Evans Ray Jr. was a small business owner who ran a neighborhood barbershop. Evans Ray Jr. is a family man who loved his wife and four kids. And Evans Ray Jr. is also a convicted felon. To help a buddy, he agreed during a moment of indiscretion in 2004 to arrange a drug deal.

Because of his two nonviolent priors in the early 1990s, he was sentenced to the mandatory minimum under Maryland law: life in prison. After a dozen years at a high-security penitentiary, Ray received presidential clemency, a chance, as President Obama wrote to him, "to turn your life around."

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., evidently would have let Ray rot in prison. If she was president, Harris wouldn't hand down pardons or grant clemency. That's because Harris is either the stupidest or the cruelest senator in the country.

"Joe Arpaio was convicted because he committed a crime," Harris tweeted in reference to the notorious ex-Arizona sheriff. "He should not be pardoned."

Joe Arpaio was convicted because he committed a crime. He should not be pardoned. https://t.co/YGvQkK6Kae — Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) August 23, 2017

Setting aside whether or not Arpaio deserves a second chance, the statement from Harris is stunning in its ignorance. Obviously the convicted committed a crime! That's the whole point of the pardon. It doesn't absolve guilt or overturn a conviction. It simply lessens the punishment. To say flatly that Arpaio doesn't deserve a pardon because he broke the law, is to say in the same breath that Ray and the thousands of others pardoned by Obama don't deserve a second chance. Sweeping, broad, and stupid, that proclamation should also be an embarrassment for Harris who served six years as California's attorney general.

Then again, maybe Harris is just a legal monster. Sure, she might not oppose all pardons but as the Golden State's top cop, she certainly didn't mind breaking protocol to bolster her office's conviction record. At least that seems to be the opinion of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Two years ago that court refused to uphold a murder conviction in a case that the attorney general's office won previously using false evidence. Judge Alex Kozinski warned Harris to give up on the conviction "obtained by lying prosecutors." And if she didn't, he promised that the court would begin to "name names" and the result would "not be pretty."

Gearing up for her run for the Senate, Harris relented. But that episode encapsulates perfectly why pardons and clemency are necessary. So long as there are ambitious prosecutors such as Harris, convictions will continue to be flawed and sentences needlessly harsh. Luckily, our legal system is more compassionate than the ambitious junior senator from California, because sometimes convicted felons deserve a second chance.

Maybe Harris does understand a pardon. And maybe she's not heartless enough to deny pardons across the board. Perhaps she's just sloppy and ambitious.

Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.