Kamala Harris’s Legal Legacy
Sonia Hickey, LawFuel Contributor
Kamala Harris’s career as a prosecutor and her tenure as Attorney General of California have been marked by both achievements and controversies, reflecting a complex – even controversial – legacy for the Democrat Presidential nominee.
Her work has been seen as attempting to appease her social, left wing sensibilities on the one hand and the conservative, right-leaning group on the other.
The conflict has led some to view her as a pragmatist rather than an ideologue, balancing law enforcement with reform efforts. And others see her as conflicted and an attorney general who presided over major crime increases and decisions that adversely affected minority communities she had sworn to protect.
The Controversial Career Choices
Whether it has been ambition, career opportunities, publicity or progressive policies, the Kamala Harris legacy as a prosecutor has been as much a mixed as one of her famous word salads.
During her 2020 presidential campaign, she struggled to reconcile her prosecutorial past with the progressive demands of the Democratic base, leading to a muddled campaign message.
Among the controversies stirred by her career were the following –
Death Penalty Conflict: Senatorial Rebuke
One of Harris’s most controversial decisions as San Francisco District Attorney was her refusal to seek the death penalty for a gang member who killed police officer Isaac Espinoza in 2004.
At the funeral, Senator Dianne Feinstein delivered a eulogy in which she criticized Harris, who was in the audience, prompting a standing ovation from the hundreds of officers in attendance.
Harris’s stance on the death penalty remained consistent during her time as DA, but she defended California’s death penalty system as Attorney General, a move that some saw as contradictory, if not hypocritical.
The Truancy Debacle
Harris launched an anti-truancy initiative in 2008 that threatened to prosecute parents whose children missed school regularly.
The program aimed to reduce absenteeism but faced criticism for its punitive approach, which many argued disproportionately affected low-income families and communities of color, from which she had emerged herself.
Police Misconduct: “Speaking out of both sides”
Harris faced widespread criticism for her handling of police misconduct cases.
As both DA and AG, she was often criticized for not prosecuting officers accused of using excessive force in fatal incidents.
Civil rights attorney John Burris noted that he could not recall any police violence case that Harris chose to prosecute during her time in office.
Additionally, she infrequently used a state law that allowed the Attorney General to investigate local law enforcement agencies for systemic abuses, which some saw as a failure to address police misconduct adequately.
“She’s one of these people who’ve talked out of both sides of her mouth, and she’s going to have trouble with both the left and the right with the stances she’s taken over the years,” Los Angeles-based criminal defense lawyer Nicole Castronovo (pictured) said of her role as Attorney General.
The Proposition 47 Problem: “Fraud by misrepresentation”
As Attorney General, Harris supported Proposition 47, a 2014 California law that reclassified certain non-violent offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, the aim being to reduce the state’s prison population.
Critics argued that it led to an increase in crime, particularly retail theft, and undermined public safety. The policy has come to haunt her with the election campaign as state figures show that from 2014 to 2023, violent crime in California has risen by more than 30 percent — including jumps in rapes, aggravated assaults and murders.
Although Harris didn’t take a formal position on the measure, many accused her of misrepresenting Proposition 47 to the public.
Steve Cooley, (pictured) who served as the Los Angeles County district attorney from 2000 to 2012, blamed the rise in crime on Harris and the referendum.
“The damage has been untold and, in a sense, irreparable,” said Cooley. “It was beyond a bait and switch. It was fraud by misrepresentation.”
Early Career and District Attorney of San Francisco
Kamala Harris began her prosecutorial career as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, before becoming the District Attorney of San Francisco in 2004.
She graduated from Howard University in 1986 and then attended the University of California law school in San Francisco, graduating in 1989 and immediately began working as a prosecutor.
Attorney General of California
As California’s Attorney General from 2011 to 2017, Harris took on for-profit colleges, accusing them of saddling students with unsustainable debt, and regularly sued fossil fuel companies.
She also defended California’s death penalty system in court, despite her personal opposition to the death penalty.
The mixed results of her policies as Attorney General created equally mixed messages regarding her stance and sincerity on implementing serious policy that would make a serious difference to the administration of justice.
She implemented training programs to address racial bias among police officers and created OpenJustice, a web portal to increase transparency in crime and policing statistics, but she equally lost the trust of the police through the Espinoza shooting.
Although she pushed for job programs over incarceration, she also fought to keep people in prison even after they were proven innocent.
The mixed result and often confused policies lead to a feeling that she was effective more in espousing causes and ideas rather then implementing sustainable, workable policies that made a difference.
Her presidential aspirations and policies will doubtless be subjected to the same scrutiny and her Californian days’ experiences equally doubtless will be a double-sided affair: good intentions, but uneven implementation at best.
