Los Angeles County DA Brings Back Death Penalty for Some Murder Cases

District Attorney Nathan Hochman reversed his predecessor’s ban on seeking capital punishment.

An inmate at San Quentin State Prison, in Calif., on March 13, 2019. Eric Risberg/AP stock photo

Los Angeles County’s new district attorney reinstated the death penalty for special murder cases on March 24, reversing a controversial ban implemented by former progressive District Attorney George Gascón.

District Attorney Nathan Hochman called Gascón’s decision forbidding prosecutors to seek the death penalty for murder “extreme.”

“I remain unwaveringly committed to the comprehensive and thorough evaluation of every special circumstance murder case prosecuted in Los Angeles County,” Hochman said in a statement on Monday.

The new policy will consider pursuing the death penalty only after an extensive and comprehensive review, and only in exceedingly rare cases, and restrict the punishment to the most egregious set of circumstances, Hochman stated.

Under the new policy, Hochman’s office reported that defense counsel will be offered enhanced opportunities to share information about the defendant with a committee that reviews special circumstances and with the district attorney when the death penalty is considered.

During the new process, survivors of slain victims will be consulted before a final determination is made about whether to seek the punishment.

Besides banning the death penalty in Los Angeles County, Gascón took his anti-capital punishment stance further last year, urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to commute the sentences of all death-row inmates in the state and resentence them to life without parole.

“While executions are currently halted in California, we have yet to formally abolish the death penalty,” Gascón said in 2024. “This change is crucial for advocating against the irreversible punishment.”

Gascón’s administration successfully sought resentencing to life without parole for 36 death-row prisoners. One of them later proved their innocence, he said.

California law allows the death penalty under special circumstances, which can include multiple murders or the murder of a police officer or witness to a crime. The state currently has 592 prisoners condemned to death, including 20 female prisoners, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The governor issued a moratorium on the death penalty in 2019 despite California’s law. The executive order also calls for repealing California’s lethal injection protocol and the immediate closing of the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison, located about 25 miles north of San Francisco.

Newsom’s second term ends in 2027.

State Assemblyman Tom Lackey, a Republican, agreed with Hochman’s comments on social media on Monday and criticized the governor’s policy.

“Nathan Hochman is right,” Lackey posted on X. “Newsom’s moratorium is a disgrace. It protects child murderers, serial killers, and torturers—and spits in the face of every victim’s family. California needs justice, not a governor who shields monsters.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman speaks at a news conference in Los Angeles on March 10, 2025. Damian Dovarganes, AP File Photo

State law has historically mandated that male prisoners condemned to death be housed at San Quentin State Prison. Women sentenced to death are housed at the Central California Women’s Facility.

The men’s maximum-security facility in San Quentin opened in 1854 and was renamed by Newsom in March 2023 to San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

However, a ballot measure passed by California voters in 2016—Proposition 66—requires the state to phase out its segregated death row units at the facilities. The measure requires prisoners who have been sentenced to death to work to pay restitution to their victims.

With the new program, prisoners are placed in institutions with an electrified perimeter while they are allowed to serve time in the general prison population.

All prisoners previously serving in condemned facilities have been relocated to the general population.