It looks like Los Angeles DA George Gascon heard about the results of the San Francisco school board recall. Gascon who has been under pressure since day one of his term suddenly had a change of heart this week which was announced late Friday in the hours usually reserved for embarrassing news dumps.

FRIDAY NEWS DUMP: L.A. D.A. George Gascon is backtracking on his policies barring juveniles from being tried as adults and banning the use of life sentences against defendants, according to memos bouncing around the office this evening. Story coming ASAP.

— James Queally (@JamesQueallyLAT) February 19, 2022

And here’s the promised story from the LA Times:

When he first took office in late 2020, Gascón made waves by immediately banning prosecutors from seeking the death penalty or life sentences without the possibility of parole, while also severely limiting the way prosecutors could use sentencing enhancements and ending the practice of trying juveniles as adults.

Although the moves were in line with the broader platform of restorative justice Gascón ran on, critics have decried the so-called blanket policies and demanded he consider trying juveniles as adults or seeking life sentences when defendants are accused of especially heinous conduct.

That moment came late Friday. Committees will be created to evaluate “extraordinary” cases where a defendant’s conduct might require harsher penalties than those allowed under Gascón’s policies, according to documents reviewed by The Times.

It remains to be seen if this announcement will result in any change. The LA Times reports that these new committees to evaluate cases will include Gascon’s chief of staff Joseph Iniguez and a former public defender. You can bet neither of them will ever be in favor of tougher sentences. Indeed, Deadline quotes one Gascon critic calling the announcement a “smoke screen.” (In a sign of how at odds police and Gascon are, his chief of staff Joseph Iniguez was arrested for being drunk in public in December and has filed an Internal Affairs complaint about the arrest.)

ABC 7 points out that Gascon has a lawsuit appeal coming up. Maybe this is an effort to make his blanket policies look a bit more nuanced to the judge.

The association representing more than 800 deputy district attorneys in Los Angeles County filed a lawsuit in December 2020 challenging some of Gascón’s directives, including a requirement that prosecutors seek the dismissal of special circumstance allegations in murder cases that were pending. The association contended that the moves were “unlawful.”

A judge ruled mostly in favor of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles County last February, but subsequently put the case on hold while Gascón appeals. A trial date is scheduled to be set for the case in April.

That could be part of his motivation but I think the recall is his major concern. He survived a recall effort last year but that was before the home invasion murder of 81-year-old Jaqueline Avant, the wife of a famous music producer. Since then, major figures in Hollywood have turned on Gascon and are now donating significant money to his recall. Just as significantly, some of the big names in Hollywood who supported his election have gone silent or even reversed course. So now is definitely the time to compromise or at least do something that looks like compromise to appease the critics.

Given what just happened in San Francisco this week, Gascon has probably realized the general willingness to tolerate anything labeled progressive reform won’t carry him through. As an unnamed studio executive told LA Magazine, “People can be liberal in ideology but they don’t want crime in their city.” It would be a spectacular rebuke of progressive reforms if Gascon were recalled. The effort has until July 6 to gather 566,857 signatures from LA County voters. If they manage to do that, then Gascon’s recall will be on the November ballot. Here’s a recent CBS LA report on the recall effort.