In 2016, conservative Nueces County, Tx., elected Mark Gonzalez, a 38-year-old Democrat and self-described “Mexican biker lawyer covered in tattoos,” as district attorney. Gonzalez had never prosecuted a single case: For his entire 10-year career, he specialized in getting accused criminals off the hook, working mostly with low-income, minority offenders, fighting low-level charges for marijuana and other substances. Gonzalez is part of a small wave of prosecutors, politically liberal and in some cases civil-rights advocates, who’ve been elected to roll back the excesses of the past 20 years’ worth of tough-on-crime laws, Politico reports. What might make him the unlikeliest DA in the U.S. is that he belongs to the motorcycle club Calaveras, which describes itself as a charity group but which the state of Texas officially considers a gang.
Gonzalez has staked out issues on which he wants to play reformer: a cite-and-release program for cases involving minuscule amounts of marijuana and a domestic violence initiative that includes assisting cosmetologists to spot signs of abuse in clients. He was one of 31 prosecutors nationwide to sign on to a letter sent last year to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, opposing his tough-on-crime order for federal prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense.” On other big issues, including the death penalty, Gonzalez’s positions are, by his own admission, still evolving. He has pursued capital punishment in several cases, saying, “It’s not so much that I believe in it, but I want to give these decisions to the community.”