Much has been said about Senator Kamala Harris’ time as a prosecutor. As a public defender for 24 years, I examined, criticized, and fought Harris as a district attorney in San Francisco. And more often than not, Harris and I were on the opposite side.
Having had this experience, I feel compelled to speak about Harris’ case while she was a district attorney. Simply put, Harris was the state’s most progressive prosecutor. This is not an anecdotal opinion. It is based on facts.
As a San Francisco DA, Harris has refused to seek the death penalty – even in a case where a well-respected police officer was tragically killed. Cases of the sale of marijuana were systematically reduced to crimes. And marijuana possession cases weren’t even on the court register. They just weren’t charged. Unless there was a big case of growth, or some unique circumstance, that was the reformist approach taken by DA Harris’s office. The accusations that the marijuana prosecutions were severe during his tenure are absurd. The reality was quite the opposite.
Fight against trafficking and get back on track
Senator Harris’ progressive approach did not end with marijuana lawsuits or their absence. She co-founded the Coalition to End Child Exploitation. She then headed a working group on the fight against trafficking in girls. At his invitation, I went to working group meetings to speak on behalf of one of my young clients. My client, a beautiful teenager, had aspirations to join the military. She was selling her body to earn money when her life was cut short; she was found dead in a San Francisco dumpster.
Harris and I talked about my client and the constant exploitation of young girls. Unlike her predecessors, she did something about it. She stopped prosecuting young girls for prostitution – recognizing that they were victims who needed trauma treatment and not criminals who needed to be incarcerated.
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Harris also formalized a court for young adults charged with crimes, which allowed them to avoid conviction and get a second chance. She brought in a loyal progressive community organizer by hiring Lateefah Simon to lead this initiative, a diversion program called Back on Track that put non-violent offenders on the path to new jobs and helped them rebuild themselves. within their communities. Back on Track still exists today and has been a way for many young adults to avoid the ravages of a felony conviction or incarceration.
Harris programs adopted statewide
Many will criticize me for this play, but I feel compelled to speak up. Although as public defenders we sometimes disagreed with Harris or wanted more from his office, no one can say that there was a more progressive district attorney in California than Kamala Harris. She implemented and expanded programs that are now the basis of many DA offices across the state. Last month in California, DA Jeff Rosen of Santa Clara County said he would no longer seek the death penalty. It comes 16 years after Harris took the same stance in San Francisco.
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For those who have heard opposing arguments about Harris’ past work as a prosecutor, rest assured that you are hearing it from someone whose life’s work has been devoted to the cause of equality. and justice. I am the chairman of the Racial Justice Committee of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, and I have scratched and scratched a semblance of justice in our courts for over two decades.
I have long struggled with the idea of defending a former prosecutor, but Harris is more than that. I have to face the truth and say what I think is right to set the record straight. If Joe Biden were to decide not to select Kamala Harris as his running mate, his background as a San Francisco district attorney certainly shouldn’t be one of the reasons.
Niki Solis, a public defender for more than two decades, is a Deputy Public Defender in San Francisco and was Director of the Public Defender’s Office when Kamala Harris was District Attorney in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter: @NikiSolisSF
