Dear Supervisors,
This letter is sent on behalf of the undersigned organizations who work for safe and just communities and have led the work against the criminalization of poverty and mental illness, mass incarceration, police violence, and the entrenched racism within the criminal legal system in Alameda County for decades. Collectively, we serve and represent thousands of Alameda County residents.
As a result of the passage of the measure to recall District Attorney Pamela Price, you now have the obligation to appoint the next District Attorney for Alameda County. Collectively, we share the following demands for that process to be open, transparent, and aligned with Alameda County’s existing commitments to human rights, justice, and equity.
The appointment process must be open and transparent with meaningful opportunities for public input.
Prior to making this appointment, we urge you to consult community leaders who reflect and represent the geographic and demographic diversity of Alameda County, as well as representatives from directly impacted groups, including crime survivors, formerly incarcerated individuals, victims of police violence, wrongly convicted individuals, members of overpoliced communities, and advocates for immigrant rights and environmental, housing, public health, labor and justice reform. Other counties in California, including Contra Costa County in 2017, have previously conducted an open District Attorney recruitment, application, and appointment process including community forums, multiple opportunities to provide public and online comments, and interviews of each of the finalists. We encourage you to take similar action to ensure the appointment is transparent and includes public input.
The appointment of a new District Attorney must reflect the long-standing values of Alameda County residents and oppose the death penalty.
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 is fundamentally racist, barbaric, and unjust. Alameda County residents voted twice to abolish the death penalty in 2012 (Proposition 34, by 62.5%)1 and in 2016 (Proposition 62, by 62.1%)2. In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that placed an indefinite moratorium on the death penalty in the state. Furthermore, D.A Price’s office has exposed a decades-long practice of excluding Black, Jewish, and LGBTQ members of the community from death penalty juries, which has led to a federal judge ordering the review of dozens of death penalty cases in Alameda County going back more than 30 years. The incoming District Attorney must commit to ensuring good faith continuity of the review that is currently underway.
The appointment of a new District Attorney must uphold evidence-based criminal justice reforms.
Hold Law Enforcement Accountable When They Break the Law:
The next District Attorney should have the courage to hold law enforcement officers accountable when they break the law. Alameda County has a long and sordid history of police violence where community members were killed either by police officers or found dead in custody with little to no accountability in the court of law. The Oakland Police Department remains under federal oversight for scandals that continue to plague it, including the case of a homicide detective charged with bribing a witness and perjury3 (instances which have led to two murder convictions being overturned) and a sergeant who faced no real consequences for a hit and run incident in a parking garage4. We need a District Attorney with a commitment to the principle of equal justice under the law and the courage to hold law enforcement accountable.
Invest in Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation:
The next District Attorney of Alameda County should be committed to the idea that public safety is best achieved through prevention, treatment and rehabilitative services. Over-incarceration is a poor remedy to the social ills it is too often used to address.
Mental illness, substance use, poverty, and inequality can all be better addressed through non-carceral responses that uphold dignity and invigorate communities. Mass incarceration does the opposite, creating multiple constitutional problems resulting from substandard living conditions, depriving communities of valued members, and wasting human life and potential, all at enormous expense to taxpayers.
Treat Children as Children:
The next District Attorney of Alameda County should be committed to never prosecuting children as adults. Nationally, a study published by the Sentencing Project showed that in 2015, Black youth were 500 percent more likely to be incarcerated than white youth, while Latino youth were 65 percent more likely to be incarcerated than their white peers.5 In 2016, all the youth who were charged as adults in Alameda County were youth of color. Moreover, the scientific and legal consensus is now abundantly clear: adolescents are different from adults in ways that diminish their culpability for offense conduct, and which portend a far greater potential for reform. Instead of seeking jail or prison time, young people should be diverted to effective alternative-to-incarceration programs so that they may mature and return to their communities as rehabilitated adults, without the lost time and trauma of a carceral sentence or kept in the juvenile justice system.
Commit to Second Chances and Resentencing:
The next District Attorney of Alameda County should be committed to utilizing all the tools and legal vehicles available to bring our incarcerated loved ones home to their families and communities. Research has shown that lengthy sentences and high rates of incarceration have a diminishing rate of return, little to no deterrent effect, and that people age out of crime, and that their criminal involvement diminishes significantly after they reach age 40, and even more so when they reach 50 years of age. Nearly 1 in 4 people incarcerated in California are over the age of 50. Additionally, surveys by victim advocacy groups show that 75% of surveyed victims favor reducing sentence lengths for people who are assessed to be a low risk to public safety.6 We need a District Attorney who recognizes excessive sentences are riddled with entrenched racism, cost the state millions of dollars, and keep people who are rehabilitated needlessly incarcerated and
separated from their families; and who will seek to vigorously exercise their discretion to bring people home.
There are real impacts of crime and violence on Alameda County communities, and residents deserve to feel safe in their neighborhoods. Alameda County must focus on the root causes of crime and not fall back on the failed tools of incarceration and over-policing. A reversion to failed methods will lead to predictable results: the abominable jail and prison conditions that flow from mass incarceration with attendant suffering, litigation costs, and judicial monitoring; harassment and death at the hands of police for our most vulnerable citizens; and a deepening divide between law enforcement and the community that will only exacerbate existing problems. We are relying on the next District Attorney to protect recent gains in criminal justice policy while our organizations continue to pursue the transformative change that our communities demand.
We look forward to hearing how you will ensure that the new District Attorney continues to move criminal justice reform forward in Alameda County, and we look forward to meeting with the new District Attorney once they take office.
Yoel Haile
Criminal Justice Program Director ACLU of Northern California
Michael Collins
Senior Director of State & Local Government Affairs Color Of Change
Sikander Iqbal
Acting Executive Director Urban Peace Movement
Sonja Tonnesen-Casalegno
Policy & Legal Director
Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice
Rev. Barbara F. Meyers
Unitarian Universalist Mental Health Community Minister Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Richard Speiglman
Chair
Interfaith Coalition for Justice in our Jails
Pastor Todd Benson Interim Executive Director Faith In Action East Bay
Joshlyn Turner
Director
Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY)
Pecolia Manigo Executive Director Oakland Rising
Kyle Magallanes Castillo Co-Executive Director Community Works
Juleen Lam
Executive Director of Project Rebound Cal State East Bay
David A. Harris
President & CEO
Urban Strategies Council
Michai Freeman
Systems Change Advocate Center for Independent Living
Tanisha Cannon
Managing Director
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
John Lindsay-Poland and Fatimeh Khan
Co-Directors, California Healing Justice Program American Friends Service Committee
Millie Cleveland
Coalition for Police Accountability
Cathy Rodriguez
CEO
Probation Support Network
Sheryl Walton
Co-Chair
Block by Block Organizing Network
Zoë Polk
Executive Director
East Bay Community Law Center
They can’t appoint anyone who has the same progressive policies as the ousted DA Price.
If they do they didn’t get the message.
The hard part is that a recall is a blunt instrument – exactly what policies did the voters reject? All of them? How do we know? How do we pick and choose? The voters in Alameda County, twice voted to end the death penalty – so how do you know they want someone who supports the death penalty? I understand your point. But I don’t know that we can infer as much as you think we can. It’s why I don’t particularly like recall. At least in LA, the voters directly voted on an alternative. I may not agree with them, but it’s a more reasonable process than recall.
The death penalty isn’t the biggest issue. The people of Oakland wan’t tougher on crime policies.
It’s not all that difficult to figure out.
The letter went more broadly than some of the other letters, but this is basically about the juror selection scandal involving death penalty cases that are now being litigated.
“The appointment of a new District Attorney must reflect the long-standing values of Alameda County residents and oppose the death penalty.”