San Diego DA stands against soft-on-crime policies of neighboring Los Angeles

San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan has found her moderate constitutionalist positions at-odds with the Los Angeles DA George Gascon’s focus on radical reforms and leniency.

Gascon is the former DA of San Francisco and one of the liberal prosecutors who swept into office last year with help from funding by George Soros, along with Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s current DA, who is facing a recall election.

Stephan won election in 2018 over Genevieve Jones Wright, who was backed by the Soros-funded California Justice & Public Safety PAC. Analysts dismissed attempts to paint Stephan as a “Donald Trump, Jeff Session, tough-on-crime” type, saying she was “a moderate reformer” who was “victorious over a more aggressive or more radical reformer.”

Stephan has since been praised by local authorities and politicians for her even-handed approach. 

“She seems to be very concerned about the rule of law and takes her job seriously,” said Bill Wells, mayor of El Cajon. “I always liked her but didn’t appreciate her until I started seeing overt insanity in places like Chicago, LA, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco.”

Stephan has blasted Gascon for refusing to attend parole hearings as a victim advocate to keep criminals behind bars. Robert F. Kennedy’s killer Sirhan Sirhan likely was granted parole because no prosecutor was present at his Aug. 28 hearing to represent Kennedy’s children, most of whom preferred Sirhan stay in prison. Stephan had been approached to attend, but it was out of her jurisdiction. Sirhan has not yet been released from prison, a process which can still be blocked by the governor. 

“We have a constitution and a process where the DA is supposed to represent the interests of the people. That was missing from this case,” she told KUSI . “What really upset me is that being the DA means having truth and integrity. And what they announced is that they weren’t going to show up because the DA has no role past the initial sentencing, and that is simply false.”

She also joined 44 of her DA peers in a lawsuit against the state of California to stop the early release of prisoners due to COVID, citing concerns for victims and public safety.

Stephan’s most notable recent action was charging 10 violent Antifa protesters last week, one of the first cases of its kind. Her office also considers sex trafficking a high priority, announcing that it had rescued 26 potential survivors and arrested two in raids last week.