Former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon resigned that office a few months ago to run for District Attorney of Los Angeles County. Gascon bills himself as a criminal justice reformer who would presumably bring to the Los Angeles DA's office the same enlightened approach he brought to San Francisco. Former San Francisco Deputy District Attorney Nancy Tung, who left the office in 2017 and ran to replace Gascon after he resigned, has this piece in the the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys blog. Tung was a Deputy DA when Gascon was appointed SF Police Chief in 2009 and served under him for six years after Mayor Newsom appointed him acting DA when Kamala Harris left the office to serve as California Attorney General. Although he had never tried a civil case or prosecuted a criminal, upon his appointment Gascon told reporters that he believed that his organization skills and understanding of the criminal justice system qualified him to run a prosecution agency. Under his management, Tung writes that the office became demoralized and began to lose prosecutors to other agencies.
During his last term, 61 or the office's 141 deputies left. In 2014,
Gascon co-authored Proposition 47, to reduce drug possession and
most theft crimes to misdemeanors, which he praised for reducing the
sentencing disparity in San Francisco between Caucasians and African
Americans by nearly half. A study by the Public Policy Institute of
California (PPIC) released last fall found that San Francisco has by
far, the highest property crime rate in the state. The PPIC notes that
generally, high property crime rates reflect high property arrest
rates. But in San Francisco under Gascon, property crime arrests ranked 46th out of
the state's 58 counties. Nobody is punishing property criminals in the City by the Bay. As we have noted before, high property crime
rates invite increased violent crime. According to the study, San Francisco had the third
highest violent crime rate in California. Gascon is gambling on
state's progressive tide and millions from George Soros to sweep
him into the Los Angeles District Attorneys Office. Place your bets.
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