Los Angeles District Attorney

Entering the 1992 elections, Los Angeles County, California was still recovering from the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. His first term was dominated by his office's prosecution of the O. J. Simpson murder case. The long, costly criminal trial ended with a "not guilty" verdict on October 3, 1995. Despite the setback, Garcetti won re-election in 1996, narrowly defeating challenger John Lynch.^[5][6]

Garcetti focused both his terms working to solve a number of issues including domestic violence, hate crimes, welfare fraud and combating LA's street gangs. In late 1999 the LAPD's Rampart scandal erupted with allegations of extreme police misconduct from the city's Rampart Division which likely contributed to Garcetti's defeat in the 2000 election.

Garcetti was challenged for re-election in 2000 by Steve Cooley, a veteran of the L.A. County D.A.'s office. In a situation much like Garcetti's demotion in 1988 that led him to challenge Reiner in 1992, Cooley was demoted by Garcetti after Garcetti's 1996 re-election after Cooley supported Garcetti's opponent, John Lynch.^[7]

Garcetti came in second in a competitive three-person primary, taking 37 percent of the vote to Cooley's 39.^[8] In the two-person runoff, Garcetti lost overwhelmingly, losing by a margin of approximately 64 to 36 percent.^[7]

Politics

The 2000 election ended Garcetti's 32-year career with the LA County district attorney's office. In 2002, Los Angeles City Council president Alex Padilla appointed Garcetti to the Los Angeles city ethics commission for a five-year term. In the fall of 2002, Garcetti was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has been developing a foundation to help Latino and African-American students complete their high school education. He is currently a strong proponent of Proposition 34, an initiative that will replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole. Garcetti has argued that the death penalty is broken beyond repair, that it is "horrendously expensive" and that it carries the risk of executing an innocent person.^[9]

Photography

After leaving the DA's office, Garcetti focused on art photography, producing two collections on the Walt Disney Concert Hall: Iron: Erecting the Walt Disney Concert Hall (Balcony Press 2002), focusing on the ironworkers who constructed the landmark, and Frozen Music (Balcony Press 2003), focusing on the finished building itself. Photos from these works were featured in an exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., and at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. His most recent exhibition, Dance in Cuba: Photographs by Gil Garcetti (Balcony Press 2005), was featured at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History in Spring 2006.^[10] Water is Key: A Better Future for Africa (Balcony Press 2007) was published via a grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to the Pacific Institute as a benefit to NGOs supporting clean water projects in Africa.^[11]

The Closer

Gil Garcetti was a consulting producer on the TNT series The Closer from its debut in 2005 and Major Crimes from its debut in 2012.

His son, Los Angeles City Councilmember, Eric Garcetti, appeared as the fictional Mayor of Los Angeles Ramon Quintero, in two episodes each of both series, before becoming the real-life Mayor of Los Angeles in 2013.^[12] In his first appearance, father and son appeared together onscreen, with Gil playing the LAPD Chief of Police.