Association of Deputy District Attorney’s Endorses Jackie Lacey for L.A. County District Attorney
By The Board of Directors
The Association of Deputy District Attorney’s (ADDA) is pleased to announce our endorsement of Jackie Lacey for Los Angeles County District Attorney.
As a union, we considered several important factors in making our endorsement. Jackie Lacey has a proven 8-year track record on all fronts.
First, we considered who would better advance the goals of labor. Ms. Lacey has not forgotten her working class roots. She is a genuine friend of labor. As District Attorney, she has supported competitive pay and safe working conditions for the employees of the District Attorney’s Office.
Second, we looked at actual policies that have promoted a diverse workforce. Ms. Lacey has established diversity at the highest levels of our administration. Ms. Lacey also recently instituted a paid law clerk program to allow the office to hire economically disadvantaged students who cannot afford to work for free, thus expanding the diversity of our law clerks and in turn, future deputy district attorneys.
Third, we considered who would best protect the public using guiding principles of justice. Ms. Lacey has proven ability to be a moral and ethical criminal justice leader. She has championed mental health reform and diversion. Ms. Lacey created an internal review unit to examine closed cases to ensure the integrity of our prior convictions. Jackie Lacey played a leading role in reforming the bail system to ensure that pre-trial detention is based upon the threat posed to public safety by the accused, rather their bank account. She was able to make these reforms while continuing to make communities safer.
We want to thank her opponents, George Gascón and Richard Ceballos, for presenting their visions of how they would govern the office. We considered their interviews and their record before we selected Ms. Lacey as our choice for District Attorney.
We appreciated Mr. Gascón’s ideas on using data to target habitual offenders and his commitment to protecting prosecutors from frivolous complaints.
However, his emphasis on aiding criminals over crime victims is not a position that we, who work with crime victims daily, can support. Concepts like “restorative justice” are great political buzzwords. But when the actual result is to overlook the harm criminals do to victims, it is a social experiment that we cannot endorse. We are especially confused as to how Mr. Gascón will implement “restorative justice” principles on violent crimes such as murder, attempted murder, rape, robbery, carjacking, or mayhem.
Throughout his tenure as San Francisco Chief of Police and San Francisco District Attorney, Mr. Gascón has engaged in a series of social experiments on the residents of San Francisco. Unfortunately, it is the residents who are paying for these experiments. According to FBI data, in 2017, San Francisco had a higher murder rate, a higher violent crime rate and a higher property crime rate*. By all metrics, Jackie Lacey’s Los Angeles is safer than Gascón’s San Francisco. Perhaps that is why Mr. Gascón moved to Los Angeles.
Mr. Ceballos has many good ideas. He stands for many of the same positions ADDA stands for. He is a loyal union member. But Ms. Lacey has a proven track record while Mr. Ceballos remains an uncertainty.
*San Francisco’s murder rate was higher than Los Angeles County, 6.4 per 100,000 compared to 5.7. San Francisco’s violent crime rate was higher, 715 per 100,00 compared to Los Angeles’s 577 per 100,000. San Francisco’s property crime rate was higher, 6,168 per 100,000 compared to Los Angeles at 2,443 per 100,000.
The Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys is the collective bargaining agent representing nearly 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles.
