Nathan Hochman defeated incumbent Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón three weeks ago by promising to do just about everything differently from his predecessor.
Gascón was elected in 2020 on a progressive platform of criminal justice reform. But after several years of panic about retail theft, voters swung to the right in 2024, backing Hochman’s tough-on-crime approach.
Hochman joined KNX News’ daily political show Countdown 2024 to talk about what exactly he plans to do once he’s in office.
Listen here:
“We're going to go back and actually have the DA do his job,” Hochman said. “And by that, I meant that the prior district attorney had issued, on his first day in office, nine special directives that predetermined that certain crimes and certain criminals would not be prosecuted, even if the facts and the law would so justify a prosecution.”
For example, Gascón had directed his office not to prosecute juveniles for misdemeanor theft and scrapped certain sentencing enhancements that disproportionately targeted men of color. Hochman promised to undo those reforms.
“What I will do is eliminate these prohibitions on prosecution, but not substitute one extreme policy with the extreme policy of mass incarceration,” he said. “ You’ve got to treat each case individually, look at the individual defendant and their background, the crime committed and the impact on the victim to determine who the true threats are to our public safety and need to be behind bars. Those are often the repeat offenders.”
He cited Proposition 36, which creates stricter penalties for certain theft and drug offenses, as a new tool for locking up these dangerous repeat offenders – namely, shoplifters and drug users.
“If you're convicted three times of stealing just under $950 … the third conviction can be felony eligible, prison eligible, but it still requires a judge to actually sentence you to a felony and prison. It's not like the D.A. can make that decision for the judge,” he said. “Same thing on drug use – if you're using meth, heroin, fentanyl, now police officers don't have to walk by and do nothing. They can go ahead and enforce the laws.”
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When it comes to immigration enforcement, Hochman said California’s sanctuary state law has a carve-out that allows law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration officials in cases involving serious crimes. As far as the DA’s role, he said, “My job is to uphold the law.”
“If people commit crimes in this jurisdiction, they will be prosecuted and held accountable for that action, whether they're documented or undocumented,” he said. “If, and for instance, the immigration authorities have a warrant for someone's arrest, that warrant can be legally executed and the person can eventually get transferred over from local to federal custody. So whatever the laws are in effect at that time, those will be the laws that I’ll be enforcing”
Listen to the full episode above, and catch new episodes of Countdown 2024 every weekday at 2:30 p.m.
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