Felony conviction rate
Harris inherited a 50% felony conviction rate from Hallinan when she took over in 2004. During her tenure, the felony conviction rate rose to 53% in 2005, to 66% in 2006, the highest in a decade.[47] The felony conviction rate continued to rise, reaching 76% in 2009.[48] Convictions of drug dealers increased from 56% in 2003, to 74% in 2006.[48]
Harris was re-elected in 2007 when she ran unopposed.[49]
Non-violent crimes
In summer 2005, Harris created a unit to tackle environmental crimes.[50] Harris filed charges against the Alameda Publishing Corporation, and two men hired by the company's previous owner, for dumping hazardous printing ink in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood. Fifty-gallon buckets of hazardous ink were left overturned and leaking. The corporation and its publishers were charged with unlawful disposal and transportation of hazardous waste and with depositing of hazardous substances on a road.[51][52] The two men subsequently pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to probation.[52]
In 2007, Harris and city attorney Dennis Herrera investigated San Francisco supervisor Ed Jew for violating residency requirements necessary to hold his supervisor position;[53] Harris charged Jew with nine felonies, alleging that he lied under oath and falsified documents to make it appear that he resided in a Sunset District home, necessary so he could run for the District 4 seat for supervisor.[54] Jew pleaded guilty in October 2008 to unrelated federal corruption charges (mail fraud, soliciting a bribe, and extortion)[54] and pleaded guilty the following month in state court charge of perjury for lying about his address on nomination forms, as part of a plea agreement in which the other state charges were dropped and Jew agreed to never again hold elected office in California.[55] Harris described the case as "about protecting the integrity of our political process, which is part of the core of our democracy."[55] For his federal offenses, Jew was sentenced to 64 months in federal prison and a $10,000 fine;[56] for the state perjury conviction, Jew was sentenced to one year in county jail, three years' probation, and about $2,000 in fines.[57]
Under Harris, the D.A.'s office obtained more than 1,900 convictions for marijuana offenses, including persons simultaneously convicted of marijuana offenses and more serious crimes.[58] The rate at which Harris's office prosecuted marijuana crimes was higher than the rate under her predecessor, but the number of defendants sentenced to state prison for such offenses was substantially lower as compared to her predecessor.[58] Prosecutions for low-level marijuana offenses were rare under Harris, and her office had a policy of not pursuing jail time for marijuana possession offenses.[58] Harris's successor as D.A., George Gascón, expunged all San Francisco marijuana offenses going back to 1975.[58]
Violent crimes
In the early 2000s, the City and County of San Francisco murder rate per capita drastically outpaced the national average. Within the first six months of taking office, Harris cleared 27 of 74 backlogged homicide cases by settling 14 by plea bargain and taking 11 to trial; with 9 convictions and 2 hung juries, she attained an 81% success rate. She took 49 violent crime cases to trial and secured 36 convictions, for an 84% success rate.[59] From 2004 to 2006, Harris achieved an 87% conviction rate for homicides and a 90% conviction rate for all felony gun violations.[60]
Harris also pushed for higher bail for criminal defendants involved in gun-related crimes, arguing that historically low bail encouraged outsiders to commit crimes in San Francisco. SFPD officers credited Harris with tightening loopholes in bail and drug programs that defendants had used in the past.[61] In addition to creating a gun crime unit, Harris opposed releasing defendants on their own recognizance if they were arrested on gun crimes, sought minimum 90-day sentences for possession of concealed or loaded weapons, and charged all assault weapons possession cases as felonies, adding that she would seek prison terms for criminals who possessed or used assault weapons and would seek maximum penalties on gun-related crimes:[62]
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In 2014, Judge Cormac J. Carney vacated the death sentence of convicted rapist and murderer Ernest Dewayne Jones, declaring capital punishment in California unconstitutional on the basis of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment because "systemic delay and dysfunction" rendered the process arbitrary.[140] Harris appealed, contending Carney failed to abide by the highly-circumscribed habeas corpus procedure set forth in the binding Supreme Court precedent of Teague v. Lane prohibiting federal courts from announcing a new rule of constitutional law in habeas cases.[141] In an op-ed for The San Francisco Chronicle, legal and political scholar Mugambi Jouet criticized the appeal as a defense of the death penalty.[140] The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Harris when it unanimously overturned Carney’s order.[142]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Ha ... ction_rate