Dear Supervisor Miley,
We are a broad coalition of organizations working together to end the death penalty, promote racial justice, and advance human dignity and community safety in California, working collectively as the California Anti-Death Penalty Coalition. Together, we represent thousands of constituents who live and vote in Alameda County.
We write to urge you to use an open and transparent public process to select the next district attorney of Alameda County, with particular attention to the candidate’s views on the death penalty and how they will address the deep history of racism, antisemitism and homophobia exhibited in jury selection and death penalty prosecutions in Alameda County.
➔ The next district attorney of Alameda County should oppose the death penalty, pledge to never seek a death sentence, and seek to resolve the remaining death-sentenced cases from our county with non-death outcomes.
The death penalty in California is racially biased and an affront to human dignity. The voters of Alameda County have twice voted by wide margins to repeal the death penalty. The next district attorney of this county should put in place practices that reflect the values of this county including those of advancing racial justice and recognizing the inherent human dignity of all people, just as the district attorneys of neighboring Santa Clara and Contra Costa Counties have done.
Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen previously supported the death penalty. Of his prior views, District Attorney Rosen has said, “But I also trusted that as a society, we could ensure the fundamental fairness of the legal process for all people. With every exoneration, with every story of racial injustice, it becomes clear to me that this is not
the world we live in.”1 District Attorney Rosen further commented, “I think that in my lifetime, we will look back and say it was not right to execute people.”2 In a legal pleading requesting resentencing in death-sentenced cases, District Attorney Rosen stated, “we are not confident that these sentences were attained without racial bias,” and “[w]e cannot defend these sentences, and we believe that implicit bias and structural racism played some role in the death sentence.”3
Similarly, Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton called the death penalty “a system rooted in slavery, lynchings and racial inequities that persist to this day.”4 District Attorney Becton continued, “[a]s the elected district attorney and a former judge in Contra Costa County, I cannot fulfill my obligation to seek justice and ensure people are treated with fairness through a death penalty system so deeply ingrained with racial disparities.”5 She also observed, “the public needs to know that the death penalty wastes millions of taxpayer dollars on a racially biased system that has never been proven to deter crime.”6
The voters of Alameda County deserve a district attorney with the same understanding of the fundamental flaws with the death penalty as their esteemed colleagues in neighboring counties.
➔ The next district attorney of Alameda County should continue addressing the history of racism, antisemitism, and homophobia in the office exhibited in jury selection and death penalty prosecutions.
For decades, individuals sentenced to death from Alameda County have asserted that the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office routinely engaged in racism, antisemitism and homophobia in jury selection.7 For decades, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has denied these claims and hid the truth. Then earlier this year, a new member of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office reviewed the jury selection notes in a death penalty case, revealing concrete evidence that Alameda County prosecutors routinely excluded Black people, Jewish people, and lesbian and gay people from jury service in death penalty cases, using offensive language and stereotypes in reference to members of our community.8
It is unconstitutional for a prosecutor to remove a community member from jury service based on race, religion, or sexual orientation and it violates the rights of the individual who has been discriminated against. Bias in jury selection undermines the integrity of our entire legal system, as well as the fairness and reliability of the outcome in the individual case.
Alameda County’s next district attorney must be a person of the utmost integrity, with a deep understanding of structural racism, antisemitism, and homophobia. We urge you to appoint an individual who is beyond reproach and has no potential history of involvement in the biased jury selection that occurred or the decades spent covering it up. In addition, the next district attorney of this county should pledge to continue addressing the injustice that occurred in individual cases by seeking resentencing, holding accountable the prosecutors involved in the biased behavior and the cover up, and addressing the office culture which allowed this to occur.
We appreciate the great responsibility you have in selecting the next district attorney for our community. We hope you will use an open and transparent process for selecting the next lead prosecutor for our community, one that shares our values and our vision for justice. We thank you for considering our views.
Sincerely,
Stefanie Faucher, Alameda County District 3 Resident Deputy Director 8th Amendment Project
On Behalf of the California Anti-Death Penalty Coalition
E Amaya Interim Director 67 Sueños
Lara Bazelon Clinic Director USF School of Law Racial Justice Clinic
Paul Briley Executive Director All of Us Or None and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Jane A. Brown President Alameda County Public Defender Steering Committee
Lizzie Buchen Deputy Director Smart Justice California
Mona Cadena Director of Advocacy and Campaigns Equal Justice USA
Vicki Carroll Statewide Clerk Friends Committee on Legislation of California
Kyle Magallanes Castillo Co-Executive Director Community Works
Kate Chatfield Executive Director California Public Defenders Association
Michael Collins Senior Director for State & Local Government Affairs Color of Change
Mike Farrell President Death Penalty Focus
Todd Fries Executive Director Northern California Innocence Project
Rebecca Gonzales Policy Advocate Western Center on Law & Poverty
Yoel Haile Criminal Justice Program Director ACLU of Northern California
Amber-Rose Howard Executive Director Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB)
Sikander Iqbal Acting Executive Director Urban Peace Movement
Nisha Kashyap Program Director, Racial Justice Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area
Susan Kim Senior Policy Manager UnCommon Law
Irene Kao Executive Director Courage California
Juleen Lam Executive Director for Project Rebound California State University, East Bay
Diane Lozano Executive Director Full Picture Justice
turtle woman maryam Core Leader Bend the Arc California
Terry McCaffrey President California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty
Ellie Virrueta Ortiz Policy Associate Essie Justice Group
Dr. Frankie Free Ramos Director of Campaigns and Organizing
Sonja Tonnesen-Casalegno Policy & Legal Director Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ)
Angel Rice Executive Director Restoring Hope California
Laura Ridolfi Policy Director Haywood Burns Institute
Abby Salim Co-Founder Empowering Women Impacted by Incarceration
Leilani Salvador Director BAY-Peace
Joanne Scheer Executive Director Felony Murder Elimination Project
Porshe Taylor Executive Director Prison FTIO Urban Strategies Council
Gavrilah Wells State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator, CA Amnesty International USA
Analisa Zamora Policy Director Young Women’s Freedom Center
Morgan Zamora Prison Advocacy Coordinator Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
