Sheriff Villanueva Will Defy A Subpoena Related To Allegations He Harassed Officials Who Criticized Him laist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from laist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
.
Last month, L.A. District Attorney George Gascón received an unusual proposal from Sheriff Alex Villanueva: The sheriff wanted to create a joint task force with the DA to fight government corruption and target dirty politicians. The mission of [the task force] is to develop meaningful and productive investigatory relationships among our detectives and deputy district attorneys, who are charged with investigating public corruption, said a draft memorandum of understanding written by the Sheriff s Department and obtained by LAist. It argued the task force would serve as a force multiplier.
The memo said the DA would chair the group and it envisioned other law enforcement agencies joining. Participants would brief each other on sensitive cases they were working on, it said.
In office less than a month, L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón has brought dramatic changes into the criminal courts with his progressive agenda. In his biggest move so far, he has directed prosecutors to seek shorter prison sentences for most criminal defendants by eliminating sentencing enhancements.
While winning plaudits from some quarters, the new policy has run into opposition from some of Gascón s deputy DA s and some judges. Some prosecutors reportedly are not making a forceful case to drop enhancements, and in at least a handful of cases judges have refused their requests.
Gascón says his move is designed to address two huge problems in the criminal justice system: There are too many people in prison and too many of them are Black and brown men. California s mass incarceration problem can be tied directly to enhancements and the extreme sentencing laws of the 1990s, he declared on his first day on the job.