An actor acquitted of murder is criticizing Sen. Kamala Harris's (D., Calif.) role in his conviction.
San Francisco courts convicted Jamal Trulove of murder in 2010, while Harris was serving as San Francisco district attorney. His sentence was overturned in 2014 after a court determined the city's case against him had relied on compromised eyewitnesses and an untruthful prosecutor.
In a Thursday interview with Vice, Trulove said his conviction was an example of Harris's poor leadership. He told Vice that seeing her name on his paperwork upset him.
"It's starting to feel personal," he said, adding that, "when it came to the sign off, it felt personal."
Trulove also claimed that Harris attended both the verdict and the sentencing in his first case and gave him a "smirk" at one of the proceedings.
"She wanted to be present for a celebration of a conviction," he told Vice. "That's what it felt like—a celebration."
Although she has presented herself as a progressive prosecutor on the 2020 campaign trail, Harris's record as district attorney and California attorney general show that she was harsh on suspected criminals. In 2004, she hiked up bail costs in San Francisco in an effort to stop making it "cheaper" for people to commit crimes in the city. By the time she left office in 2010, bail for a minor offense such as petty theft was set at $5,000.
While Harris was attorney general, the state of California sent a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic people to prison, the Free Beacon previously reported. In addition, at least 1,500 people were incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses during Harris's term.