{"id":107842,"date":"2022-04-19T12:45:02","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/?p=107842"},"modified":"2022-04-19T12:45:17","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:45:17","slug":"op-ed-an-expensive-political-insurance-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2022\/04\/19\/op-ed-an-expensive-political-insurance-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-ed: An expensive political insurance policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gasc\u00f3n [Image via LA County]<\/figcaption><\/figure>By Michele Hanisee<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

While running for office, George Gasc\u00f3n<\/strong> attacked Jackie Lacey<\/strong>\u2019s record of declining to prosecute police officers who killed people and promised to go a step further and undo what he saw as her mistakes.<\/p>\n

One of his first acts upon taking office was to convince the Board of Supervisors to give him more than $6 million over four years to hire outside counsel to re-examine closed cases where the District Attorney\u2019s Office had previously cleared police officers. Gasc\u00f3n handpicked a criminal defense attorney named Lawrence Middleton<\/strong> for this purpose, deliberately ignoring the multitude of seasoned and ethical prosecutors already employed by the district attorney\u2019s office who could have done this task at no additional expense to taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The Middleton contract\u2014while providing no benefit to Angelenos\u2014did provide Gasc\u00f3n with something; political coverage. As Middleton was reviewing and rejecting cases previously examined and declined by prosecutors, Gasc\u00f3n could go back to his supporters and tell them that even Middleton did not recommend a filing. In essence, Middleton provided Gasc\u00f3n with political insurance on this delicate subject.<\/p>\n

There was a slight hiccup before Middleton could start, as he was still actively representing criminal defendants. This ethical conflict of interest was resolved not by Middleton resigning from those cases, but by a judge summarily removing Middleton from representing several criminal defendants because of the \u201cappearance of impropriety.\u201d Middleton\u2019s work of reviewing cases where officers in police shootings had been cleared by the highly experienced prosecutors working in the Justice System Integrity Division then commenced.<\/p>\n

The standard of proof for any case to be filed is whether the case can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. While George Gasc\u00f3n erased many laws enacted by voters and the California Legislature, he cannot erase the standard of proof in criminal cases. One year and 1.5 million dollars later, Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s handpicked special prosecutor has reviewed four closed cases without filing of any charges.<\/p>\n

Gasc\u00f3n has now announced that no charges will be filed in two additional cases. The reason provided by Gasc\u00f3n in his statement was that \u201cthe burden of proof for prosecution is high.\u201d In other words, his critique of Lacey\u2019s decision not to file the same cases was wrong. It was a political narrative that had no factual basis. Not surprising since Gasc\u00f3n has never tried a single case and has no practical experience on what it takes to prove charges in court.<\/p>\n

The question now is, how much longer will Gascon continue to bill the taxpayers to the tune of $1.5 million per year to keep Middleton on staff as his political insurance policy.<\/p>\n

About the author<\/span>: Michele Hanisee is President of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys, the collective bargaining agent representing nearly 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles.<\/em><\/h6>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michele Hanisee While running for office, George Gasc\u00f3n attacked Jackie Lacey\u2019s record of declining to prosecute police officers who killed people and promised to go a step further and undo what he saw as her mistakes. One of his first acts upon taking office was to convince the Board of Supervisors to give him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":106816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1480],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107842"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107844,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107842\/revisions\/107844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}