Your right..gotta keep them Black Men in jail, even if they're innocent..

@Charlene ummm, what? You do understand an attorney for Either side MUST work as hard as they can regardless of personal inclination?

@AnneWimsey actually even with absolute evidence of innocents..Harris Chose to fight their release.

@Charlene and do you understand that the overturn of One convictions (such as from faulty lab work ) brings every other one into question, potentially letting actual Monsters loose? Again, zeal is Required as a Duty.

@AnneWimsey yes,yes I do..Do You understand the Concept of Innocence..or should we just let them rot in jail or go to their deaths by lethal injection.
Massachusetts had that issue with drug busts..many where released..some weren't..that's the chance you take in a "free" society..

@Charlene The concept of innocence, much like the concept of guilty, isn't as clearcut and obvious as we like to believe. I don't belong to Harris' fan club by any means. I am a defense lawyer. But as a defense lawyer I also know that the individual prosecutors actually come to believe that the person they are prosecuting is in fact guilty of the crime. I am not defending that as something desirable, but I am providing mitigation by putting it in the context of our incredible ability to justify oneself in our own minds. It might be evil, but it is an evil that we all have.

Truelove was convicted by the jury (made up of people like you and me) based on an eye-witness testimony. It is very true that we now know that the eye-witness testimony (once thought as the gold standard of evidence, "I saw him do it"!) is highly unreliable. But lots of defendants get convicted SOLELY on the basis of testimony from one person who claimed to have seen the defendant commit the crime. They are sometimes wrong, and innocent people get convicted. In fact, that is not uncommon in our criminal "justice" system. Again, I am not defending that as something we should accept and move on. We shouldn't. But Kamala Harris didn't invent this, nor does she have a monopoly on it. It's systemic.

If you read the appellate opinion that threw out the conviction (https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A130481A.PDF), this is what it says:

We then granted defendant’s petition for rehearing and received additional briefing from the parties. On rehearing and reexamination of all of the issues, we reverse, based on one of defendant’s several appellate claims, that being that he received ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial counsel did not take any action in the face of highly prejudicial prosecutorial misconduct.

That means his own defense counsel fuck up. The judge who presided this case also fucked up. And the jury? Well they were all too eager to convict him sorely on the basis of fear. What was the prosecutorial misconduct that the appellate court talked about (which went unnoticed by the defense counsel and the judge)? Well this was it:

In closing argument, the prosecutor pointed out that [the eye-witness] feared retaliation from defendant’s friends and family, then repeatedly argued that [the eye-witness] should be believed because only someone certain defendant was the shooter would risk her life and others, and endure hardships in a witness protection program she was forced to enter, in order to testify against him. The prosecutor wove these points into the very fabric of her closing argument, going so far as to urge the jury to have the same “courage” as [the eye-witness] and find defendant guilty.

If you were a juror, would you think that was an improper argument? You wouldn't, of course. Some lawyers would also miss that as an improper argument, and obviously his own counsel did. It is improper because it was based on our sense of fear, not on actual evidence.

If you believe that the eye-witness was telling the truth, they you would think that his conviction was thrown out on a "technicality."

Kamala Harris was simply the boss of the prosecutor in this case. She would be inclined to believe that Mr. Truelove was in fact a guilty person. It turns out she was mistaken. But this wasn't "let's keep innocent Black Men in jail." If it was, we have all been guilty of it for many decades.

Oh, and this is more complete back story if you want to read up on it. The cops fucked up and didn't do a proper investigation, or maybe it was something more deliberate. The first defense lawyer fucked up and didn't do a proper investigation. But you know, in this society it takes money to do a proper investigation. The prosecutor fucked up because she made an improper argument (probably without knowing that it was an improper argument) and the judge fucked up by not stopping the prosecutor from making the improper argument. We as a society fucked up because we are so controlled by fear and the desire for retribution, we are willing to ignore the presumption of innocence and the requirement of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" in order to convict the "criminals" and put them away. I don't have enough hubris to condemn Kamala alone for this.

[law.umich.edu]

[law.umich.edu]

@AtheistReader I 'm no illusion that she's the only A.G that polish their creds on the backs of innocent Black Americans..She IS however now running for V.P..that makes Her Record as important as Bidens..IMO..neither deserve to be candidates..

@Charlene Neither Biden nor Harris are my first choices. But you used the term "deserve." So... in your opinion, I am curious, who deserves to be candidates?

@AtheistReader Bernie would have have great, Warren was my 1st choice but decided to back off M4A and the Student Debit issue, Nina Turner would be awesome with Talib as her V.P. Anybody not indentured to Wall st, anyone emphatically pro-M4A, especially during a Pandemic that's killed 159,000 fellow citizens. Anyone that's pro defunding/demilitarizing the police, that Won't fuck with Soc Security.,Medicare,Medicaid and Will raises taxes on the Oligarchs and 1%.

@Charlene We agree on those issues, absolutely. Biden/Harris are not ideal, but at least they point to the right direction. Harris is more to the left than Biden (but yeah, that's not saying a lot). I am certainly not disappointed by her pick. She did support her version of watered-down M4A, and she went after Biden hard on the civil rights issues. I am voting for Biden/Harris, but now my level of enthusiasm for it has gone up a notch.

@AtheistReader really? How Exactly do they point in the right direction? Seems to me there pointing to the ol status quo..you know, ignore Black Americans demands for Equality and Economic Justice. And their saying very Loudly NO to M4A in the middle of a fucking Pandemic that's killed One Hundred Sixty THOUSAND, and they'll have to declare Bankruptcy (which Joe made more Difficult in the 90's) And Foreclosure on their homes..and if your BIPOC..you're just Fucked every which way.
So please, tell me Exactly how their headed in the right direction..
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