Presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris’s record, while she was the Attorney General of California, has always been under question. Her tough on crime stance often meant, say activists, that the rights of people of color were often abused.
Take Jose Diaz, who was wrongly convicted in the state for two sexual assaults it was later proved he didn’t commit. He was exonerated after serving almost nine years in a California prison, however, the office of then-Attorney General Kamala Harris wasn’t ready to concede.
Here are the facts: In 1984, Diaz was convicted of rape and attempted rape. In 1993, he was paroled and had to register as a sex offender. All along he worked to prove his innocence. Finally, after 19 years his conviction was reversed. It took two more years for the State of California to grant him compensation for the time he served in jail.
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Harris’ staff fought hard against his claim for compensation. The office even tried to make Diaz re-register as a sex offender, despite his innocence.
According to Bloomberg, Diaz received a letter that said: “Therefore, you are required to continue to register as a sex offender in California.” The letter is signed by a staff member in the sex offender tracking program “For Kamala D. Harris.”
Because of this, Diaz could not coach his children’s sports teams, and it caused him a problem when he job hunting.
Diaz said he feels Harris’ office was trying to get him to back down
“There’s no question in my mind,” Diaz said. “When I received that letter, I was so upset.”
“The Diaz case is one of a series of battles Harris’ prosecutors waged — in both the offices of San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general — to resist innocence claims, often using technical timeliness or jurisdictional arguments, lawyers and innocence advocates say,” Bloomberg reported.
“The goal is justice,” said Gerald Schwartzbach, Diaz’s lawyer. “The goal isn’t just rules, regulations and procedures. They penalized an innocent man with technical arguments. To me that’s fundamentally contradictory to the whole purpose of the criminal justice system.”
Harris’ presidential campaign spokesman, Ian Sams, claimed otherwise.
“Kamala has fought to give ex-offenders a second chance ever since she created one of the nation’s first major re-entry programs, ‘Back on Track,’ in San Francisco, which helped put people in jobs not jails,” Sams said in a written response.
“Of course, she wishes she could’ve gotten more done,” Sams added, “but she fought to clear the state rape-kit backlog in her first year to ensure evidence is available in cases and, in the Senate, she’s introduced a bill to increase pay for public defenders to improve the quality of defense counsel for individuals in their cases.”
The Diaz case was just one of many cited by activists when pointing out Harris’ poor track record when it comes to the wrongly convicted.
