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.