Los Angeles DA Hochman Fires Gascon Hires, Announces Decisions on Big Cases

Newly minted Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman continued to go further away from the policies of his predecessor George Gascon on Monday, hinting that he will be removing more of Gascon’s placements within the DA’s office and changing up on how he will be looking at the high-profile Menendez Brothers case.

Last month, Hochman won in a landslide against Gascon, winning 61.5% to 38.5%, or 1,421,207 votes to 891,264 votes. In the following weeks, Hochman quickly built up who he wanted in his office and what he was going to do, planning to hit the ground running come inauguration.

Inaugurated earlier this month, Hochman wasted no time reversing and removing many of Gascon’s policies. Over the weekend, Hochman took another major step, announcing that he intends to end the contract of special prosecutor Lawrence Middleton, whom Gascon brought on in 2021 to investigate shooting incidents by police officers that resulted in deaths.

While initially hired to help with accountability, Middleton soon proved controversial because of his high contract price and not moving most of the cases he was assigned back into a courtroom. Middleton made just over $1 million between June 2021 and October 2024, during which time regular DA prosecutors made only around $135,000 a year. With these issues, and more, Hochman removed him, and will shift police cases back to where they had been before Gascon.

Hochman also made his stance known on his first high-profile case as D.A. on Monday. The case, whether the Menendez Brothers should have an early release, was originally going to be decided by Gascon, who let it be known that he was siding towards clemency. However, the closeness of the election led to the final decision being made by Hochman, who said that he would be looking at the facts of the case with due diligence instead of clemency, and with Governor Gavin Newsom delaying his own decision on clemency out of respect.

On Monday, in an interview with Lester Holt, Hochman further clarified what would be happening with the case.

“While they’re called the Menendez Brothers case, there’s an Erik Menendez case and a Lyle Menendez case. So we will look at each case separately, which is the way they actually should be handled,” said Hochman. “This is an important decision, although that decision is not going to get a more rigorous review of the facts and law than any other decision, even though so many other decisions don’t get the media attention. What I’m actually hoping about the Menendez case is that people use that as the springboard to get interested in criminal justice issues.

 “You know, there’s a whole lotta people who heard a little bit about the Menendez case. I want them to learn a lot about the Menendez case, and not just stop with the Menendez case. There are plenty of cases out there that, if the public gets interested in, it’ll actually help the process of bringing justice across this county, this state, maybe even this nation.”

The decisions by Hochman, although a little slower than expected, have led to many seeing that he was keeping his promises to voters, as well as acting fairly.

“He’s only been DA for two weeks, but already he is very different than Gascon,”  explained LA County pollster Manny Rodriguez to the Globe on Monday. “Gascon was a lot more reactionary, like putting in all these special consultants in following the George Floyd incident. Hochman is a lot more big picture and more willing to be patient by looking at the facts of the case more.

“He promised to shake things up. And yeah, it hasn’t been an overnight change, but it has been steadily happening. People we’ve been polling in the County have been positive on all of this, but still think it’s a bit too early.”

More actions by Hochman are expected soon.