The DA Election Contest

Today's LA Times carries an article about the election contest for district attorney between incumbent DA Jackie Lacey and George Gascón.* It may be hard to focus on local races given the attention to the national scene. However, from time to time, we have reminded blog readers about Lacey's role in a case involving UCLA. Below is a summary slightly modified from an earlier posting.**

LA County DA Jackie Lacey is running for re-election and has a significant opponent in George Gascón. Lacey's predecessor as DA brought a criminal case against a UC faculty member for a tragic lab accident that should have been dealt with as a civil case. It was hoped that when Lacey was first elected she would take a different approach to that matter which she inherited, rather than pursue the criminal case, which at one point sought to charge the entire Board of Regents. Instead, she went ahead with the case as it stood. UCLA defended the faculty member and eventually the case largely dissipated and was settled. But in the course of the DA's efforts, another faculty member was charged in a totally-unrelated case on spurious grounds that were eventually dropped. It appeared that the DA's strategy at the time was somehow to hold the second faculty member as a kind of hostage to push for some kind of deal on the lab case. If that was the strategy, it failed. The bottom line here is that you might want to consider this history in making your choice in the DA race. 
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*https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-district-attorney-race-top-donors/

**http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-da-contest-will-likely-continue.html