Lara Bazelon @larabazelon Twitter profile

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Lara Bazelon

2 years

"If Syed’s freedom is cause for celebration, it is also cause for shame. He was not released because the American criminal justice system is fair. He was released despite its brokenness and corruption." My thoughts:

Adnan Syed’s Accidental Justice

His exoneration shows that our legal system is designed to cement wrongful convictions, not correct them.

nymag.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

1 month

1/4: In 2019, I wrote a @nytimes op-ed critical of Kamala Harris on criminal justice issues. In the last week every media outlet you can think of has asked me to "comment" on her candidacy. Here you go: Dems--all of us--need to make sure that Kamala Harris wins the presidency.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Jury nullification is a powerful weapon against prosecutors who go after women seeking abortions and anyone who tries to help them, as well as parents seeking gender affirming care for their children. Jurors have the right to say "No, not in our name," and nullify.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

1 month

There is one story. We elect someone who supports women's rights or someone who is cool w/ the Handmaid's Tale. Someone who believes in climate change or someone who will let the planet fry. Someone who believes in the peaceful transfer of power or a wanna-be oligarch. One story.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

1 month

3/4: I've been relieved at how few progressives are willing to take the current media bait--from left, right, and center publications--to create a "story" around Harris. There is only one story: we elect a sane, competent candidate or we get Donald Trump.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

After a string of horrifically botched executions, Oklahoma is preparing to put 25 people to death over the next two years. At least one of them, Richard Glossip, is demonstrably innocent.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

1 month

2/4: the media's thirst for "rounded out" a profile of Kamala Harris means they want a liberal to dunk on her. So they are digging up my 5-year-old op-ed, which I wrote when there was a crowded field of Dems running for the 2020 presidential nomination. That was a lifetime ago.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

For years, California police officers come into court & testified as “gang experts.” But many of the ppl they convicted--all black and brown--were not in a gang. It was all made up. And the scandal is only getting bigger and worse.

LAPD scandal opens window into California's secret gang database as reforms debated

The California Dept. of Justice has reversed on reforms to a controversial gang database as a scandal involving how LAPD identifies gang members continues to unfold.

www.latimes.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

The real loser in the Heard-Depp trial is @aclu , which ghostwrote Heard's @washingtonpost op-ed--without which none of this would have happened--after Heard pledged to pay @aclu $3.5M. Just so gross.

The ACLU Has Lost Its Way

The organization now seems largely unable or unwilling to uphold its core values.

www.theatlantic.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Jurors: if a prosecutor asks you to make a felon out of a woman seeking an abortion or someone who helps her to get one, or a mother trying to help her child get affirming care, stand up and say no. These laws may exist, but you do not have to enforce them. You have the power.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

Thread on black men, sexual assault in prison, and Title 9 claims. I have a client, a young black man in prison, who gets sexually assaulted repeatedly by a guard. The guard shoves his hand down my client's pants and gropes him. When my client says no, he gets sent to lockdown.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

I wrote about the ACLU's bizarre, cringeworthy role in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial and how the organization has lost its way in recent years.

The ACLU Has Lost Its Way

The organization now seems largely unable or unwilling to uphold its core values.

www.theatlantic.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Too many jurors think they are in the box for one purpose: to convict. Especially if the facts match up with a law, however horrible the law is or how unfairly it is applied. But that's not true. Jurors have all the power. They just need to exercise it by saying no.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

It just takes one juror to hang the jury. It is so, so hard to hold out. But you have to. You have to stick to your principles and hang so that a horrible injustice is not perpetuated.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Jury nullification has a rich and noble history. It has been used to acquit people charged with seditious libel for speaking out against the government and to acquit people who defied the Fugitive Slave Act. And--my favorite--wouldn't convict drinkers under Prohibition.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

I'm sorry, but no. This is why ppl distrust medical experts. They said for years that a daily glass of red wine was *good* for you--it was prescribed for my parents. Now even a mouthful can give you six different cancers & cause liver failure?

Even a Little Alcohol Can Harm Your Health (Published 2023)

Recent research makes it clear that any amount of drinking can be detrimental. Here’s why you may want to cut down on your consumption beyond Dry January.

www.nytimes.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

"Jury lawlessness," as one commentator called it, "is the greatest corrective of law in its actual administration." It cannot be punished or reversed. Nullification is the last resort for those who believe that decency and common sense should win out over the letter of the law.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

The judge told the jury to follow the law. They nullified instead. At first blush this story seems bizarre, but to me it is an example of why the jury system works. Because while the client's conduct was not exemplary, the prosecutor's was worse.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

I want to talk about how appellate courts stacked with former prosecutors-turned-judges gaslight all of us with judicial opinions that explain away horrible misconduct by police and prosecutors (i.e. their own). An example:

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

This dissent by CA appellate Justice Stratton tearing apart the "legality" of stopping & searching Mr. Flores bc he wasn't "acting like a normal person" by engaging the cops in polite conversation is the best dissent I have ever read. It ends: "Tell that to Eric Garner."

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

I saw jury nullification in action when I was a fed'l public defender. My colleague had a client--elderly, poor, disabled, nearly deaf--who was accused to stealing 17K in social security checks. The government charged her with 20 mail fraud felonies. She faced years in prison.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

A thing ppl will never understand about public defenders, including Justice Jackson, is that they could have been any kind of lawyer they wanted, including the fancy white shoe law firm kind that earned millions. They had that skill, but they didn't want that life.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Why 20 felonies? Because she had the gall to turn down a deal for one misdemeanor that required 500 hours of community service, which she was too frail to complete. On the stand, under oath, she told the jury she was guilty and explained that she took the $ bc of dire need.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

Why is that a black man accused of the Title IX violation described in this thread could get thrown out of school and marked for life as a sex offender while a black man in prison who gets sexually assaulted regularly can expect more punishment for reporting it?

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

No words for this. Just amazing. Chesa Boudin, reformer public defender, wins election as San Francisco’s new DA via @sfchronicle

Chesa Boudin, reformer public defender, wins election as San Francisco’s new DA

Chesa Boudin won election as the city’s next district attorney Saturday on a campaign...

www.sfchronicle.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

My dad's been a trial lawyer for 50 years. I called him for advice. When I explained the facts, I was calm. But then the monstrousness and inhumanity of the situation overwhelmed me and I started crying uncontrollably. My dad waited me out and then told me

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

The super-sad story of the California State Bar's craven decision to close my bar complaint against two prosecutors. The "reasoning" of the decision--3 years after I filed--is speaks volumes, as I explain. No wonder prosecutorial misconduct is an epidemic.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

One Oklahoma Republican legislator said, “If we put Richard Glossip to death, I will fight in this state to abolish the death penalty, simply because the process is not pure.” What a hollow victory that would be for an innocent man.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Lara, you have got to figure out a way to get some emotional distance from your clients. I asked him how to do that. Silence. Then I heard some throat-clearing. Finally he said, "I don't know. I'm crying, too."

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

6 years

I debated about taking a public position, but in the end decided it was cowardly not to tell the truth, however inconvenient and offensive to those I would normally consider allies.

Opinion | I’m a Democrat and a Feminist. And I Support Betsy DeVos’s Title IX Reforms. (Published...

There is an uncomfortable truth in the current system. No one wants to talk about it.

www.nytimes.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Glossip has had his "last meal" three times. Meaning that on 3x, he has been hours away from being put to death. If SCOTUS wasn't so awful on 8A, that would be cruel and unusual in and of itself. Now Glossip is scheduled to be executed in September. He's innocent.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

One thing that is very hard for people to understand--understandably--is that demonstrating innocence is not enough. It is never enough. You have to jump one procedural hurdle after another just to get back into court and often times the prosecution is fighting you all the way.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

Thread on @KamalaHarris and my @nytimes op-ed. (1) I stand by what I wrote. (2) She got a good hard shove to the left. (3) she may have lost the presidency in part bc of her CA record. (3) her record is the Senate is way better. (4) let's focus on getting @realDonaldTrump tf out.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

How clear is the proof that Glossip is innocent? It swayed Oklahoma Republicans. An exhaustive report from the Reed Smith law firm, commissioned by bipartisan lawmakers, concluded that another man (also convicted and who snitched for his life) acted alone.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Thoughts on the @chesaboudin recall now that we have more data. 1. Chesa got more votes on June 7 than he did in 2019. 2. the margin of recall v. no-on-recall narrowed to 10 pts 3. v few ppl turned out to vote 4. the policies Chesa ran & won on are popular with SF voters. And yet

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Even when the prosecutor agrees, courts can be hostile to innocence claims if the right procedural boxes haven't been checked (that have zero to do with guilt). SCOTUS has set up innocent ppl to fail and be executed in a series of horrific decisions, including in this term.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

6 years

On @maddow last night, @KamalaHarris declared her longstanding opposition to the death penalty. But as CA Atty Gen’l in 2015, she fought and won to keep it in place. There are 740+ ppl on CA’s death row. U Mich study indicates that 4.1% are innocent. That’s approx. 29 ppl.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Of course alcohol in excess and alcoholism are enormously problematic. But to have a front page New York Times story saying essentially any alcohol at all could kill you? The alarmist tone . . . it makes me want to have consecutive martinis.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

1 year

Unbelievable. Richard Glossip was minutes from death at the hands of the state of Oklahoma. incredible coverage of his case for years by @LilianaSegura and @chronic_jordan . Incredible work by the law firm Reed Smith in uncovering powerful evidence of his innocence.

Liliana Segura

@LilianaSegura

1 year

BREAKING: Oklahoma AG files request to vacate conviction of Richard Glossip, almost 25 years after he was first sent to death row for the murder of Barry Van Treese. Glossip has always insisted he is innocent. Story to come with @chronic_jordan

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Hats off to Reed Smith for their exhaustive work and to David Weiss (an amazing pro bono partner to the USF RJC in our wrongful conviction work) in particular. But my God . . . it may be for nothing.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

That @KimKardashian has taken on Kevin Cooper’s cause is a big deal. Years of dogged litigating came to naught but after @NickKristof ’s expose went viral, there are supporters with the platform to force a real re-investigation of a case that was scandalously racist and corrupt.

Kim Kardashian

@KimKardashian

5 years

I am hopeful that Kevin will be exonerated since DNA testing has now been ordered on Kevin’s case and I remain grateful to Governor Newsom for ending capital punishment in California.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

Meanwhile, no one gives a rat's ass that my incarcerated client gets sexually assaulted on a routine basis, that it's part of his daily existence, and that, as a victim, his fighting back leads to horrific consequences. I filed a PREA complaint but I am not optimistic.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

Good lawyers cry. They cry for their clients. They cry because the system is set up to beat them down. They cry because the work never gets easier. Lawyer-crying is not something to outgrow or be ashamed of. I cry all time. When I stop I will know it is time to quit.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

As AG, @KamalaHarris fought for years to prevent a man from getting compensated after the local DA found him innocent. He was falsely convicted of rape; Harris' deputies demanded he re-register as a sex offender. Beyond belief. @bpolitics

Kamala Harris’s Offices Fought Payments to Wrongly Convicted

Jose Diaz was exonerated after serving almost nine years in a California prison for two sexual assaults he didn’t commit. But the office of then-Attorney General Kamala Harris wasn’t ready to let him...

www.bloomberg.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

Props to my sister, who drank this bowl of grease so the rest of us didn't have to.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

Thread on bad prosecutors and lack of accountability: SCOTUS says that they have 100 percent immunity even if they send an innocent person to prison. But don't worry, SCOTUS says! The state bar will discipline them! I call B.S.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

“Dismiss the case, as it appears rife with reasonable doubt,”wrote a Riverside Cty ADA Chris Ross. In fact, the man was innocent and DNA evidence proved it. But Ross' boss & the head DA told him to bury the evidence. He refused and they forced him out.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

@radleybalko @danielmedwed (BARRED) @LilianaSegura @valenabeety (MANIFESTING JUSTICE) Bryan Stevenson & many others write powerfully about this issue. And states like Oklahoma keep their death machines going, even for innocent people. It's murder.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

"A searing opinion piece by the law professor Lara Bazelon in the New York Times—published days before Harris formally entered the race—created a simple, effective template for critical assessments of her record.” . All I did was tell the truth.

How Kamala Harris Went From ‘Female Obama’ to Fifth Place

She entered the 2020 presidential race with promise and charisma, but is now sliding perilously close to irrelevance. What went wrong? And is it too late for her to reverse course?

www.politico.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

This makes me really angry. Pathetic, craven, and sends exactly the wrong message to ppl in academia who practice: just defend likable people; otherwise, your students may get upset and your school will throw you under the bus to appease them.

Harvard’s First Black Faculty Deans Let Go Amid Uproar Over Harvey Weinstein Defense (Published...

Students in Winthrop House, where Robert S. Sullivan Jr. and his wife served as residential deans, had called for his resignation. Harvard chose not to renew their contracts.

www.nytimes.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

In lockdown, the guards put my client in the one cell with no fan. Temperature soars near 100 degrees. There's urine on the floor. Roaches, spiders, and ants are crawling everywhere. No COVID precautions. Nothing to read, nothing to do but go crazy.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

@ACLU @washingtonpost @TheAtlantic If the ACLU had been representing Amber Heard, their actions would have been malpractice; at their urging she signed an op-ed they wrote that contained allegations a jury found to be false. As it is, they have embarrassed themselves and betrayed their core principles.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Prosecutors are the most powerful actors in the system. When they break the rules to win at all costs we all lose. Make no mistake: these are wrongful convictions bc they happen in flagrant violation of fundamental rights. Shameful and disheartening that the bar does nothing.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

Various reasons why @KamalaHarris ’ candidacy was not successful. But a big one was her failure to reckon with her record as a prosecutor. Rather than admit what it actually was and account for the harm done, she called it progressive. It wasn’t.

Kamala Harris Says She’s Still ‘in This Fight,’ but Out of the 2020 Race (Published 2019)

The California senator broke barriers but ran out of money as she struggled in polls. Her abrupt announcement is perhaps the most surprising development to date in the 2020 race.

www.nytimes.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

I will never forget the first time a jury stood up and said not guilty. I was 27. Afterwards the federal prosecutor sauntered over to try to shake my client's hand. "The best man won today," he said. My client said, "You think this is a game? Get the fuck away from me."

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

🧵about who the SFDA recall people are. The @cwclub asked me to have a "civil discussion" with face-of-the-recall Brooke Jenkins on May 17. Unbeknownst to me, the recall ppl bought most of the tickets in bulk. What happened next was wild.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

All too often when we talk about police reform the role of judges goes unmentioned. The bench, particularly the federal bench, reinforces every day that the Fourth Amendment's ban on unlawful seizures is a joke and the excluding evidence never happens.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

I challenge anyone to read this and make a reason-based argument for keeping the death penalty. I looked for the best pull quote, but there were just too many to choose from because @NickKristof ’s case is so comprehensive and devastating.

Opinion | When We Kill (Published 2019)

Everything you think you know about the death penalty is wrong.

www.nytimes.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

"Excessive alcohol use" is anything more than one drink a day for women, according to this article. Whaaaat? And you can't average them out--three on a weekend after abstaining all week is basically a binge. Um, that describes like 85 percent of us.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Then comes the "decision." Bar says if the misconduct had been serious, the judge would have referred these prosecutors to the state bar when it happened because "courts do not hesitate to report misconduct." That is laughable and false. Courts almost never report misconduct.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

#COVID19 -in-prison thread: I have an innocent client doing 60 years at hard labor in Dixon Correctional in Louisiana. Convicted at 19 for an armed robbery that netted $102. No one was injured. One witness, show-up, cross racial ID. Trial lasted one hour.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

To recap: official misconduct retraumatizes victims. It steals the life of the wrongfully convicted person. And yet, the message from the prosecutors-turned-appellate judges in official opinions is that lying & cheating to "win" is harmless. How is that justice?

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

Chris Wallace to the @nytimes post-debate: "I'm a pro." Nope: you got rolled. The only people fit to combat @realDonaldTrump 's insanity are public defenders. We know how to cross examine egomaniacal crazed assholes who think the rule don't apply to them. That's our life.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

1 month

This is a fake wedge issue and reveals a deep vein of misogyny. Some women get married, some don’t. Some women have kids, some don’t. The point is we get to decide and Republicans, when it comes to women’s rights, want to take our choices away.

Akilah Hughes

@AkilahObviously

1 month

I think JD Vance and republicans think there’s a rift between women with kids and women without and generally speaking I think most women have friends in both camps and they aren’t usually shitty to each other about those choices? I don’t see how this helps him, a man, win.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

That is the face of the recall. The ugly, bitter, twisted, nasty, hate-spewing mob. It is shameful and disgusting.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

@ACLU @washingtonpost When I pointed out in @TheAtlantic what the ACLU had done and why it was wrong, the ACLU's national legal director David Cole responded by accusing me of "bending the truth." Ironic is one word for @aclu 's ad hominem attack.

Letter: Free Speech for All Is Still Our Mission

The American Civil Liberties Union, writes its senior litigator, has not abandoned that historic vocation.

www.theatlantic.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

Out! Happy exoneration day, Yutico Briley.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

The @ACLU has completely lost its way.

ACLU helped draft article at heart of Depp v Heard case for $3.5m donation, court hears

American Civil Liberties Union’s general counsel testifies that at least $500,000 came from fund connected to Elon Musk

www.theguardian.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

For four years now, I have been filing bar complaints against prosecutors whose conduct was so bad that appellate courts have called it out. Every single complaint has been denied or closed with a private reprimand with "reasoning" that would make a third grader gasp.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

10-year-old has eye surgery. Wakes up from general anesthesia in the hospital. Me: "Who's Mommy's best girl? Who's the best girl in the world?" Her: "Mom, please stop talking and get away from me." So I am thinking full recovery!

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

Every time I go to court, I am consumed by self-doubt & imposter syndrome. I prep & prep & prep. Usually, it goes fine, sometimes even great. So why is it that I go back to feeling consumed by self-doubt & imposter syndrome the next time? This has been going for 20 years.😬

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

My clinic is representing him pro bono--without us he would have no one because he has no $. The school is taking the accusation very seriously. The amount of work we've put in to defend him totals 100s of hours. My client says he didn't do it. He faces potential expulsion.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

I want to be clear. I am not fragile. I have a very high pain threshold. As I said, I held my ground on May 17--watch if you don't believe me. But there is no point in "debating" in front of misogynistic recall trolls. And the venue saw the risk of liability and canceled.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

Graffiti on Harvard's campus demanded of @ProfRonSullivan : "which side are you on?" The answer should have been obvious: the side of justice. Justice requires due process. Without it, we have mob justice.

Harvard Shouldn’t Punish Harvey Weinstein’s Attorney

By dismissing Ronald Sullivan Jr. from his position as a faculty dean, Harvard fails to recognize the importance of due process and freedom of speech.

slate.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

6 years

Is the no ground to stand on that isn’t occupied by DeVos on one side and “good feminists” on the other? Due process shouldn’t be a dirty word. And yet, when it comes to campus sexual assault proceedings, it is. The false binary choice of the Title IX debate is disheartening.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

I am working on a case rn where my client did 17 years based on this BS. The outrage over @chesaboudin eliminating gang enhancements is gravely misplaced. All Boudin is doing as SF DA is refusing to allow police & prosecutors to rely on fabricated testimony to steal ppl’s lives.

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Think about that for a minute. The whole case was eyewitness ID lies. The appellate court knew it in 2020. Without that evidence there was no proof against Mr. Cato. How could an appellate court possibly declare that this fraud was harmless?

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

Meanwhile, I have a client, a young black man at an elite college, accused of sexual assault. The accuser filed a Title IX complaint claiming he put her hand on his penis over his pants without her consent. She and her friends denounce him publicly. They've canceled him.

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@larabazelon

4 years

Boudin bans prosecutions based on sole testimony of untrustworthy police officers

Under the policy, officers with a record of misconduct related to excessive force; racial...

www.sfchronicle.com

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

These prosecutors buried evidence that the cop who arrested the defendant was himself about to be charged by their office for far more serious crimes. They took him off the witness list to bury that info. When defense counsel smelled a rat, they blocked his motion for discovery.

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434

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

Just-released innocent man who spent 21 years in prison, convicted as a kid: "At one point in time, I thought the system was broken. I no longer think it was broken. I think it was designed that way. They had the opportunity to release me and they didn’t.”

6

157

410

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

BREAKING: @sfbos unanimously passes a resolution urging @BrookeJenkinsSF to keep the @SFDAOffice Innocence Commission intact and expressing concern that @brookejenkins "fired without notice" SFDA Innocence Commission member @arceliahurtado .

18

109

429

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

The right to an attorney for the accused--the innocent until proven guilty--is sacred. If ppl like KBJ, who was once a public defender, did not uphold that right it would cease to exist. The Republican attacks suggesting otherwise are simply un-American.

As Jackson Faces Senators, Her Criminal Defense Record Is a Target (Published 2022)

Republicans have vilified Biden’s judicial nominees who have represented criminal suspects. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, for the Supreme Court, is the most prominent.

www.nytimes.com

31

112

422

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

What if I told you that Xavier Becerra, CA’s attorney general and a Democrat, sent his deputy into the Cal Sup Court to argue that the IQ scores of black ppl should be “adjusted upward" so that they were no longer considered mentally disabled & could be executed? He is.

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411

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

The Cal Supreme Court remanded for a hearing. On October 3, 2022, a fair-minded trial court judge (who is not former prosecutor) overturned Mr. Cato's conviction. In a meticulous opinion, he set out the "rampant lying" by every "eyewitness" the state put on the stand.

1

37

404

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

This is a dark time for reformers of the criminal legal system--we are going backwards. Yet I continue to be inspired by the army of lawyers, law profs, activists, & writers who fight back in courtrooms, in communities, & with their piercing journalism. So much♥️for:

26

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412

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

Having one of those days where the needless, pointless, almost depraved cruelty directed at my clients in multiple cases has reached a level that is hard for me to metabolize and still retain my faith in humanity.

21

34

404

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

My ex, dropping off the kids last night. "I talked to this crazy lady today who's washing her produce with soap & hot water to protect against COVID19. Can you believe that?" Me: "that crazy lady was me. You talked to me today and I told you I was doing that." Him: . . . .

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17

412

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

How is this even a question? Hell, yes, prosecutors should get the names of police officers who commit misconduct so they can do what the Constitution requires and turn it over to defense attorneys so we can defend our clients.

13

130

386

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

In a 2-1 decision in 2020, a California appellate court brushed away these errors as "harmless." The dissenter wrote: "I see a far different picture: a trial so flawed by the wrongful conduct of police & prosecutor that the defendant was deprived of his right to a fair trial."

2

38

396

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

4 years

I'm shocked. Just shocked!

10

62

393

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

The judge concluded, "if the [false testimony] had not been introduced, there would have been NO evidence linking Petitioner to the murder in this case." (emphasis in the opinion).

2

26

384

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

The accused, Mr. Parker, coerced into falsely confessing, spent 4 years in jail. Now he works as a dishwasher. Ross had to apply for 1,300 jobs before getting a new one in another state. But Ross' boss? He's a judge now. “I try to forget,” Parker says. “I try not to stay mad.”

5

93

381

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

5 years

The attacks on progressive female prosecutors of color are qualitatively different than the attacks on progressive white male prosecutors. They are racist, misogynistic, deeply personal, and often involve death threats. They are intended to terrorize them into giving up.

Ayanna Pressley

@AyannaPressley

5 years

. @DARollins & her colleagues across the country are doing the real work of addressing the deep inequities in our criminal legal system and making our communities safer. That AG Barr would invoke tired, racist tropes to try and dismiss their work is sadly no longer surprising.

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178

580

398

101

365

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by police. Seems powerful, right? But here is a non-exhaustive list of "reasonable" bases for police to stop people, which can ratchet up very, very quickly into police using deadly force . . .

8

150

382

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

6 years

Former tough-on-crime prosecutor @amyklobuchar joins the race. Belatedly acknowledging that the system is racist is not enough to satisfy me or satisfy anybody that believes in true criminal justice reform. And there are a lot of us.

32

84

344

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Mr. Cato was convicted of murder & sentenced to 72 years in 2015 based on cross-racial IDs. Perhaps bc the evidence was underwhelming, police & prosecutors committed misconduct during the investigation, at trial, and post trial, suppressing evidence & intimidating witnesses.

1

32

357

Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Important piece by @fmanjoo : never, ever waive your 5th Amendment rights. "Anytime you’re asked to talk to the police about an incident you are involved in, there are just four words you need to say: 'I want a lawyer.'"

Opinion | Alec Baldwin Didn’t Have to Talk to the Police. Neither Do You. (Published 2023)

Even innocent people can inadvertently make themselves seem guilty.

www.nytimes.com

15

96

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

3 years

The law on absolute prosecutorial immunity needs to change. Two-thirds of wrongful convictions trace back to official misconduct. We are talking about hundreds of ppl and hundreds of years. Enough already. It is long past time to call B.S.

10

71

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Lara Bazelon

@larabazelon

2 years

Growing up, I saw the @ACLU as a beacon of free speech, bravely standing up to the powerful. Now, on so many levels, I see them as a fraud.

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350