Pat Harris (born Eugene Patterson Harris, August 16, 1958) is a United States Senate Candidate, criminal defense and civil rights attorney, and author.
In July 2017, Harris entered the race to represent California in the United States Senate in 2018. The seat is currently held by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who announced her intentions to run for re-election on October 9, 2017.
Video Eugene Patterson Harris
Early life
Harris grew up in Clarksville, Arkansas where he attended the University of Arkansas, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in History with honors. His father was an industrial engineer at the local shoe factory and his mother was an eighth-grade history teacher. He was selected as the J. William Fulbright award winner for outstanding history student in his senior year of college. He was also selected as Phi Beta Kappa and as a Rhodes Scholar state finalist. Upon graduating from college, he worked in Washington D.C. as a legislative assistant for Bill Alexander, former democratic congressman from Arkansas.
After leaving Washington D.C., Harris had a number of jobs including working in real estate development, driving a taxi, and working for the Texas Rangers baseball team. In 1993, Harris received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Maps Eugene Patterson Harris
Career
Upon graduating from law school, Pat turned down a number of lucrative law firm offers to take a job in the Davidson County Public Defender's Office for two years before joining Geragos & Geragos in 1996 as a criminal defense lawyer.
Harris was a lawyer with Geragos and Geragos based in Los Angeles, California for 15 years. In 2012, he set up his own practice, The Law Offices of Pat Harris, which specialized in criminal defense and civil rights cases. In addition to successfully representing a number of high-profile clients, Harris has won over $20 million for his clients in wrongful death and police misconduct cases.
From 1996 through 1998, Harris was co-counsel to Whitewater defendant Susan McDougal in two separate cases. The first one was in Los Angeles, California, and the second in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was found not guilty in both cases. The verdict in the second case was often cited as the beginning of the downfall for Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
In 2010, Harris successfully sued the Glendale Police Department for falsely arresting his client, Edmond Ovasapyan, for murder. The jury awarded Ovasapyan over $2 million (the award was reduced to $1.2 million by the judge). Ovasapyan had been kept in Mens Central Jail in Downtown Los Angeles, on a wing reserved for defendants accused of murder, for over nine months. When DNA conclusively proved he was not the murderer, he was still not immediately released.
In 2013, Harris represented Will Lynch who was accused of beating a priest who he said molested him and his brother 40 years earlier. Lynch pleaded not guilty to felony assault charges against Father Jerold Lindner at the Los Gatos Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in May 2010. A two week trial was held in the San Jose courthouse, in which Lynch admitted that he had assaulted the priest who had molested him. Despite the admission, Lynch was acquitted of the charges.
2018 U.S. Senate Race
Harris announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate from California in 2017. He is running as a Progressive Democrat.
Political Positions
Getting Corporate Money Out Of Politics
The single greatest threat to our democracy is the billions of dollars pouring into our political system as a result of Citizens United. I will not accept any money from Big Oil, Big Pharma or any corporate entity - only individual donations.
Income Inequality
The American economy functions at its highest level when everyone is given an opportunity to succeed. For the last several decades, we have seen the effects of "trickle-down" economics, which has only served to make the very wealthy even wealthier and has excluded the majority of Americans. While CEO salaries soar to the hundreds of millions, the men and women who manufacture the products have seen their wages stagnate. A worker who puts in long hours and is loyal to his/her company should be allowed to reap the rewards for their hard work.
Legalizing Cannabis
The question of legalizing cannabis should no longer even be an issue. On virtually every level from economically to criminally to medically to politically and yes, even morally, the overwhelming evidence is that legalizing cannabis is extremely beneficial to society.
Medicare For All
Healthcare is not a privilege; it is a human right. I strongly support a single-payer, preventative healthcare system, which would save both lives and money. We need to go back to focusing less on profits, and more on patient care.
Immigration
We must provide a path to citizenship for those who want to come here and work to make America an even better place. We need to stop tearing families apart by deporting family members for trumped up reasons. No human being is illegal.
Criminal Justice Reform
Bail Reform
America's bail system is disastrous and immoral.
If you're accused of a crime, your bail amount shouldn't be based on your ability to pay -- which is our system right now. Instead, it must be based on whether you're a danger to our community, or a risk of fleeing.
Ending For-Profit Prisons
It's time for America to eliminate private prisons for profit, once and for all.
Private prisons make money from prisoners, and treat them inhumanely. They cut corners everywhere from safety, to food -- even foregoing blankets -- just to increase their profits.
Law Enforcement Training
Police need to stop shooting first, and asking questions later. It's long past time we train our police officers to de-escalate more, and use weapons less.
Rape Kits and Sexual Assault
When a woman is sexually assaulted, it's very courageous and important for her to report that crime. Our current reporting system is broken and demeaning, hurts women victims, and discourages reporting of crimes.
Police need to test the DNA of rape assailants so women can get the justice they deserve. Currently, a simple lack of funding causes police to put rape test kits back into a refrigerator and left untested.
Ending Mandatory Minimums
Mandatory minimums are largely based on racial profiling. They destroy families, are extraordinarily out of touch with society, and are ridiculously unfair to minorities and people of color.
We need to eliminate mandatory minimums for all drug offenses, and bring punishments for nonviolent drug crimes in line with other nonviolent crimes.
Addiction and Mental Illness
Unlike most civilized nations, America treats drug problems as a crime, and not a sickness. We must turn our criminal justice system into a kinder, more compassionate place for people with drug or alcohol problems.
The same is true for the mentally ill, who are continually warehoused into our prisons and left without a path to get the treatment they need and deserve. We need treatment centers -- not jails -- for our fellow citizens who are mentally ill, and provide them help for their problems.
Affordable Housing
We are in the midst of a housing crisis. We must build more affordable housing, especially in areas near transit hubs. We have to relax restrictive zoning and building codes so that development can flourish. In return, developers must guarantee that new construction will include homes and rental units that are affordable.
Education
We must revamp the student loan program for those who are about to enter college, and investigate relief program for those who are already crippled by student loan debt. We need to quit scapegoating teachers as the problem in our educational system and start providing them with the resources to help students excel.
Books
Harris co-authored Susan McDougal's autobiography, Susan McDougal: The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk and Mistrial: An Inside Look at How the Criminal Justice System Works ... and Sometimes Doesn't with Mark Geragos.
Personal life
Harris resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife Carol Welsman, a world-class jazz vocalist and pianist and their two dogs Boomer and Lucy.
See also
- Mark Geragos
- Susan McDougal
- Carol Welsman
- Dianne Feinstein
References
External links
- Susan McDougal: The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk by Susan McDougal with Pat Harris
- Pat Harris for Senate 2018
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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