On his first day in office four years ago, Los Angeles Township. Atty. Georges Gascón has issued a series of progressive decrees that many prosecutors in his office say have handcuffed them in the fight against crime.

If Nathan Hockman takes Gascón’s seat within 30 days, he vows to untie the same prosecutor and reverse his predecessor’s policies.

Hochman’s agenda includes returning to the death penalty, increasing prosecution of low-level misdemeanors and using sentencing enhancements to require longer prison terms in cases involving guns and gangs.

After defeating Gascón by a landslide 23 points on election night, Mr. Hochman said in an interview Wednesday that his campaign promise to wipe out some of his predecessor’s “blanket and lazy policies” at his inauguration ceremony on Dec. 2 He said he plans to implement it immediately.

Several high-profile cases, including the re-sentencing of Eric Menendez and Lyle Menendez, which Gascón supported, may also be reconsidered, Hochman told the Times.

Hockman said Wednesday that his decisive victory is evidence that Angelenos, and perhaps Californians overall, are tired of policies that put fighting crime on a back burner behind criminal justice reform.

“I take this as a strong expression of what I stood for. What I stood for was the rejection of extremism,” he said. “An extreme pro-crime, non-criminal policy in which certain predetermined criminals are not prosecuted.”

Mr. Hochman’s victory was cheered throughout law enforcement, including hundreds of deputy district attorneys who spent most of Gascon’s tenure at war with their bosses. More than 20 people have filed suit against him, alleging retaliation for speaking out against his policies.

But prominent legal figures like Los Angeles County Public Defender Ricardo Garcia urged Hochman to recognize that some of Gascon’s reforms are desperately needed.

“I urge the next prosecutor to prioritize addressing systemic injustice, reducing reliance on over-incarceration, and ensuring fairness for all individuals facing prosecution,” he said in a statement. “While we work within a hostile system, we are committed to working constructively to advance the reforms needed for a more just and humane criminal legal system.”

Mr. Gascon conceded the race to Mr. Hochman early Wednesday, and the two had a brief and good-faith discussion about a cooperative transition in the coming weeks, according to aides to both men who were not authorized to speak publicly. It is said that

After taking office, Hochman plans to immediately erase most of the “special directives” issued by the Gascon side. Prosecutors will be able to seek the death penalty again, even though Gov. Gavin Newsom put a moratorium on executions in 2019. Hochman said pursuing the death penalty would only be done in “rare” cases, such as school shootings, domestic terrorist attacks or incidents. “Cold-blooded assassination of a police officer.”

Mr. Hochman’s prosecutor’s office also has criminal charges for misdemeanors such as trespassing, public intoxication and simple drug possession, and Mr. Gascón’s staff in an effort to reduce the prison population and direct resources to more serious crimes. Even misdemeanor cases in which the investigation was stopped will be able to be prosecuted again. Critics, including Hochman, argue that failing to crack down on low-level crimes is contributing to homelessness and drug addiction.

Under these policies, the district attorney’s office prosecuted misdemeanors half as often as under the old Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, according to a previous Times analysis. The policy shift under Mr. Hochman only affects jurisdictions that do not have their own city prosecutors who handle misdemeanor cases.

“I’m not going to do what the Gascon did to many of these people and just pretend their crimes didn’t happen… but their punishment needs to be proportionate to the crime. “Yes,” Hochman said, hinting at the possibility of diversionary programs or courts. – Require rehabilitation for people who commit crimes while suffering from drug addiction.

President Gascón ended sentencing enhancements for people accused of using guns or committing crimes on behalf of gangs. Hochman plans to reinstate harsher penalties despite evidence that they have a disparate impact on defendants of color.

Los Angeles County prosecutors issued sentencing enhancements nearly 500,000 times between 2010 and 2020, according to public records previously obtained by the Times. The race of the defendants is not recorded, but records show that during the same period, nearby Orange, San Diego, and Riverside counties found that 90% of those targeted for enhancement were black or Latino.

Hockman downplayed concerns about racial bias, citing a House bill that would require information about the ethnicity of defendants and witnesses to be removed from investigative reports before a decision to submit them is made. The so-called “racially blind” prosecution approach pioneered at Stanford University and championed by Gascon when he was San Francisco district attorney has not yet been implemented in Los Angeles, but Hochman said he plans to take advantage of it. .

Some recent high-profile decisions by Gascón and his appointees could also be reviewed by Hochman in December. Last month, Gascón said he would ask a judge to hold the Menendez brothers accountable for the brutal 1989 murder of their parents, a step that could end with the brothers being granted parole. A court hearing on the request for retrial is scheduled for December 11, nine days after Hochman takes office.

The trial could end before Hochman takes office, as the judge is scheduled to hear the brothers’ motion to vacate their convictions on Nov. 25. This is because the brothers were not allowed to present evidence of sexual abuse by their father at the second trial. The brothers’ attorneys also petitioned Newsom for clemency.

Mr. Hochman criticized Mr. Gascón’s move last month as a political ploy and said Wednesday that he would consider it if the case was not resolved by the time he took office.

The possibility that former Los Angeles Police Department police officer Clifford Proctor will be indicted in the shooting death of a homeless man in Venice could be overturned. Sources told the Times last month that Lawrence Middleton, the special prosecutor hired by Mr. Gascón to investigate the police case, had requested a warrant for Mr. Proctor’s arrest. Hochman also slammed the move, noting that the statute of limitations for manslaughter in the case has expired and saying he believes the murder charges are unjustified.

Newly elected prosecutors said Wednesday that they may consider the viability of the case once charges or indictments become public. Neither Mr. Gascon nor Mr. Middleton would comment on Mr. Proctor’s case.

Overall, Hochman said he is enthusiastic about assembling a transition team and getting to work.

“The clock is ticking, and we start day one with a team in place that can bring justice and safety to the people of this county,” he said.

Times staff writer Ben Poston contributed to this report.