she fought, and for a time won, to keep someone in prison who she knew had not committed the crime of which he was convicted, & the reason she put forth was basically technicality/timeliness of the appeal. she also fought, successfully, to deny him compensation for wrongful conviction for the 15 years he did. Daniel Larsen is by most accounts a piece of shit, but he didn't deserve that and she went out of her way to fuck him even after his innocence was clear. and it's not because she unwaveringly believes in the minutiae of technicalities, because she also fought to keep George Gage in prison despite prosecutorial suppression of exculpatory evidence which is both unethical and illegal. she also used prosecutorial discretion not to investigate into the Orange County jailhouse informant scandal.
in a different scandal, she unsuccessfully tried to cover up prosecutorial misconduct & over 600 cases were dismissed.
she championed legislation to punish parents with jail time for their children's truancy.
she opposed a bill that would require investigations into police shootings.
when she was in a position to do anything about it, she refused to permit advanced DNA testing that could have exonerated Kevin Cooper of the murders for which he was convicted in a case plagued by mishandling.
he has finally been tested btw, but has been waiting over a year and a half for results. that particular problem is not on Kamala, but it could have been done sooner & we might not be here right now in August of 2020 still waiting after he has already spent decades in prison.
Kevin Cooper is awaiting execution for a quadruple murder. But he may have been framed.
www.nytimes.com