Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon is resigning from the California District Attorneys Association due to its lack of racial diversity.
“The absence of a single person of color on CDAA’s 17-member board is blinding,” Gascon wrote in a letter to the group’s president. “This is the leadership that sets the direction for an organization of elected prosecutors, all of whom disproportionately prosecute communities of color at a time when the nation is facing a reckoning over systemic racism, and in a state with a plurality of minorities no less.”
Gascon, who was supported by Black Lives Matter and the beneficiary of millions in campaign contributions from billionaire George Soros, was elected last year on the promise of turning the court system “upside down.”
He accused the attorneys association of losing “touch with the public” and said it only accommodates “those willing to toe the ‘tough on crime’ line.”
“For the rest of us,” he added, “it is a place that fails to support us, our communities, or the pursuit of justice.”
Gascon also took issue with the group’s support of a lawsuit filed against him last month by his deputy district attorneys, who alleged his order for them not to pursue sentencing enhancements was a violation of state law. Gascon called the group’s support of the lawsuit “disappointing,” though he said, “it was not a surprise given the politics of the organization.”
“No constitutional provision and no statute vests any district attorney with veto power over the law,” the group wrote in an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit.
Gascon argues the sentencing enhancements increase recidivism.
