Death Penalty Trials To Resume In Los Angeles County

LOS ANGELES, CA — Los Angeles County juries will, once again, hear death penalty cases, District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced Tuesday.

The policy is a departure from a directive issued by former District Attorney George Gascón, who prohibited prosecutors from seeking the death penalty. Hochman said the decision to seek the death penalty will be reserved for the rarest cases. The policy change will likely have an impact on convicted killers years from now because of time it takes capital cases to wind through the justice system and because Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in 2019 that no inmates would be executed during his term, which expires in 2026.

"I remain unwaveringly committed to the comprehensive and thorough evaluation of every special circumstance murder case prosecuted in Los Angeles County, in consultation with the murder victim's survivors and with full input on the mitigating and aggravating factors of each case, to ensure that the punishment sought by the office is just, fair, fitting and appropriate," the district attorney said in a statement.

The district attorney's office issued a statement attacking Gascón's policy as extreme.

The new policy would be applied to cases of murder with special circumstances "only after an extensive and comprehensive review and only in exceedingly rare cases," Hochman's office announced in a written statement. "The standard to charge such death penalty cases at all stages of review will be beyond a reasonable doubt, not the prior standard of probable cause."

Under the new policy, defense attorneys would have opportunities to share information about the defendant and the district attorney and the office's Special Circumstances Committee when the death penalty is under consideration.

"Murder victims’ survivors’ views will be sought and considered prior to any final determinations being made," the district attorney's office added.

The policy is a notable shift rightward for a prosecutor's office that was considered the most progressive in the nation prior to the election. In November's election, voters countywide and across the state favored candidates and measures that promised to bring harsher penalties for crime in the Golden State.

Gascón frustrated many prosecutors in his own officer said after his election in 2020 that he "does not believe the death penalty is an appropriate punishment in any case."

Two men were subsequently sentenced to death in high-profile Los Angeles County murder cases that had been tried under prior District Attorney Jackie Lacey's administration, but were still awaiting sentencing when Lacey lost her re-election bid to Gascón.

In July 2021, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler went ahead with a jury's recommendation for a death sentence for Michael Gargiulo, who was convicted of killing and mutilating two Southland women. The judge said he had "read and considered" a statement from Gascón, which was not read in open court.

Just over two weeks before Gargiulo's sentencing, Superior Court Judge Raul A. Sahagun refused to allow a statement to be read in court on behalf of Gascón before a parolee, Jade Douglas Harris, was sentenced to death for murdering three people and trying to kill two others in Downey while posing as a prospective buyer of a Chevrolet Camaro.

In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on the death penalty in California, ordering the immediate closure of the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison.

"The intentional killing of another person is wrong and as governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual," Newsom said in a statement at the time. "Our death penalty system has been, by all measures, a failure. It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can't afford expensive legal representation. It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Most of all, the death penalty is absolute. It's irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error."

City News Service contributed to this report.