Kamala
Harris: Mike Nifong in a Dress
While
the Black Lives Matter movement is a fraud whose principal agendas include "revolution" and an anti-Trump campaign
on 501(c)(3) tax-exempt money,
the overwhelming majority of Americans support the ostensible causes behind
which it hides. These include opposition to police misconduct, which includes
not just excessive force, but also imprisonment of innocent people, many of
whom are black. This makes Kamala Harris exactly what
everybody is protesting.
Over-Aggressive Prosecutors Are More Dangerous than Most
Criminals
An
over-aggressive prosecutor is far more dangerous to society than any but the
most violent criminals. If a thug invades your home to rob, rape, or
murder you, you can shoot him, and the law will be on your side when you do
it. A prosecutor can, on the other hand, force you to spend your
life savings to defend your freedom and good name and maybe even send you to
prison for something you didn't do. Consequences for the prosecutor
are rare, although disgraced Duke Lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong (D-N.C.)
is an exception. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has been involved in similarly
questionable prosecutions, although in a position of supervisory responsibility
rather than direct participation.
People
believe that a jury trial is similar to the one in Twelve Angry Men, in which one juror convinced the
others to examine the evidence thoroughly and discover reasonable
doubts. What aggressive prosecutors really want are twelve people
who are too stupid to get out of jury duty, will believe and do whatever they
are told, and will rubber-stamp the prosecutor's decision to send somebody to
prison or even the death chamber. George Stinney was, for example, a black
teenager who was executed at age 14 on the basis of evidence that would not
convince any intelligent person.
The Amiraults were
convicted, and far more recently, on the basis of evidence such as a magic
room, a secret room, and an evil robot, none of which
was ever found but for which the jury took the prosecution's
word. There were also allegations of sexual abuse with a butcher knife that somehow left no
injuries whatsoever. Superior Court judge Isaac Borenstein, who
presided over the trial, opined, "Every trick in the book had been used to
get the children to say what the investigators wanted" and, according to the
National Registry of Exonerations, added that "[t]he children's accounts
were tainted by suggestive interviewing techniques and were coerced by
investigators who refused to take a denial of abuse as an answer." Scott Harshbarger (D-Mass.) and Martha Coakley (D-Mass.)
then ran for higher offices, as Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is doing today.
Trying
to railroad an innocent person to prison is professional misconduct for
which a prosecutor can be censured, suspended, or even disbarred. "The
prosecutor in a criminal case shall refrain from prosecuting a charge that the
prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause." The
prosecutor is also obliged to disclose exculpatory
evidence. Enforcement of these rules is rare, noting the junk cases
now being brought against motorists who defend themselves against carjackers
while the carjackers go free and against police officers who shoot violent
assailants.
Mike
Nifong was among the rare exceptions because "Nifong
kept from the defense DNA test results that found genetic material from several
men in the accuser's underwear and body, but none from any lacrosse
player." The Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate —
and Joe Biden's age means she could easily become president — comes across as
just more of the same. "Comes across" is emphatically an
opinion based on the references shown below as opposed to any kind of proven
fact, but voters have the right to choose based on informed opinions.
Mike Nifong in a Dress
"Kamala Harris Was
Not a 'Progressive Prosecutor'" by Lara Bazelon, former director of the
Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent, is highly instructive. It appeared
in the leftist New York Times, so the Democrats cannot denounce it as a
right-wing smear job. The article alleges, "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." "Judge
rips Harris' office for hiding problems" provides additional
detail. These articles do not even hint that Harris did
these things herself, but, as the person in charge, the buck stops with her.
Harris also "refused
to allow newly available DNA testing for a black man [Kevin Cooper] convicted
of hacking to death a beautiful white family and young neighbor," although
she later changed her
mind. The Innocence Project stipulates
that Harris eventually went along with the DNA testing for Cooper but also
implicates Jerry Brown (D-Calif.) in refusing to allow a form of DNA testing
that might exculpate Cooper. The last thing any decent person in
this country will tolerate should be, "I'm frameable because
I'm an uneducated black man in America."
"Jim
Crow Joe [Biden] and Kamala the Cop" from Left Voice — a
socialist website, so the Democrats can't write this one off as a Republican
smear, either — cites the case of Daniel Larsen, who was
sentenced to 27 years under California's three strikes law but exonerated after
he served 13 years. Kamala Harris, however, challenged his release because "he
hadn't presented proof that he was innocent quickly enough." If
I read this correctly, Kamala
Harris thinks it is OK to imprison an innocent person over a technicality.
None
of us would want to entrust our lives to an engineer who let stand rather than
correct a mistake in a structural design, or our finances to a CPA who let
stand rather than correct a potential accounting error. Nobody would
tolerate a doctor who, upon discovering a medication error, allowed the patient
to get the overdose anyway and then buried his mistake. Why, then, does our
society tolerate prosecutors who continue to stand behind cases or convictions
after they discover serious problems with their evidence? Why do we
tolerate the "finality" (the
word used by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court when it reinstated the
Amiraults' conviction) of leaving defendants in prison despite evidence of
questionable convictions?
There
is also the issue of Harris's failure to support universal use of police body cameras. (She
did require their use by officers who reported to her own
agency.) Body cameras usually, but admittedly not always, keep
police and suspects alike on their best behavior. The Republicans' JUSTICE Act says
states that receive federal grants for body cameras "shall have a policy
in place to apply discipline to any law enforcement officer who intentionally
fails to ensure that a body-worn camera purchased using those funds is engaged,
functional, and properly secured at all times during which the camera is
required to be worn[.]"
Harris
also dragged her heels in terms of following a recommendation to institute a
policy for disclosure of
police misconduct to defendants. The Bazelon article cites
other equally controversial cases in which Harris has been involved in a
position of ultimate responsibility. This raises serious doubts
about her fitness to be only one heartbeat away from the presidency itself.
Civis Americanus is the pen name of a contributor who
remembers the lessons of history and wants to ensure that our country never
needs to learn those lessons again the hard way. The author is
remaining anonymous due to the likely prospect of being subjected to "cancel
culture" for exposing the Big Lie behind Black Lives Matter.
Image: Gage Skidmore
via Flickr.
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