Opinion: DA went too far — and it backfired

BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor

A thought exercise. A police officer apprehends a suspect he’s been trying to arrest for a long time. The officer is so frustrated that he not only puts the guy in handcuffs, he slams him on the floor, kicks him a few times and punches his face until it bleeds. 

Of course, there was no need for all that violence, but the officer let his personal feelings take over and affect how he did his job. 

The suspect is guilty, but the brutality leads to charges being dropped and a civil suit where he gets some money from the police. If only the officer had kept his feelings to himself and did his job professionally.

But the cop allowed his feelings interfere with how he did his job.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen is proudly Jewish and is a leader in his synagogue in Los Altos. It was his job to prosecute the protesters who were arrested in 2024 after barricading themselves inside the Stanford University president’s office.

The case was open-and-shut. The pro-Palestinian protesters were photographed inside the president’s office, where they weren’t invited. One of the protesters even testified against the others. They were arrested while they were still inside the office. It’s like arresting a bank robber who is caught in the bank’s vault stuffing money in his pants.

But Rosen blew the case by using the fact that the protesters supported the Palestinians in a fundraising email to 620 members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He also put a link for fundraising on his campaign website. Rosen framed the case as part of his efforts to fight antisemitism, even though the defendants were not charged with a hate crime.

On Thursday, Judge Kelley Paul kicked Rosen and his office off of the case and handed it to state Attorney General Rob Bonta. 

It shouldn’t matter what beliefs the protesters hold — whether they’re pro-Palestinian, pro-Israel, pro-Democrat, pro-Republican, pro-flat earth society. None of that should matter in a prosecution. The only question is whether the defendants committed the offenses for which they were charged. Justice is supposed to be blind. 

In fact, you could argue Rosen’s actions backfired. The Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement saying Judge Paul’s decision underscores concerns about the selective and excessive prosecution of pro-Palestinian protesters. Rosen turned the defendants into sympathetic figures.

Rosen’s attempt to monetize this case endangered the prosecution of these defendants and he has undermined the concept of equal justice under the law. 

Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.