California hasn’t put any inmates to death since 2006. It’s possible that things will change under new LA District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
In an interview with KNX News, he said “the death penalty would be on the table,” in certain situations. He used the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting and the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting as examples.
“We would engage in extensive and thorough analysis considering all the mitigating and aggravating factors, making sure that victims’ voices would be heard as well as defendants and defense counsel in making that final decision on whether or not to seek the death penalty or to seek just life without the possibility of parole,” the district attorney added.
As LA Local host Jonathan Serviss noted, recent polling shows that California voters don’t seem particularly passionate about the idea of restarting the death penalty. Gov. Gavin Newsom even issued a moratorium on executions in 2019. Last year, California had the nation’s largest drop in death row inmates, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Its death row population decreased by 63, the outlet reported.
National polling from Gallup found that support for the death penalty had reached a decades-record low (53%) by last October. Back in 2005, 64% were in support of it.
Hochman, however, campaigned on a promise to get tough on crime and pursing the death penalty.
“There’s already pushback against this, as you well know, the L.A. County Public Defenders came out against it,” said KNX News’ Rob Archer.
“The death penalty has been on the books for decades. In fact, the voters had a chance over the last 15 years, twice, to eliminate the death penalty,” Hochman responded. “The state legislature, at any point, could decide to eliminate that death penalty as a punishment for various types of crimes, and we know the governor, although he’s enacted a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty, if he wanted tomorrow to commute every death penalty sentence in this entire state to life without the possibility of parole, he could do that.”
He added that: “As long as it’s on the books, I’m obligated to consider it in the exceedingly rare cases that I’ve identified.”
Archer asked the new DA if his stance on the death penalty has anything to do with his predecessor, George Gascón. Hochman defeated Gascón in the 2024 election. He has also opposed the highly publicized push to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez, which Gascón supported.
“Some people are saying that this is kind of a political move on your part is you just trying to… willy nilly do everything different than what George Gascón before you did,” said Archer. “What do you say to that?”
“Those are people who don't bother to engage in any way, shape, or form with reading the memo that we’re going to be putting out and showing exactly how we’ll go step by step through a methodical process to conduct this extensive and thorough review of the facts and the law in every single case in which the death penalty may apply, already identifying upfront that it's an exceedingly rare situation,” said the DA.