Even if she’s elected vice president, Kamala Harris’ opposition to the death penalty won’t mean much as a practical matter for state and local capital murder cases.
But her decisions not to pursue the death penalty in four brutal murders show just how far out in left field the candidate is.
One case involved the capital murder of a cop, which almost always invites a death sentence. Another involved an illegal alien who murdered a father and two sons. Even worse in the second, Harris’ San Francisco, where she was district attorney from 2004 through 2011, blocked deportation of the murderer, pursuant to its sanctuary policy.
Ally of Cop Killers
When Harris campaigned for district attorney, she opposed the death penalty, which was unsurprising. Thus, when a street thug using an AK-47 gunned down plainclothes cop Isaac Espinoza on April 10, 2004, Harris didn’t seek the maximum punishment despite the victim.
“Today I want to be very clear: in the city and county of San Francisco, anyone who murders a police officer engaged in his or her duties will be met with the most severe consequences,” Harris said at the time, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
But “most severe” did not include death at the end of a needle. And in refusing to seek execution even in the case of a murdered cop, Harris broke longtime, statewide precedent.
The Chronicle studied 90 cases going back to 1987 and “found that prosecutors sought the death penalty in nearly every case in which a suspect was arrested,” the newspaper reported at the time.
Legal experts “could not recall another California case in which prosecutors — given the option of seeking capital punishment for an accused cop killer — decided against seeking the death penalty.”
“She was only thinking of herself,” widow Renata Espinoza told CNN. “I couldn’t understand why. I was in disbelief that she had gone and already made her decision to not seek the death penalty for my husband.”
Protect Illegal-alien Murderers
Perhaps even more egregious was Harris’ prosecution of the illegal-alien triple murderer.
On July 30, 2008, Edwin Ramos — a Salvadoran whom San Francisco protected from deportation under the leadership of Harris and then-Mayor Gavin Newsom — murdered 49-year-old Tony Bologna and his two sons, Michael and Matthew.
The Bologna men were headed home from a family barbecue when Ramos, a member of MS-13, opened fire from another car. He thought they were rival gang members, the story went.
Though Bologna’s widow Danielle urged Harris to seek the death penalty, Harris coldy refused, the Chronicle reported:
Harris said outside court that her office will do everything it can to make sure Ramos “dies in prison for these horrific crimes.”
She said her office had spent “many, many months” reviewing the case, but did not give a specific reason for her decision.
“We have thoroughly reviewed the facts and the law in this case,” Harris said. “It was a complicated analysis that involved many issues, many facts and many laws.”
As with Espinoza’s widow, Danielle Bologna was furious. “She feels that the city of San Francisco has let her and her family down,” a spokesman told the newspaper. “She feels that not only did she lose half her family, she lost her home because she was forced to move so she could protect the rest of her family. With this decision, it will just never end.”
Adding insult to injury, the family lost its legal battle to hold San Francisco responsible for the triple murder because of its sanctuary policy, and later learned the FBI knew Ramos had murdered someone in 2006.
San Francisco also escaped punishment for its role in helping an illegal alien kill Kate Steinle.
H/T: Breitbart
