Inside appalling plot to stack California courts with ultra liberal judges who dont believe in prisons

In 1970, a 17-year-old black militant pulled a gun from beneath his coat at the Marin County Hall of Justice.He took control of Courtroom 3, distributing weapons bought by Angela Davis to three inmates, including one on trial for assaulting a prison guard.

They took the judge, prosecutor and three jurors hostage.An hour later, the judge and three of the perpetrators were dead.The vigilantes failed to break the legal system. Today, a new crop of radicals in California is pursuing that goal by other means.

These activists hope to infiltrate the judiciary and use the levers of power to upend American justice.Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.

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Never miss a story.Los Angeles County is the seat of the revolution.

Across two recent election cycles, hard-left activists spent nearly $1 million on a slate of judicial candidates, electing three judges committed to remaking the county’s criminal-justice system.For the ideologues behind the campaign, this the opening move in what they hope will be a national takeover of the judiciary.One architect of the takeover is La Defensa, a “femme-led” advocacy organization whose founders want to end incarceration in Los Angeles County.

The group says that it “belong[s] to” several “communities,” namely “Chicanx, queer, immigrant, undocumented, working class people with incarcerated loved ones.”La Defensa was founded in 2020 by current LA council member Eunisses Hernandez and Ivette Alé-Ferlito, both of whom want to abolish prisons.“Electing progressive judges serves as a harm-reduction measure that disrupts power, it can only be effective as part of a broader abolitionist strategy,” Alé-Ferlito wrote in 2023.“It will take collective action to end incarceration in all its forms.”The group is becoming a powerhouse.

Its polit...