Kamala Harris

Infobox_Politician
name= Kamala Devi Harris


caption=
office= San Francisco District Attorney
term_start= 2004
term_end=
predecessor= Terence Hallinan
successor=
birth_date= 1964
birth_place= Oakland, California
death_date=
death_place=
party= Democratic
profession= Lawyer
spouse=
footnotes=

Kamala Devi Harris (born 1964 in Oakland, California) is the current District Attorney of San Francisco. She is the first female District Attorney to be elected in San Francisco, the first African American elected as District Attorney in California, and the first Indian American elected to the position in the United States. She was elected in December 2003 with over 56 percent of the votes in a run-off election against the two-term incumbent, Terence Hallinan.

Harris attended the historically African American college,Howard University in Washington, D.C. and received a J.D. from University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1990. She is the daughter of an Indian American mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, a breast cancer specialist, who emigrated to the United States in 1960, and a Jamaican American father, Stanford University economics professor Donald Harris.

Harris served as Deputy District Attorney in Alameda County, California from 1990 to 1998. She then became Managing Attorney of the Career Criminal Unit in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office. In 2000, San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne recruited her to join the her office, where she was Chief of the Community and Neighborhood Division, which oversees civil code enforcement matters.

In 2004, The National Urban League honored Harris as a "Woman of Power" and she received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the National Black Prosecutors Association in 2005. The Los Angeles Daily Journal recognized Harris as one of the top 100 lawyers in California. Additionally, she has served on the boards of several community organizations.

In April 2004, when police officer Isaac Espinoza was gunned down in the Bayview district, Harris announced that she would not seek the death penalty for the man accused of his killing, a decision which triggered protests from police officers and many citizens. Some were supportive of the decision in a community where capital punishment is opposed. Harris had made a campaign promise that she would not seek the death penalty if elected. Attorney General Bill Lockyer even threatened to intervene on behalf of the State of California to take the case out of Harris' jurisdiction. In the end, he ruled that Harris had acted within her legal authority. [ [http://www.sfweekly.com/2003-09-24/news/kamala-s-karma/ Kamala's Karma] ] In June 2008, the issue of capital punishment arose again when Danielle Bologna, whose husband and two sons were murdered by illegal immigrants that were also gang members, were protected by the city's sanctuary policy, demanded that Harris consider the death penalty for her family's killer. The suspect in the murder had been arrested just one month earlier on gun charges, but Harris' office declined to press charges in that earlier case. Harris has been widely critized for not taking proactive approach in prosectuing illegal immigrants and criminals over the citizens of San Francisco. See http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/22/EDLT11SJQU.DTL&hw=kamala+harris+bologna&sn=004&sc=434.

In addition to this Harris' office is investigating itself for accepting $5.4M grant money from the federal government for assistance in prosecuting border crimes that her office never prosecuted after accepting federal funds. In April 2008, Harris' response was, "I am in the process of determining exactly what our understanding was about the rules for which prosecuted cases were ... eligible for reimbursement. I hope I will have some information in the next couple weeks." Asked if her office would return any money to which it was not entitled, the district attorney said, "We are working together with both local and federal agencies to do the right thing." See http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/08/MN0N101ASH.DTL&hw=kamala+harris+investigation&sn=002&sc=855

Harris ran unopposed for re-election in 2007. She has received acclaim from some for increasing conviction rates over previous DA, Terrence Hallinan (whose conviction rate was 52% versus the 83% state-wide average) and the overall professionalism of the office, but has been criticized for selectively prosecuting cases to bolster the conviction rate, which now stands at about 67%. Harris has also faced criticism in the face of continuing poor relations with police and rising violent crime rates. [ [http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/20/MNG01HQVPA1.DTL Trials and tribulations of Kamala Harris, D.A.] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.kamalaharris.org/about Short biography of Kamala Harris]
* [http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/dec/10us.htm Kamala Harris elected DA of San Francisco]