As a state administration official, Kamala Harris was once accused of remaining silent and taking no action after she noticed blatant corruption in law enforcement. It made some wonder what would happen if she competed for the position of the US President with ‘Speaking Truth and Demanding Justice’ as her campaign slogan. When she was a presidential candidate, she described herself as a determined fighter and fearless advocate.
She also promised that she would fix the damaged criminal justice system of the US if she were to be a free world leader. Some viewed it as her attempt to transform her character flaw into a strong suit for votes from unsuspecting constituents.
Kamala Harris announced her US presidential goals in January 2019 when she was a junior senator in California. Pundits were quick to consider her a leading candidate in a continually growing field of Democratic candidates who sought the 2020 nomination of the party.
Some wondered whether political reporters and mainstream media outlets would study the past of Harris and question her based on it. As for those pundits, in that case, it was tricky in a nationwide campaign to transform an ugly political past into a glossy version without blemishes. One of her campaign hurdles emerged from the NY Times, which featured a long profile of Harris a couple of years ago.
In a NY Times story, Harris conceded that as California’s Attorney General (AG), she had been given detailed information about systemic cheating in law enforcement in the so-called OC jailhouse informant scandal. Deputies in the OC Sheriff’s Department did the following.
- Ran scams that were not in line with the US Constitution against inmates before their judicial trials
- Destroyed or concealed exculpatory evidence
- Repeatedly lied under oath to hide their messes
Those affected in the crime and their relatives were furious that the habit of the tainted deputies of treating the constitution with contempt botched trials.
Over some years, this scandal upended 20 or more big felony cases, which included the cases that concerned acts of murder. The California Appellate Court criticized the corruption severely in a 2016 ruling, as a responsibility-shirking Harris was California’s Attorney General. The justices not only found that there was a grave threat to America’s criminal justice system but also criticized officials for putting up with lousy ethics.
It was not a mysterious situation for Harris. Back then, she told LA Times reporter Kate Zernike that she realized that there was misconduct in law enforcement.
The fraudulent law enforcement officers were not held responsible. The Office of Orange County District Attorney Anthony Joseph Rackauckas tried to win judicial trials with the so-called OCSD scams. However, Rackauckas and Orange County Sheriff Sandra Sue Hutchens acted as if there was no law enforcement misconduct. Harris took no action when it was up to her to make a move.
That was not fully correct; Harris announced the initiation of a probe in 2015 and acted as if she was some trustable watchdog for the public. However, the alleged investigation withered in a bureaucratic space as offending OC Sheriff’s Department deputies and prosecution lawyers were relieved when the deadline to sue was over.
Zernike quoted UCI’s law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky, as the scandal was at its peak, and described Harris’ lack of action as outrageous. Zernike also relayed a vital piece of information.
As for Zernike, Chemerinsky claimed that Harris called him twice to state that she was in control of the corruption situation and was investigating it. Chemerinsky also told the NY Times that to his knowledge, Harris did nothing about the scandal.
Some found the investigation a sham right from the beginning, as there was proof from Harris, a person authorized to arrest anyone who broke the law in California. Harris told Zernike that it was her philosophical belief that an attorney general should ignore corrupt law enforcement people. Some feel that true to her belief, Harris cleverly kept the corruption situation hidden during earlier campaigns.
Assume that scoundrels wrongly put you in jail or convicted you and that California’s top prosecutor was not interested in your situation. Consider the message that this attorney general delivered to corrupt police officers. Harris was calm and satisfied with her concept of justice. This perhaps explained why she reckoned that it was the voters who could choose to protect the system from government officials’ abuse, not the AG.