LOS ANGELES (CNS) - In a letter today to the county's top prosecutor, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva questioned why deputy district attorneys have been barred from attending parole hearings and vowed that representatives from his department would appear on behalf of victims' families to give them “a voice.''
Villanueva told District Attorney George Gascón that the sheriff's department has traditionally written letters expressing public safety concerns when a state prisoner is scheduled for a parole hearing, and that he “cannot understand why your office is barring prosecutors from attending parole hearings.''
“The purpose of this correspondence is to notify you, if prosecutors will no longer be allowed to attend parole hearings, the LASD will attend parole hearings in the absence of your prosecutors,'' the sheriff wrote. “At the request of family members, the LASD will do everything possible to give victims a voice at the table to address their concerns.''
Villanueva noted that the sheriff's department will continue to “write letters in opposition'' and attend parole hearings virtually or have investigators travel to in-person parole hearings when appropriate.
Shortly after he was sworn into office in December, Gascón issued a directive on so-called “lifer parole hearings'' that indicated that the office's “default policy is that we will not attend parole hearings and will support in writing the grant of parole for a person who has already served their mandatory minimum period of incarceration, defined as their MEPD (Minimum Eligible Parole Date), YEPD (Youth Parole Eligible Date) or EPD (Elderly Parole Date).''
The directive noted that “if the CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) has determined in their Comprehensive Risk Assessment that a person represents a `high' risk for recidivism, the DDA (deputy district attorney) may, in their letter, take a neutral position on the grant of parole.''
The directive also noted that the crime for which someone is convicted is “of limited value in considering parole suitability years or decades later,'' that the value of a prosecutor's input in parole hearings is “also limited'' and that “currently, sentences are being served that are much longer than the already lengthy mandatory minimum sentences imposed.''
The office will continue to “meet its obligation to notify and advise victims under California law, and is committed to a process of healing and restorative justice for all victims,'' according to the directive, which was issued on Dec. 7.
The sheriff's letter to Gascón comes less than two weeks after a state parole board panel recommended parole for Bruce Davis, a one-time Manson family follower who was convicted of two killings in 1969. The District Attorney's Office did not disclose whether it supported or opposed Davis' parole bid or had an attorney present at the parole suitability hearing, but one of the victim's cousins subsequently told NBC4 that she had no one to speak for her.
Davis, now 78, has been found suitable for parole six previous times, with three governors reversing the recommendation for parole.
Most recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom blocked Davis' release in November 2019. Former Govs. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger had also reversed the parole board's recommendation.
Davis was convicted in 1972 of first-degree murder and conspiracy for the July 25, 1969, stabbing death of musician Gary Hinman in his Topanga Canyon home and the killing of Donald “Shorty'' Shea, who was last seen alive on Aug. 27, 1969.
Davis was not involved with other followers of Manson in the Aug. 9, 1969, murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in a rented Benedict Canyon home, or the stabbing deaths of grocery store owner Leno La Bianca and his wife, Rosemary, a day later in their Los Feliz home.
Former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley -- who held the office from 2000 to 2012 -- told City News Service last month that a group of attorneys is being organized to make appearances at parole hearings on behalf of victims and their families, whom he said would otherwise have “no advocate'' at the hearings if deputy district attorneys do not travel to the hearings.
Cooley has also teamed up with a group of former prosecutors to provide pro bono representation in court to victims and their families who are being affected by the series of directives imposed by Gascón -- one of which requires prosecutors to seek the dismissal of special circumstance allegations that could result in life prison sentences without the possibility of parole. Some judges have refused to dismiss bids by the District Attorney's Office to dismiss those allegations.
Gascón did not immediately respond to the sheriff's letter.
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