Much credit to this post.
- Under her jurisdiction, in “progressive” San Francisco, 56% of all inmates in SF jails were black, along with 40% of all arrests (Only 5.8% of the population is black). Ignores police brutality, protected 14 of her officers who were caught sending extremely racist text messages. Oversaw San Francisco’s felony conviction rate rising from 52% to 67% in only 3 years.
- As part of her tough on crime approach she assigned senior prosecutors to misdemeanors like graffiti and vandalism, tripling the number of cases brought to trial.
- After a federal judge orders California to expand prison releases to reduce crowding, her office argued in court that if forced to release these inmates early, prisons would lose an important labor pool.
- Spent years jailing disproportionately black nonviolent cannabis users while opposing taking cannabis off DEA’s list of most dangerous substances and literally laughing at the idea of legalizing it multiple times, even as her Republican opponent ran to the left of her on the issue. She then tried to pander by admitting to smoking herself despite prosecuting others, but got her story all wrong. Drug convictions under her office soared, convicting more people of marijuana possession than her predecessor (she also admitted to smoking marijuana) 2
- Laughs about threatening parents with jailtime for truancy. 2. The stories of several mothers she jailed.
- Pushed a law that forced schools to turn over undocumented students to ICE.
- Opposed reforming California’s three-strikes law, which is the only one in the country to impose life sentences for minor felonies and incarcerates black people at 12x the rate as white people, three different times, even while her Republican opponent supported reform.
- Tried to deny a transgender inmate healthcare and endangered trans women by forcing them into mens prisons, leading to the rape and torture of at least one trans inmate.
- Appealed a judge ruling that the death penalty was unconstitutional and won on a technicality, resulting in continued executions.
- Supports the controversial DNA search technique that can be used on people even if they’ve not been charged with a crime.
- Supported the discriminatory practice of cash bail in court, until 2016.
- Protected serial child rapists by refusing to prosecute in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.
- Lied about her state’s solitary confinement to block a suit by inmates, claiming there was none in California when there were about 6,400 victims of the practice, which is considered torture.
- Opposed legislation that would require independent investigation of fatal police shootings despite criticism from many civil rights advocates including California’s Legislative Black Caucus.
- Opposed statewide implementation of police body cameras and ignored police brutality, multiple officers raping a teenager, and other officers sharing racist and homophobic messages, despite multiple requests from the public defender.
- Stood by silently as $730 million was spent on moving inmates to for-profit private prisons.
- Fought to uphold wrongful convictions from her office, in one case, she witheld information about a police lab tech who was fabricating evidence (and a judge admonished her for it). She refused DNA testing to prove the innocence of a man on death row. Defended Johnny Baca’s conviction for murder even though judges found a prosecutor presented false testimony at the trial, to which she relented only after a video of the oral argument received national attention and embarrassed her office. She hid evidence of exculpaltory evidence of a man who was convicted solely by one witness (he is still serving a 70 year prison sentence). When evidence pointed towards a black defendant being framed by police, Harris avoided DNA testing to keep him on death row.
- Used a technicality to stop the release of a man serving 27 years-to-life after being wrongfully convicted of possession of a knife under the three-strikes law she supported. When civil rights groups and nearly 100,000 petition signatures got him released after 14 years she took him back to court again for a crime he didn’t commit.
- Protected several of her officers with records of misconduct, by refusing to provide their names to defense attorneys, so that their convictions would be upheld and people would stay in prison.
- “Systematically violated defendants’ civil and constitutional rights” in crime lab scandal.
- Kept her Orange County DA office from being charged for running an unconstitutional jailhouse informant program they tried to cover up.
- Oversaw a state prosecutor falsifying a confession to get a life sentence and then destroyed the evidence, upheld a conviction secured by a prosecutor lying under oath, and oversaw the framing of another man. The officers were not fired, but the state was forced to pay out ~13M USD.
- She fought against providing compensation to those her office wrongly convicted.
- Sponsored a bill allowing for prosecutors to seize profits before charges are even filed and opposed a bill that would reform civil asset forfeiture.
- Defended a prison’s religious discrimination in hiring policy
- Refused to review a case in which a pharmaceutical CEO killed his wife but made it look like a suicide after their son died under mysterious circumstances as well.
- Refused to prosecute PG&E for its massive gas pipeline explosion.
- Claimed to be unaware of sexual harassment and retaliation by her top aide over a 6 year span.
- Refused to investigate Herbalife’s exploitation and fraud, received donations from people connected to the corporation.
- Refused to prosecute Trump’s treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, despite his bank’s illegal forelosure practices, which ruined thousands of lives. She also was the only democratic presidental candidate to get money from him.
- A favorite candidate of wall street. Helped raise money with a former wells fargo banker who defended the fake accounts scandal.
- Voted to give Trump increased military spending two different times.
- Supports Trump escalating the war in Syria. Co-sponsored a “destabilize Iran” bill.2
- Supports Israel’s right-wing government and cozies up to AIPAC, co-sponsored resolution against Obama in support of illegal settlements, does not support Palestinian rights, and calls BDS “anti-semitic”. Another Anti-Palestine rant at AIPAC, 2. Condemned pro-palestine protestors of Netanyahu’s July 2024 visit to the US congress as “despicable, hateful, and anti-semitic”
- Is against open borders, opposed calls to tear down 700 miles of border fence.
- Fought to limit amount of land indigenous tribes could place in trust and tried to take reservation land away from a tribe just to keep them from evicting a non-indigenous man who had lived there without paying rent for 24 years.
- Mocks the activist call to “build more schools, less jails”. Mocks criminal justice reformers as unrealistic..
- Voted two different times to block federal funding for abortions.
- Wants to use solar panels and green energy… to make war.
- Tells guatemalan immigrants: “don’t come here”
- Appoints a communication director who was outraged that ICE didn’t pick up two undocumented commentators on MSNBC.
It was also a point of at least one of the other bullets.
Also need to read them without an anti-cop bias, it’s about conflicting witnesses. This puts the case into question based on an unbiased reading of the evidence at hand.
Definitely read them critically, certainly. But remove all bias, not just pro-cop bias. There’s a whole bunch of nuance in the handful I clicked on that the pithy shorts neglect or outright spin.
It was also a point of at least one of the other bullets.
It was mentioned in a summary article of Kamala’s reactionary behavior as AG that is at the head of the other bullet points about this. It was a small part of a summary article that is entirely correct in its thesis.
You are being misleading in your criticisms and should retract your false framing of OP’s post.
Also need to read them without an anti-cop bias
No I don’t. An anti-cop bias means being correct about power structures and, in this case, why you cannot trust them to tell the truth in court, let alone as the primary or sole evidence for guilt. In contrast, a pro-cop bias suggests either naivete or knowing sympathy with the legalized gang boot.
it’s about conflicting witnesses.
It’s about the primary evidence being the claims of two cops that were later contradicted by other witnesses (one of whom was also a cop!), the incompetent atyorney and the impact it had on the defense, like I said. Please address what I actually said, this is becoming repetitive and you are saying things already contradicted by myself and the articles in question. You read them, right? You recommended everyone do so. Why are you mischaracterizing them by omitting important information?
I didn’t even mention how this reflects on Harris, who used a technicality to keep harassing this person rather than address or accept the material facts.
This puts the case into question based on an unbiased reading of the evidence at hand.
It puts the conviction and its fundamental basis into question, making it spurious. That is, unless you have the misapprehension that cops don’t routinely lie in their reports and in court. It is laughable to take the original case seriously.
Definitely read them critically, certainly. But remove all bias, not just pro-cop bias.
It speaks to a status quo naivete to presume the best position is one “without bias”. That is not only an impossible thing, it is a counter-productive thing to persue. Are you going to read the article without a language bias, where the words could mean anything or something, it is all the same to you? Will you be reading the case without a temporal bias? Maybe the events happened in a totally different order, who knows! Maybe 27 years is actually a day. Understanding the world and its systems necessitates bias.
Such as that a case built on the testimony of two cops is, to make it simple, horseshit.
There’s a whole bunch of nuance in the handful I clicked on that the pithy shorts neglect or outright spin.
Given that you were wrong and misleading about this one, I am not optimistic about this, but feel free to share your other critical readings.
I am not being misleading at all, this is strongly slanted content.
Your “correct about power structures” betrays you. I think it is quite reasonable to see even police as individuals, capable of individual action. To me it’s testimony of two against two. The defense attorney’s incompetence is another issue entirely, but does not make the man innocent. Maybe he threw the knife, maybe he did not. Until we get a better answer in court, that’s all we’ve got.
I really don’t think we need to consider temporal bias, unless this happened in low light conditions. Nor language bias. Simply bias towards the witnesses. You are disregarding two of them due to your own perceptions of structural power, I am disregarding none of them. I prefer my way. The rest of your rhetoric is rather silly.
I read a few of these this morning, and saw legitimate cause for concern. I do not recall which specific ones I clicked on though, I tried to pick a handful at random. Regardless, a cautioning to be wary about internet spin is far from misleading, and this is definitely spun. I strongly suspect you simply like the spin out of an acab position, which I clearly do not ascribe to. You can call me naive if you like, I am certainly aware of the incentives for police to get convictions. I do not find such a position sufficient to simply disregard all police testimony, however. That simply should not be good enough, regardless of your philosophical leanings.
I am not being misleading at all, this is strongly slanted content.
I have explained how your claim is misleading twice now and you have not responded to that.
Your “correct about power structures” betrays you.
Betrays me how? You never elaborate on this later on.
I think it is quite reasonable to see even police as individuals, capable of individual action.
And yet the system produces a legalized gang that watches each others’ backs and routinely lies on reports and on the stand. You can’t just ignore that reality away, though clearly you would like to because knowing that cops are unreliable witnesses against defendants blows up the entirety of the prosecurion’s case. It is an absurd thing, and gullible, to think that cops’ testimony is enough to presume any level of guilt.
To me it’s testimony of two against two.
“If you stop making me think about context and facts, it’s simple, really! My position is nuanced!” lmfao
The defense attorney’s incompetence is another issue entirely
No it is not. It also undermines the original conviction, highlights the cruelty of Harris’ intervention, and provides a hint at the systemic issues re: the criminal punishment system that should lead you to have a less pro-cop, pro-prosecutor bias.
but does not make the man innocent. Maybe he threw the knife, maybe he did not. Until we get a better answer in court, that’s all we’ve got.
The burden of proof is on the positive claimant. Claims of crimes are not, by default, ambiguously true just because they are prosecuted or because there is cop testimony. Your logic is that of the southern white lynch mob.
And it reflects poorly on your comments, not on OP. You should withdraw your claim and apologize.
I really don’t think we need to consider temporal bias […]
I was obviously being absurd on purpose in both cases. Bias is inherent to having a correct understanding of something. The problem here is not bias at all, it’s being biased towards cops and prosecutors. You should be biased against them in these examples as they have a poor track record and it is for systemic reasons. And, to boot, they were contradicted by others, including another cop. This normally puts a huge target on the back of a “snitch”. See how useful bias is? It means you understand the forces at work and can judge the value of actions in context.
Simply bias towards the witnesses. You are disregarding two of them due to your own perceptions of structural power, I am disregarding none of them. I prefer my way. The rest of your rhetoric is rather silly.
I have actually listed at least 6 arguments around this, from different aspects of the case, and you have ignored nearly all of them. Noting the irrationality of your problem bias is just one part of explaining one of those angles.
Because I think you have forgotten, I will remind you that you are claiming the OP is being misleading and that the content of the articles does not match the claims, listing one example so far (and in a different misleading way, as I have noted twice!): that it isn’t kosher to say an innocent man was convicted (despite one of the articles saying this verbatim), that it is actually ambiguous and man, you just can’t tell. I will add a 7th argument: you are entirely missing the real point of those articles anyways, which is that Harris stepped in to harass this man in a technicality, i.e. the exact timing of challenges and the presentation of witnesses.
The rest of your rhetoric is rather silly.
Oh dear.
I read a few of these this morning, and saw legitimate cause for concern.
Yet you have only listed one example and didn’t even characterize it right in its basic framing, as it was only stated in one bullet point.
I do not recall which specific ones I clicked on though, I tried to pick a handful at random.
By this I will take it to mean you refuse to provide more examples despite claiming to have them.
Regardless, a cautioning to be wary about internet spin is far from misleading, and this is definitely spjn.
Only if you are biased towards cops and prosecutors and do things like, say, try to remove context from consideration or look at the case in its totality because that would contradict your narrative. You don’t see the irony in this behavior while decryjng “internet spin”?
I strongly suspect you simply like the spin out of an acab position, which I clearly do not ascribe to.
Feel free to respond directly to what I say and ask questions and you might be able to make accurate conclusions about my positions.
You can call me naive if you like, I am certainly aware of the incentives for police to get convictions.
And this describes the totality of your understanding of how much and why cops lie in reports and in court?
I do not find such a position sufficient to simply disregard all police testimony, however. That simply should not be good enough, regardless of your philosophical leanings.
I will take that as a “yes” to my question.
