Another Day, Another Lawsuit Filed Against Los Angeles DA George Gascon

Another day, another lawsuit filed against Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon.

Wednesday, the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys – the union that represents the 750 or so DDA’s under Gascon’s employ –  filed its fourth lawsuit, alleging Gascon has “repeatedly and deliberately” the state’s public records act.

The LAADDA said Gascon has thwarted their efforts to gain access to office records which, by rights and by law, are public:

The lawsuit outlines dozens of instances “where CPRA requests to the Custodian of Records in Gascón’s office were either improperly rejected or completely ignored” and accuses him of “citing unfounded and non-existent legal justifications for evading his legal obligations and withholding critical public records.”  

Michele Hanisee, President of the ADDA, remarked, “It’s deeply troubling that we are once again forced to take legal action simply to obtain public documents that should be readily available.”

If the word “dozens” rings a bell, that’s because Gascon has been sued by individual deputy district attorneys 25 times since he took office. Adding in the four filed by LAADDA itself and Gascon has been sued by his employees – averaging it out – about every seven weeks since he took office in December, 2020.

The lawsuits began within weeks of the beginning of his tenure, with the ADDA filing suit to overturn many of Gascon’s “special directives” they said were illegal, improper, and/or unethical. The directives set blanket restrictions on charging juveniles as adults, adding sentencing enhancements (extra time if you use a gun, that kind of thing) and the missing of a defendant’s “strikes” to make sure he did not meet the “three strikes and you’re out” life in prison threshold.

Much of that case is under appeal, but the ADDA won on a number of counts, forcing Gascon to roll back some of his policies.

The cases filed by the individual deputy district attorney’s center mostly on personal retaliation and Gascon’s failure to follow the law.  There have been 25 of those cases filed and at least two of them Gascon has already lost.

One of those losses was to veteran deputy DA Richard Doyle, who won $800,000 dollars after he was shunted aside for refusing Gascon’s politically-motivated order to drop charges against a trio of Gascon-friendly defendants who attempted to derail a train (seriously) during an anti-police protest.

Exactly how much Gascon’s legal issues have cost taxpayers is not clear as he will not release the billing records of the very high-end (four figures an hour) lawyers the county has hired to defend him. Publicly, the total lost/settled/paid out is at least $3 million – the real figure will dwarf that sum.

Shea Sanna filed the most recent individual deputy district attorney lawsuit, claiming he was retaliated against by Gascon for his actually trying to properly handle the case of molester/killer James Tubbs.

If you recall, after his arrest for attacking a youg girl in a Denny’s restaurant bathroom in Palmdale, Tubbs claimed trans status and demanded to be called “Hannah” – something the Globe will not do because neither we nor our readers are stupid enough to miss that the claim was an effort to game the justice system. 

Tubbs was not arrested for the crime for years. Only after a DNA match came back in the investigation into the killing of a Kern County man did Tubbs get picked up.

But because Tubbs was 17 at the time of the brutal attack, Gascon charged him as a juvenile, despite the fact he came to his office’s attention after committing a crime in another state – Tubbs has a long criminal record in California and other western states.  

Gascon at the time had a “blanket policy” of charging people who committed crimes as juveniles as juveniles, no matter the crime, no matter they were adults when arrested, no matter how to close to 18 they were –Tubbs was just a few weeks short of 18 at the time of the attack – when they committed the crime.

This policy let Tubbs plead guilty and be sentenced to a youth correctional facility for two years.  And since he decided to call himself a girl and since Gascon’s office is both intellectually and morally bankrupt he could have served that time at a girl’s facility save for the Bakersfield killing of Michael Clark.

Sanna’s lawsuit states:

This case involves a prosecutor who prioritized his legal and ethical obligations over the political interests of his superiors, and incurred their wrath as a result. 

Deputy District Attorney Shea Sanna sought to present relevant evidence while prosecuting a child molester who happened to be a few days short of his 18th birthday when he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl. Because the case garnered extensive media coverage critical of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s progressive policies, Gascón prevented Sanna from presenting relevant evidence to the court and removed him from the case. 

When Sanna reported that Gascón’s conduct violated established policy and ethics rules regarding the presentation of relevant evidence, the Gascón administration retaliated against Sanna, launching sham investigations to suspend him on absurd grounds.

Gascon’s office said it does not comment on pending litigation.