John Coté
The San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón said he had no idea when he walked into Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office on Saturday that he would be asked to take over as the city’s top prosecutor.
Twenty-four hours later, in a momentous Hall of Justice shakeup, Gascón was sworn in as San Francisco’s first Latino district attorney - Newsom’s final act as mayor before becoming lieutenant governor today. And Gascon said he plans to campaign this year to keep the post.
“It was completely unexpected,” Gascón said after taking the oath Sunday flanked by city officials that included Public Defender Jeff Adachi. “Frankly, I had to think about it a great deal. But I’ve taken this because I see a tremendous opportunity to do something unique here.”
The appointment caps Gascón’s brisk rise in San Francisco, where he arrived just 18 months ago after Newsom plucked him from the chief job in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, Ariz. It alters the city’s law enforcement structure days before City Administrator Ed Lee is expected to be named interim mayor on Tuesday.
Gascón, 56, will serve out the year left of Kamala Harris’ term as district attorney when she was sworn in as state attorney general Jan. 3. He said he will mount his first campaign for elected office, seeking a full, four-year term in November.
Vacancy in Chief’s Office
Gascón’s ascension also leaves a vacancy in the chief’s office for the city’s Police Commission and interim mayor to fill. Assistant Chief Jeff Godown, a Gascón confidant who arrived with him at the department in the summer of 2009, will serve as acting chief until a new one is in place.
Gascón said he plans to build on Harris’ work while developing “a different kind of criminal justice delivery” that would enhance rehabilitation while acknowledging some offenders should remain imprisoned.
Gascón became the first outsider to lead the San Francisco police force since the 1970s when Newsom named him chief in June 2009. Supporters call him an innovator and intellectual.
In San Francisco, Gascón had begun modernizing the department, emphasizing technology. He moved investigators from the Hall of Justice to the city’s 10 district stations to work closer with beat officers and introduced CompStat, a computerized crime-tracking system that identifies problem spots and serves as an accountability tool for district captains.
“I think it’s a great pick, a brilliant move,” said Police Commission President Thomas Mazzucco. “He’s an incredible administrator. He’s transparent. He’s fair.”
Conflict Concerns
Commissioner Petra DeJesus, though, said she was concerned about the haste of the pick, the separation of power between police and prosecutors, and the potential for conflicts of interest. She cited Gascón’s knowledge of private police disciplinary records.
“He brings with him all these things that are privileged information,” DeJesus said. “I also think there is going to be a problem with his second in command taking over. There should be some autonomy between the two departments. It’s just really messy.”
Former Board of Supervisor’s President Matt Gonzalez, a civil rights attorney, said the pick smacked of patronage.
“It’s a political appointment that I think Newsom is making to curry favor with law enforcement for further statewide political office,” Gonzalez said. “He should have picked an experienced prosecutor from within the office.”
Gascón was a rising star at the Los Angeles Police Department before moving to Arizona. The graduate of Western State University College of Law in Fullerton has been a licensed attorney in California since 1996.
He practiced civil law for less than two years in Los Angeles, handling bankruptcy, labor and other cases. He has never prosecuted a criminal case. Gascon and his backers said that would not be a hindrance.
‘Different Skill Sets’
“Running a D.A.'s office is not the same as prosecuting cases on the floor,” Gascón said. “They’re different skill sets. I believe I have the organizational skills, and I have an understanding of the criminal justice system not only today, but where we need to be in the future.”
Mazzucco, a former assistant U.S. attorney and former San Francisco prosecutor, said Gascón had valuable courtroom experience as a police officer and frequent witness.
“He probably has more courtroom time than most prosecutors,” Mazzucco said.
Gonzalez countered, “Being a witness is not the same as being an attorney managing a case.”
City officials said they were unaware of another circumstance where a police chief became the top prosecutor.
The move will add a new wrinkle to the relationship between that office and the Police Department, which was strained under Harris after she refused to seek the death penalty for the killer of police Officer Isaac Espinoza in 2004.
Gascón said he was “not philosophically opposed to the death penalty.”
“I think that there are some cases where it may be appropriate,” Gascón said. “I’m not going to tell you we will be seeking the death penalty in every murder case. Clearly we will not, but when the evidence and the totality of the circumstances indicate the death penalty might be appropriate, I will seek it.”
Gascón will have to take on a different role in a newer controversy: that of evidence-handling problems at the police crime lab that led to hundreds of drug cases being dropped.
Other Issues
There are also questions about failures by prosecutors to disclose police disciplinary records or convictions. Such disclosure is required to determine the credibility of officers on the witness stand.
“The challenge that he’s going to have is to gain the trust and respect of the rank and file,” said Adachi. “I expect as D.A., Gascón is going to be forthcoming about the police misconduct evidence that had been suppressed in the past.”
Day to day, Adachi said, Gascón will face a major adjustment in deciding when to file charges against someone arrested by the Police Department.
“As D.A., his job is not simply to win convictions,” Adachi said, “but to do justice.”
Copyright 2011 San Francisco Chronicle