Kamala Harris’ record as prosecutor in California spells ‘trouble’ for presidential campaign: lawyer

Kamala Harris' policies as San Francisco District Attorney and California Attorney General could come back to haunt her as the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president, experts say.

"She’s one of these people who’ve talked out of both sides of her mouth, and she's going to have trouble with both the left and the right with the stances she’s taken over the years," Los Angeles-based criminal defense lawyer Nicole Castronovo told Fox News Digital.

Critics of potential presidential nominee Harris are calling attention to her backing of a controversial 2014 California law that some blame for unleashing rampant crime across the state.

As California's then attorney general, Harris and her office were responsible for writing up a summary of Proposition 47 to inform voters of its contents and intent.

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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally on June 28, 2024, in Las Vegas.  (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Dubbed the "Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act," the legislation lessened penalties for a variety of crimes – including making the theft of items with a total value of less than $950 a misdemeanor.

That provision, critics assert, handed thieves a de facto carte blanche to plunder beleaguered retail outlets with near impunity.

"Now she’s running in a general election against someone who is tough on crime, I would expect her to shift back to her less progressive, more conservative prosecution roots," 

— Defense attorney Neama Rahmani told Fox News Digital 

"They changed sentencing to free criminals who should have been incarcerated and titled it with a misleading name," Castronovo noted. "But it actually made communities less safe."

Other crimes that were once felonies – including forgery, fraud, drug use, and the receiving of stolen goods valued under $950 – were also reclassified as misdemeanors.

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Castronovo said the law has even angered some of Harris' liberal backers.

"People are over the crime," she said. "It really does affect your daily life. We’re paying so much money to live in LA where crime is just out of control."

Then Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley called Proposition 47 a political "Trojan Horse" that would eventually foment illegality in an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Castronovo also highlighted Harris' full-throated endorsement of polarizing Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón.

"As D.A. of L.A. County, I know George Gascón will work every day to keep our communities safe and demand real accountability from our justice system and real justice for every Angeleno," Harris told the Los Angeles Times in February 2020.

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 Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon arrives at a news conference to address the allegation that hotels are using staffing agencies to hire homeless migrants as replacement workers for strikers at Le Meridien Defina hotel in Santa Monica on Oct. 23, 2023. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

But Gasccón's reign has since been turbulent, with critics arguing that his office has ushered in spiraling disorder.

His tenure has produced several recall campaigns that fizzled out. 

Prior to becoming California Attorney General in 2011, Harris served as San Francisco's District Attorney from 2004 to 2011.

Some observers said she had a more tough-on-crime approach to prosecutions during that period.

In a vastly different political climate predating the George Floyd killing and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Harris was considered a moderate, according to former federal prosecutor turned defense attorney Neama Rahmani.

"I thought she was tough and fair," he said. "This was well before any of these progressive initiatives. She’s now tried to distance herself from that a bit."

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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at an event as part of the Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, Saturday, July 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Harris drew scrutiny during her time as San Francisco DA for seeking to charge parents of chronically truant students. She also sought higher bail for defendants charged with gun offenses.

Some progressives criticized Harris prosecuting more than 1,900 marijuana cases during her reign as DA.

"She was attacked for being too extreme, putting people in prison for longer periods of time, disproportionately affecting men and people of color," Rahmani said.

But despite her reputation as a prosecutorial hawk in those days, Harris remained opposed to the death penalty.

That position drew attention after she refused to seek a capital murder case against a man who shot and killed a San Francisco police officer.

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President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris arrive for a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, May 27, 2024. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The decision even drew a rare public rebuke from then Sen. Dianne Feinstein. But then, when she became AG, she defended the death penalty, Castronovo noted.

"She's going to have a lot of issues with her death penalty positions," the attorney said. 

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Rahmani said he expects Harris to now modify her tone once again given her potential face-off with former President Donald Trump.

"Now she’s running in a general election against someone who is tough on crime, I would expect her to shift back to her less progressive, more conservative prosecution roots," he said.