30
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.
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 have explained how your claim is misleading twice now and you have not responded to that.
Betrays me how? You never elaborate on this later on.
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.
"If you stop making me think about context and facts, it's simple, really! My position is nuanced!" lmfao
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.
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 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.
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.
Oh dear.
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.
By this I will take it to mean you refuse to provide more examples despite claiming to have them.
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"?
Feel free to respond directly to what I say and ask questions and you might be able to make accurate conclusions about my positions.
And this describes the totality of your understanding of how much and why cops lie in reports and in court?
I will take that as a "yes" to my question.
No, you've tried, but all you've got is acab. That's not good enough. My assessment stands.
Certainly, cops do sometimes lie, no question. In a country with millions of police officers, though, the anecdotal accounts your media is likely flooded with are insufficient, as is your faith in a single structural philosophy. The fact of the matter is that police give thousands of testimonies every day, some are true, some are false. It makes no sense to simply disregard police testimony as a default. While I doubt we have actual statistics on something so complex, I find it very unlikely that police are lying more often than not. We should note, though, that when they're being honest, you will not hear news of it, because its not newsworthy. This skews your perceptions.
You're also neglecting that this individual had previous convictions and had just been in a bar fight. Clearly a violent man. While yes, it was cruel to keep him locked up during the appeals process, I don't dispute that, I do dispute the characterization that he should still be presumed innocent. Could the additional two witnesses have swayed the decision? Maybe. That's the best we have. To presume they would have is inappropriate though, and there is valid reason to keep him behind bars while the process plays out.
I clearly disagree that we should automatically be biased against police testimony. All witness testimony should be considered with a certain measure of doubt, but I would need some harder data to convince me police testimony is false a statistically significant amount of the time.
You've now listed a long string of arguments, but you didn't earlier, you're mischaracterizing. Your previous comment can be summed up entirely with four words: You don't trust cops. This is fine, but I have higher standards. I neither trust nor distrust them by default, I sit between the two. I am willing to accept their testimony in this case.
Oh dear?
When I get around to reading news articles again, likely tomorrow morning, I'll provide you a few more and we can resume this. For now though, correct, I am not going to go back through them.
I'm not interested in a systemic discussion with you, is what that means. I know full well we'd be going back and forth for quite some time, given the strength of your beliefs. Given that I do not think a systems-basef view captures even most of the necessary information, I would find the exercise rather pointless.
You certainly like your pithy comebacks, but I prefer a more rigorous and colder logic. Ultimately, the man was a danger, and this was an appropriate exercise of prosecutorial power.
Please do your best to act in good faith. I have, obviously, laid out several lines of thought and my rationale is not a slogan. It's important to be honest even if you disagree with someone. I would say it is even more important than otherwise, as that is when you will be most tempted to check out.
And remember, your thesis here is that OP was being misleading. Do you see the hypocrisy?
Cops lie systemically and for reasons with root causes. Students of criminal justice know that cop testimony is among the least reliable information in any case.
Just straw man after straw man. I have already replied, at length, with my own positions. Ask yourself why you are making up positions and actions on my behalf while ignoring what I said. Do you think that is a moral thing for you to be doing?
If you'd like to criticize being skeptical of cop testimony, you should either educate yourself on what people actually say about this or ask me and I might, generously, take some time to explain despite this bad faith behavior.
You have invented a fiction of what I do and are now drawing conclusions from it like a gotcha, lmao.
The felony was for possession of an illegal weapon.
If you applied this poor logic consistly you would be a very racist person.
I will remind you that Harris used a technicality on timing rather than actually arguing against the merits of overturning the conviction. There is a reason for that. Think critically.
No, I have already laid out a series of points that, together, show how absurd this conclusion is. You are just ignoring them.
To presume they would not have is literally the outcome sought in the appeal decision. The one stymied by technicalities. "The process", lmao. The process is damning for your pro-cop guesswork.
Which is the same as saying you are unfamiliar with the criminal justice system and how cops behave. You keep repeating this claim and I have acknowledged and criticized it at least 3 times, to no response. How would you describe someone that acted like that?
Well luckily we have things like research papers and political organizations and the ability to ask questions so you can go figure this out. All it requires is curiosity. Unfortunately you seem to think your ignorance is better than my knowledge.
No, I did.I counted them, you know. It did not take me long to list arguments I've made about how it is reasonable to say OP's statement that was wrongly convicted match works cited. Two ways the process was flawed (incompetent defense lawyer and shutting down appeals in technicalities), three arguments about witnesses (cops are unreliable, other witnesses disagreed but were not brought forward, one contradicting witness is a cop), one argument about the presumption of guilt and evidentiary onuses, one argument about an article literally saying what OP said verbatim. There are probably more, these just come to mind immediately.
The problem is that you are not directly responding to what I am saying but choose to dance around these things and deal in straw men. Don't blame me when you can't remember the list of conveniently-ignored arguments, let alone synthesize it into a larger case.
Instead of providing inaccurate summaries, please reply directly to what I say.
As I already explained, you have lower standards. You claim to appreciate nuance and then argue for ignoring context and systemic problems.
I've already addressed this. Instead of repeating yourself, please reply directly to what I have already said in response.
Yes, oh dear. I'm rolling my eyes at the unearned condescension.
I won't hold my breath.
Then you are unqualified to discuss this topic at all, which I'd inherently about the criminal justice system, how it functions, and Harris' role in it re: this case. Your aversion to discussing or acknowledging the actual realities of the system so that you can imagine the system actually works a different way encapsulates the fundamental flaw in your ad-hoc rationales.
Though the largest issue is an unwillingness to acknowledge or engage with what I've said, such as, for the fourth time now, the fact that one of the articles has a verbatim repetition of the claim you say is different from the articles' contents. That one point makes everything you have said moot. No wonder you have fully avoided talking about it.
If it followed the current pattern, the length would be due to you repeating yourself and ignoring what I say.
This is not a good faith characterization of what I have said when I have pointed to a series of specific case factors and you have ignored most of them.
My responses are anything but pithy.
Like cherry picking, straw men, and lauding the ignoring of context? lmao
There's that pro-cop bias.
If you have strong data to the contrary on the accuracy of police testimony, then just present it, and we can get to the bottom of this. You would have done this already if you weren't so busy trying to bait me. Since you haven't, I assumed your rationale is not based on hard facts at all. You are more than welcome to prove me wrong.
Yes, a technicality was employed, I've not denied that either. I don't see the problem with it. The prosecutor should follow the letter of the law and use their most effective tools.
He was just in a bar fight, you very conveniently quoted me around that part.
Again, present data if you've got it, and we can put this to rest.
Ah, I see. "Match works cited", I did gloss over that part. So you're saying that if I click on the link part of OPs post that says the man did not commit the crime, I will encounter that claim within that article? Because I'm pretty sure it was the one I personally linked to, and I don't recall that being in it. Perhaps they mixed the links up though, mistakes do happen.
Regarding your six, defense lawyer incompetence I already granted. The technicality is irrelevant. Cop unreliability awaits data, otherwise I addressed it. Other witnesses I addressed in my first comment. One witness being a cop is irrelevant. Presumption of innocence I'll grant since the conviction was thrown out. This does not automatically grant release though, any more than you'd automatically go free while awaiting an initial trial. OPs verbatim I've just addressed.
And the rest of that looks like more bait.
The heart of this disagreement is about the accuracy of police testimony, as best as I can tell. Can you actually back your words? I'm open to changing my mind, but it's going to take more than clever rhetoric to do it. I like numbers, and I am deeply suspicious of people that think they can predict the actions of individuals based on the systems they are in or their group membership.
I will gladly spend the time compiling this once you fully acknowledge the bad faith I've had to deal with in this engagement and when you show any curiosity whatsoever in learning about this topic. I am not going to compile and explain this information while receiving bad faith pushback, as the conclusion would surely just be me receiving more dismissive comments that do not address what I say and probably without even reading the references I produce.
I am spending basically all of my time trying to get you to read and respond to what I say and not make things up. I gave you many early opportunities to do so and now have to say it directly. The behavior does not seem to be improving.
This is a highly entitled position and I doubt many people indulge you this way.
What I said was that you missed the point and have ignored me mentioning it (twice). You still are not responding to what I have actually said about the technicality. I told you why. I explained it.
Do you see why I am not going out of my way to preemptively compile educational resources for you? We are currently working at the level of, "can this person read and respond germanely and not resort to straw men".
What did I have to say about this and where is the error in my thinking?
I literally included your mention of a bar fight. Do you know how to quote text? This would help with understanding exactly what you are responding. You know, you have already skipped over entire sets of paragraphs that I wrote in response. Just ignored them.
This will be my last response to you until you can demonstrably engage in good faith.
Yes the part that is most directly in opposition to your entire complaint that I have repeated 4 times.
OP had several links, remember? You remember saying that early on? One of them, as I have said several times now, has exactly the claim OP made that you dispute.
Do you think so? Review what I said about it and tell me how you "granted" it.
I explained how it is relevant and you had failed to recognize the claim at all and have still failed to dispute it.
It awaits you learning about this topic and not appreciating your own ignorance over knowledge of systemic functions and outcomes. Or even just any personal experience, as that tends to teach this lesson. On this topic you have expounded at length about irrelevancies and straw men but not my direct challenges.
You discussed it in your third comment as a way to inaccurately summarize the dispute and ignored my response to that and subsequent mentions of it.
I have mentioned how it is relevant and you had neither acknowledged me pointing this out and have yet to dispute what I said.
It is clear that you prefer to claim irrelevance as an excuse to avoid engaging with what is said.
Do you also grant that you ignored this point and are thus completely and utterly wrong in your mischaracterization of my sentiment as just "acab"? Did you forget why I was listing numbers of points?
Again, the rationale given was a technicality and not something based on a merit. You've gotta remember the basic facts and think of them consistently together, not inconsistently in isolation. Otherwise you will be confused and wrong.
And you were simultaneously condescending amd confused and wrong about that. And, again, are forgetting why this list was presented and why I challenged you to respond to it.
" I will continue ignoring the things I don't know how to respond to buy also feel the need to project that I am still right to do so".
I literally just got done listing 7 points, only one of which is about that, and you just got done providing inadequate or wrong responses to them. You are now fully aware that it would be a lie to try and yet again try to simplify it down to this alone.
And if I were to describe the heart of this disagreement, it is actually that you are wrong about OP being misleading and that you should apologize, but instead of acting in good faith you are engaging in fibs and deflections and ignoring what is said. I believe that you can do better, but you will have to respect yourself more first.
Exhibit A in contradiction of this: this entire conversation, pulling teeth to get you to almost respond to what I say instead of making things up.
In short, I, reasonably, do not believe you. You have to dig yourself out of a hole first to have any presumption of good faith or curiosity. The fact that you want to wait around for the person you're ignoring to lay it out for you on a platter is contradictory of this.
My rhetoric is not clever, it is very basic and direct.
Contradictory exhibit B: the entire field of sociology.
... you have to compile it? You can just direct me to reputable sources that you are aware of, I can look myself. I won't trust random internet person anyway. No compiling necessary, if you know where the information is located, you can just point me at it.
That's cute, but you've clearly begun trying to bait me into getting angry by framing all of my disagreements as ignorance that you are superior to, instead of dealing with my arguments fairly. It's not that easy though, I'm fairly resistant to being talked down to and belittled. I do not believe in your "correctness" you see, as I do not share your faith. And I've been around enough internet people to see the tricks. The lmfaos are a pretty strong indicator as well.
Actually people present evidence when challenged all the time. It's a horribly efficient way to prove the other fellow wrong.
Hm, so you did. I suppose I'm skimming over the quoted segments rather quickly. Regardless, you failed to address it, only pointing out a previous weapons conviction that served to reinforce my point about a dangerous individual. This links into your next issue, of the technicality, to keep a dangerous individual off of the streets. You claimed it was "harassment" as I recall, as if she was just petty? This is unlikely.
So, if one of the several articles had that claim of OPs, then why did the actual link arrived at by clicking on those words not contain that claim? Am I expected to have time to read all of the articles? It's Thursday, there's things to do. I find it a reasonable expectation that a link should go directly to the article that supports its claim. But, like I said, I'm willing to take you at your word and give OP the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they simply mixed the links up.
Defense lawyer incompetence I acknowledged as a flaw. Does it make your argument correct in its entirety? No, it's a point well-made though.
Technically we've discussed, I've explained why I consider it irrelevant and you have failed to address my arguments. To summarize: dangerous man, behind bars.
Still awaiting data. Not compiled data, something I can research and look up myself. You can name a book if you like, or direct me to a study. Even a well-researched article. You can pretend its some big hassle, but this is the internet, back your argument with proof is really common, and should be expected. Cops lie often is a strong claim. If you genuinely know this as a confirmed fact, you should know where statistics can be found.
I didn't mischaracterize them at all. They are two witnesses, that disagree with two other witnesses. This is very simple, and I addressed it. One being a cop is irrelevant though, they could be from different departments, different offices, etc. This snitches idea indicates you consume too much fiction. While yes, pressure to agree with other cops does happen, remember we have millions of police officers. The average is likely nowhere near your dramatized account. See? Irrelevant, without backing data at least.
No, I will not. See next:
It's about results. The prosecutor and defense exist in intentional opposition to each other, with each side intentionally using every legal tool at their disposal to accomplish their goals. This is the way our system was designed, for better or for worse. It is unreasonable to expect one side to only play by "the merits". Otherwise defense attorneys would never represent extremely guilty people you see.
Absolutely hilarious that you accuse me of condescension. Pot calling the kettle black much? I'm not the lmfao-ing one, I've actually been pretty reasonable.
And now you're just calling me a liar. Very classy of you. Perhaps you recognize the argument is not actually going your way? I imagine you don't usually lose these, it might be a strange feeling.
Lastly, pointing at an entire field of study is a pretty good sign you're not actually in possession of the evidence you claim.
I rest my case.
As I see nothing indicating any real curiosity about cops as witness testimony nor an acknowledgement of the repeated bad faith behavior, I will not be replying further.
Very convenient excuse to avoid sourcing. Really shouldn't be difficult at all to source a basic fact, if the whole field of sociology agrees. If you asked me for data indicating the CO2 emissions are rising, something agreed on by climate science, I could have it for you in less than a minute.