DA Gascón addresses hate crimes, death penalty

As he gears up for his first political campaign, District Attorney George Gasc�n is discovering the contact sport that is San Francisco politics.

New to campaigning, Gasc�n has had to fine tune his position on the death penalty and other issues as he faces two progressive challengers: criminal justice expert and former Police Commissioner David Onek and veteran Alameda County prosecutor Sharmin Bock.

Gasc�n recently met with the Bay Area Reporter, where he spoke about the importance of prosecuting hate crimes, his criticism of the death penalty, and other issues.

In January, former Mayor Gavin Newsom, in one of his last acts before becoming the state's lieutenant governor, appointed Gasc�n, who was the police chief at the time, to the DA's position. He's running in November to hold on to the job. Newsom's pick surprised most political observers, but supporters pointed out that Gasc�n has a law degree.

One of the topics Gasc�n addressed during an hourlong interview with the B.A.R. was the importance of people reporting crimes. He spoke of crimes going unreported and said people may ask, "Why should I bother?" He said that could lead perpetrators to think they have impunity.

"I really want the LGBT community to feel very comfortable reaching out to our office," Gasc�n said. People "should not feel like they're alone."

Last month, Gasc�n disagreed with a San Francisco judge who dismissed felony hate crime charges against two men accused of attacking Mia Tu Mutch, a 20-year-old transgender woman, in April.

Lionel Jackson, 32, and Maurice J. Perry, 37, face charges including assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury and second-degree robbery. Gasc�n is pressing for a jury to hear evidence that he said supports prosecuting the accusations as a felony hate crime.

Jackson and Perry have both been held to answer on the assault and robbery charges, but on June 22, Judge Bruce Chan certified the hate crime accusation only as a misdemeanor.

Last Thursday, July 7, Jackson and Perry were again arraigned with the hate crime and other charges as a felony. Both pleaded not guilty. The trial is scheduled to begin October 14.

Gasc�n said Tu Mutch was singled out because she's transgender, and he wants to send the message that such crimes are "unacceptable."

He said taking the felony hate crime charge to trial "raises the burden on us," since Chan already rejected that, but "very disgraceful comments against transgender women in general" had allegedly been made, and there's a "nexus" between those comments and the assault.

"I want to be on the bully pulpit and be aggressive about it" in cases like this, he said.

In an interview shortly after Chan's decision on the hate crime allegation, David Harrison, the attorney representing Perry, said Chan had made the right call.

"The allegations of a hate crime were not supported by the evidence that was presented," Harrison said. He also said that Tu Mutch and two witnesses have said that Perry hadn't done anything. When Perry was in handcuffs just after the incident, Tu Mutch had said, "That's not him," Harrison said, citing testimony.

A transcript of the preliminary hearing wasn't immediately available. Asked this week about what Harrison said, Tu Mutch wouldn't comment on his remark about Perry not doing anything.

However, she didn't think she'd ever said, "That's not him." She said she hadn't been able to positively identify Perry at the time, "because I wanted to be 100 percent sure" it was him. She did positively identify Jackson, and other witnesses have confirmed Perry's identity, she said.

Deputy Public Defender Michelle Tong has been representing Jackson. Tamara Aperton, a spokeswoman for the office, said shortly after Chan issued his decision, "To convict someone, the evidence has to support their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

She said even though the threshold for guilt is "much, much" lower at a preliminary hearing, Chan "didn't think there was enough evidence to support those charges."

Death penalty

Gasc�n told the B.A.R. he's "not a believer" in the death penalty, citing costs, disparities in treatment, and wrongful convictions as reasons.

However, he said, "It's important to recognize it is state law." The state constitution needs to be rewritten to eliminate the death penalty, he said. He noted that he had decided the death penalty wasn't appropriate in the case involving Mechthild Schroer, a German tourist who was shot and killed in August 2010.

He said his ideas include calling for a statewide referendum to repeal the death penalty as well as change California's three strikes law.

During a recent forum, Bock took a jab at Gasc�n when she said that the job of DA is not for someone with "just a law degree." Gasc�n was asked about that comment and he said he agreed with Bock, but added, "a district attorney is not a trial attorney."

He pointed to his experience running large organizations and creating policy, and said the position also requires someone who is "a visionary."

Before arriving in San Francisco and serving as police chief, Gasc�n had been police chief in Mesa, Arizona. He also held high-level positions in the Los Angeles Police Department.

Gasc�n also commented on accusations from Public Defender Jeff Adachi that police officers had stolen property from drug suspects or conducted illegal searches.

Gasc�n said the allegations "involved a very small group of officers" and he'd moved "very quickly to dismiss cases" that could be tainted by the scandal.

He said the trial integrity unit that he established is re-evaluating the cases, and he added that his office is also working with federal officials.

Realignment

As part of efforts to close the state budget gap, Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law Assembly Bill 109, which aims to send some California prisoners to county jails.

Gasc�n called the law "a good thing," but he said the money the city would get "is not necessarily enough to cover all the expenses."

"We don't have a full jail system, but we don't want to create one," he said.

The district attorney recently launched a neighborhood court program designed in part to help ease the burden on the city's jails. He said Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Prozan, an out lesbian, "is the lead there. She's the one that is making all this work."

Gasc�n said his office is receiving funding from the city for another prosecutor for the program, and the goal is to have it citywide within 12 months.