Jed H. Shugerman, Boston University School of Law, has posted The Rise of the Prosecutor Politicians: Race, War, and the Roots of Mass Incarceration:
This excerpt is from my book project, "The Rise of the Prosecutor Politicians: Race, War, and the Roots of Mass Incarceration." The book begins with the recent episodes of non- prosecution of police for excessive force and recent fundings on the cause of mass incarceration: the converse phenomenon of increasing rates of prosecuting arrests. We take it as a given today that the office of prosecutor can be a stepping-stone to higher political office, but in fact, it is a relatively recent phenomenon that emerged in the mid-twentieth century.
Earl Warren (LC)
My historical database on these trends throughout the states from 1880 to 2017 at my post, The Rise of the Prosecutor Politicians”: Database of Prosecutorial Experience for Justices, Circuit Judges, Governors, AGs, and Senators, 1880-2017. I then offer a draft chapter “The Rise of Prosecutor-Politicians: Earl Warren, the Japanese Internment, and the 1942 Governor’s Race” on my new findings from his overlooked political and campaign papers in the California State Archive in Sacramento. Warren’s political rise reflects broader changes in American society that catapulted him to political power, particularly the increasing focus on organized crime, anti-Communism, racial targeting, and the centralization of law enforcement. Earl Warren was both an effect and a cause of the rise of the prosecutor-politician: an effect of the changes in American life that delivered political opportunities to prosecutors, which Warren took advantage of; and a cause by becoming an example to other ambitious young politicians who watched his rapid ascent from Oakland prosecutor to California attorney general to governor to vice-presidential nominee in 1948.
Historians have interpreted Warren’s role in managing the Japanese internment differently, with varying degrees of blame and excuses. However, this new research shows that Warren campaigned actively in 1942 on the “Japanese problem.” He was one of the most vocal leaders, and not a follower, in whipping up support for aggressive military-based policies against Japanese-Americans, as well as targeting Latinos. This paper presents a new theory for Earl Warren's support for African-American civil rights: while Asians and Latinos were the pariah groups in California, Blacks were a rapidly growing swing voting bloc. Warren's political campaigns drew him to regard Blacks as important political allies. My research uncovers some new sources in those archives, especially the Warren campaign’s 100-page handbook for the 1942 Governor’s race.
--Dan Ernst
