A Conversation With DA Candidate Rahsaan Hall
With elections for the Plymouth County District Attorney (DA) right around the corner, candidate Rahsaan Hall (he/him) has been making waves with his election campaign, and was more than willing to do an interview with The Comment about his policies and thoughts.
A former Assistant District Attorney (ADA) and, surprisingly, an ordained reverend, Hall wishes to make big changes within our judicial system. His sermons, if one were to catch one, take a very similar stance to his political ideals.
“I have a very heavy social justice bent on most of the things that I preach about, social and racial justice…I also have pretty liberal theology…I’m not a fire and brimstone, hell and damnation type of creature…I’m here to uplift lift people, kind of point to the Scripture in the Gospels and look for the ways that we can care for and love one another. I don’t seek to use scripture to bludgeon people,” Hall explained.
Having pursued many cases through his work with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and the ACLU of Massachusetts, Hall has a lot of experience “representing individuals who had been discriminated against.” He said that he found a calling in community work and standing up for those who are not given the same rights as others.
With the ACLU, Hall and others attempted to make reforms in the system and become advocates for the community. He found that “it was district attorneys who were the one that were saying no, don’t do those things, that’s going to make you unsafe.”
During a scandal involving manipulated evidence and testimonies from individuals who were under the influence of illegal substances, “it was the district attorneys who stood in opposition to the type of resolution that we were proposing.”
With this, Hall began his mission to educate people on what a DA is, how that position works, and why it is the people’s right and responsibility to choose who represents their interests. Transparency and accountability are important points of his campaign, and Hall plans to keep the community informed by sharing data and the results of the changes that are made within the system.
He also has plans to change the way in which cases involving substance abuse and mental health issues are handled, and supporting programs that assist people in making changes.
“It’s a controversial topic, but would we rather have people… OD’ing in a back alley where there’s…no one around?” Hall questioned, “or would we rather create a space where we’re not providing drugs, but to the extent…there is that people are going to use drugs anyway, there is a facility where there is help available and also counseling available for when people decide that they want to stop using.”
There are plans to tackle how cash bail is handled as well, and there are plans to make it easier for those who are unable to afford the high costs, reducing the rate of guilty pleas brought on by the desire to not spend time in jail just because they don’t have enough funds to leave.
Hall is aided by a policy committee that advises him on plans and ideas for “how policies should be drafted” from various backgrounds in order to achieve a diverse range of opinions. “I’m not sitting in my bedroom late at night, coming up with ideas… I’m talking to people who know this stuff,” Hall joked.
He wishes to support communities that are currently neglected by the system, such as the LGBTQIA+ community and wishes to bring more awareness to “the language that we use in the office and with law enforcement, recognizing people’s pronouns.”
The Comment would like to thank Rahsaan Hall for taking the time to speak with us. To read more on his campaign and policies, visit https://www.hall4da.com/, and don’t forget to vote!
