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13 Dec, 4 tweets, 2 min read
A staff prosecutor in Los Angeles says prosecutors have come together to reject implementation of policies that the newly-elected DA ran on for a year, and then reiterated on his first day in office.

Much like DAs used to resist & sue reform iniatives & laws.
Eye-opening to what makes it toweringly difficult task to fight mass incarceration: many elections show voters reject tough-on-crime politics, over and over — but staff prosecutors (& police unions) retain a lot of power to stymie efforts, ignore results, threaten over new laws.
See also: how badly prosecutors & police unions misfired in NY this year; results of many DA & sheriff races in recent years; and the results of CA’s Prop 20, a rollback of sentencing reforms CA voters roundly rejected even as it had fearmongering support from many prosecutors.
Some background reading on what Gascon ran on to oust incumbent, & what’s come since:

Preview of runoff: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…

Q&A with Gascon: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…

Rundown of policies announced Monday: mailchi.mp/theappeal/poli…

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More from @Taniel

Taniel Profile picture
10 Dec
A party has chosen as one of its baseline membership belief — the sort of belief that makes it cohere it as party — the idea that it should never be allowed to lose an election.

It'd be death-knell for democracy if sustained, but institutional biases means there's no reckoning.
This is also a party that's now been going to bat for poll closures, sinking the VRA, ruining the census, prison gerrymandering, expanding large-scale felony disenfranchisement & poll tax, restricting mail-in voting & voter registration, new rules against initiatives.
This is a party that's repeatedly been using *the bare fact that black people have voted* as evidence something is amiss.

This is party that's using *bare fact that its officials say there's fraud* as the only needed evidence there's a trust issue to remedy via restrictions.
Read 4 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
8 Dec
here are just some things announced today in Los Angeles because of one DA race, one local race I harped on all year!

1) no more death penalty
2) prosecutors won't seek cash bail
3) & won't seek any sentencing enhancements
4) thousands of cases reviewed for excessive sentencing
This is a county of 10 million residents, where prosecutors have aggressively thrown ppl into terrible jails & prisons with long sentences (incl. death penalty).

Big stuff -- that'll be important to keep an eye on to see how the county's huge legal machinery implements them.
And while LA is nation's biggest county, it's also just the tip of the iceberg.

Ann Arbor's new DA also said he won't seek cash bail.

Austin's new DA said he won't criminally charge drug cases.

New Orleans's new DA opposes charging kids as adults.

(All newly elected.)
Read 4 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
6 Dec
JUST IN: Jason Williams wins the DA race in New Orleans.

Activists mobilized to upend NoLa's mass incarceration practices, & Williams embraced & ran on a lot of their demands: no death penalty, no prosecuting pot, no 'habitual offender' sentences, no prosecuting kids as adults.
Williams will replace longtime DA Cannizzaro (who didn't run), who was very comfortable championing punitive policies (eg. arguing more kids should be jailed) even by US standards.

Read @kjfernelius's preview & what race could mean for mass incarceration: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…
But Williams is under federal indictment for tax fraud. This hang over 1st round, where some advocates endorsed a candidate who came in 3rd tho he'd been more ambivalent on some reform issues.

Williams's runoff opponent leaned more directly into doubts about reform.
Read 6 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
6 Dec
It's Election Night in NoLa! In state with highest incarceration rate, city is electing its new DA after 10+ years after a very punitive DA.

big stakes: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…

So far, the more progressive candidate more aligned with reform demands (Williams) is up big, 60/40.
Huge gaps between precincts as compared to how the first round looked on Nov. 3rd. One has gone from Landrum 44/20 last month to Landrum 75/25 now; another has gone from Williams 39/29 last month to Williams 90/10 now.
Both candidates are Dems. Many of the precincts I'm seeing that Landrum won are precincts that went for Trump, or where Trump was considerably stronger than the citywide results. (That makes some sense given the rhetoric of some of the runoff.)
Read 6 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
2 Dec
It's Election Night! (In Georgia no less!)

Clarke (=Athens) & Oconee counties voted for their DA in a runoff, which pits a candidate who carried the criminal justice reform mantle (Deborah Gonzalez) & a candidate more skeptical of reforms (James Chafin).
Turnout will no doubt be far smaller than last month (twas was left for today even as other runoffs are on 1/5) making it harder to predict.

The mere fact that election is being held is a story, since Kemp's maneuvers briefly cancelled it. See my thread:
Right now there is a difference of... 66 votes between the two candidates out of roughly 20,000 counted!

But: Oconee County, where Chafin is up HUGE, is done. There's a way to go in Athens.

(One note: The very small time between Nov. 3 & Dec. 1 made mail-in voting harder.)
Read 4 tweets
Taniel Profile picture
1 Dec
Time for a story about a DA race in Georgia, again.

It won't top my 😮thread from June about the DA race in Muscogee (see below). Could anything? But it's still worth your time.

This time, it's about Athens.
Act 1: Deborah Gonzalez jumps in the DA race as a reformer.

Act 2 (Feb. 2020): The incumbent resigns. He'd be in office since 2001 & had already announced retirement, but he couldn't wait a few more months. His deputy becomes acting DA, a perceived advantage for Nov's election.
Act 3: Gov. Kemp keeps not appointing anyone to fill the vacancy. This triggers a law that outright *cancels* the 2020 election, leaving the acting DA in power until 2022 without facing voters.

(Sidenote: Kemp does the same for Supreme Court elections: theappeal.org/politicalrepor…)
Read 6 tweets

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