Sen. Kamala Harris, who this week was announced as Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate, has received high-profile criticism from the left for her record as a tough prosecutor — but Harris also stirred controversy during that period for allegedly going easy on criminal defendants in a number of cases, including by refusing to seek the death penalty for a cop killer.
Some of Harris’ decisions not to seek punishments to the full extent of the law as the San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general illuminate the complexity of her long prosecutorial record — there’s been much debate over whether she was a “progressive prosecutor” — and could hint at how she would treat high-profile issues as vice president.
Perhaps the most controversial of these calls by Harris, D-Calif., was her decision not to seek the death penalty in the case of San Francisco Police Officer Isaac Espinoza, who was killed by a man named David Hill. Harris has been a longtime opponent of the death penalty, but according to a Los Angeles Times story at the time said the decision was based on “a comprehensive review of the facts” and she was attempting to “ensure a conviction.”
San Francisco Police Officer Issac Espinoza was killed in 2004 by gang member David Hill. As district attorney, Kamala Harris refused to seek the death penalty for Hill, but he was later sentenced to life in prison. (San Francisco Police Department/Twitter)
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The case prompted a threat from then-California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to take it over.
“Those who murder a law enforcement officer need to know — and also the district attorneys should know — that if you make charging decisions based on personal philosophy, not on facts, I will take the case away from you and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law,” Lockyer said, according to the Times.
But Hill’s conviction was eventually secured by Harris’ office and Assistant District Attorney Harry Dorfman, as detailed by SF Gate, and Hill, whom prosecutors portrayed as a seasoned gang member and who killed Espinoza using an AK-47, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Another controversial death penalty decision by Harris involved an MS-13 gang member named Edwin Ramos who killed a man and his two sons after mistaking them as rival gang members.
Harris, according to SF Gate, announced in 2009, about a year after the murders happened, that her office would not seek the death penalty, saying she aimed to ensure Ramos “dies in prison for these horrific crimes” and that her decision was based on “the facts and the law in this case.”
The lawyer for Danielle Bologna, the wife and mother of the victims, said that “the city of San Francisco has let her down and her family down,” with Harris’ decision not to seek the death penalty, SF Gate reported.
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Ramos was eventually sentenced in 2014, according to SF Gate, after Harris had left the San Francisco DA’s office to become California’s attorney general. Dorfman was the lead prosecutor again on that case, and again secured a life prison term.
Beyond death penalty cases, Harris also received criticism for giving probation to a man named Devaughndre Broussard after he participated in a brutal robbery and assault in 2005. While on probation, according to SF Gate, Broussard then killed an editor at the Oakland Post who was looking into the finances of Your Black Muslim Bakery, which was a center of the San Francisco Black nationalist community.
“He should have been in state prison,” Christopher Hall, the father of the victim of Broussard’s earlier assault, said after being told of the murder, according to SF Gate. “Blame it on Kamala Harris.”
Hall added: “My kid suffered blurred vision and a fractured nose. You guys didn’t see the video. I wanted to cry when I saw my son get viciously attacked.”
A prosecutor with Harris’ office told SF Gate that they settled for probation due to the fact Broussard had an otherwise clean record at the time and that there were multiple assailants, making it hard to distinguish who did what.
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Broussard, according to the San Franciso Examiner, was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2011 after agreeing to testify against Your Black Muslim Bakery.
In another controversial case, Harris got into a very public spat with the San Francisco Police Department after it arrested nine prostitutes but Harris declined to pursue charges, according to SF Gate. “It almost leaves me in amazement,” one officer said, saying that Harris was “almost legalizing prostitution.”
Harris’ office shot back that the police ignored the owners of the club and the men who were soliciting the prostitutes, saying that there were “no arrests” of those offenders. The police responded that they were arresting more than 50 johns per month, calling Harris’ claim “an outright lie.” This dispute came at a time that feelings between Harris and her city’s police department were still sour over her decision not to seek the death penalty for Espinoza’s killer.
Harris separately declined to pursue murder charges against a man who fatally punched another man outside a San Francisco Giants game in 2008, according to SF Gate, instead opting for manslaughter charges; has been accused of opting not to charge a California State University professor who allegedly used his taxpayer-funded website to advocate boycotts against Israel; and started a program that allowed a handful of illegal immigrant drug offenders to participate in job training and counseling that cleared their records.
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Fox News reached out to the Biden campaign for comment, but did not receive a response by the time this report was published.
Harris’ record as a prosecutor, of course, is varied and contains plenty of examples of a tough approach — as evidenced by the indignant reaction of some of the more progressive members of the Democratic Party after Biden’s announcement Tuesday.
“Apparently the answer to a movement for black lives is someone who helped perpetuate a lock em up regime while letting the powerful in Silicon Valley and Wall Streeters like Steve Mnuchin loot with impunity,” liberal political commentator Krystal Ball tweeted. “Happy 2020.”
Many high-profile Democrats, though, cheered the Harris pick earlier this week.
Former President Barack Obama said in a statement: “I’ve known Senator Harris for a long time. She is more than prepared for the job. She’s spent her career defending our Constitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake. Her own life story is one that I and so many others can see ourselves in: a story that says that no matter where you come from, what you look like, how you worship, or who you love, there’s a place for you here. It’s a fundamentally American perspective, one that’s led us out of the hardest times before. And it’s a perspective we can all rally behind right now.”
For her part, Harris has vowed to train her prosecutorial talents on the Trump ticket, saying Wednesday, “As somebody who’s presented my fair share of arguments in court, the case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut.”
Democrats, now with Harris locked in as Biden’s running mate, are set to make their ticket official at the Democratic National Convention next week as the 2020 presidential race enters its final stages.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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