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More than 9 of 10 Los Angeles prosecutors are supporting an effort to recall District Attorney (DA) George Gascon, according to the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys (LAADDA), which released the results of a vote among county prosecutors Tuesday.
The LA County Registrar approved the recall, which is now seeking between 800,000 and 900,000 petition signatures, last year in the midst of the county's violent crime spike that began in 2020.
"It's been one year of Gascon's social experiment," Eric Siddall, vice president of LAADDA, told Fox News Digital. "I think after that one year, people have had time to evaluate whether this is working or not working. I think most people who actually live in Los Angeles [and] understand what's going on in Los Angeles, including the political leadership here in LA, feel that this has been a miserable failure."
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon speaks at a press conference, Dec. 8, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP)
Siddall added later on that he was not expecting 97.9% of the 83.3% prosecutors who participated in the vote to support the recall. The vote followed Gascon's refusal to accept an invitation from prosecutors in his office to defend himself amid the recall effort.
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"We asked our members directly whether we should endorse the recall as an organization," he said. "We decided that because we thought we'd rather not have several members of the board of directors make this call and that it should be a decision that every line prosecutor makes collectively."
The LAADDA has filed two lawsuits against Gascon, accusing him of violating state law.
"One of the first things he did was create a set of directives — in other words, internal rules that DAs were supposed to follow. Some of those rules directly contradicted California state law," Siddall explained. "One was that we couldn't file strikes pursuant to the three-strikes law. And the three-strikes law is a mandatory law. It's something that the prosecutors don't have the discretion to ignore."
The second violation, according to Siddall, was Gascon's alleged order for prosecutors to "dismiss existing charges that [Gascon] personally disagreed with."
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"Whole sections of the penal code he said we're no longer enforceable," he explained. "And that presents a problem, a legal problem on two fronts. First of all … the prosecutor is part of the executive branch. We can't just void sections of the law. In effect, what he is doing is he's making things legal by not enforcing them."
Additionally, "under a California state law," prosecutors "can't just dismiss something" because they "don't like it," Siddall said.
Banners have cropped up around Los Angeles blasting Gascon for allegedly "unleashing crime and death" on the population.
"There has to be a legal justification for it. And a legal justification isn't simply a pronouncement from your leader," Siddall said. "It has to actually be based upon the law. And those were the fundamental problems we had with what he did and how [his directives] contradicted the law and confused the law."
More than 30 cities within LA County have issued votes of no confidence in Gascon.
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"This vote is by those who are intimately familiar with how Mr. Gascon’s policies actually play out on a day-to-day basis. We believe the vote of our members will resonate with the voters of Los Angeles as they decide whether to recall Gascon from office and restore public safety as the priority of the District Attorney’s office," ADDA President Michele Hanisee said of the vote.
Gascon's office did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Fox News Digital.
