Kamala the Cop

Kamala Harris is now the Vice President of the United States. Her professional history is that of a ‘top cop’,  including most notably the position of District Attorney in San Francisco and Attorney General for California. At these positions, she has built up a long resume featuring a volume of questionable moves. She has been criticized for her conduct extensively in late 2019 Democratic primary debates, notably by US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Owing to her newly-acquired position, Harris’ ‘cop’ history deserves a closer look.

Harris started out her career as a prosecutor in Alameda and San Francisco counties. During this work, she was controversially appointed to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and then to the California Medical Assistance Commission. These appointments seem to have concurred with her relationship with Willie Brown, then-speaker of the California Assembly. The circumstances have been described by SFGate as ‘keeping friends and loyal political soldiers on the public payroll’.

In her District Attorney campaign in 2003, Harris both praised and criticized her predecessor Terence Hallinan. She commended his ‘progressive agenda’ during his term, but said that she would be ‘smart on crime’, mainly through targeting gun-related violence in San Francisco. 

As a candidate, she vowed never to seek the death penalty for harsh crimes. Nevertheless, several years later, her Attorney General office appealed a decision by a judge to strike down California’s death penalty.

In the campaign, Harris voiced her support for Hallinan’s supportive policy for medical marijuana patients. ‘She said she would not compromise on her resolve “to protect our loved ones who need medical marijuana. Those who need medical marijuana, I want you to know that I will defend your rights and vigorously oppose any encroachment on them by outside agencies.”’

After she became District Attorney for San Francisco, many of these promises seemed to have been forgotten. Under her watch, the city handed out over 1900 marijuana convictions. San Francisco politician Tom Ammiano later commented on Harris’ repeated changes of heart as casting doubt on ‘how sincere or authentic she is.’ Following several years of declining marijuana arrests under her predecessor Hallinan, these numbers sharply increased during the early years of Harris’ term, followed once more by a decline towards its end.

Under Harris, 24% of marijuana-related arrests led to convictions, compared to 18% under Hallinan. Typically, most of such convictions do not include prison time. However, limited and insufficient data is available on how many prison sentences were issued.

Opinions on Harris’ marijuana approach during her District Attorney term differ. While some of Harris’ former employees say that her drug policy was quite mild, some defence attorneys claim the opposite. For example, defence attorney J. David Nick has said: “Some of the cases that Terence Hallinan would have just declined to prosecute, (Harris) said no, we’re going to prosecute these as felonies”. Other opponents of Harris have pointed out that even though many convictions did not carry a prison sentence, the conviction in and of itself can become a significant hindrance in one’s life - for example, career prospects.

Harris famously presided over the crime lab scandal, in which a technician was found out to have been ‘skimming some of the cocaine she was supposed to test, possibly contaminating results’, according to Mercury News. Reportedly, defence attorneys were not informed of this possibility ‘for months’, causing about 1000 drug cases to possibly be based on unreliable evidence. Only after a state judge intervened in the situation, stating that “Harris’ prosecutors ‘failed to disclose information that clearly should have been disclosed’” did she decide to drop the charges in these cases.

As the Wall Street Journal also reported, during her Defense Attorney tenure:

“Harris had also failed to set a written policy for disclosing potentially exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys — even though staffers recommended she set one in 2005, five years before the scandal broke into public view,”

Likely the most consistent policy area for Harris has been her strong anti-gun stance. From her District Attorney campaign throughout her term, she has shown a willingness to push the issue to the limit. She vowed to ‘seek minimum 90-day sentences for possession of concealed or loaded weapons, and charge all assault weapons possession cases as felonies.” She also sought ‘maximum penalties on gun-related crimes’. She joined an unsuccessful move to ban gun shows from a popular venue outside San Francisco.

As California Attorney General, Harris’ record became more public and more visible. It is this position which Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard referenced in her viral exchange with Harris in an August 2019 Democratic primary presidential debate: “The people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor - you owe them an apology.”

Gabbard also addressed specifics from Harris’ Attorney General term:

“She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. […] In the case of those who were on death row, innocent people, you actually blocked evidence from being revealed that would have freed them until you were forced to do so. There is no excuse for that.”

Here, Gabbard referred to cases where Harris obstructed the process of DNA testing to confirm or deny the involvement of death row inmates in the crimes they had been convicted of. As a law professor Lana Bazelon put it: “As attorney general, [Harris] weaponized technicalities to keep wrongfully convicted people behind bars rather than allow them new trials with competent counsel and prosecutors willing to play fair.”

In 2014, supposedly without her knowledge, lawyers working under Harris in her Attorney General’s Office tried to stop the early release of prisoners, citing the need for inmate firefighting labour force to be used in the ongoing wildfire crisis. Amid public backlash, Harris came out against this move, claiming to not have been aware of it before it became public.

Harris’ questionable record on drugs continued throughout her term as Attorney General. According to a spokesperson, almost two thousand people received prison sentences in California for marijuana and hashish violations during her term between 2011 and 2016. It is true that the Attorney General does not prosecute most drug crimes, as this is the responsibility of District Attorneys. However, the office can strongly influence and push on those District Attorneys to change their conduct. Even though Harris was not in a position to command California’s District Attorneys to ‘go easy’ on drug convictions, if she was serious in her ‘progressive agenda’ she could have applied pressure on them and use the weight of her Attorney General position to be the change she had said she would have liked to see.

Instead, when asked about a suggestion of a 2014 Republican candidate for Attorney General Ronald Gold to legalize recreational marijuana, she laughed and responded: “he’s entitled to his opinion”. Despite these comments and her record on marijuana-related prosecutions, Harris admitted in a 2019 interview to have smoked marijuana herself while in college. Notably, in August 2020, she claimed to support legalizing marijuana on the federal level.

At best, Harris’ record reveals her as an opportunist. Her inconsistency on many policies over her career points to them being used as vehicles for power and influence rather than sincere convictions. This picture is only reinforced considering the role of favouritism at the start of her career. At worst, her history shows her lack of regard for civil liberties or sense of justice. When she speaks of criminal justice reform, she is not likely to be doing so out of the kindness of her heart. Unfortunately, there is a risk of her vice-presidency being plagued by further scandals, injustices, and misuses of power.