Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman officially reinstated the death penalty for the most serious crimes on Tuesday — though a state moratorium imposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 remains in effect.
The Los Angeles Times reported:
Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman will allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty again in Los Angeles, undoing one of the signature policies of his predecessor, George Gascón.
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Under California law, the death penalty can only be sought in cases where a defendant is accused of murder with special circumstances. That can include multiple homicides or cases where the victim is a law enforcement officer or witness to a crime. If prosecutors do not seek the death penalty in such cases, defendants face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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In an interview with The Times the day after he defeated Gascón, Hochman said he would only pursue capital punishment in “rare cases,” such as school shootings, domestic terror attacks or the killing of a police officer.
Gascón, who was elected at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement with the help of millions of dollars in spending by left-wing billionaire George Soros, had suspended prosecutors’ ability to seek the death penalty.
Governor Newsom ended the death penalty in an executive order issued during his first year in office, in 2019.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.