{"id":42584,"date":"2021-11-26T13:45:39","date_gmt":"2021-11-26T21:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=42584"},"modified":"2021-11-26T13:45:39","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T21:45:39","slug":"can-gascon-company-please-make-up-their-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=42584","title":{"rendered":"Can Gascon & Company Please Make Up Their Minds?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By:\u00a0Karen Roseberry<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On December 7th<\/sup>, 2020, the newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney, George Gascon, was sworn into office. It was on that very same day in which he took an oath to faithfully discharge the duty of supporting and defending the constitutions of the United States and the State of California that he also issued\u00a0Special Directive 20-09<\/a>\u00a0on the subject of Youth Justice. The directive stated \u201cThe office will immediately END the practice of sending youth to the adult court system.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gascon has actually gone so far as to apply this policy retroactively. He even worked to have the DA\u2019s office support the\u00a0release of a convicted murderer<\/a>\u00a0who only served 6 years on a 50-year sentence for the commission of a robbery-murder when he was 17 years old. Needless to say, this has already become a highly contentious policy.<\/p>\n

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Many have asserted that the commission of adult crimes warrants trial in adult court. Others, such as Gascon, assert that, \u201cyoung people\u2019s unique vulnerabilities (including their impulsivity, susceptibility to peer influences, risk-taking and lesser ability to fully appreciate long-term consequences, and their lack of control over their home\/family\/life circumstances), their malleability and capacity for growth and maturation, and thus their diminished culpability and potential for rehabilitation\u201d justify his policy.<\/p>\n

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While controversial, Gascon has found himself typically supported by the likes of Governor Newsom and Vice-President Harris. Yet, this week both seem to be calling into question this notion of Youth Justice reform. In statements issued by both the Governor and the Vice President both have strongly suggested that there has been a miscarriage of justice in the verdict returned in the Kyle Rittenhouse case. Kyle Rittenhouse was 17-years old when he shot 3 three people, killing 2, in what the jury ultimately concluded was self-defense and\u00a0finding him not guilty on all five counts<\/a>\u00a0for which he had been charged.<\/p>\n

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In a\u00a0tweet on the subject<\/a>\u00a0Governor Newsom went so far as to say that today\u2019s verdict told people across the nation that they could, \u201c\u2026shoot and kill people, and get away with it.\u201d Kamala Harris stated that the verdict illustrated that more work was necessary on criminal justice equity. Perhaps she meant that to be saying that there should be a consistency in policy as to whether 17-year-olds should be tried as adults. However, in the context of the statement that included saying, \u201cthe verdict really speaks for itself,\u201d it seems more likely that she believed the jury should have reached a different verdict.<\/p>\n

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At present Gascon, himself, seems to have avoided commenting, but his silence is nearly deafening and very likely because of the realization of the hypocrisy of his blanket policies is difficult to rationalize even for the most cognitively dissonant. Not only is Gascon\u2019s policy on Youth Justice reform nearly impossible to align with the views of his strongest allies who are critiquing the Rittenhouse decision; there consistently remains the radical inconsistency held with\u00a0Special Directive 20-08<\/a>\u00a0on the subject of Sentencing Enhancements, which\u00a0include use of a gun in the commission of a crime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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In a local context, LA City Mayoral candidate Mike Feuer\u00a0issued a statement<\/a>\u00a0criticizing the gun policy that put more guns in public. Yet, for all the lip-service given regarding concerns on rising gun violence, it is entirely counterproductive and contradictory to not prosecute gun charges that would be a sentence enhancement on crimes committed with guns. Yet, Special Directive 20-08 eliminates the prosecution of such special circumstances and officials remain silent in their complicit support for a policy undermining stated goals.<\/p>\n

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At some point, even those who are the most radically supportive of what has come to be called reform must recognize that such claims of reform are merely masquerading as an imposter to anything that resembles equitable enforcement of the law, and instead is a dangerously selective enforcement of the law. This is dangerous because the standard of the rule of law is being blurred to the point being unidentifiable. It is dangerous because selective enforcement of the law is rife for abuse of power by the one selecting which laws to be enforced and upon whom; dangerous because such action erodes trust and confidence in a system of justice on which our society and authority of government is based.<\/p>\n

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It is dangerous because a\u00a0near majority of Californians already see society breaking down<\/a>\u00a0and without the foundation of the rule of law to uphold it, that breakdown will only be accelerated. This danger is further expanded because the LA County District Attorney doesn\u2019t even believe that at criminal justice system exists, instead calling it only a criminal legal system. Perhaps, thanks to his policies, crimes are becoming \u201clegal,\u201d or at least not prosecuted, but perhaps it will also be the point for which Angelenos, Californians, and Americans across the county have had enough!<\/p>\n

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Now is the time to rise\u00a0up against such policies. Now is the time to stop the madness. Now is the time to recall Gascon (before 2024), and now is the time to see that this level of inconsistency can\u2019t be tolerated. At a minimum this discussion should require politicians to make up their mind \u2013 should 17-year-olds be prosecuted as juveniles, adults, or should prosecutorial discretion be restored to evaluate when adult trials are warranted and the decision entrusted to the criminal justice system?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By:\u00a0Karen Roseberry On December 7th, 2020,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42585,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42584\/revisions\/42585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}