Harris's press secretary linked to CA article he thinks refutes Biden & Gabbard. It doesn't.

[highplainsdem]

It points out some details they got wrong, while confirming much of what they said about Harris's record.

And his tweet is getting a lot of replies pointing that out.

Tweet from Ian Sams about an article in the San Jose Mercury News fact-checking what Biden and Gabbard said about Harris's criminal justice record:

Link to tweet

Link to the article:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/08/01/democratic-debate-kamala-harris-tulsi-gabbard-joe-biden-fact-check/


Re Biden's critique of Harris's record, when he talked about a scandal in Harris's last year as San Francisco district attorney: That was, according to the fact-check, correct in describing the broad outlines, but he missed some details and got others wrong. (I have to add that this isn't surprising in a debate setting, especially with very limited time.)

The former vice president — who once served as a public defender in Delaware — is referring to a scandal Harris faced in her last year as San Francisco district attorney. A technician in the city’s police drug lab had been skimming some of the cocaine she was supposed to test, possibly contaminating results.

Several members of Harris’ staff had had concerns about the technician but continued to prosecute cases based on the lab’s work and failed to tell defense attorneys about the issue for months. (Harris has said she wasn’t told about the problem until it became public.) After blistering criticism from a state judge, who wrote in May 2010 that Harris’ prosecutors “failed to disclose information that clearly should have been disclosed,” Harris moved to dismiss about 1,000 drug cases.

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, the Wall Street Journal reported.

At the time, Harris was slow to admit fault, with her office originally accusing the judge of bias because she was married to a defense attorney. But she took responsibility in an interview with the Washington Post this year, saying, “the buck stops with me.”

Some of the details Biden got wrong include: Harris’ office moved for the cases to be dropped, not the judge. Not all 1,000 cases involved inmates who were “freed.” The lab tech was not a police officer. And the judge in the case was a state judge, not a federal judge (and a woman, not a man).

So Biden got the basics of the story right.



Now, moving on to the much longer part of the article about Gabbard's charges against Harris:

In the "Death Row Appeals" section, the paper basically supports what Gabbard said.

In the "Inmate Labor" section, the paper explains that attorneys in Harris's AG office did argue that the state shouldn't release some prisoners who were helping fight wildfires. The judge ruled against them. Harris said she wasn't aware her attorneys had made that argument.

In the "Cash bail" section, the paper basically backs what Gabbard said. Harris was in favor of cash bail while SF DA and in fact wanted higher cash bail in gun cases, and the city hiked the bail rates. Harris has since, in the last couple of years, changed her mind about cash bail.

In the "Marijuana prosecutions" section, the paper points out that the statistic cited was highly misleading. Gabbard said Harris put 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations, but laughed about her own marijuana use during an interview. What Gabbard said about the interview was correct. The statistic was wrong because it referred to the number of people sent to prison state-wide while Harris was AG, and the paper points out that the AG doesn't prosecute most of those cases, which are prosecuted by district attorneys in each county.

But the paper adds this:

Still, Harris did directly prosecute marijuana cases as San Francisco district attorney from 2004 through 2010. The DA’s office has not yet released data about pot convictions during that time period.

And they also note Harris's "mixed record on marijuana."


Anyway, this is the article Harris's press secretary believes shows that what Biden and Gabbard said consisted of "dishonest smears."

I don't think it does that, and neither do most of the people whose replies to his tweet I've read.

It does flesh out what they said, and it corrects some details, including the major statistical mistake Gabbard made talking about marijuana violations. But it also points out that the paper couldn't get data yet on the number of pot convictions in SF during Harris's years as DA there. Years after she'd been smoking pot herself.

[W_HAMILTON]

1. I linked that same article earlier -- it most certainly does refute most of Gabbard's claims.

[highplainsdem]

2. No, it doesn't, except for what she said about the number of marijuana violations. And it

specifically points out that Harris prosecuted marijuana cases while SF DA, but the paper doesn't know how many people she prosecuted, couldn't get that data yet.

[W_HAMILTON]

5. If the data isn't available, then Gabbard's claim was a lie because she also didn't have the data.

Furthermore, her claim that Harris "kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor" was also found to be a lie because it was actually attorneys in her office that were found to be doing that without Harris's knowledge and Harris publicly criticized them for their actions when she found out about that practice.

[highplainsdem]

7. Gabbard wasn't lying. She'd relied on a source that got that statistic wrong. And the article

makes it clear that Harris did prosecute marijuana violations herself. The paper just hasn't been able to find out how many.

Re the parts of the article where Harris said she wasn't aware of what people working for her were doing -- that's presented as what Harris said herself, and not as something corroborated by others involved. Maybe it was, or could be. But the article does not present as a fact that Harris didn't know. The article says Harris said she didn't know.

[W_HAMILTON]

10. Yes, she wrongly relied on a conservative source for her attack.

Despicable.

[Andy823]

24. I guess that old saying is true

"the enemy of my enemy is my friend", even if the person says trump is innocent, and is a favorite of Fox News, has Russian trolls supporting her on social media, and has Russia tv siding with her. Yep, who cares about the truth if you can make your current "enemy" look bad!

[highplainsdem]

25. You seem to be trying to pretend that no one crticized Harris's record before Gabbard did,

so you can make an ad hominem argument against Gabbard and anything problematic about Harris's reord goes away.

But that fact-checking article in the Mercury News refers to:

a scandal Harris faced in her last year as San Francisco district attorney

blistering criticism from a state judge

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

At the time, Harris was slow to admit fault, with her office originally accusing the judge of bias because she was married to a defense attorney.

Harris’s attorney general office did block DNA testing that some legal observers believe could have helped overturn the murder conviction of a death row inmate

her office defended a murder conviction in which a prosecutor allowed false testimony in court. That provoked harsh criticism of her office from a federal appeals court panel

That's a small part of Harris's history in those jobs.

And except for that statistic Gabbard got wrong because the source she quoted got it wrong, this is factual.

Californians who followed the news during that time have heard some of this. People outside California are less likely to know about it, but with Harris running for president, she should have realized people would be looking at her record, just as she insisted on looking at Biden's.

[wasupaloopa]

27. What are you afraid of? You can't change what is going to happen. Biden is a good guy

but trying to keep him in the lead by making claims about another good Dem is not going to help him.

[SunsetDreams2]

28. Exactly nt

[highplainsdem]

31. I'm not "afraid." I don't like seeing other candidates' statements about her record mischaracterized

by Harris's press secretary as "dishonest smears" when they were basically accurate, except for the mistake Gabbard made relying on a source that got a statistic wrong, and for minor details.

It was Harris's press secretary who brought up this fact check in the Mercury News. I noticed right away that it basically confirmed most of what Biden (especially) and Gabbard said, and I looked through the replies and saw other people responding there noticed the same thing. So I posted about it.

And I think the article is helpful for any DUers who want more background info. I posted the link, and DUers can read it in its entiirety..

And since Harris's press secretary posted the link, he apparently wants people to read it.

[SunsetDreams2]

8. California didn't legalize recreational weed

California didn't legalize weed for recreation until 2018
Marijuana Legalization Goes into Effect in 2018

After the approval of the Marijuana Act in 2016, weed will be legal in the state of California starting Jan. 1, 2018.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Timeline-Marijuana-Legalization-in-California-464268753.html%3famp=y

If it wasn’t legal until 2018, attacking Harris for following state law between 2011 and 2016 is utter nonsense.

[questionseverything]

13. she still doesnt want to legalize it at the federal level...she is going against what 70% plus

voters want

she has several instances of"she didn't know" her office or her deputies were doing illegal stuff

she tried to keep a guy on death row by refusing dna evidence til a judge intervened


<shrugs>

[SunsetDreams2]

16. She DOES want to legalize at Federal Level

Sen. Kamala Harris Introduces Law to Federally Legalize, Tax Marijuana

On Tuesday, Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris announced that she is teaming up with House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler to co-sponsor the MORE Act of 2019, a bill that would decriminalize marijuana on the federal level and expunge low-level marijuana possession convictions. If enacted, the bill would also provide grants to members of communities of color, in an attempt to reverse decades of damage that cannabis criminalization has done to those communities.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/kamala-harris-marijuana-bill-legalize-tax-weed-pot-862192/amp/

“She tried to keep a guy on death row...”

You mean Kevin Cooper?

Ramos said his office agreed to new testing in 2001 and 2002 of material selected in part by Cooper’s own DNA expert. That testing showed Cooper was in the home at the time of the murders, smoked cigarettes in the Ryen’s station wagon after he stole it and his blood and the blood of at least one victim was on a t-shirt found by the side of a road leading away from the murders, Ramos said.

Cooper’s scheduled execution in 2004 was stayed when a federal appellate court in San Francisco called for further review of scientific evidence that Ramos said led another judge to determine that “Cooper alone was responsible for these terrible murders.”

A San Diego judge in 2011 blocked Cooper’s request for a third round of DNA testing.

..

Interest was renewed by a column last week by New York Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristof suggesting Cooper was framed. U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, who previously was the state’s attorney general, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate and state Treasurer John Chiang are among those supporting new DNA tests.

https://www.apnews.com/9a82ea30828742408b416f180c65f26d

What’s the next goal?

[questionseverything]

17. decriminalizing and legalizing are different things

by decriminalizing people can still be ordered to drug court, fined ,jailed on and on


the worst criminal should have due process, in America that includes untainted evidence

<shrugs>

[SunsetDreams2]

20. Another Goal?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Making marijuana legal at the federal level is the smart thing to do and it’s the right thing to do. Today, I’m announcing my support for <a href="https://twitter.com/CoryBooker?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CoryBooker</a>’s Marijuana Justice Act. <a href="https://t.co/cOh3SjMaOW">pic.twitter.com/cOh3SjMaOW</a></p>— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) <a href="

Link to tweet

?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 10, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[questionseverything]

21. so in 2018 she backed legalization and now she just backs decriminalization?

as biden says, she has several plans

[SunsetDreams2]

22. Good GRIEF they are 2 different bills

that are aimed at LEGALIZING and DECRIMINALIZING marijuana at the Federal Level. If you can’t understand that, I don’t know what to tell you. Have a good night, I’ve got some work to do.

[questionseverything]

32. by only decrimanalizing at federal level, cash must still be used in the states that legalize it

if a judge orders a person to do drug court, which harris plan would allow, and the person doesn't do everything exactly right, the person can still be jailed

they are not the same thing and her stance now seems to be harsher than when she backed the earlier bill

biden is wrong about mj too if it makes you feel any better

[uponit7771]

29. +1,

[Demsrule86]

30. It doesnt.

[Trenzalore]

3. Damage is done

She was having a mediocre debate and she got punched in the face from a direction she wasn't expecting.

Joe just has to be able to stand up for himself to seem effective.

I do expect there to be backlash for attacking President Obama's record at some point. The candidates hoping for attention really need to stop doing that.

[Princetonian]

4. Harris did directly prosecute marijuana cases as San Francisco district attorney from 2004-2010

Hmmm... I was told otherwise on another thread.

[4now]

6. Is the article saying that Harris, as SF district attorney, sent people to jail for marijuana

even though she was a pot smoker herself?
They just don't know how many were convicted.
Very strange.

[highplainsdem]

12. She had been a pot smoker earlier, according to what she said in a Breakfast Club interview.

Video of that interview from CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/02/11/kamala-harris-marijuana-radio-int-orig-vstop-bdk.cnn

[melman]

9. This Sams guy is a real piece of work

[mopinko]

11. the debate on cash bail is a pretty recent one.

i dont remember hearing much about it before the last year or 2. it has been an issue here in cook county.

the fact that she wanted higher bail for gun crimes is a GOOD thing.

[highplainsdem]

14. I remember posting about the issue of bail and bail bondsmen and the poor being kept in jail

several years ago, since I ran across it while researching ALEC:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x594171

https://www.npr.org/2010/01/21/122725771/Bail-Burden-Keeps-U-S-Jails-Stuffed-With-Inmates

[Princetonian]

15. "the fact that she wanted higher bail for gun crimes is a GOOD thing"

According to the article, Harris has "since changed her tune, criticizing cash bail and pushing for national reform."

Do you think that is a bad decision on her part?

[mopinko]

18. no. i'm just praising her for wanting increased measures for gun crime.

i think at this point there is a pretty strong consensus, at least among sane people, that cash bail doesnt do what we think it does.
it has been overhauled here in cook county (i cant give you details) with very little opposition.

[highplainsdem]

23. I'd think that with gun crimes the goal should be denying bail, period, not just raising it.

Wow, just found an article on the problems in Cook County, and how fast gang members got out of jail even when bonds were raised.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-guns-cook-county-bonds-20170127-story.html


That's from January 2017.

[mopinko]

26. well, part of the reforms are to look more at how dangerous the person is,

and realizing that the bad guys had the most money.

bit of a warning, tho, that the only opposition came from the fop, and this story is part spin and resistance.

[oasis]

19. "When you're explaining, you're losing".