{"id":447887,"date":"2026-08-30T07:34:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T07:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/447887\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T07:34:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T07:34:45","slug":"l-a-s-district-attorney-changed-his-mind-is-that-such-a-bad-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/447887\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A.’s district attorney changed his mind. Is that such a bad thing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman did something last week few prosecutors ever do \u2014 changed his mind in public, swapping out felony charges for misdemeanors in the case of an LAPD officer accused of secretly taping homophobic, racist and misogynistic remarks<\/a> made by colleagues. <\/p>\n

Since then, Hochman has been slammed for playing politics, embarrassing his office<\/a> and even backing down for no reason other than the pressure was too intense. <\/p>\n

Not a stellar look for a politician relatively new to elected office. <\/p>\n

After speaking with Hochman about the reversal, I have a more optimistic take on it \u2014 drawn from a Talmudic quote that Hochman keeps on his desk, and which his father \u2014 a tax lawyer who represented at least one mobster<\/a> \u2014 kept on his desk before him. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s Deuteronomy 16:20, \u201cTzedek, tzedek, tirdof\u201d \u2014 Justice, justice you shall pursue. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s that double justice that holds weight in this situation, because, as Hochman explains it, his god rarely repeats himself without reason. Hochman said he reads that echo as referring to two parts of delivering justice \u2014 the process and the result. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to get the right result. We try to get it in the right way,\u201d Hochman told me. <\/p>\n

When things go wrong, like they did in this case, he\u2019ll reevaluate, he said, even if it leaves him with egg on his face. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf that means that I have to publicly come out at a press conference and say that our initial decision-making, and what went into it, turns out not to have been perfect, and it is not set in stone, and we think there\u2019s a better way of doing something, I\u2019m going to stand up in a press conference and say exactly that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

A prosecutor who is willing to change his or her mind is critical to delivering real justice, because people get things wrong. Hochman holds incredible power over the thousands of lives entangled in the matters his office handles. Leaving that power of process in the hands of someone who can\u2019t admit they made a mistake (as is the case with more D.A.\u2019s than not) puts justice on a greased slide into a cesspool of hubris. <\/p>\n

The distinction between the two forms of justice may seem like splitting hairs, but to anyone who has ever been involved with our justice system \u2014 as a victim or defendant, innocent or guilty \u2014 being dragged into a prosecution can often feel like an avalanche of misfortune. <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. I don\u2019t think every person charged with a crime is a victim. There are plenty of predators out there, committing violations big and small, that require accountability. <\/p>\n

But the process of administering justice is far more subjective and messy than we often admit. Sometimes, even when the prosecutor involved almost certainly knows something other than justice is in the works, there is a momentum of ego and bureaucracy that is hard to reverse. <\/p>\n

And it doesn\u2019t take a guilty verdict to derail a life. Simply having charges filed can mean a job loss, losing custody of kids, incarceration for months or years waiting for a trial, financial hardship and stigma. <\/p>\n

We like to think of an innocent verdict as a great vindication, but by the time one arrives, if it does, a lifetime of damage may already have been done \u2014 that is the unseen power of process. <\/p>\n

Just ask Daniel Flores, the LAPD officer whose case we\u2019re talking about. Though he likely will eventually see all criminal charges dismissed, Flores told my colleagues Libor Jany and Richard Winton that this incident has \u201cruined\u201d his life.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Hochman for weeks has faced intense public anger over his initial decision to charge Flores with 16 felonies. Folks from the lofty heights of the mayor to this lowly columnist objected<\/a>, pointing out that punishing whistleblowers, even ones who may have technically broken the law as Hochman said Flores likely did (though Flores\u2019 lawyer disputes that), would chill other officers from coming forward. <\/p>\n

Hochman at first defended the charges, pointing out that as a sworn officer, Flores had an even higher duty to adhere to the letter and spirit of the law. <\/p>\n

But, he said, he was unprepared for how strongly the public would react to the whistleblower part of the case. Though he contends he never meant to send a message silencing those who would expose wrongdoing, he concedes that did happen. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople interpreted it that we\u2019re trying to discourage all whistleblowers by the way we went about this prosecution,\u201d Hochman said. <\/p>\n

He also acknowledges that he is still learning what it means to be in this elected office. Though he has been both a federal prosecutor and a defense attorney, this is by far the most publicly accountable and visible role he has held, and he\u2019s still figuring out that part of the job. It\u2019s easy to be the candidate lobbing criticisms, or even the defense lawyer arguing the facts. It is much harder to be the person answerable to the nearly 10 million people of Los Angeles County when it comes to ensuring they feel both protected and respected by the law. <\/p>\n

In his first year in office, more than one civil liberties advocate has taken issue with his approach<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a continuous learning experience. In fact, anyone who takes this job and doesn\u2019t view this as a daily learning experience cannot possibly do the job well,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t adapt to what\u2019s out there, you don\u2019t listen to what\u2019s going on … you will fail, and by failure, I mean that you won\u2019t achieve a society where people trust that the district attorney\u2019s office is doing its job and doing it as best as it possibly could,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He blames the media in part for distracting from his accountability message in favor of the whistleblower-chilling angle in the Flores case \u2014 likely including headlines such as the one I wrote, \u201cProtecting the blue wall of silence is not justice in LAPD whistleblower case.<\/a>\u201d <\/p>\n

I\u2019m willing to stand by the process that got me to that opinion, and also to give Hochman credit for being willing to change direction on his process when it was leading our city down the wrong path. <\/p>\n

There are plenty of places where I hope Hochman will apply that rigor in the future \u2014 issues such as the death penalty, which he has brought back to Los Angeles, or in other difficult cases such as the killing of Keith Porter Jr. by an off-duty ICE agent. Porter\u2019s family recently asked Hochman to convene a grand jury<\/a> to hear the facts. <\/p>\n

But that Hochman thinks about process, and the power that it holds, speaks well for justice in Los Angeles \u2014 even, maybe especially, when things go awry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman did something last week few prosecutors ever do \u2014 changed his mind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[117260,1436,10772,158086,50411,177340,45710,719,48,52,51,1637,47,50,49,63,6337,346,592,5968,48522],"class_list":["post-447887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bad-thing","tag-case","tag-charge","tag-daniel-flores","tag-hochman","tag-incredible-power","tag-job-loss","tag-justice","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-life","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mind","tag-office","tag-people","tag-process","tag-whistleblower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}