PUBLIC SAFETY: City of MB, Assemblyman Muratsuchi join forces in legislative effort to override DA
by Mark McDermott
The City of Manhattan Beach, thwarted at every turn by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office in its hopes of prosecuting non-violent crimes the DA no longer pursues, is taking another route. The City will try to go beyond the DA’s authority.
The City Council last week unanimously agreed to sponsor legislation introduced by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) that would give cities the authority to prosecute state misdemeanor crimes that occur within their jurisdictions.
The bill, AB2309, was introduced by Muratsuchi on February 12. The legislative effort grew out of the direction the council gave City staff after the DA’s office repeatedly rebuffed its requests to prosecute on its own. The Council tasked staff with asking both Muratsuchi and State Senator Ben Allen to seek a change in state law that would allow the City to essentially go over District Attorney George Gascon’s head. Both were supportive.
Mayor Pro Tem Amy Howorth praised Muratsuchi’s “courage and leadership” for initiating the legislation. She made the motion authorizing the City to serve as the bill’s primary municipal sponsor.
“It’s a political process, and there are all kinds of things that will be out of everybody’s control,” she said. “But we have to put the full court press on and so everybody who’s been asking us to do something and every time we say blame Sacramento – not incorrectly by the way – here’s our chance. If we’re going to take this on, we have to all step up and do it.”
Councilperson Richard Montgomery said he wished the effort had begun three years earlier but applauded the assemblyperson for taking up the cause. But he also said the odds against succeeding were enormous.
“This is one assemblymember who represents the South Bay trying to convince the rest of the assembly members to support this,” Montgoery said. “So we’re on an island from the rest of the state. We know that it’s a long shot. But it’s a shot.”
By serving as sponsor of AB 2309, the City will serve as a point of contact for other cities and elected officials who might be seeking information about the issue and will gather letters of support from stakeholders. Mayor Joe Franklin and members of the council will also likely visit Sacramento to help make their case.
At issue is a directive that LA County District Attorney George Gascón issued shortly after taking office in December 2020 that his office would not be prosecuting state misdemeanors, which include such crimes as public intoxication, disturbing the peace, and drug and paraphernalia possession.
“Los Angeles County courts should not be revolving doors for those in need of treatment and services,” the special directive said. “Currently, over 47% of those incarcerated pre-trial on misdemeanor cases suffer from mental illness. Likewise, nearly 60% of those released each day have a significant substance use disorder. Meanwhile, individuals experiencing homelessness account for almost 20% of arrests in Los Angeles despite comprising only 1.7% of the population. The status quo has exacerbated social ills and encouraged recidivism at great public expense … .Despite the immense social costs, studies show that prosecution of the offenses driving the bulk of misdemeanor cases have minimal, or even negative, long-term impacts on public safety.”
The conflict is part of a larger national debate over the efficacy of non-violent misdemeanor prosecution. Studies have indicated that such prosecution over time has the reverse of its intended impact, actually increasing crime rates by entering millions of low-level offenders into the criminal justice system. But since Gascón’s directive, Manhattan Beach and many other cities in LA County have felt hampered in their ability to police non-violent crimes, particularly property crimes.
Mayor Joe Franklin expressed frustration and hope.
“These misdemeanors affect us here in Manhattan Beach, our quality of life, safety, security, and peace of mind,” Franklin said. “I, too, want to thank Assemblyman Muratsuchi for seeing the wisdom of this and seeing what general law cities are up against, in terms of trying to manage this wave of crime that everybody is witnessing. The bad guys can read. They understand they go to places that don’t have prosecution of misdemeanors in order to commit their crimes…If we don’t put them into jail, then they are free to continue committing their crimes.”
George Gabriel, the assistant to the city manager who has headed the City’s attempts to address this issue, said that since ten out of the 88 cities in LA County already have the ability to prosecute state misdemeanors — mostly because they are charter cities — the current situation could be seen as lacking fairness. Those ten cities, Gabriel said, represent half the population of LA County.
“There is an inequity that occurs because as of right now 50 % of the county has the ability or the authority to prosecute state misdemeanors,” Gabriel said. “While the other half does not.”
The City Council has tried several different approaches as it has grappled with Gascón and his special directive. They supported two unsuccessful recall efforts. They attempted to engage independent prosecution services, entering a tentative contract with the City of Redondo Beach, which as a charter city has its own City Prosecutor’s office. The DA’s office rejected the attempt, and likewise stifled an overture Manhattan Beach made in which it explored expanding its own prosecutorial powers. By state law, the DA’s office must give consent for such cities to prosecute their own state misdemeanors. The DA’s office has yet to give any city such consent. The Council late last year did expand its prosecutorial capacity in order to pursue local “public nuisance” misdemeanors, including trespassing, graffiti, illegal shopping cart use, public urination, smoking and drinking in public, and unlicensed, unleashed, and unvaccinated dogs.
But only a change in state law would allow it to prosecute state misdemeanors. The City had previously joined in a lawsuit filed by several cities challenging the DA’s policies, but last month withdrew from the suit. Councilperson Steve Napolino suggested the City hire a lobbyist to bolster this legislative effort, which he said was a better use of funds.
“People asked, ‘Well, why did you get out of that lawsuit?’ Well, because it wasn’t going to work,” he said. “And because we can take that money and put it to something here that we really want to do, and that really will work.” ER