At the Rotary Club of Beverly Hills luncheon on July 14, Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who was sworn into office in December 2024, spoke about his term thus far. During the Q&A following his remarks, Hochman also provided the latest on the Menendez brothers’ legal saga, as well as an update on the city’s response to recent federal actions regarding immigration.
Prior to Hochman’s remarks, three-time former Beverly Hills Mayor Julian Gold, M.D., was sworn in as Rotary President before a crowd that included Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.
Addressing Rotary members, Gold expressed his enthusiasm to begin his new role.
“This club has a great reputation, and it’s because of everything that you guys do,” he said. “I’m very excited to be the president.”
The First Seven Months
Hochman began his remarks by discussing actions he’s taken since being sworn into office. Among his first steps, he said, was working to reestablish trust with prosecutors, law enforcement and victims.
“I came into office on December third, and there were a lot of dysfunctional problems that were in the criminal justice system that needed to be fixed as quickly as possible,” he said.
Hochman said that among his prosecutors, 98% voted to support the recall of George Gascón, the previous district attorney.
“This was not a happy group,” said Hochman. “And basically, part of the reason they weren’t happy was that on [Gascón’s] first day in office, he went ahead and passed nine special directives that said that certain crimes and certain criminals would no longer be prosecuted.”
Those special directives, said Hochman, applied to sentencing for certain juveniles, gang enhancements and some gun enhancements.
Hochman told members of the Rotary Club that he rescinded all nine special directives with the intent that prosecutors would understand that he wanted to rebuild trust.
“[These prosecutors] bring, collectively, thousands of years of prosecutorial experience to the job,” he said. “And what I said is, look, I’m going to go ahead and allow you to now use the tools that you would always use. Use them smartly, use them with common sense, use them better than you’ve ever used them before. But I will start with trusting your discretion.”
The Hard Middle
Gascón was known as a progressive prosecutor whose political philosophy aligned with decarceration, or putting fewer people in prison. Hochman noted that in rescinding Gascón’s directives, he was not moving towards the other end of the spectrum—which, he said, would be “mass incarceration”—but rather to what he described as “the hard middle.”
“What we’re going to do is go back to an approach that had been used for prosecutors and law enforcement for decades,” he said. “I call it the hard work middle or just the hard middle approach. And what that approach is, it said we’re going to look at each case individually. No more blanket policies.
“We’re going to look at the individual defendant and their background, the crime committed and the impact on the victim to determine who the true threats are to our public safety.”
Six Priority Areas
Since taking office, Hochman has identified six priority areas. Those include fentanyl poisoning, homeless crime, human trafficking, hate crimes, residential burglary and organized retail theft.
Fentanyl poisoning, Hochman said, was identified because of its sheer scope.
“There will be more people between the ages of 18 and 45 killed by fentanyl than anything else,” he said.
Organized retail theft includes smash and grabs, as well as ongoing operations that target particular shops.
To that end, Hochman has implemented Proposition 36, which allows repeat offenders to be charged with a felony rather than a misdemeanor.
“You won’t be caught and released,” he said of those offenders. “You’ll actually have to go and be booked through the system and held on bail … to date—I checked the numbers—we have 1,200 felony prosecutions that have been brought under Proposition 36.”
ICE Update
During the Q&A following his remarks, Hochman was asked about his office’s response to recent federal deportation efforts.
“The DA’s office and local law enforcement are not part of federal civil immigration enforcement,” Hochman responded. “They don’t call us up ahead of time and tell us what they’re doing, nor do we reach out to them. They go ahead and pick and choose how and where they’re going to engage in this immigration enforcement and don’t engage us at all.”
Hochman added that local law enforcement was still being affected by federal actions. Citing the protests that took place recently in downtown L.A. in response to ICE raids, Hochman said that L.A. officers ended up being responsible for “prevent[ing] a riot.”
“[Local] law enforcement was then in charge of dealing with legitimate protests involving not just hundreds of people or thousands of people or tens of thousands of people, but literally hundreds of thousands of people who wanted to legitimately protest,” he said, adding that among those protesters was a small minority who used the moment as an opportunity to commit crimes.
“Local law enforcement is still in a bit of a bind because they’re not coordinating with the federal government, the federal government’s not coordinating with them,” he said.
