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Democratic Primaries

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ucrdem

(15,512 posts)
Sun Jul 28, 2019, 10:05 PM Jul 2019

NYT Opinion: Kamala Harris Was Not a 'Progressive Prosecutor' [View all]

This is a paywalled article by professor Lara Bazelon that appeared in the New York Times on Jan. 17, 2019. NYT: "Ms. Bazelon is a law professor and the former director of the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent in Los Angeles." To respect the DU rule I selected four out of two dozen paragraphs:

..............................

Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state’s attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.

Consider her record as San Francisco’s district attorney from 2004 to 2011. Ms. Harris was criticized in 2010 for withholding information about a police laboratory technician who had been accused of “intentionally sabotaging” her work and stealing drugs from the lab. After a memo surfaced showing that Ms. Harris’s deputies knew about the technician’s wrongdoing and recent conviction, but failed to alert defense lawyers, a judge condemned Ms. Harris’s indifference to the systemic violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights. Ms. Harris contested the ruling by arguing that the judge, whose husband was a defense attorney and had spoken publicly about the importance of disclosing evidence, had a conflict of interest. Ms. Harris lost. More than 600 cases handled by the corrupt technician were dismissed.

(snip)

Ms. Harris was similarly regressive as the state’s attorney general. When a federal judge in Orange County ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional in 2014, Ms. Harris appealed. In a public statement, she made the bizarre argument that the decision “undermines important protections that our courts provide to defendants.” (The approximately 740 men and women awaiting execution in California might disagree).

(snip)

And then there’s Kevin Cooper, the death row inmate whose trial was infected by racism and corruption. He sought advanced DNA testing to prove his innocence, but Ms. Harris opposed it. (After The New York Times’s exposé of the case went viral, she reversed her position.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/kamala-harris-criminal-justice.html
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There are more examples but basically it boils down to Harris consistently taking positions that were politically convenient rather than progressive or just, including her defense of the death penalty. Also regarding Kevin Cooper: Bazelon mentioned in her NPR "On the Media" segment that Harris refused to allow exculpatory DNA testing until Jerry Brown finally intervened at the end of his term to allow it. And by that time she was out of office.

Note to jury: this is an New York Times op-ed, not a RW source, and the professor makes her case based on facts from a progressive point-of-view. There is nothing RW or defamatory about it.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
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I read this when it first came out, and it's not really a smear job, but leaves out... TreasonousBastard Jul 2019 #1
How do you fully trust someone who "let it play out" by fighting to keep innocent people in prison? Jake Stern Jul 2019 #3
Sadly, it's a problem. InAbLuEsTaTe Jul 2019 #5
It's disqualifying. Hassin Bin Sober Jul 2019 #12
Lol StarfishSaver Jul 2019 #21
That's the strategy! BannonsLiver Jul 2019 #89
I'm not gonna go that far, but, it doesn't matter...Kamala's not going to be the Democratic nominee. InAbLuEsTaTe Jul 2019 #23
Have to agree with you there. ucrdem Jul 2019 #26
Yes, Kamala is probably also out for VP consideration. Not sure though Joe InAbLuEsTaTe Jul 2019 #41
I don't mean this to sound rude, but... zanana1 Jul 2019 #90
What are you worried about? Control-Z Jul 2019 #97
I'm worried about his age. zanana1 Jul 2019 #98
So you're younger than Warren, eh? Control-Z Jul 2019 #99
Bout like trusting someone who teamed up with segregationists to keep their Hoyt Jul 2019 #6
Sorry, but some very serious concerns here and this article not the first or last to raise them.NT emmaverybo Jul 2019 #72
I never found anything progressive about her - Just a typical prosecutor 4now Jul 2019 #2
Almost no prosecutor would be considered a progressive prosecutor. pnwmom Jul 2019 #4
Excellent point. Blue_true Jul 2019 #7
In her 2019 memoir she represents herself as a progressive DA and AG. ucrdem Jul 2019 #8
When she was a prosecutor, she wasn't progressive by DU STANDARDS, but I can believe pnwmom Jul 2019 #10
She had a scheme to criminally prosecute parents of chronically absent elementary school students. ucrdem Jul 2019 #14
that's patently untrue bigtree Jul 2019 #17
Only your subject line is untrue. The rest confirms exactly what I posted. nt ucrdem Jul 2019 #18
She didn't have a "scheme" to criminally prosecute these parents. She successfully pnwmom Jul 2019 #24
It leaves out an enormous amount of context. ismnotwasm Jul 2019 #20
I don't think ANY prosecutor could be progressive by DU standards, by definitions StarfishSaver Jul 2019 #22
I agree, StarfishSaver. I also think that having been a prosecutor is a part of her resume pnwmom Jul 2019 #25
+1 StarfishSaver Jul 2019 #27
But she's running as a progressive, remember? ucrdem Jul 2019 #28
She IS a progressive. But she's not 100% pure progressive, and that's what most of DU expects. pnwmom Jul 2019 #29
Now she is. But now she's a senator from California. ucrdem Jul 2019 #32
Which CA prosecutors were more progressive than she was? Can you name some? n/t pnwmom Jul 2019 #35
Which ran for President on their "progressive prosecutor" laurels? ucrdem Jul 2019 #37
She is the #3 most progressive Senator in the Senate, and she was as progressive pnwmom Jul 2019 #38
That's some impressive pretzel! ucrdem Jul 2019 #39
Biden wrote regressive regulations into the crime bill which tied prosecutors' hands bigtree Jul 2019 #42
Now you're trying to blame Biden for Harris's lackluster record? ucrdem Jul 2019 #43
It seems hypocritical to criticize a prosecutor for acting as a prosecutor pnwmom Jul 2019 #46
LOL, who is not criticizing Biden? Anyone? ucrdem Jul 2019 #47
keep up bigtree Jul 2019 #49
You're actually blaming Biden for her lousy record. ucrdem Jul 2019 #50
you keep saying that bigtree Jul 2019 #55
prosecuting people with illegal evidence is not "enforcing" laws questionseverything Jul 2019 #58
you misrepresented the issue bigtree Jul 2019 #62
what part are you sayng isn't true? questionseverything Jul 2019 #64
the part about Harris prosecuting people with illegal evidence bigtree Jul 2019 #67
article says, her deputies knew and she went to court to keep the convictions in tact questionseverything Jul 2019 #94
the article is full of shit bigtree Jul 2019 #95
Harris decided to dismiss cases of about 1000 people because of concerns pnwmom Jul 2019 #66
Apparently she had to after contesting the ruling and losing. nt ucrdem Jul 2019 #69
The ruling didn't require her to dismiss all 1000 cases. pnwmom Jul 2019 #76
+1 bigtree Jul 2019 #77
illegal prosecutions are not what normal prosecutors do..at least i hope not questionseverything Jul 2019 #57
That is a crucial and overlooked point here Hav Jul 2019 #83
exactly questionseverything Jul 2019 #93
Okay, thanks for this. Now I have to decide whether she can run an entire country. YOHABLO Jul 2019 #9
If she's selecting soft targets where there's no socially acceptable defense, ucrdem Jul 2019 #11
Here are links to 3 other threads posted here at DU Kaleva Jul 2019 #13
Thank you, those will make very interesting reading I'm sure. ucrdem Jul 2019 #15
Site search works well. It took just a couple of minutes. Kaleva Jul 2019 #16
The NPR piece didn't mention DU ucrdem Jul 2019 #19
In my era, progressive lawyers became marybourg Jul 2019 #30
who does that leave to prosecute predatory lenders, bigtree Jul 2019 #52
Not-so-progressive lawyers. marybourg Jul 2019 #68
this prosecutor bigtree Jul 2019 #75
Mahalo, ucr.. Harris & Booker are busy Cha Jul 2019 #31
Aloha Cha! ucrdem Jul 2019 #34
Mahalo! And, of course, this wouldn't Cha Jul 2019 #40
Exactly. ucrdem Jul 2019 #48
Aloha, Cha and Mahalo for pointing this important fact out. Booker and Harris have "brought it emmaverybo Jul 2019 #74
Yeah, so horrible... going after Cha Jul 2019 #80
It's an opinion piece published 7 months ago. The information at the sources the op-ed writer cites lapucelle Jul 2019 #33
The NPR interview updates the op-ed and is from Friday: ucrdem Jul 2019 #36
How did an interview update an op-ed piece? lapucelle Jul 2019 #44
Did you listen to it? ucrdem Jul 2019 #45
Nope. Did you read the actual news stories that the claims are based on? lapucelle Jul 2019 #51
20 minutes. I guess you didn't listen to it. ucrdem Jul 2019 #54
The program is 54 minutes long. Did you read the news stories that she linked to? N/T lapucelle Jul 2019 #60
Where did you find those links? ucrdem Jul 2019 #61
They were Bazelon's links in the NYT editorial. N/T lapucelle Jul 2019 #63
Okay the embedded links. And what are you disputing? ucrdem Jul 2019 #65
Compare the news stories to her characterizations of the events. N/T lapucelle Jul 2019 #87
This is really disturbing news. nt oasis Jul 2019 #53
lol bigtree Jul 2019 #56
What has Harris said about this? Has she addressed it? DemocracyMouse Jul 2019 #59
California's governor should allow more sensitive DNA testing, Kamala Harris said bigtree Jul 2019 #70
This was AFTER she'd disallowed it while in office. That's Bazelon's point. nt ucrdem Jul 2019 #71
"two previous DNA tests concluded Cooper was the killer" bigtree Jul 2019 #73
She admits in her own letter she refused to allow advanced DNA testing "her entire time" ucrdem Jul 2019 #78
I'm not blaming her bigtree Jul 2019 #81
Kevin Cooper is not a good example to push for DNA testing. I will allow that if she was thoroughly emmaverybo Jul 2019 #82
She will be prepared to treestar Jul 2019 #91
even IF true I don't give a flying fuck. sorry not sorry NYT EveHammond13 Jul 2019 #79
i dont know the details of these cases but Im sure there were alot of pressures and complications.. honest.abe Jul 2019 #84
This will come up in the debate Gothmog Jul 2019 #85
And she will answer it with no problem. honest.abe Jul 2019 #86
probably not by Biden bigtree Jul 2019 #88
And she will be prepared treestar Jul 2019 #92
Politifact California: Criminal justice reformer, or defender of the status quo? The record is mixed ucrdem Jul 2019 #96
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