She hasn’t had an in-depth interview with a journalist since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
A presidential nominee normally accounts for their past actions in public life and clarifies their plans for the future. This year, Kamala Harris ran in no primaries, and since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, has not had a formal press conference where she would be expected to answer questions from reporters. She not sat down for an in-depth interview on television or with a major paper such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. (CNN recently announced that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will be interviewed by one of the network’s anchors this week.) This avoidance may be a strategy to keep the “good vibes” of her campaign going, but it does a disservice to voters and bodes poorly for how transparent and forthcoming Harris would be if she wins the presidency.
Before Harris was vice president or a U.S. senator, she spent roughly a quarter century in the criminal-justice system––she was California’s attorney general, San Francisco’s district attorney, and a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, a job she took shortly after graduating from law school. Her work as a prosecutor constitutes the bulk of her career. She wrote a 2009 book, Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer, laying out her policy views. And she has talked a lot about criminal-justice issues in her years as a national politician.
Yet even her positions on important criminal-justice issues remain unclear, because of inconsistencies in her actions and statements and failures to address tough questions posed by critics of her record.
I sent the Harris campaign questions that voters deserve to know about her record as a “top cop,” about apparent changes in her rhetoric and positions, and about what policies she would pursue if elected. At the time of publication, her campaign hasn’t provided any answers, but should that change, this story will be updated. Here are some of the questions I asked, edited for clarity and concision:
- Daniel Larsen, an unsympathetic defendant, was convicted of felony possession of a knife in 1999 after police testified that they saw him throw the weapon under a car in a Los Angeles parking lot. He got 28 years in prison. But as it turned out, a witness––James McNutt, a retired Army sergeant first class and former police chief––had been in the parking lot that night with his wife; both gave sworn statements that they saw a different man, William Hewitt, throw the knife under the car. Hewitt swore that’s what happened too. So did Hewitt’s girlfriend. Yet at trial, Larsen’s attorney failed to identify or call any of those witnesses; he also failed to request that the knife be examined for fingerprints or to argue that it belonged to someone else. He was later disbarred for failing other clients.
In 2009, just before you became attorney general of California, Judge Suzanne H. Segal ruled that Larsen’s case was one of those “extraordinary cases where the petitioner asserts his innocence and establishes that the court cannot have confidence in the contrary finding of guilt.” She declared that “no reasonable juror would have found Petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” and that he “clearly received ineffective assistance of counsel.” The state was ordered to retry the case or release Larsen.
But while you were attorney general, your office filed an appeal attempting to block Larsen’s release, because he hadn’t filed his claim for relief in a timely manner. In other words, your office sought to keep a man in prison on procedural grounds, despite strong evidence of his innocence. As a result, Larsen spent two more years in prison, until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that he had cleared the threshold for producing proof of innocence. Even then, your office continued to litigate the matter, arguing before a three-judge panel that “one reasonable juror could still vote to convict.” When that failed, forcing the prisoner’s release, your office worked to prevent Larsen from receiving funds earmarked for people who are wrongly convicted of crimes.
Why did your office work so hard to keep a man in prison after it was clear that he didn’t commit the crime that put him there?
- In 2010, when you were San Francisco’s district attorney, a scandal rocked the crime lab run by the San Francisco Police Department. A technician who analyzed drugs was deemed “increasingly UNDEPENDABLE for testimony” by an assistant DA, a co-worker observed that the area where she tested drugs was in “disarray,” an audit found missing evidence, and the technician’s sister reported that she had a vial of cocaine at her house. She ultimately acknowledged taking evidence home for personal use. Her behavior raised the prospect of unreliable analysis and testimony in hundreds of cases. But neither you nor your office notified defense attorneys in potentially affected cases.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on a judicial rebuke you received, writing that the judge “concluded that prosecutors had failed to fulfill their constitutional duty to tell defense attorneys” about problems in the crime lab, violating the rights of defendants. At the time, you defended your behavior and criticized the judge as biased. Later, while you were running for president in 2020, The Washington Post asked about the matter, and reported that you “took responsibility for the failings,” including your failure to develop a written policy so that your office “would notify defendants about problems with witnesses and evidence.” You told the Post, “No excuses. The buck stops with me.”
In the future, if a federal prosecutor is found to violate a defendant’s rights, what consequences should he or she face?
- In Smart on Crime, you championed putting more police officers on the street, arguing that it would mean faster responses to assaults and robberies and fewer quality-of-life crimes. “Virtually all law-abiding citizens feel safer when they see police officers walking a beat,” you wrote. “This is as true in economically poor neighborhoods as wealthy ones.” But in a June 2020 radio interview, you said, “It is old thinking, it is outdated, and is actually wrong and backward to think that more police officers will create more safety.” That same month, appearing on The View, you said: “In many cities in America, over one-third of their city budget goes to police … What are we doing? What about the money going to social services? What about the money going to helping people with job training? What about helping with the mental-health issues that communities are being plagued with?”
Did something cause you to change your position in the years after you published your book? If so, what? Do you still believe that cities should pay to put more police officers on the street?
- When you were attorney general of California, the ACLU faulted you for failing to protect the privacy of the state’s residents. “On your watch as California’s top cop, law enforcement agencies up and down the state have been secretly using social media surveillance software that has been marketed to monitor protests and activists of color,” they wrote. “Highly invasive facial recognition that may have a disproportionate impact on Californians of color is also being quietly used in several of our largest cities and counties. As the Attorney General, your leadership is urgently needed to address the lack of transparency, accountability, and oversight of law enforcement surveillance technology in order to fulfill your duty to safeguard the privacy, free speech, and civil rights of Californians.”
What, if anything, did you do in response to that letter? And how does that response reflect your position on how transparent the government should be about the surveillance technologies that it uses?
- As attorney general of California, you were criticized for taking a hands-off approach to credible abuse allegations against local prosecutors and police. “Harris sent an unmistakable signal,” the investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley wrote in a scathing 2019 OC Weekly article. “Under her watch, police-agency employees in California were free to commit perjury—even in death-penalty cases, as they did in Orange County.”
After multiple Oakland police officers were accused of having sex with an underage girl, “civil rights lawyers and California residents had been pleading for then-Attorney General Kamala Harris to open an independent investigation into the situation, since it spanned several police departments and involved allegations of coverups,” Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote in Reason magazine. “But she never responded to the petitions and pleas asking her to look into systemic sexual exploitation by state agents in Oakland.”
David Campos, a former San Francisco supervisor and police commissioner and a vice chair of the California Democratic Party, told The New York Times, “We never thought we had an ally in the district attorney … When she had the opportunity to do something about police accountability, she was either not visible, or when she was, she was on the wrong side.”
How would you answer critics who say that you did too little to police the police, and if elected president, what approach would you take to federal oversight of law enforcement?
- David Daleiden is an anti-abortion activist. In 2015, he pretended to be a representative of a fetal-tissue-procurement company and met with Planned Parenthood, and later released surreptitiously taken videos to show those staffers discussing the sale of fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood says the videos were misleadingly edited. On July 31, 2015, the National Abortion Federation filed a lawsuit claiming that Daleiden violated privacy laws when taking the videos. As AG, you opened a criminal investigation. Daleiden was indicted by your successor. In a lawsuit, Daleiden says that he was targeted for prosecution because Planned Parenthood is an ideological ally that has given you campaign contributions.
Undercover videos are sometimes used by journalists and activists on the right and the left. The people taking the videos argue that doing so is in the public interest and that they are exposing misconduct. Do you favor or oppose laws that make it unlawful for journalists and activists to surreptitiously capture video and release it to the public? How do you propose ensuring that such laws are enforced in an evenhanded manner?
- As San Francisco’s district attorney, you prosecuted parents for their children’s habitual failure to attend school. Do you think district attorneys nationwide should pursue similar policies or that the risks of overly harsh enforcement are too high?
Candidates aren’t informed about every issue. Sometimes, a reasonable answer is “I have to think about that and get back to you.” But Harris is well versed in all of these issues, having pondered them for years. Voters deserve to know where she stands on them today.
