Three years later, in 2003, she ran for district attorney of San Francisco---and was elected in a runoff election. She was the first person of color to be D.A. in the city. Harris was re-elected ...
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· As San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris’s Office Stopped Cooperating With Victims of Catholic Church Child Abuse Thanks to Kamala Harris’s predecessor, the San Francisco DA’s office had...
· Accordingly, it is deeply troubling that in 2005 District Attorney Harris ignored the recommendation of her own assistant district attorneys that she adopt a “ Brady policy” of “disclos [ing] past...
Kamala D. Harris, 32nd Attorney General. Born and raised in the East Bay, Kamala is the daughter of Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, a Tamilian breast cancer specialist who traveled to the United States from Chennai, India to pursue her graduate studies at UC Berkeley.
In 2004-2010, Kamala Harris served as the first woman District Attorney in San Francisco's history, and as the first African American woman and South Asian American woman in California to hold the office.
After attending public schools, Kamala's strong commitment to justice and public service led her to Howard University, America’s oldest historically black university, and then to the University of Cali fornia, Hastings College of the Law.
In 1998, Harris was named managing attorney of the Career Criminal Unit of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, where she prosecuted three strikes cases and serial felony offenders.
Hallinan’s pursuit brought forward a wave of victims who said they had been raped or molested by clergy over the years. Hallinan, in his role as district attorney, responded to the story by requesting that the San Francisco Archdiocese provide 75 years of personnel files relating to sex abuse cases.
As Hallinan’s investigations unfolded in 2002, state Sen. John Burton, who represented San Francisco, authored legislation to waive the statute of limitations in civil cases, allowing victims of childhood sexual abuse a chance to seek justice in court with a one-year window to file suit.
But when it came to taking on the Catholic Church, survivors of clergy sexual abuse say that Harris turned a blind eye, refusing to take action against clergy members accused of sexually abusing children when it meant confronting one of the city’s most powerful political institutions.
Hallinan, in his role as district attorney, responded to the story by requesting that the San Francisco Archdiocese provide 75 years of personnel files relating to sex abuse cases. “We want anything they have in their records,” Hallinan told reporters at the time.
The San Francisco Chronicle, for instance, editorialized that the investigation was merely a “fishing expedition.”. Hallinan’s pursuit, though, also brought forward a wave of victims who said they had been raped or molested by clergy over the years.
Other victims have said they were molested over 100 times by O’Shea at church facilities in the city and at the lake house.
Terence McAteer, a resident of Nevada City, California, says he was raped as a child by Austin Peter Keegan, an infamous San Francisco priest. McAteer said he sees no value in Harris’s decision to conceal the clergy abuse files, which had been used to indict his abuser but remain secret to this day.
Advertisement. Harris’s tenure as San Francisco’s chief prosecutor reveals much about her character and judgment. In 1940, United States attorney general Robert Jackson told a gathering of federal prosecutors: “The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. . . .
Advertisement. Her decision to do nothing came back to haunt Harris in 2010 when, as the Journal explained, “a San Francisco police crime-lab technician was found to be skimming cocaine from evidence for personal use” that resulted in about 1,000 cases being “dismissed or dropped because of tainted drug tests.”.
Before Harris was elected district attorney in 2003, a U.S. Supreme Court decision made it impossible to pursue criminal prosecutions of child sexual abuse cases after statutes of limitation had expired. For many victims, that left lawsuits in civil court as the only path for seeking justice.
They complain that Harris was consistently silent on the Catholic Church's abuse scandal — first as district attorney in San Francisco and later as California's attorney general . In a statement to The Associated Press, the Harris campaign underscored her record of supporting child sex abuse victims but did not address her silence regarding victims ...
Piscitelli says Harris never responded to him when he wrote to tell her that a priest who had molested him was still in ministry at a local Catholic cathedral.
They complain that Harris was consistently silent on the Catholic Church's abuse scandal — first as district attorney in San Francisco and later as California's attorney general.
After Harris took office as DA in 2004, attorneys representing abuse survivors in civil cases asked her office to release church records on abusive priests that had been gathered by her predecessor, Terence Hallinan. Harris refused, a decision her office said was intended to protect the identities of clergy abuse victims.
Harris refused, a decision her office said was intended to protect the identities of clergy abuse victims. "It would be virtually impossible to release records without compromising the identity of the victims," two of her top aides said in a joint letter.
They say that the state's current attorney general, Xavier Becerra, has been more aggressive in dealing with the issue.
Adachi spoke at his office in an hour-long interview with The Post nine days before he diedon Feb. 22. Kamala Harris ‘grew up’ with Jeff Adachi. Then tragedy struck. Adachi and Harris were old friends from the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
Harris was elected district attorney in 2003 and reelected in 2007. As a candidate for attorney general, she stressed that she had simultaneously pushed criminal-justice reforms while also being tough on violent crime. Story continues below advertisement.
But she took responsibility for the failings, including that she had not developed a written policy so that her office would notify defendants about problems with witnesses and evidence, as required by law.
Woo appeared on behalf of Harris’s office to answer questions about why the district attorney didn’t inform defense lawyers about potentially tainted evidence. Under a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors must turn over evidence that could exonerate defendants.
Woo said Harris relied on police to inform them that such exculpatory evidence existed. The judge was incredulous. “But it is the district attorney’s office affirmative obligation,” Massullo said, according to a court transcript. “It’s not the police department who has the affirmative obligation.
Massullo put the blame directly on Harris. In her ruling, she excoriated the district attorney for having “failed to disclose Madden’s criminal record, her suspension, and information relating to her ability to perform her work as a lab criminalist.”.
Adachi, the public defender, wroteto Harris, asking when her office first learned about the possible tainted evidence. As questions mounted, a group of defendants asked Massullo, the judge, to dismiss their drug cases.
SAN FRANCISCO – Kamala Harris was this city’s top prosecutor, running to become California’s elected attorney general, when a scandal stunned her office and threatened to upend her campaign. One of Harris’ top deputies had emailed a colleague that a crime-lab technician had become “increasingly UNDEPENDABLE for testimony.”.
The judge did not name the individuals. Harris said in the interview that she was not told of the problem at the time by the police or her top assistants. Shown a copy of the correspondence during the interview, she said, “I never saw this email . . . and that was part of my frustration with the process.
But she took responsibility for the failings, including that she had not developed a written policy so that her office would notify defendants about problems with witnesses and evidence, as required by law.
One of the most important players in the case was Jeff Adachi, the city’s elected public defender, who was at odds with the way Harris handled the scandal. “When all that happened, I think she was slow to respond,” Adachi said, while not blaming Harris directly.
Harris was elected district attorney in 2003 and reelected in 2007. As a candidate for attorney general, she stressed that she had simultaneously pushed criminal-justice reforms while also being tough on violent crime. Following state guidelines, her office had pursued thousands of cases against drug offenders, ...
Separately, Sharon Woo , an assistant district attorney working for Harris, became concerned that Madden wasn’t showing up to testify in court. That led her to write the email to Harris’ chief deputy in November 2009 that said Madden was “UNDEPENDABLE.”.
Woo said Harris relied on police to inform them that such exculpatory evidence existed. The judge was incredulous. “But it is the district attorney’s office affirmative obligation,” Massullo said, according to a court transcript. “It’s not the police department who has the affirmative obligation.
There has been much talk about the time Sen. Kamala Harris spent as a prosecutor. As a public defender for 24 years, I examined, critiqued and battled Harris when she was the San Francisco district attorney. And more often than not, Harris and I were on opposite sides.
Sen. Harris’ progressive approach did not end with marijuana prosecutions or lack thereof. She co-founded the Coalition to End the Exploitation of Kids. She then spearheaded a task force combating the human trafficking of girls. Upon her invitation, I went to the task force meetings to speak on behalf of one of my juvenile clients.
There are many who will criticize me for this piece, but I feel compelled to speak out. Although we as public defenders may have disagreed with Harris at times or wanted more from her office, there is no one who can say that there was a more progressive district attorney in California than Kamala Harris.