot more detail in just a moment. But I want to finish up on Prop forty seven, and let's call it what was going wrong in the pre Gascon era here in l a um So. Prop forty seven additionally reduced the sentence um and let out early a lot of non violent offenders. Am I correct? Yes? Okay, so we opened the jails, we reduced the prison population and let out people who are ostensibly non violent. Um. But there seems, and this is something John has harped on, there's there's a bit of a myth of the non violent drug offenders. There's this myth that the prisons are are filled and we have quote unquote a mass incarceration problem because we're locking up all these not quote unquote non violent drug offenders, and these people that hear the horror stories about someone getting caught with an ounce and a half of weed and going to jail for twenty years. But these really are distorted one offs. These are not indicative of the the larger prison The prison population at large, um eight percent of the state prison population is there for either serious or violent felonies. And John, if you can maybe expand on on this myth of the the jails being full of non violent drug offenders and how the uh the retroactive underset re sentencing of criminals and letting them out of jail into Prop forty seven contributed to the crime increasing two thousand fifteen to two twenty Yeah, let me say that in twenty three years that I've been a prostitutor in l A County, I've never seen anyone go into custody for possession of simple possession of weed. But that is a narrative that you hear over and over again. People think that that it's commonplace, and it happens all over the country. You're right, of our prison population is they're serving as for a serious of violent felony in nine is either there for that or they have a serious of violent felony prior. So our prisons at this time, since realignment, are housing serious and violent offenders, and it's serious and violent offenders that are driving our incarceration rates right now. Now, there was a popular book and a popular movie that made the argument that mass incarceration was being driven by these unfair laws that focused on low level offenders, and that there was some racist element to it and whatnot. But that's been debunked by a lot of researchers who say, now, what's driving our incarceration rate is serious and violent offenders. And it's when we say serious and violent in California, we're not just talking about violent crime. We're not using those terms in a colloquial sense. Serious and violent refers to a very short list of very serious crimes serious and violent, and California referred to only about forty three crimes in the penal code, starting you know, with murder at the top end, and including all the serious sex crimes and crimes involving weapons and serious injuries. But there are a lot of crimes that involve violence that don't come under that definition, and that's important to know because there's a lot of violent offenders, so we refer to as non violent. If you if we're using the everyday definitions of those terms, and just because somebody's yes. People have to remember not every case goes to trial. So when someone goes to prison, they you know, even as even even if they go to prison for drug possession per se, they were probably charged with much more the facts against them, and the charges against the majority of people that end up in custody were much more steep and much more severe as a as a result of a plea bargain, which happens. I would say probably nine plus percent of cases you flee because you get two things. You either get a lot of charges or special allegations when they used to charge special allegations dropped, or you get less time. So when you know, we say, you know, or twenty percent of people that are in there are in there for non violent stuff or in prison for non violent stuff, I would venture to guess a majority of that that's technically there for non violent stuff was were actually charged with more severe crimes, either in that specific case that put them in custody or a case previously. Um and you know, we just see the final like receipt, but we don't know what the actual menu was. H That's a great that's a great point. And another kind of mechanics, key mechanical feature of of our criminal justice system that the vast majority of these these items in these cases get pled down and the eventual charges do not reflect the totality of the criminality that was was at issue. And also that just because someone is non violent, if they're a habitual criminal, and this is what we're seeing a lot what with these stories that are driving people nuts. Now where where criminal where violent crimes do occur? And then you look and the offender has a rap sheet a mile long and it might not have been criminal, that it might not have been violent at the time. This seems to be uh the case for a case that you know, we can't discuss in depth that John is on because he is the prosecutor on the case. But that is of high interest to a lot of people, um uh in my community. Brianna Kupfer who was recently murdered while working at a furniture store and it's called it mid Hollywood. Um. But that that's something that people have to keep in mind. Non violent does not non violent does not mean that you're not a threat to society. Okay, you you are a habitual criminal that has a number of marks on their record, steps need to be taken to keep you, to keep you away from innocent civilians. Um So, now that brings us to our current era of criminal justice and criminality in Los angele Us and the era of the reformist or decarcerationist district attorneys popping up. Over the last handful of years, we have some big cities have been electing district attorneys who have a completely different if whatever was going on, what what flipped the script in the nineties and the two thousands in terms of taking a more strict and harsher approach towards crime and prosecution. They believe that they they think that this, uh, they do not think highly of this. They believe that we are as a nation over incarceraate. We believe that we're reinforcing criminals as criminals by sending them to prison. And they have as stated goals reduction of the prison population regardless of the impact on public safety, although they keep on claiming that that reducing the prison population will increase public safety even against the hard and fast and blatant objective results that run contrary to their claims. Um one of the you know you've got one of these individuals was George Gascon. He was the District Attorney of San Francisco. UM presided over a period of exploding criminality in San Francisco and then decided he wasn't satisfied and with having ruined that city and decided to come down here to Los Angeles and run for district attorney in two thousand twenty. UM. He was funded heavily. And don't give me this bs about this being a conspiracy. It's publicly there and he doesn't even deny it. George Soros gave him over two million dollars for his campaign. That's a lot of money for a district attorney's race. He was funded and supported by a number of other big names celebrities. UM under the guys that that, as we've been discussing, our approach towards crime was ineffective, that this was unfair, that we were not keeping our streets safer by taking a harsher approach towards crime and criminality and incarcerating criminals. UM, and that essentially ignoring all the all the progress that we had made in the nineties and the odds and disregarding any notion of what we did it worked at that point. It's like he woke up in two thousand and thirteen and just assumed that crime had always been low, disregarded any any of the work that we had done to get it that low. UM. And he was elected kind of through with the the um, with the tail winds of the Black Lives Matter movement and the reaction to the George Floyd murder and to the summer of two thousand twenty UM. And he was elected by you know, he came from behind. He had he had gone up against the incumbent District Attorney, Jackie Lacey and African American woman here in Los Angeles in the primary in February and lost by about twenty points. But Jackie Lacy didn't get a majority. She just wanted a plurality, So they went to a runoff in November, and George Gascon came from behind and upset her and was elected District Attorney. UM. Since then, thirty cities in Los Angeles County have voted no confidence on this individual. Clearly, there's a lot of people that find his approach towards law enforcement and his worldview to be troubling in the way that he has lamented laws and directives and operated the District Attorney's office to be increasing, to be decreasing public safety and putting citizens at risk. Um John, that this is John's boss. He is a deputy district attorney. George Gascon is the district attorney. Yet John and a couple other individuals from the District Attorney's office, well behind closed doors, every person in District Attorney's office who is not hired by Gascon will tell you that this guy is a demon, and they cannot but they are horrified by what they're seeing out of him. But a few have been, you know, had their druthers to go speak speak more publicly. So a couple of comments that that John has made that I found, you know, kind of in principle to describe what's going wrong right now. Um One, there is a movement against institutions of public safety that ignores personal responsibility and culpability for crime and instead blames the infrastructure that is tasked with preventing and keeping us safe from crime. Also, we have to reject the magical thinking that tells us less criminal accountability will lead to greater public safety. That's really the core of the issue with Gascon and these other reformist d d A s. They simply think locking up people less, jailing less people, reducing incarceration will simply magically lead to greater public safety and keep people safe. The results keep on telling us that they're wrong, and they refuse to acknowledge that. But the problem in refusing to acknowledge reality here results in the busher ing of of innocent individuals. It leads to really, there's blood on the hands of these people because this has real world consequences. So to get into the details and the blood and guts of what George Gascon is doing that is hampering incinerating public safety here in Los Angeles. First off, he his first day in office, he issued a memo essentially decriminalizing or stating that he was not going to prosecute a number of very obvious crimes resisting arrest, trespassing, driving with a suspended license, certain low level rug possession, and making criminal threats. I mean, these are obvious crimes, yet ostensibly he no longer considers them, and he stated that he will not be prosecuting them for the most part, essentially unless they draw blood. Um, John, if you could tell us a little bit more and give us some more detailed context on the apparent decriminalization of a number of of seemingly you know, serious crimes. Yeah, this is what I alluded to earlier with regard to his adult misdemeanor policy, where he has and you did a great job of listing many of the crimes that he will no longer allow his prosecutors to pursue, and including things like criminal threats and resisting arrest. I mean, in an era we're trying to de escalate of problems between police and the community. Why would a d A announce that he's going to allow people to resist arrests? But we kind of behavior at least circumstances um. And it's a head scratcher because these are the kind of offensive that most people agree, uh should be addressed, Uh, you know, not necessarily with incarceration. But he won't even charge them. How do we do anything with people who are engaged in these behaviors if he won't charge them in the first place. Uh. Here, this is what I think is going on. In part, I think that George Gascon is part of something tank, some group of people who are impacting laws all over the country wherever there's a so called progressive d A and they've gotten together and come up with a list of offenses that they think police officers use to antagonize the community, and things like trespassing or resisting arrest uh they conclude are often um done by people of color. When minority is a black, so he's standing for whatever turn you want to use, and so they're trying to take that away, and what their hope is there will be fewer arrests of people who look like me. For example, if I get into a tussle, won a police officer who's lawfully trying to take me into custom so essentially not enforcing the law and and not acknowledging criminal behavior as such strictly because it there seems to be a correlation between racial outcomes and that criminal behavior. Is that an accurate way of describing it, very accurate. He wants to be able to stand up at the end of the day, and he's propping himself up at some type of national figure on equity, you know, and and fighting mass incarceration. But he wants to be able to stand at the end of the day and say, fewer African Americans were prosecuted on my watch, Fewer Hispanics were prosecuted on my watch, and he expects people to applaud that, even if it means a deterioration of public safety across society the whole, and even though it means that most of the victims of this kind of behavior here are also African Americans and Hispanics, but he doesn't see the victims. They're invisible to him. He sees the offender as the victim of society, even in a case where they victimized a real person the the there Essentially, the safety of innocent civilians is not a priority to him. The notion of trying to recalibrate the criminal justice system to reflect what he believes his equity is his only priority keeping people safe simply isn't one absolutely right, And we'll have more of the prevailing narrative after the break, coming from coming from my perspective as a criminal defense attorney. When someone comes to the to this you know stage and says that they want criminal justice reform and they want to help, you know, rehabilitate people and put them you know, in a better position in life or even uh starting short from rehabilitation, essentially decriminalizing things for the sake of justice reform to me, even as a criminal defense attorney, that's shocking to hear if if I was in charge of reform to me, it starts with actually making sure that the court has jurisdiction over you. Because if when the court has jurisdiction over you, meaning when you're charged with a crime, the court can do many things to help you rehabilitate yourself, even if it's a lower level offense. They could send you to a drug seminar um if you have, you know, drug violations. If you um, for example, domestic violence, you go to a year long domestic violence courts. There are a lot of things that the court could do, and a lot of judges aren't trigger happy just sending people into custody. You know a lot of these things that defend and pays for himself and it helps them rehabilitate. But if someone wanted to come in and make a true change, that change actually happens in the in the jails are jails and what's happening in our prisons. It's not a place for people to go and rehabilitate themselves. It's a place people to go and to get into more troubles. So to me, even as a criminal defense attorney, these crimes obviously benefit are and because they're not even either they're not being charged or the level of punishment is so low. As a criminal defense attorney, we it makes our job easier. But the approach to crime was effective. What's what's non effective is what happens after someone's put into custody. We're not putting money into helping people really rehabilitate themselves. Were actually sending them, sometimes most of the time, into a deeper abyss of criminality. When we just send them in and forget about them. The worst thing you could do is just let them be on the street do whatever they want and never arrest them, because that just incentivizes them to keep going and to keep doing worse, which is what we're doing, which is what we're doing. The real thing to do is to get jurisdiction over these people and help them overcome. And the only way you could help them overcome is if you charge them, and you have you have jurisdiction. And I keep saying jurisdiction, but essentially what I mean is control. You have control over them. So like what you guys were talking about earlier, you could rehabilitate someone and have them in custody. Being in custody doesn't mean being in jail. It could mean being in a rehab facility. It could be you know, mean being you know, we've I've actually sent people to homeless shelters for you know, some time, or to to help out, or to churches where they helped out to to be rehabilitated. Um. So I think, you know, really, if we're really serious about reform, it's what happens after or someone is taken into custody, not not why or stopping people from being taken into custody to begin with correctly, because once again, they need to be they need to be detained and segregated from the rest of society so they do not harm others. And that's what seems to never come come into into consideration, um with these with these reformist attorneys and guess as you were, Yeah, let me just jump in. I think that last point was brilliant, that we can have a transformational criminal justice system. We I think that's what people want. People have wanted that for a long time. You know, we've always we've long complained that our criminal justice system prosecutes people, warehouses them for a period of time, and then lets them back out with with no additional skills, with no additional plan, with no no additional way to navigate the future. We can have a transformational system, but it's gonna cost it's not gonna be cheap. It's gonna require psychologists. It's gonna require psychiatrists, doctors, vocational trainers, teachers, and we can have those people work with individuals outside our prison systems and inside of our prison systems. Now, when people do dangerous things, Matt, you're right, they need to be sequestered from society for some period of time until it is relatively certain that they're safe to be back out on the streets. But most of our offenders are not are not committing those kinds of crimes, you know, they're committing the misdemeanors. There maybe the habitual, low level felony offender who is frustrating because no matter how many times you've tried to work with them without putting them in custody, they leave you with that as the only alternative. These are people that we can help um and I think that's the direction people want to go. The only question is are we ready to pay for that right. It's and it's very simple, like let's not forget it's very simple for someone like as Gone to announce. And I think the reason why he announces I will not prosecute these types of crimes is because he will he knows the police officers won't arrest for them. Why would a police officer put himself in harm's way, first of all, especially now when we're seeing so much violence against them. So if a police officer is out there and he may be alone, he maybe with his partner, and he sees something happening, and he knows for sure it won't be prosecuted because you know, Gascon announced it to the world. He's not going to put himself at risk. He's not going to put his safety at risk, or he's not gonna want to. Then take the person into custody, write the reports, make the interviews, make sure their house properly, all of that, just for the person to be released on their own recognizance, waiting charges that are never gonna get filed. Yes, you will have less criminality if you decide not to arrest for crime nominality in the numbers. The numbers are gonna look better if you don't, because that's that's what Yeah, I want people to understand this. The actual crime is even worse than the numbers suggest because runway one way to get the numbers down is to simply not charge. And that is what's happening in many, many cases. And it goes beyond that because you're announcing it, you're telling the officers, you're telling them not to arrest. Essentially, that's what you're doing. So forget that the person and for the most part, doesn't get charged, they don't even get arrested. Yeah. Yeah, they're also telling the community not to report the crime. So so much more crime and unreported. When even before gas On the Department of Justice to the study and concluded the half of all violent crime in this country is never reported. Mm hmm yea. And yeah, when you have a district attorney who says I'm not going to prosecute there, then people don't take the time to report. Police officers don't engage on those issues. So and this is a dynamic that's very real for a lot of people that that are listening to this podcast. That a lot of people who follow me because I hear your stories. Okay, I hear your stories about I was the victim of this crime and the police came and they said that they can't do anything, and and your mind is boggled. I hear I get one of at least one of these a week, some from friends of mine, some from random followers of mine. And you're experiencing this for real, because this is what happens when the police know that the district attorney is not going to charge the crime. They're not gonna waste their time, and why would they? And this is what's becoming very real for a lot of people here in Los Angeles. Another uh done it? You know? Another change to the criminal justice system that Gascon instituted that's becoming very real for a lot of people has to do with pre trial detention and zero bail. Um. Once again, the philosophy sounds good. Gascon and his ILK will say you shouldn't be kept in jail longer just because you're not rich, right, and that everyone's entitled to a speedy trial and innocent proven guilty, And so if someone's been arrested, um, they shouldn't be they should be released. They shouldn't be held on bail unless they're a violent criminal. And in that case, why is money the the factor but for whether or not that they can make bail or not, why why is it monetarily based? So okay, we're not going to punish poor people, and we're not going to keep them in jail waiting for their trial. We're not gonna entertain them pre trial. Um. In practice, what happens is a bunch of violent criminals were clearly committing crimes and a threat to public safety, just get let back on the streets the next day. So once again, it sounds good, but it doesn't work out in practice. And this is something that became very real for a lot of people here in l A after fourteen individuals were arrested for sacking the grow for the smashing, smashing grab robbery at the Grove, and then just shockingly, a week later, all of them were released, every single one of them. Um. Eric Garcetti, you know who has generally abandoned the position of mayor in the city, even he knew you even you know this one went too far, and he held a press conference acknowledging this and and advocating for reinstituting um bail policy because it's just insane to keep on letting these criminals back on the streets with no no semblance of pre trialed detention. So, John, if you could tell us a little bit about how UM George Gascon has shifted policies on bail and pre trial detention and and to the if what I just described as accurate, you know it's absolutely accurate. And uh. Prior to Gaston, typically people were either released or by a judge based on the merits of the case. The judge would look at the offense, look at the person's history that ties to the community, and then a lot of low level cases, individuals were released on their own recognizance because there was some kind of risk assessment done by the judge that this person could be trusted to be released. In other cases, that the core has a bail schedule for certain offenses, and the more serious the offense is to hire the bail and that bail is the same for everyone, regardless of income. And I know this leads some people to believe that in effect it punishes people who have fewer resources UM, but also in effect that bail schedule is designed to keep the community safe and ensure that people who commit crimes will appear in court and be held to account for what they did. Now, an alternative to money bail has been suggested, and that's using some kind of risk assessment system. So we do away with bail altogether and use some kind of algorithm in which we input data and the computer will tell us where a person ranks on on a scale risk. But that was voted down by the voters. They the voters just rejected that policy in favor of money bail. So so the voters rejected it, and Gascon went to directly against the will of the voter and institute the policy anyways, direct directly against it, except even worse because he doesn't have any kind of risk assessment tool if just saying, you know, let him out. And you know when when we talk about bail, bail isn't something that's just you know, an l A thing or a California thing. Bail has been around for quite some time on the state level, on the federal level, even in even in civil courts. You post bail when you're you know, arguing, uh, something of of a high nature in a in a high you know, stress situation. Bail is just collateral. So you know, in order for there to be a contract between two people, one person getting out of custody and the other people that the court having jurisdiction over you. There needs to be some sort of consideration for the exchange. So that consideration, if you are a low level you know, criminal is o R is just we're going to trust you. Here, here's your ticket come back. You've had nothing in your history that shows you're a risk or the shows you won't show up. In fact, it shows that you have stuff to lose. You have a family here, you have a home here, We're gonna let you out. Not serious offense. On the flip side, if it's more serious, well what do you serve to lose if you don't come back? The only thing really you could put is is a bail right and in. On the federal level, it's even more stringent. On the state level, you could go to a bail bonds company and put as little as one percent down. So if you have fifty dollar bail, they're bail bonds companies that will take one per cent of that fifty dollars and work on a negotiated plan. That's not a lot of money. If you get arrested. On the federal level, these you know, the bails literally are dollar for dollar. You can't go to a bail bonds company. You're gonna have to put up you know, property, your land. So this bail argument, it's it's interesting to me because it really has been involved in our in our criminal justice system at every level for you know, as long as the criminal justice system was around, because I simply can't do away with making up some new collateral and an algorithm is is an interesting approach, but I don't I don't think that solves uh, solves the issueing who controls the algorithm and what fact? Yeah, well, people who want to reduce the prison population at all costs, even in the face of public safety results, who controls it? People should also clinic California, everyone has a right to a speedy product. So in the case of a felony, they have a right to a preliminary hearing within ten days of their raiment. Most of them waive that time because they want more time to prepare, but that's a choice that they make. If you if you're innocent and you believe the facts will show that you have a right to a preliminary hearing. So even if you don't have the money to make bail. It's not as if the law is gonna require you like in some states. Now this isn't true in every state, but in our state, the law isn't gonna require you to sit there in a language for months on day. And this is once again, but this does not run contrary to the notion of innocent until proven guilty. You get your day in court, you get you have the right to a speedy trial. This is about a common sense assessment of whether or not you're an immediate threat to it too, to the community and to innocent innocent citizens. And this is just one common sense and to time tested methods to UH to maintain public safety that these das and George Gascon have just thrown out the window. So uh more so to the the how some of these seemingly innocent and seems you know and and seemingly mild changes in policy are manifesting themselves is just horrendous UH destruction and harm to innocent civilians. UM a recent case of TITIONI theists and John you had mentioned that UH Gascon's policy of not filing charges for loitering for the solicitation of process cution any issue a directive in that regard UM, and this essentially allows UH victims like ms theis to be human traffic to be UH to be abused by pimps. If you could get a little bit into this particular case and the failed direct gascon directive that led to it. Right. So, this, this particular law that I talked about UM that punishes loitering for the solicitation of prostitution is hotly debated UH by people who some who think that we shouldn't punish the sex worker who's engaged in this kind of solicitation, and and others who think that that enforcing this law gives us an opportunity to disrupt the conduct, disrupt the pimping and the trafficking, and also gives us an opportunity to have health and other services intervened into the lives of some of these young women and girls. So that's the position that I took at this law should be enforced at least to the extent that police are encouraged to break up the solicitation. I mean, for no other reason, for no other reason that businesses are trying to operate in areas where these women are literally walking around in their underwear. If that uh, they're being it's children are being exposed to this. It's no way. We talked about broken windows. This is no way to allow a neighborhood to exist. So, um, when the DA said, and we talked about this, when the d A announces he's not gonna prosecute something, what do you get? You get less police engagement. You get community members who won't even call the police to come out and break it up. So you allow the pimps and the traffickers to have their business go unabated all night long. And I think the flaw again in Gascon and I you know, Gaston defenders will say he doesn't want to punish the sex workers, and that's fine. You don't have to punish the sex workers. We're not talking about putting these women in jail. We're just talking about enforcing the law against this type of loitering so we can break up the trafficking activity. And and let's be like just realistic about it. Again. I'm coming from a criminal defense standpoint, but there are a lot of cases. I've had a lot of cases where you know, I'm representing the sex worker or a child that was exposed to that when these people go into court, even in even in the policies before Gascon, they wouldn't necessarily go to jail. In fact, I think of cases I did where I was representing the sex worker. They never ended up in custody. But what they did always get was an opportunity to have the case dismissed if they were good for a period of six months to a year. They took an AIDE and STV test, they took courses on the importance of practicing safe sex. These are all great things for some one who is in that field, you know, to be exposed to it is a It is a process of rehabilitation for them. And some of these people going through that process, going through these seminars and classes that the court made them go through, came out better for it. And you know, for the majority of it, you know, I never saw them again. These were not repeat offenders because they you know, they had to stay good. They didn't want to have that case on their record. And in in order to get that case dismiss it was called either diversion or DJ where you essentially keep the case open and you forced the person to go through a period of time where they're rehabbing, and you put the condition of no other arrest and if you're good, we'll dismiss this case. And that happened a lot. You know, let's let's not forget you know, even though we are way more liberal in the way we're prosecuting cases now, we've always been on the on the liberal side, but in these situations, you know, there are there even in a drug users to relations. When you don't arrest them and you don't give them jurisdiction of the court, the court has means to help these people. The court does not want to put these people in custody. It's not good for the court, it's not good for the city. They know that, they know the politics behind it all. And when you don't even give the court and the city the opportunity to help someone rehabilitate, well then well then what's the point. If we're not arresting, we're not rehabilitating, then really, what are we doing? Yeah, well, we're literally we're not doing anything. We're simply uh trying. At least with Gascon is doing is trying to find data points to support his warped view of criminal justice, which simply does assumes that by not arresting people are not incarcerating people will increase public safety. UM. Another point of that philosophically seems to be his approach towards UH juvenile and youth crime. I've heard him comments on this quite often, and he always seems to appeal to this quack science and that says that essentially is philosophy is that since the human the frontal cortex does not fully develop until you're twenty five, essentially up until twenty five years old, no human being is not responsible for those their actions, and thus he does not believe in incarcerating juveniles or the youth. I mean literally, once again, if you're seventeen months, seventeen years and eleven months and you commit a pretty egregious crime, there's no chance that you will be tried as an adult, and he will take every step and to UH to minimize your punishment, your incarceration. UM. John, you would recently um UH spoken up about an enhanced diversion program in regards to youth offenders. UM. And it seems that that your uh, your advocacy was influential here and that Gascon was going to start diverting some pretty dangerous based on some pretty violent crimes. UM, as long as they were youth offenders, was going to be diverting them from juven juvie to some rehabitabilitation programs. Was that correct? If you could tell us a little bit of about what he's doing in terms of youth crime and these UM enhanced diversion programs. Right, So, for people who don't know, a diversion program is a non prosecution process for dealing with an offender. So, for example, if someone were to break the law, usually UM you would have them plead guilty or no contest to the crime, but you wouldn't sentence that. You'll give them something to do. You'd have them do a program, you have them do community service, and once the person completed that, then you would dismiss You wouldn't, You would dismiss the case. They would draw their plea and you dismissed the case, so they would't end up with any kind of criminal history. And that's been in place for many years for juveniles and adults, and it is a responsible way to handle, especially first time offenders for low level offenses. But what he was doing, or what he announced he was gonna do, is enhanced the diversion and again this is right out of the playbook or whatever think tank is spreading these ideas for the country. You can go to Philadelphia, go to Struggle of Baltimore, DC. You'll see some form of enhanced diversion in everything intellectual garbage. And this was a diversion program for people juveniles committing some serious crimes. He made it eligible for juveniles who were committing felonies with weapons, including crimes such as sexual battery and just things that were beyond diversion. These are young people who need more structure than what a diversion program affords, and they need that. It's been repeated many times here. Our criminal law doesn't exist for the sole purpose of punishing people. We do a lot more to try to help people than punish people. Now, punishment is often a legitimate, you know, feature of a sentence. It's not the only thing that we do, and it's not the thing that we enjoy doing the most. We really want to help people, especially young people. I mean, punishment doesn't even factor into our juvenile system. It's not a punitive system at all. It's all about rehabilitation, and we as prosecutors are really committed to doing that. But you can't do that. If you're excusing these young people, even for serious offenses, you're not helping them. You're giving them a kind of education. At what you did is something that you can do and not be punished for. So what do they do? They do it over, they escalate, and then one day they turn eighteen and they're looking at a serious sentence and no one can help them. So we don't want to use our juvenile system too in a sense raise our children to be hardened criminals or allow that antisocial behavior to develop and hardened. And and Sean, what were your experiences defending I imagine that you defended uh, you know, youth criminals or those were accused of crime, and the your experiences in that system, Yeah, juvenile system, you know it honestly kind of reminded me if if adult court was high school, the juvenile system reminded me of middle school. You know, you had d as, you had judges there first of all, who only deal dealt with juveniles. And for the most part they've been there forever. And these judges, to be honest with you, they care. They look at the person first, mom and dad or whoever. If if there's a mom and dad caretaker. If there's one parent, they were always there. They spoke to mom and dad just as just as much or even more than they spoke to to the juvenile, because they wanted to make sure that the juvenile had structure around him or her, and they wanted to make sure that if they were to release the juvenile um. You know, even though they commit what was a serious allegation, UM, that they would go to a structured environment. And you know it is it is like what John said, It was more of a how do we make sure that this this child doesn't come back when he's an adult. What what can we do to give this person a future? Um? But at the same time, I gotta tell you I represented some juveniles that, you know, they needed a little bit more than, uh than just to slap on the risk. I mean, some of these young men are a part of very very serious gangs. Then they are committing crimes that takes the intellect of an adult um to commit. You know, this isn't a young kid running into a candy store and grabbing something and running out as fast as he could. These are elaborate crimes that you know, require multiple steps. In some cases, UM. You know, there's multiple elements, multiple charges and other people involved. UM And for the most part, especially in certain areas, you know, it's it's for the benefit of a gang. UM. And you know, some of those kids, unfortunately they stay in the system, but you know that's just the product of of being you know, raised in an area where where there is a lot of crime. And the more crime you like go, you know, the more crime happens. And particularly with gangs, once again taking advantage of these vulnerabilities in the legal system and these the removal of disincentives that gascon is implemented because they're going to be encouraging the youth. They're going to try to recruit youth to go commit crimes on their behalf, on behalf of the gang, and we'll have more of the prevailing narrative after the break. People who only moved to l A recently, or who are young and don't remember the eighties and early nineties UM may may be unaware of how concentrated criminal activities are amongst gangs and organized crime UM and and maybe unfamiliar with the notion of a gang enhancement, which I think we can get into and see, you know, to the extent that UM, gang enhancements and punishing certain gang and organized activity more harshly and targeting the the real you know, the the most. It's called high volume criminal activity UM led to it led to public safety. And how George Gascon seems to have I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, removed gang enhancements or or directed the office not to charge gang enhancements period Um. John, if you could explain a little bit about that. Yes, again, that's exactly right. One of his directives is that we will no longer file getting enhancements for certain serious and violent colonies. UM. The gay Enhancement Law essentially allowed us to identify certain gains that were committed by in between gang members or by anyone for the benefit of the game, and the penalties that were added onto a crime ranged from the three years up to ten years, and then for indeterminate sentences like murder, premeditated attempted murder. It actually didn't at a time at all, It just required a minimum for certain crimes. So, uh, you know, it's an explicable why in the gang has been described as the game capital of the world. That being county, the district attorney would decide that he would not use this very important tool to suppress gang related violent crime, especially when he talks a lot about equity, and we know these crimes impact black and Hispanic neighborhoods more than any other um. And so you know, in addition to that, he dismantled the game suppression unit that has existed in the l A County D's office since the eighties, and it has been very successful. We talked at the beginning of the show about how we got from that four hundred percent increase in crime since the nineteen sixties back down to some simulants of normality. That game unit was the workhorse of the District Attorney's office in prosecuting shootings, and he dismantled it. And as the defense attorney, I would I would, and as a defense attorney, I would hate to see the gang allegation when I would interview potential, you know, defendants that wanted to retain me, and I didn't know what the complaint would look like, but I knew that that person was in a gang. I would always kind of hold my breath and just tell them, let's just hope you're charged with what you're charged with, and there's no gang allegation, because that gang allegation could turn the entire case upside down. Even if they don't punish you on the gang gang allegation and you just openly admit to being a part of that gang as as a part of a plea deal. It was it was a it was a massive tool for the prosecution, and it was something criminal defense attorney's hated because if the gang allegation was proven, there's really no getting around, you know, getting around the this this severe potential punishment that your client would face, not only in this crime, but a crime he would possibly face in the future if he had if he had the admission of a gang allegation on a previous case. And I would just also say that, you know, when when the mayor took over in New York and I know we're talking about l A, but one of the first things he spoke about just to stress the importance of how violent, violent, vital it is if you're serious about crime to go after gangs. One of the first things he said was, I'm going to go after gangs. That the majority of these crimes that we see are committed that we think are one offs, are not one offs we kids are committing crimes are not random kids. They're not running home to their own place with mom and dad. These are gangs. And the vast majority of these, you know, of all crimes in terms of these metropolitan cities, are are really controlled by and are for the benefit of a gang. Um. And it just goes to show that when someone you know what, when a mayor takes over and that's the first thing he points to. And this is a guy that was also in law enforcement. Um, It's it's shocking that Gascon would say that, and essentially he's sending a message to them. It's just it's the same thing over and over again. If you're not going to prosecute it, you could tell your prosecutors, hey, be lenient. You don't need to go out and make a blanket announcement because what if, what if an extremely heinous crime occurs and it's obvious that it was a part of, you know, a gang, and it was in the furtherance of a gang. I mean, you've just kind of put yourself in a corner where you've made a promise that you're not going to do this and something happens. But I think more important it's you know, flashing to police officers, I'm not going to back you up on this, telling the d as, I'm not going to back back you up on this, and then telling the gangs, I am going to back you up on this. Yet this, this compounds because it removes the deterrent effect through every link in the chain right the it the cops take the take the message, the gangs take the message, and that compounds. And that that's the types of things where a guy like Gascon will continue to deny the cause a link between his policy and the end result, but he keeps on denying the end result period. He keeps on telling us we're safer when clearly we're not, and everyone can feel it around us. And part of that reason, why is these universal directives issuing these universal orders that don't allow you know, don't allow prosecutors prosecutorial discretion based on the circumstances of the situation. I think we're seeing that all over. Yeah, absolutely, murders last year, Black and Hispanic victims with guns, and the DA won't prosecute gun crimes to the fullest extent of the law. Am I correct in saying John that he's essentially legalized guns in Los Angeles. That that guns are essentially legalized because if you're caught carrying one, you won't be arrested. He does have a misdemeanor policy as it relates to guns that makes it less likely that that somebody who gets caught carrying a gun will be prosecuted. I wouldn't say that he's legalized guns, but by prosecuting the gun allegations properly, uh, he has taken away the incentive that game members, especially had to not carry guns on them back. They always stashed the gun someplace in the community and then something jumped off. They would go get the gun, but by the time they got back, whoever they were targeting was gone. So a lot of times, a lot of violence didn't happen because the gun wasn't in the car. Nowadays, we're seeing record number of we have more shootings than we've seen since two tholbums six, I believe, and that's because the game members are no longer afraid to walk around with the guns with in their pockets or in the car, So as soon as something jumps off, the guns come out. That's what's happening. Yeah, this all adds up. This compounds another another policy of his that seems to compound and have unintended consequences, and that also at first that just seems insane and is insane not sending um, not sending any prosecutorial representative, a representative the d a's office to parole hearings for anyone, for all violent criminals, right, so, uh, just to to frame this for people like, no matter who the criminal is, you know, could be a violent criminal, has been in jail for thirty years, They'll have a parole hearing to determine if they are you know, no longer a threat to society and can be let back out. I mean, the the people of the state of California put that person in jail to begin with, you know, in order to keep the community safe and have them pay their debt to society. But and historically, and and as is a common practice, the you know, district Attorney's office that represents the people sends a representative of the people to appear at the parole hearing to ensure that it's being handled properly, that any case made, uh to keep this person incarcerated is made. George Gascon does no longer thinks that's necessary, he does not send a representative to the parole hearing. And once again, this is not this is not for non violent drug offenders. This is for hardened murderous criminals, including UH Sir Hans Sir Han who murdered UH Robert F. Kennedy. Okay, that's why Robert F. Kennedy Sarah Shan finally got paroled after I think it was his sixth time up for parole. Oh, what a coincidence, the first time under George Gascon's reign he gets paroled. Um, And so what happens here? You know, who can send a representative the police department. So if the police department wants to do right by the people of California and send a cop to a parole board hearing to represent the people and make the case for against parole, that cops not on the street responding to Crotton to to crime. Right. And so these are the types of things that have unintended consequences, that have second and third order impacts and just once again add up to making everybody less safe. Um, John if Sean, if you guys can kind of expand on that, and to the extent that I may have accurately described it or inaccurately described it. That is what what is occurring essentially. I'll just I'll just say that, you know, I've had a lot of cops on the stands, whether it's in prelimb or trials, and police officers. You know, they aren't the best advocates. They're not They're not district attorney. So if you want, you know, someone fighting for a victim, if you want, you know, someone a real advocate, I mean, lawyers are you know, we're trained obviously. You know this is what we went to school for. You know, this is why we're in court all the time. Um. And you know I I would if I were a victim of a crime, you know, I would feel that I would want a lawyer there to represent me. I would feel that I want my voice to always be heard, and to be heard in the loudest and most vigorous and most passionate form. And to me, that's what the District Attorney's office represents, even though they've been an adversary to me in in in terms of in the professional form, the district attorney's job, to me, and it's pure ast sense, is being a victim's advocate, whether that victim is a business a business owner, whether that victim is a victim of a you know, sex crime or violent crime, or a mother or a wife or a husband. You know, every every crime has a victim. You know, every crime has a victim, and that victim is voiceless. Um, if it's not for their if it's not for their representative, Yeah, let me add that. Um. You know, we represent the people, so we belong in the room, and we're not there to oppose parole in every case. There's a number of cases where we acknowledge this person has programmed well and this person deserves to be paroled. But as the representative of the people, you know, we're there sometimes when the victims are not there, maybe they couldn't be found or they had no interest in appearing. We used to always be there on behalpy, evil keeping a watchful eye, making sure everything was considered. Um, and police officers just can't do that. We used to be a little bit of a drumbeat there but understood and that that is the key point being. George Gascon does not find it necessary for the people to be represented at parole hearings for hardened criminals, because he believes Matt address the issue of the police officers who attend these hearings instead, because we might think, well, you know, we have a good substitute, we have a backup. You don't have an adequate backup. Because police officers can't do the things that district attorneys can do with these hearings. They can't ask questions of the inmates. So if the potential pro la you know, the fact that's not the police officer can't ask questions of that person. The police officers don't get the prison records, they don't get the risk assessment of records. They're just there mainly to give some kind of comfort to the victims, but they can't really engage in the process. And this is this is George Gaston has a policy mat that requires his prosecutors to support parole in every case and in cases where the prison's risk assessment tool says that the person is a higher risk to recentivate. Only in those cases can we remain sided. You know, I'm laughing because it's so ridiculous. If it wasn't so serious, it would be funny. I mean, can you imagine you have a risk assessment outcome that says this person is a higher risk to resentivate in the d A. He requires his d as well. We can't even be there, but he requires us in writing to remain neutral. We we can't write. Listen to everybody out there. I wants you to acknowledge the insanity of that. The district attorney requires the the prosecutors underneath him to advocate for parole in all cases, regardless of circumstance, except for the highest risk cases in which they required to maintain silent. Uh maintain silence? Does that sound like someone who has any who prioritizes the safety of innocent civilians whatsoever? Not at all. All he prioritizes are his quack science and theories and these pseudo intellectual think tank ideas that say that our system, that our society needs to be reformed, and that simply punishing people who do bad things less will lead to a more just, safe, and equitable society. In the face of all reality. Um that has manifested itself in another very interesting situation, and we'll get uh what will wrap up here in just a moment. But another situation that that just stuck out was just so apparent, Um that you never see and under any other district attorney's tenure was in response to the cold blooded murder of a law of law enforcement official officer, Fernando Royo. Um, the l A County Sheriff's officers brought in federal prosecutors to prosecute the defendants because they do not trust George Gascon to properly prosecute. They believe that he will go so lenient on them that it that that they do not trust the case in Gascon's hands. Um, I've never seen this before. UM, there would be no reason for this in under any other district attorney. And UM, are we right? Is this something we're gonna be seeing more often? The federal prosecutors brought in because the local district attorney is not trusted. Well, let let me start by saying that was very demoralizing for all of us in our office, because that's our case. This is one of our law enforcement officers, even though he is off was off duty at the time he was murdered in our community, and our lawyers should have been handling that prosecution by going to the U S attorneys that the sheriff gave an ultimate vote of no confidence in the district attorney because George Gascon has said, I have a blanket policy against charging gang members with with the gang allegation and murders. I have a blanket policy to never charged the attempt twenty life gun law that's gonna add time for using a gun in a murder. And for those reasons, the sheriff went to a prosecutor who's gonna prosecute it to the fullest extent of federal law, which is different from state law. I don't think we're gonna see a lot of these, though, Matt, because in order for the Feds to prosecute a crime, they need a federal hook. It has to violate a federal law. And in this case, because the people who killed Officer Royals were gang members and being involved in the gang in particular, that the Feds already have prosecuted for certain role reco type crimes, they were able to charge this case under federal law. So for people out there who wonder why the Feds didn't take other cases, will they take cases in the future, Uh, the answer is they probably won't. You know, they don't really want to get involved in the political aspect of what's going on in Los Angeles. Uh, we need a political solution to this problem. And you know, I believe that that solution is we need a new DA Yes sir, and so okay, let's get get to solutions, the political solution. What can we do to start turning this around? Um too, we seem to have a blueprint for how to uh bring down the crime rate, how to uh accept acknowledge the realities of the city that we live and we don't live in Norway. We can't have these cute little pine this guy criminal justice philosophies and policies because that's not the city that we live in. Yet the bite more uh more challenging circumstances. We have been able to create safe communities in a safe environment, so we know how to do it. What are the steps that we can start taking to get us back to that point in two thousand thirteen when we were celebrating Los Angeles being the the safest city of its size in America. Well, I think, Uh, the most immediate thing we can do is put more officers on the streets. There's a strong relationship between police staffing and crime prevention. So the first order of business is to stop the crimes from happening in the first place. Um, while that's happening, we've got to elect a new d A. We need a new leader uh of law enforcement in our counties, somebody who has a real fidelity to the law, somebody who's going to be faithful to the law uh and prosecute crimes the way they should be prosecuted, and to seek outcomes that are proportional and just, and I think even go a step for there and and do what the d A can to engage in some kind of transformational justice where we're not just prosecuting people and going on to the next case, but really partnering with other department heads in the county, other members of law enforcement to try and get people the help that they need. Finally, we need to look at some of these laws that we passed over the last ten years. Prop forty seven, we need to go back and make some changes to Prop. Forty seven. In fact, I would say we need to repeal Prop. From forty seven altogether. Certainly make some changes. Prop fifty seven also did some uh, some very important things that resulting in a lot of people being released sooner than the judge said they should be released. They gave days prison authorities to power to shorten sentences. We have an elder parole law that allows people to be paroled after just twenty years in custody once they reached fifty years old, which is nuts. So we have, you know, a lot of changes that we can make to our law. But I would say more law enforcement officers that that requires more funding, not defunding. We want these officers properly trained, we want them to engage in constitutional policing, and we want them to be respectful to the community. But we need them out there and the community wants them out there. I can tell you when I talk to people, I can't speak for the whole black community because they'll come after me if I if I try to do that. But I can tell you that whenever I talk to African Americans, they tell me they don't have a problem with police officers, and in fact, they like to see a police car patrol in their neighborhoods. They just wanted to be respectful policing. That's what we doubt. Absolutely. And this this false, this this false dichotomy between safe streets and and equitable streets and UH and it's just the data and the polling does not back it up. You go poll communities all around America and you know, inner city communities or heavily minority communities all are in favor of more policing. That it's a whole myth being driven by an alienated activist class and their surrogates in the media, and it's just it's not a reflection of reality of how the people who have to deal with the consequence of crime actually feel, regardless of skin color. Um. Sean, you know a good friend of mine, uh, fellow Angelino start to finish born and raised. Um. Going to John's point about a change in district attorney and the recall of George Gascon, you and I have begun to get involved. Maybe you could tell tell everybody out there a little bit about where that that um, that movement and that initiative is and uh and we can get get some people activated and getting get going in that direction because you know, we're on the clock. Yeah, so you know they're the petition has been approved and it's live, and you could go to the website and that the petition stition, the petition to recall George Giscon is District Attorney of Los Angeles. That's right, that's right, And you could go to that website and you can download the petition mail it in if you want to get other signatures, there's an instructional video of how to properly obtain um other people's signatures or canvas essentially and mail those in as well. The clock is ticking. To be safe, we need about seven or eight hundred thousand signatures, UM in a you know, certain window of time. UM. We also need donations, so we could you know, put people out there to to get more signatures. I think by now we're probably at around three million dollars raised um. And you know, we're hitting the ground running is as hard as we can. And we're trying to get the word you know, spread out there. And you know, I was born here, like you said, UM, you know, as a criminal defense attorney, practicing day in and day out countless cases, uh, all over the state of California. I've probably visited every prison, every jail in California, including Catalan Island. UM. And look, I've seen a lot of good, I've seen a lot of bad. Do we need justice reform? Absolutely? You know where do I think that fits in. I think that fits in in rehabilitating people with the help of the court and with the help of district attorneys. UM. I think that's how you rehabilitate people. I don't think you rehabilitate people by essentially making crime not crime. Declassifying crimes is not a way to rehabilitate people. UM. You know. With with all that being said, I've I've seen the worst about Lakes. I grew up here. I remember, you know, the riots, the original riots, um, and when Big five was ablaze on Los Angelea. And you know, I've never had the feeling I have now, you know. UM. Ever, and I'm on the side of of pushing against police officers, pushing against district attorneys, fighting, you know, for the rights of criminal defendants. That that's been my life's passion. I know that there is a lot of room to improve in criminal justice reform, but I know what is happening now. It doesn't benefit anybody. It doesn't benefit the poor communities, it doesn't benefit the rich communities, and it doesn't benefit anybody in between. And what it's doing, more than anything, is it's driving a gap and a knife between law enforcement and the district Attorney's office and that is a very very very dangerous thing to do. In my opinion. They work best when they work together, when they trust in each other. And you have, you know, great people like John and there's great das out there that that know what's going on. But we have essentially haven't an outsider that's coming. George Jascon isn't from here. He doesn't bleed the l a blue and or purple and gold. We bleed if you're a Clippers fan, whatever colors those are them. Um, But you know, we have an outsider that came in with outsider money and they're trying to change the fabric of our beautiful city. And it's not helping anyone. It's not helping our youth, and it's not helping the people that you know are in their you know, ladder days in life and they just want to walk down the street with grandkids and be safe. Isn't a safe environment and I don't think this is what anybody signed up for. Yeah, very well said so, um everybody out there. At first week of February, the guest go On Recall initiative is active. If you want to participate, if you want to gather signatures. Sign Um contribute to socializing and publicizing this effort, UM or contribute to fundraising. Please reach out to myself for Sean. You know, we'll tell you where to find us UM in just a moment. Um. John is in the District Attorney's office. I think he's made no secret of where uh you know of where he lies on this situation, But I'll leave him out of the actor. John, are you actively involved in the recall effort? Do you have to keep in arms length? No, I'm not a formal member of the recall committee. I've certainly supported. Yeah, someone puts a microphone in front of me. I mentioned it, I talked about it, I promoted. I think it's essential that this be effective because I just don't believe we can go till with George Gascon ruining our criminal justice system and our court system, usurping the power of judges, hurting our young people, frustrating our victims. We can't do this for another two and a half a year. So encourage everyone to go to www dot recall da George gascon dot com downloaded petition, download a couple for your friends and family. Let's get the mailed back and let's have an election, Let's have gascon. You know, come down off the twelfth floor of the Hall of Justice and get approximate with the people and try to explain how these policies are keeping making us more safe like you promised. You know, Yeah, he needs to be held to account. And his poll numbers are are horrendous. UM, people are waking up. They realized that they may have not been paying attention in two thousand twenty or were let astray by some of these policies and you know, and taglines that once again sound great but do not work in practice. And I think we're all seeing that unfortunately sometimes with with real tragic results. UM, so once again, reach out to any of us on this initiative. UM. For me, it's Matt Bolinsky m A T T b I l I N s k Y primarily on Twitter or Instagram. UM, John and Sean, if you could each tell us where that people can find you on social media. I'm at John McKinney j O h N M c K A I N N E Y underscore UM, same handle both on Twitter and Instagram, and you could find me at M E T T A E s Q. That's meta e s Q with two t s on Instagram and the petition for recall is on that page as well, and UM doing my best to try to constantly update it. UM this well, I don't know when this is gonna air, but this come Saturday. UM. There the petition will be in four locations, UM, Beverly Hills, Antalope Valley and I think two other locations in l A for people to go sign. That's on the page as well. Fantastic a truly citywide effort all all you know, from from the beach to downtown South l A to the valley. This is something that hopefully we'll bring together all good people of goodwill from various neighborhoods. UM, everybody out there. I hope this gave you know, educated you on on where we've been, where we came from, and where we are in terms of law enforcement, criminal justice and some unfortunately troubling UM you know, contemporary issues around it that that for better for worse, you know, no, no, people can no longer ignore it is now in everybody's face here in Los Angeles and other big cities in America. UM. But hopefully this took you know, this this strove forward the process of educating people and informing them. UM, and hopefully we can take action to to reverse course here and you know, alleviate the concerns of a lot of good people out there. So everybody, UM, thank you so much. John Shawn cannot thank you enough. Um, everybody, this is the Prevailing Narrative. I Am at Bolinski once again. You can listen and subscribe to the Prevailing Narrative on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you're listening right now. Make sure to follow me on my socials at Matt Polinsky m A T T B I l I N s k Y. The Prevailing Narrative is a Cavalry Audio production and association with I Heart Radio, produced by Brandon Morrigan, Executive produced by Dana Burnetti and Kegan Rosenberger for Calvary Audio. I'm at Bolinsky