Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s reform-minded outlook on juvenile justice seemed made for someone like Denmonne Lee. At 16, Lee took part in a gas station robbery that ended in the death of a former Marine. Lee had planned the 2018 robbery and provided a weapon to his co-defendant. Although Lee wasn’t the shooter, he was charged with murder. When Gascón took office two years later, as Lee’s case was making its way through the court system, he barred prosecutors from trying juveniles as adults. Lee was convicted and ordered held at the county’s Secure Youth Treatment Facility in until he turned 25.
Lee “responded very well” to programs in custody, authorities said. Within a year, probation officials moved him into a rehabilitation-focused setting. After being released to a halfway house last June, Lee enrolled in community college and found work at a local nonprofit, In April, he was arrested and charged with playing a major role in another homicide, reports the Los Angeles Times. The case has given Gascón’s critics an opportunity to link the progressive district attorney’s policies to a violent crime that some argue could have been prevented had Lee faced a stiffer penalty in adult court. Nathan Hochman, Gascón’s opponent as he seeks reelection in November, has spent significant time shouting out high-profile crimes that he contends are symptoms of the incumbent’s policies. Some juvenile law experts maintain that Lee’s case is an outlier that doesn’t necessarily disprove research supporting Gascón’s way of doing things. But his alleged role in the killing of 28-year-old Eric Ruffins earlier this year has generated outrage among victims — and provided ammunition to the district attorney’s political opponents.
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