Power of Prosecutors

I saw an interesting commentary the other day that I very sadly can’t find now. But the gist was this (and readers, if you know different, please correct me!): What is going on when Trump or others in this camp call Kamala Harris a ‘communist’ or a ‘Marxist’? She’s obviously a market capitalist. The video argues that this language stems from the Reconstruction-era South, where many shrieked that the full enfranchisement of Black people would lead to ‘communist’ redistribution. They were, the video says, referring to the Paris Commune, where workers seized Paris for two months in 1871 and established an egalitarian society. This ‘communism’ would descend on the American South when Black people, they claimed, who had no property to speak of, would take over the government and use it to similarly redistribute property from white people via taxation and other means. So the “problem” with Black people voting is that they might direct the government to represent the interests of their communities - economically, politically, and socially. In a zero sum game (which it isn’t), white people are going to lose. 

This dynamic is playing out in a striking way with another Black woman elected: Monique Worrell, who won her race to be elected prosecutor in Orlando in 2020 with an overwhelming victory against a “law-and-order” opponent. She ran on addressing mass incarceration, restoring public trust in the office, and serving victims, and took office as the only Black elected DA in Florida. Shortly into her tenure, DeSantis removed her from office, invoking a Florida law that allows the governor to remove people who aren’t performing their duties. But she was performing her duties, doing exactly what the people of Orlando elected her to do, which was to modify her charging practices (“under-prosecuting”, according to the governor’s team) and institute popular criminal justice reforms. She has been suing to get her job back, while also running for reelection, and is favored to win in November. It’s reported that DeSantis intends to immediately remove her again if she wins. 

What’s the link back to the commune? The office of District Attorney is one of the most powerful offices in our government. DAs can decide whether and when to charge, who to charge, and what to charge them with. Since they have finite resources, they need to decide where to direct their awesome power. They can decide whether to prosecute poor people possessing drugs to the hilt or instead to go after pharmaceutical companies for fraudulently pushing local pharmacies to prescribe them. They can intensely crack down on petty theft, seeking long sentences to punish impoverished people for stealing, or instead focus on holding employers accountable for wage theft. Indeed, they can even prosecute a former president. These and a thousand others are really consequential choices about values and about whose interests the office serves. 

In the case of Monique Worrell, the people of Orlando voted resoundingly to put her in office to carry out a less punitive, more holistic vision of justice. This is intensely threatening to the vision of power that DeSantis, Trump, and others like them, want to manifest in the world. They have railed against progressive prosecutors and their allies have put millions of dollars into fights to unseat them. These aren’t just policy fights; these are fights about who is going to control that kind of power in America. That’s why Worrell’s case is so important to follow, and also why we have to save some attention for the L.A. DA race, whereGeorge Gascón is trying to fend off a MAGA republican, with hefty republican donor support, who certainly knows how he wants to use that power.