Free Republic

On the day before Easter 2004, David Lee Hill fatally shot San Francisco Police Officer Isaac Espinoza and wounded his partner with an AK-47 assault rifle as they approached him for acting suspiciously in the city's Bayview area. District Attorney Kamala Harris' decision not to seek the death penalty has become a lightning rod in this year's race for state attorney general pitting her against Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, a leader in sending killers to death row. "Voters are going to want an attorney general who does not impose his or her own personal ideology or political...

San Francisco bashing is about to intensify. Three Democratic politicians with strong ties to San Francisco - Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris - are engaged in tough statewide election battles and political experts say the GOP will probably seize on the city's reputation as a bastion of left-wing politics to attack them.Gubernatorial candidate Brown was born in San Francisco, served as Oakland's mayor and lives in the East Bay city while serving as the state attorney general; Newsom, vying for lieutenant governor, was born in San Francisco and is the city's mayor; and Attorney General candidate Harris was...

Career prosecutors Steve Cooley and Kamala Harris won the GOP and Democratic primaries for attorney general Tuesday, paving the way for a tough November race between the moderate Republican district attorney from Los Angeles and the liberal San Francisco prosecutor. Harris, whose campaign has been dogged by fallout from a scandal at the San Francisco Police Department crime lab, beat out a crowded field of challengers that included three state assemblymen, a former Los Angeles city attorney, and Silicon Valley executive Chris Kelly, who poured $12 million of his own money into the race. "This campaign was about who we...

Sacramento -- Attorney General candidate Kamala Harris is battling increasing criticism of her performance as San Francisco district attorney both at home and on the campaign trail with only eight days left before the primary. On May 20, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo ripped into Harris, saying she violated defendants' rights by failing to disclose to defense attorneys damaging information about a police drug lab technician who's under investigation for allegedly skimming cocaine from evidence files. Problems intensified for Harris last week when The Chronicle disclosed that a toxicologist at the San Francisco coroner's office had been labeled...

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris' office violated defendants' rights by hiding damaging information about a police drug lab technician and was indifferent to demands that it account for its failings, a judge declared Thursday. Superior Court Anne-Christine Massullo stopped short of granting a request by more than 40 drug defendants that their cases be dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct, saying that decision must be left up to the judges hearing their cases. But in a scathing ruling, the judge concluded that prosecutors had failed to fulfill their constitutional duty . . .

Running to become California's top law enforcement officer, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Tuesday that she supports regulating medicinal marijuana dispensaries but not allowing cannabis sale for recreational use. Harris, meeting with The Bee's Capitol Bureau, said she does not support efforts by San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, to permit marijuana to be sold and taxed much like liquor. One of six Democratic candidates for attorney general, Harris said that recreational sales would just create new headaches for a beleaguered system that needs to better regulate medical marijuana dispensaries and to assist nonviolent drug offenders. "This...

The program operated by the San Francisco district attorney's office targeting customers of prostitutes has ill-defined goals and no way to determine its effectiveness, according to a new audit by the city's budget analyst. Despite being touted as a national model that comes at no cost to taxpayers, the audit said the program didn't cover its expenses in each of the last five years, leading to a $270,000 shortfall. The program has first-time offenders arrested for soliciting a prostitute pay as much as $1,000 for a one-day class taught by sex-trafficking experts, former prostitutes and others in exchange for having...

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris will not seek the death penalty for an alleged gang member accused of murdering a father and two of his sons last year, a prosecutor said today. The announcement in San Francisco Superior Court means that Edwin Ramos will at most serve life in prison without parole if convicted of the June 22, 2008, slayings of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, Matthew, 16. The decision is in keeping with Harris' campaign promise never to seek the death penalty. There had been speculation, however, that with Harris running for...

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Tuesday that half a dozen illegal immigrants whose drug convictions were expunged as part of a job training program that she oversaw were "following the rules" and deserved to be exonerated even after prosecutors learned of their status. Prosecutors tightened guidelines, the district attorney said, after learning last summer that a man enrolled in Harris' Back on Track program was an illegal immigrant who allegedly robbed and assaulted a woman in Pacific Heights. The suspect in that case, Alexander Izaguirre, was the only one of the seven enrollees who turned out to be...

D.A.'s office let illegal immigrants go Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, June 23, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris' office on Monday defended allowing about a half dozen first-time drug offenders to clear their records by going through a job-training program, even after prosecutors learned they were deportable as undocumented immigrants. But Harris' aides said they have since made changes in the program that would prevent a recurrence of instances in which illegal immigrants got their criminal records cleared by going through the Back on Track jobs program, which trains offenders for jobs that...

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris' office on Monday defended allowing about a half dozen first-time drug offenders to clear their records by going through a job-training program, even after prosecutors learned they were deportable as undocumented immigrants. The L.A. Times first reported Monday that illegal immigrants had been enrolled in the program and that Harris' office had let several graduate and go free even after learning of their status. Harris was quoted in the Times as saying that enforcing federal immigration law was not the job of local authorities. The district attorney was explaining how her office handled the...

Is the incoming Obama administration interesting in stealing San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris? KGO's Jon Bristow caught up with her today for more on the possibility.

Keep your eyes open - the Barack Obama campaign has given rise to a constellation of rising stars here in California. Former state Controller and eBay millionaire Steve Westly, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and fast-rising lawyer Tony West were all on board the Obama bandwagon early and big. Westly has already made one dash for the governor's office, and he tells us he is "seriously exploring" another gubernatorial run in 2010. (That is, if Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn't run.) Other top Dems predict Westly might be in line to be Obama's Treasury secretary - although he insists to...

How is it possible that chronic behavioral malcontent George Miley assaulted a female police officer three weeks ago, but only ended up spending four days in jail? After all, his July 6 attack on Officer Lisa Frazer was followed by his 106th arrest since 2001. Most everyone says the system for punishing quality-of-life crimes like public drunkenness and aggressive panhandling is broken in San Francisco, but Miley seems like an extraordinary case. How can he be on the streets today? The answer is both complicated and simple: Lenient San Francisco juries, clogged courts, and judges who are more willing to...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The man charged with murdering a San Francisco father and two sons during a traffic incident appeared in court today and listened quietly as he was ordered held without bail. --snip-- He appeared shackled at the waist in a jail jumpsuit, a large tattoo of the Salvadoran national crest visible on the back of his closely shaved head. ... --snip-- The three murder counts carry special circumstances of multiple murder and murder as part of a street gang, which both carry the potential of life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty. Police say Ramos is a...

She says home is cold and silent after husband, 2 sons slain in S.F.Danielle Bologna can't go back home. Just a week ago, her two-story house on a quiet street in San Francisco's Excelsior district was a bustling place, crammed with sports gear and trophies and team portraits, where she and her husband of 21 years were raising their four children.But in just seconds on Sunday, her family was torn apart: Her husband, Tony, 48, and the couple's sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were shot and killed as they drove home from a family barbecue in Fairfield.What is left...

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Monday that she is trying "to get to the bottom" of how her office obtained millions of dollars from a grant program for prosecution of border crimes that federal auditors have concluded the city had no right to receive. Federal officials said last week that San Francisco had received $5.4 million since 2004 in grant money intended to reimburse local jurisdictions for prosecuting crimes on behalf of federal authorities. In 2006, the $3.7 million that San Francisco received from the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative was the most of any county in four states...

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco's controversial handgun ban, approved by city voters in 2005, suffered another legal setback Wednesday when it was overturned by a state appeals court panel that ruled it conflicted with state law. Appeals Court Justice Ignazio Ruvolo was critical of the measure, known as Proposition H, in the unanimous 3-0 decision. Ruvolo wrote for the court that "local governments are well advised to tread lightly" when regulating firearms. The justice wrote further that the state laws were intended to balance the "interest of the general public to be protected from the criminal misuse of firearms" and...

Nearly 22 years after a woman was raped and stabbed to death in her Potrero Hill home, a San Francisco man who lived near the victim was convicted Monday of first-degree murder. The only evidence against John Davis was the DNA left behind during the rape of Barbara Martz, 28. But that was enough for the jury of seven women and five men to convict Davis, 40, of murder in the commission of rape and burglary in connection with the slaying Dec. 4, 1985, in Martz's home on 25th Street. The panel deliberated more than four days before coming back...

Mayor Gavin Newsom and District Attorney Kamala Harris have sent a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asking him to halt gun shows at the Cow Palace. The Crossroads of the West Gun Show happening there this weekend. The letter follows a Thursday announcement by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, that he would introduce legislation to ban gun shows at the arena. The officials say that the shows attract people who sell guns illegally and that those guns are being used in crimes in the city. They have no evidence to support those claims, however.