Lisa Smittcamp, a Republican, is the Fresno County District Attorney, elected in June 2014 and sworn in the following January as only the second woman ever elected to the office. She earned her law degree from San Joaquin College of Law in 1995 and began her legal career in civil litigation before moving into prosecution, first with the Madera County District Attorney’s office in 1997, where she handled sexual assault cases, then joining the Fresno County DA’s office in 2001, working in its Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault/Child Abuse, and Homicide units before her election. In August 2025, her office ended a long-standing arrangement providing “courtesy appearances” covering cases for the Fresno City Attorney’s Office.
Smittcamp’s use of her office’s Public Integrity Unit has drawn sustained criticism from Fresno-area Democrats, who have accused her of selectively targeting Democratic officials while not charging investigated Republicans. Her office brought a misdemeanor child abuse charge against Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, who was later acquitted, and a felony extortion charge against Fresno City Council President Nelson Esparza, which was reduced to misdemeanors and then dropped. Democrats called for a state investigation into her office’s charging decisions; a state political watchdog agency dismissed a related complaint against her, and Smittcamp has said she welcomes scrutiny of her office’s work. She has also publicly clashed with Governor Gavin Newsom, who rebuked her after she blamed criminal justice reform laws for a Selma police officer’s killing, saying she retained full prosecutorial discretion in the case.
