Another source of concern associated with Gascón’s appointment is his recent declaration that he plans to seek the death penalty in cases that “warrant” it. Gascon is surely aware of the meager community support for the death penalty in San Francisco, but I am sure there are currently prosecutors in office who were unhappy with Harris’ policy of not seeking the death penalty who will welcome this change.
As to pursuing the death penalty in politically progressive counties: The ACLU data show (jump to Appendix A) that Alameda county, consistently “blue”, has been well above the California average in death sentences between 2000 and 2009. San Francisco may now face the same fate.
“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.”
–Law & Order opening narration
Lt. Government Elect Gavin Newsom’s choice, in the last days of his mayoral tenure, to appoint George Gascón as San Francisco D.A., was described by the Chronicle as a “bold move”. The article, however, focuses on Gascón’s personal qualities, rather than on an institutional “leap” he will have to perform. Policing and prosecuting, while traditionally on the same side of the adversarial field, are very different occupations, and they require different skills. The prosecutorial realm extends over charging and trial, and while police may be involved in such matters, their traditional realm is that of the investigative phase. Prosecutors are a systemic check over police investigatory practices, by way of incorporating decisions about constitutional violations into their decision whether to charge. This implies a requirement of nonpartisan consideration on the part of prosecutors. Of course, realistically, the relationship between prosecutors and police officers is much more complicated (for some insights on that, check out this Jefferson Institute publication). But it will require a certain shift in thinking. This will certainly change what the SF Weekly Snitch has referred to as a “long history of tension and soured relations” between the prosecution and the police in San Francisco.
Granted, there are some trends in both occupations that make them similar. Both are undergoing continuous change and a redefining of priorities and tasks. Community policing, a set of policies designed to help police be proactive and address community needs, now has a counterpart in the shape of community prosecuting. Both policies aim at transcending the traditional mode of law enforcement by being sensitive to residents’ needs, such as addressing quality of life crimes, something in which Gascón has gained some experience while policing the Tenderloin. And police officers are increasingly more attentive to matters traditionally reserved for other actors in the system, such as reentry and rehabilitation.
It will be interesting to follow up and see what insights Gascón has gained in policing and will bring with him to the prosecutorial office.
In the heels of the report from Michigan come two new construction projects within California, both funded by AB 900. In Calaveras County, the local jail’s capacity is to be quadrupled. And the expansion in San Bernardino adds maximum security beds.
Unsurprisingly, the Republican Caucus has been following on the progress made with AB 900 funding. From their perspective, “[i]t does not help that CDCR seems to have little direction and produces a new strategy plan on an annual basis. In the meantime, Democrats are pushing policies through the legislature – and supported by the Governor – that decrease the population through early release and place the burden of monitoring and controlling these individuals on local entities. Sadly, these are the exact same policies and actions that AB 900 was supposed to prevent.”
From an empirical perspective, however, it is the massive construction of more prison cells that should be prevented. Building prisons is akin to building public highways; as we build more to prevent congestion, congestion gradually increases to fill the volume available. It is frightening to think that incarcerating one in 100 Californians is not enough. But perhaps they are the “wrong” kind of Californians, and therefore the Republican caucus should lose no sleep over them.
In any case, these new construction projects highlight the dark and problematic side of the Plata/Coleman decision. In an effort to be courteous to the state, and not to micromanage its affairs, the three-judge panel asked for a population reduction without mandating methods the state might employ to achieve such reduction. In his response to SCOTUS Justices, Don Specter seemed to agree that building new facilities would be among the range or responses that would be in compliance with the order. I actually think a narrow interpretation of the Plata/Coleman order is not only possible, but reasonable. The court did use the word “reduction” and stated a number of inmates. To say that “reduction” is the same as “dilution” of inmates is a bit of an interpretive push. But the real point is, of course, that building new prisons, in the long run, will push California away from compliance with the order, because the new facilities will, in due course, become just as overcrowded as the old ones.
“Tough on crime, tough on crime, lock ’em up! This is how these guys ran, but it isn’t working! . . . We’re locking up people who take a couple puffs of marijuana and next thing you know we lock them up for ten years. . . Judges say there’s nothing we can do, we got these mandatory sentences. . . They go in as youths, they come out as hardened criminals…”
Bipartisanism reaches new surprising heights with this surprising little Pat Robertson video clip. Happy Holidays!
—————— Many thanks to Billy Minshall for this bit of holiday news.
The Attorney General race outcome has interesting implications as to the prosecution of medical marijuana dispensaries, and marijuana activists are pleased and optimistic.
Both candidates opposed Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use.
But Harris said she personally knew people “who have benefited” from medical marijuana – while Cooley praised a proposed ban on dispensaries in Los Angeles County and efforts by the city of Los Angeles to rein in its medical pot trade.
“Communities throughout the nation are waiting to see how we handle storefronts illegally pushing pot,” he said.
Cooley argues that pot shops violate state medical marijuana laws, which define dispensaries as members-only nonprofits run by medical marijuana patients.
Harris’ campaign manager, Brian Brokaw, said Wednesday that Harris “supports the legal use of medicinal marijuana but thinks California needs to bring consistent standards about ownership and operations of dispensaries.”
How such consistent standards can be enforced, in the shadow of federal illegality/nonprosecution, is a good question, that merits more attention to Harris’ policies in the future.
Over the last two years I’ve been baffled, and somewhat amused, by progressive and radical activists who have expressed their disappointment in Obama. Their expectation that dramatic radical change would occur overnight, and that all of its features would please them, was, to be frank, absurd. Even progressive politicians are politicians, and they operate in a world of constraints and coalitions. Anyone anointing a politician as the messiah is setting herself for a sore disappointment.
I therefore urge our readers to recall Harris’ promises to voters. These included a commitment to fighting hate crime, preventing prevalent phenomena like identity theft, raising the violent felony conviction rate, actively fighting gang-related crime (particularly among juveniles), and addressing quality of crime issues through community courts and mental health outreach. She opposes the death penalty and is committed to reentry solutions as a way to reduce recidivism and alleviate overcrowding. This platform is very promising, and certainly cause for cheer over the election results. Harris is a smart, principled, fair and honest public official. However, being California Attorney General differs greatly from being San Francisco District Attorney. She will be operating on a difficult, polarized political map. It is our responsibility to ensure that she does her job.
As the vote counting progresses, it appears that Kamala Harris has established a lead that would make it very unlikely that Cooley will catch up. If Harris, indeed, wins the race, that would mean that Jerry Brown will work with someone who has somewhat less traditional approaches to criminalization, law enforcement, and reentry. We’ll have to wait and see.
In the grand tradition we started in the 2008 elections, I’d like to offer some reflections about some of the results.
The first issue on the agenda is the meaning of Jerry Brown’s election for governor, especially if accompanied by Kamala Harris as Attorney General (an outcome which is still uncertain as I write this). As we said earlier in the race, while there are plenty of corrections-related reasons to be relieved that Meg Whitman will not be commanding our ship, Jerry Brown’s platform in these matters is not particularly innovative or efficient. Some have made much of his personal distaste for the death penalty and have predicted that, as part of a team with Kamala Harris, the institution may be abolished or at least halted de facto. Brown’s behavior during the countdown toward Albert Brown’s execution does not appear to predict such an outcome. It remains to be seen what sort of relationship Brown forges (or rekindles) with CCPOA, and what his position might be on Plata/Coleman, which he litigated fiercely against petitioners as Attorney General.
We then have the failure of Prop 19, which I decline to read as stemming from fear or demonization of marijuana users. Much of the feedback I received after publicly endorsing Prop 19 had to do with people who in principle supported legalization but thought the initiative was poorly designed and would lead to chaotic local regulation and, possibly, to “corporatization” of pot. I found it curious that the concerns about possible “corporatization” exceeded, for some, the concerns about racist oppressive enforcement, but to each their own. The lesson to be learned here is, perhaps, that the initiative process is not a good place for such reforms, and given the broad public support for the idea of legalization, creating an appropriate legal framework should be left to professional legislators.
Finally, a municipal disappointment was the disheartening passage of Prop L, the sit/lie ordinance. We blogged extensively here, here, here and here about the punitive and classist animus behind this initiative and are dismayed to see it come to life. Our hope is that the police will act sensibly in enforcing this measure.
The two candidates for Attorney General, a position which would provide its holder with plenty of influence over criminal justice policy in general and incarceration rates in California in particular, are Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley and San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris. The Chron summarized the candidates’ exchange in a televised debate. Unsurprisingly, the media has portrayed Cooley’s traditional “tough on crime” approach as clashing with Harris’ “smart on crime” innovations.
Lest the death penalty issue, which is a bone of contention between the candidates, throw you off, Harris is a tough law enforcer, far from being soft on crime. Moreover, while her overall approach to criminal justice emphasizes evidence-based measures and tackling roots rather than symptoms, there have been some gaffes. This year, for example, we’ve seen Harris endorse some measures that we found questionable, such as the (unenforceable) prohibition for sex offenders to join social networking websites and the truancy courts. While the latter measure tackles a phenomenon closely associated with crime rates, there is little evidence that scolding parents in court will do the trick. Nevertheless, Harris has proven to be a thoughtful, impartial, collaborative policymaker, who among other things endorses San Francisco’s Clean Slate program–a rare collaboration between the Sheriff’s department, the DA’s office and the PD’s office.
Cooley’s criminal justice policy does appear to be more traditional, but the L.A. District Attorney’s office has some community collaboration programs (including one for monitoring truancy!). It also devotes energy to combating gang activity. His campaign seems to include, so far, some of the familiar symbolic tactics, such as using victims as symbols of fear and highlighting controversial issues such as the death penalty to his advantage.
For the readers who may not have caught this SF Chron piece, it provides some information about the crime policy of different candidates for Oakland Mayor. It makes for a fascinating read; and interestingly, not all the candidates are uniformly knee-jerk-tough-on-crime-for-the-sake-of-it.
City Councilwoman Jean Quan says the city needs to preserve its community policing efforts, bolstering neighborhood-based programs that many credit with cutting crime. She voted to keep some of those programs even at the expense of officers’ jobs.
Former state Senate leader Don Perata is willing to throw many such programs out the window if it will keep more cops on the force, a stance that has earned him the support of the police union.
And City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan points to economic development strategies that could provide jobs for residents, rather than more funding for the Police Department, as the surest way to cut crime.
In other Oakland news, it appears that Johannes Mehserle, convicted of involuntary manslaughter in relation to Oscar Grant’s shooting, is seeking a new trial. The relevance of his new evidence to the issue of his guilt seems rather tenuous, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
