Stephan calls L.A. DA Gascón’s reforms unlawful, wants case back

In June 2019, a 30-year-old Utah man allegedly robbed five San Diego-area convenience-store clerks at gunpoint during a 29-hour crime spree. The next day in Los Angeles County, he allegedly shot and killed two people, including an off-duty sheriff’s deputy, in apparent random attacks.

Following Rhett McKenzie Nelson’s arrest on suspicion of those crimes, the district attorneys in both counties agreed Los Angeles prosecutors would handle the San Diego robbery charges in addition to the murder cases.

But this week, San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan and one of her deputies filed a motion seeking to withdraw their consent to let Los Angeles prosecutors try the San Diego armed robbery cases.

Stephan and Deputy District Attorney Martin Doyle allege that because of newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s new prosecution and sentencing reforms, Nelson could potentially walk free from prison after 20 years even if he is sentenced to state prison for the murders of Dmitry Koltsov and Deputy Joseph Gilbert Solano.

Gascón’s office responded in a statement that the state parole board only grants release in a fraction of cases it hears, and that it “(strains) credulity” that Nelson “would get out, let alone reoffend.”

In this March 2020 file photo, George Gascón speaks to media at Union Station in Los Angeles.

(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

Stephan’s effort to take back the San Diego robbery charges — her office called it an “unprecedented step” — thrusts her into a brewing controversy in Los Angeles County, where his reforms have met resistance and the union representing Gascón’s own deputy district attorneys sued him last week in an effort to halt his “special directives” that ordered his prosecutors to forgo sentencing enhancements.

In issuing his special directives, Gascón — who defeated incumbent Jackie Lacey by running on a reform platform, promising among other things to end sentencing enhancements — called enhancements “a legacy of California’s ‘tough on crime’ era.” He said normal sentencing ranges for criminal offenses, without enhancements, “are sufficient to both hold people accountable and also to protect public safety.”

But both Stephan and the union suing Gascón argue that his directives not to seek sentencing enhancements are unlawful.

“The San Diego District Attorney does not believe that these actions are in the interests of justice and believes that they violate the law and the constitutional protections granted to victims by Marsy’s law,” Stephan’s deputy wrote in the court motion filed Tuesday.

The attorney for the union representing Gascón’s deputies argued in a lawsuit that his policies have “placed line prosecutors in an ethical dilemma — follow the law, their oath, and their ethical obligations, or follow their superior’s orders.”

Rhett Nelson, 31

(Courtesy of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)

At issue in the Nelson case are two special circumstances allegations — that he committed multiple murders and committed murder by shooting from a vehicle — and a gun enhancement that were filed by prosecutors when Lacey was in office. If proven, the special circumstance allegations would require a judge to sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In a statement Friday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed it would seek to dismiss the special circumstances allegations and the gun enhancement at a Monday court hearing.

Stephan and her office argued that without those and because of state laws surrounding “elder parole,” Nelson, who is now 31, would be eligible for parole once he is 50 years old.

“Under your policy, this violent defendant, responsible for two killings and multiple robberies, would be eligible for parole in 20 years — a result not conducive to public safety,” Stephan wrote Monday in a letter to Gascón.

Stephan wrote that allowing Los Angeles prosecutors to continue handling the San Diego robbery cases “would result in an abdication of my duties to San Diego’s victims under the constitutional mandates of Marsy’s Law.”

Gascón’s office responded in a statement that Nelson was facing “nearly 70 years to life in state prison,” but that as a result of Stephan taking back the robbery cases, he “now faces 50 years to life in state prison” in the Los Angeles case, and possibly more depending on the outcome of the San Diego robbery cases.

“We question the wisdom of dragging these families through two separate cases, and with the parole board only granting release in about 15 (percent) of cases it hears, the suggestion that this individual would get out, let alone reoffend, (strains) credulity,” the office said in a statement. “What’s guaranteed is that two cases will cost taxpayers more than one.”

Gascón issued his directive banning his prosecutors from using enhancements on his first day in office Dec. 7, though he later retreated on the total prohibition, allowing his deputies to seek enhancements in cases involving hate crimes, sex trafficking, financial crimes and elder and child abuse.

He has said he was elected on a reform platform to overhaul a heavy-handed approach to prosecutions and sentencings that hasn’t proved effective in protecting the public.

Stephan, in a personal note to Gascón at the end of her letter, wrote that the letter “absolutely does not show deviation from my efforts to pursue responsible criminal justice reform.”