Newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman has spent more than a year listening intently — to frustrated prosecutors, law enforcement officers and aggrieved crime victims.

And now, in just over two weeks, he plans to integrate their positions as he quickly moves the nation’s largest local prosecutor’s office beyond what he describes as current District Attorney George Gascón’s “failed social experiment.”

Hochman, a former federal prosecutor who was elected in a landslide on Tuesday, November 5, is promising to immediately abolish the blanket anti-detention policy that his progressive predecessor embraced. These include Gascón’s most controversial guidelines, which prohibit prosecutors from charging juveniles as adults, filing sentence enhancements, seeking the death penalty, attending parole hearings and seeking cash bail for defendants charged with crimes and nonviolent crimes.

But Hochman insists that doesn’t mean all of Gascón’s ideas were misleading.

Instead, he plans to take a “hard middle” approach to justice, eschewing political ideologies and giving prosecutors the power to carefully analyze each case individually, while focusing on fairness and accountability for suspects, victims and victim families.

“The hard middle looks at every case differently,” he said in an interview with the Southern California News Group. “You have to work within the (legal) system and respect everyone’s rights.”

Nationally, progressive “reform” candidates lost in 13 of the top 25 district attorney races of the recent election — even in liberal bastions, according to the New York Post.

The results suggest that even Democrats wanted to distance themselves from what they saw as Gascón’s soft-on-crime policies. For example, Vice President Kamala Harris wins Los Angeles County by 33 percentage points in her unsuccessful race against newly elected President Donald Trump, but Gascón loses to Hochman by 20 points.

The Public Prosecution Service declined to comment on Hochman’s plans for his government.

Optimism, pessimism

Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, said prosecutors are encouraged by Hochman’s plans. “We hope this approach gives us the space to resolve cases in a more just manner that best suits the suspect, the victim, the crime and the circumstances,” she said.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents about 9,000 sworn LAPD officers, said in a post on

“The nightmare is over,” the post said. “Now there is hope that we can return personal responsibility to the criminal justice system.”

Larry Rosenthal, a professor at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law, said he doesn’t believe Hochman will have much success in shaking up the status quo.

“The research shows that there is actually very little evidence that electing tough-on-crime prosecutors has much effect on crime,” said Rosenthal, himself a former federal prosecutor. “I see no reason to believe that Los Angeles County will be an exception.”

Rosenthal also expects Hochman will seek longer prison sentences in more cases than Gascón, which could lead to higher taxes.

“Ultimately, California taxpayers must pay very high costs for housing older prisoners and their medical care,” he said. “Prosecutors are rarely held accountable for leaving taxpayers with very high costs 20 or 30 years from now.”

Gascón elected pioneer

Gascón’s sweeping directives, introduced upon his inauguration in 2020, became a focal point of his administration — and its Achilles heel.

Progressives called Gascón a trailblazer as at least 20 deputy district attorneys sued him, facing retaliation for defying orders they deemed illegal. Gascón also received votes of no confidence from elected officials in numerous Los Angeles County cities and fended off two recall attempts that failed to collect enough valid signatures for the petition.

Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of the Prosecutors Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for reformist changes in prosecutorial policies and policy solutions, urged Hochman to reconsider rescinding Gascón’s guidelines.

“Now that the campaign is over, we are hopeful that the new district attorney will scrutinize the work and not make drastic rollbacks,” DeBerry said in an email. “A look at the data will show that limiting extreme punishment is good for public safety and taxpayers. DA-elect Hochman has committed to a balanced approach and a sweeping rollback will not achieve that goal.”

Reforms detailed

Hochman argues that while Gascón considers himself an ardent progressive, he has not developed policies that reasonably serve all segments of the criminal justice system.

“To achieve real and effective criminal justice reform, we must create progress for all people in the system,” said Hochman, who has noted that Gascón has proposed some good ideas but executed them poorly.

Hochman, who served as assistant U.S. attorney general during President George W. Bush’s administration and chaired the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, opposes mass incarceration and acknowledges that prison is not suitable for every suspect. He said some low-level offenders could benefit more from community services or diversion programs.

However, Hochman has drawn a line in the sand when it comes to the fentanyl crisis, vowing to seek aggressive prosecution and lengthy prison sentences for “poisoners” responsible for 1,970 deaths in Los Angeles County in 2023.

Hochman has also pledged a comprehensive campaign to educate high school students and parents about the deadly threat of fentanyl, said he will aggressively prosecute robbers and plans to reinstate the hardcore gang unit in the district attorney’s office that Gascón disbanded. in 2021.

As for the death penalty, Hochman said it should only be sought in the rarest of cases, such as killings of police officers, school massacres and deadly terrorist attacks.

He said he might also ask the court for more time to review the high-profile case of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who spent more than 30 years in prison for the 1989 murders of their parents, ahead of a Gascón-backed recidivism. hear next month.

I will not hire public defenders

Hochman said that, unlike Gascón, he will not hire attorneys from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. “I will do my best to bring in people with the most experience and the highest level of integrity and leadership skills and then use those skills in the most beneficial way,” he added.

Earlier this week, Hochman named veteran Los Angeles County prosecutor Steve Katz, whom he has known for more than four decades, as his chief of staff. Katz, who joined the Attorney General’s Office in 1990, will be responsible for overseeing all operations.