• kikutwo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    4 months ago

    For the idiots who don’t know that prosecutors don’t impose sentences, judges do?

    • jordanlund@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 months ago

      Has to do with bad crime lab evidence:

      https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article233375207.html

      "While the San Francisco Police Department was responsible for running the lab, not Harris’s district attorney office, a court ruled in 2010 that the district attorney’s office violated defendants’ constitutional rights by not disclosing what it knew about the tainted drug evidence.

      Judge Anne-Christine Masullo wrote in her decision that prosecutors “at the highest levels of the district attorney’s office knew that Madden was not a dependable witness at trial and that there were serious concerns regarding the crime lab.”

        • jordanlund@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          The prosecutor chooses which expert witnesses and evidence to use in court, Harris knew this witness and evidence were suspect, used them anyway to get convictions, and maintained the suspect evidence to keep people imprisoned when they should have been released.

            • jordanlund@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              edit-2
              4 months ago

              Yes, and the DA determines what to bring to the judge. Harris knew the witness and evidence was comprimised and brought it anyway to get the conviction. Post conviction, she fought exculpatory evidence that would have seen people freed.

                • jordanlund@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  4 months ago

                  California court sure didn’t agree:

                  "a court ruled in 2010 that the district attorney’s office violated defendants’ constitutional rights by not disclosing what it knew about the tainted drug evidence. "

        • masquenox@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          4 months ago

          Right, which are controlled by “, not the prosecutor”.

          “It was the SS that ran the death camps, not us - besides, we were just doing our job!” - quite a few Gestapo boys at the end of WW2, probably.

    • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      What a garbage defense. The point is that she actively supported locking up minorities and collaborated with private prisons to profit off prisoners. If you want to blame all that on “judges”, then who’s the real idiot?

      The whole point of the injustice system is dividing up all the evil so no single person feels responsible and no single person can be held accountable. But it will never actually absolve prosecutors of their prosecutions.