Civically involved Los Angeles County citizens who voted for or against incoming District Attorney Nathan Hochman this should be wishing him precisely the same thing as he prepares to take office in the biggest county in the nation: Great good luck in seeking justice for all Angelenos.
Hochman ran a clockwork-perfect campaign emphasizing moderation in jurisprudence against an incumbent DA, George Gascón, who fell prey to precisely what caused Californians to approve Proposition 36: People’s fear of crime, and anger over perceptions of lawlessness without fear of punishment in our society.
But Hochman didn’t just squeak by the incumbent, who had been swept in four years ago during a time of anger over just the opposite — overpolicing — in the wake of the murder by police of George Floyd and others. He whalloped the DA at the box office, taking over 61% of the vote.
Because it wasn’t just a notion that Gascón was “soft on criminals” that led to the current DA’s downfall. District attorneys are not dictators within their departments. There are almost a thousand unionized L.A. prosecutors in the largest such office in the United States. If a DA doesn’t have their support, even though he is nominally the boss, he can’t succeed or stay in office. Gascón never had his deputy district attorneys’ support in the first place, and he did a poor job communicating with them over four years.
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When he takes office early next month, the easygoing, experienced, truly moderate Hochman has an excellent chance of making peace with his troops and doing right by county residents. He’s a former federal prosecutor, U.S. assistant attorney general and Los Angeles Ethics Commission president. During the campaign, he said: “I will be ready on Day One to remove politics from prosecutorial decisions and restore independence, honesty and integrity to prevent crime, protect public safety and ensure justice is served to all.”
In interviews after his successful run for office, Hochman has emphasized that his intent is not to swing District Attorney’s Office politics to the “right” after a perception that Gascón was on the “left.” This isn’t Kremlinology.
Rather, he intends to operate out of the center, basing his pursuit of justice on common sense. We join all Angelenos in supporting that goal.