DA Hochman Announces Policy Changes in Prosecutions of “Murders with Special Circumstances”

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman has implemented changes to the current and historic policies of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office regarding its prosecution of special circumstance murder cases. 

Effective immediately, the prior administration’s policy forbidding prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in any case is rescinded. In its place, the new murder with special circumstances policy will consider pursuing the death penalty only after an extensive and comprehensive review and only in exceedingly rare cases. The DA’s press release stated this new policy recognizes an evolving determination that the death penalty should be restricted to the most egregious sets of circumstances.

In the state of California, capital punishment is not allowed to be carried out due to a standing 2006 federal court order against the practice and a 2019 moratorium on executions ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The litigation resulting in the court order has been on hold since the declaration of the moratorium.

Death Penalty Focus reports as of January 2025 there are 601 death-sentenced individuals in California, of those, 582 are men, 19 are women. In May 2024, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation completed its condemned inmate transfer program and transferred all 582 men out of San Quentin’s death row to 20 prisons throughout the state, shutting down death row. The 19 death-sentenced women who were formerly on the Central California Women’s Facility’s death row have been transferred to the general population. (CDCR)

Los Angeles was one of the top five sentencing counties in 2024, among Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and Kern. Approximately 68% of the men on death row are people of color and about 66% of the women on death row are people of color.

Under the new policy, defense counsel will be offered “enhanced” opportunities to share information about the defendant with the special circumstances committee and the district attorney when the death penalty is under consideration. Murder victims’ survivors’ views will be sought and considered prior to any final determinations being made. 

The infrequency with which the death penalty will be sought in special circumstance murder cases will, in most cases, allow the district attorney’s office to inform the court at an early stage that the office is pursuing the only other sentence available under such prosecutions, a sentence of life without the possibility of parole rather than death. In addition, the standard to charge such death penalty cases at all stages of review will be beyond a reasonable doubt, not the prior standard of probable cause. 

In its press release, the district attorneys office did not explain what circumstances constitute its murder with special circumstances policy.