Harris Unresponsive to Open Records Request about her Tenure as S.F. District Attorney -- What is she Hiding about her Record on Crime?

Palo Alto - Today, Democratic Attorney General candidate Chris Kelly called upon San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris to stop her bureaucratic stone-walling of an open-record request made nearly 12 weeks ago for information on her tenure as District Attorney.

“With California Department of Justice statistics showing a shocking increase in violent crime rates in San Francisco on Kamala Harris’ watch as District Attorney, her refusal to release basic information about the prosecution of criminal cases during her tenure is very troubling for the people she was elected to protect,” Kelly said.  “San Franciscans deserve transparency from their District Attorney’s office, particularly when homicide rates in the city have increased by 32% since Harris became D.A.”

On December 14, 2009, the Chris Kelly campaign sent a letter to the proper public information officer requesting the following public records:

• A list of all criminal cases handled (and are currently being handled) by the office during District Attorney Kamala Harris' tenure, including: case number, charge, final disposition, whether the final disposition was the result of a plea agreement and file date;
• Any plea bargain disposition summaries generated by District Attorney Kamala Harris and/or her staff from January 1, 2004 through to the present;
• All parole recommendation correspondence generated by the District Attorney’s office from January 1, 2004 through to the present;
• All Oaths of Assistant District Attorneys sworn in during District Attorney Kamala Harris' tenure;
• All annual itemized budgets for the office from FY2003 through FY2010;
• Travel and expense reports submitted by District Attorney Kamala Harris for each year of her employment;
• Copies of any open records requests that have been made to the District Attorney’s Office since January 1, 2004.

Under San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance, the District Attorney’s office is legally obligated to provide the requested information within 10 days.  Nearly three months later, Harris continues to refuse to provide information on criminal cases handled by her office – despite follow-up requests made under the California Public Records Act and San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance.  Instead, her office has provided a series of bureaucratic responses - parsing the public records requests, refusing to release the information or acknowledging that they can’t seem to find it.

“A District Attorney’s record is evaluated by the disposition of criminal cases handled,” Kelly said.  “But Kamala Harris is refusing to share that critical information because she wants to be judged on her rhetoric, not her record. When she also refuses to explain why San Francisco’s violent crime rates have risen while California’s rates keep falling, voters should wonder what she’s trying to hide.”

Here’s just one example of the parsing and bureaucratic stonewalling by Harris’ office:

On December 17, 2009, the District Attorney’s office received a request from the Kelly campaign for “a list of all criminal cases handled (and are currently being handled) by the office during District Attorney Kamala Harris' tenure, including: case number, charge, final disposition, whether the final disposition was the result of a plea agreement and file date.”

One month later, on January 20th, the District Attorney’s Office responded by saying:

“Under the Public Records Act and the Sunshine Ordinance,…If the department  has no records responsive to the specific request, the department has no duty to create or recreate one.  Specifically, you have requested a ‘list’ of all criminal cases handled…The District Attorney’s Office does not have such a document.”

Incredulous, the campaign then asked the District Attorney’s office to clarify their response, asking whether the office had a centralized database on these matters – or if the information was actually available, but not in a “list” format.  To that, the DA’s office responded:

“Neither the Public Records Act nor the Sunshine Ordinance require the department to reply to interrogatories.”

For copies of the letters of correspondence between the Kelly campaign and Kamala Harris' office, please contact Robin Swanson at (916) 443-1486.