Oakland, CA – Once the results of the recall of Alameda DA Pamela Price are certified, the focus turns to the process by which the Alameda Board of Supervisors selects a replacement DA.
Various organizations have weighed in already, concerned about the recently revealed scandal in which previous DA’s office intentionally excluded Jews, Blacks and members of the LGBTQ community from juries hearing death penalty cases.
In a November 18 letter, the League of Women Voters of Alameda County, urged the Board to hold “an open and transparent parcoess.”
But a key consideration was made to select a DA who opposes the death penalty and promises “not to seek death sentences.”
They also asked for a “commitment to regular training on, and use of, alternatives to incarceration, including restorative justice practices” as well as a “commitment by the Office to continue to address the history of racism, antisemitism, and homophobia during jury selection and death penalty prosecution.”
The Vanguard recently spoke with Helen Hutchison, Chair of the Alameda County Council of League of Women Voters.
The League, Hutchison explains supports the abolition of the death penalty.
“We are part of this coalition, and we just think it’s an important step for Alameda County and we don’t want to go backwards on that,” she said.
Hutchinson explained, “We’re trying to make a case… of a couple of things. One is that we want this pledge to not use the death penalty, but also that there needs to be some sense of stability within the office – and we want the process to be and transparent.”
She continued, “We also want to make sure that there is a commitment to continuing or increasing the training on uses of alternatives to incarceration. And all of this is part of this movement to address the pattern of racism and antisemitism and homophobia.”
Voters in Alameda County voted twice to abolish the death penalty both in 2012 and 2016 with more than 60 percent support.
In 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that placed an indefinite moratorium on the death penalty statewide but did not end the death penalty and importantly did not commute the sentences of those on death row to some form of life.
Earlier in 2024, revelations by an appellate judge and the Alameda DA Price “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.”
With the recall however, much of the efforts to correct past wrongs will fall to a new office and there is a good deal of uncertainty going forward.
The timing of an appointment is unclear.
The first step would be the certification of the election.
“At that point,” Hutchison explained, “Ms. Price would have to leave office an so then they’d start their process and the first step in their process would be to appoint someone just to take over for the interim, somebody to be in charge of the office.”
But the death penalty is a big focus of this push with the lingering jury selection controversy.
“The death penalty in California is racially biased and an affront to human dignity,” a group of 46 organization wrote in late November. “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 DA Jeff Rosen for example, previously supported the death penalty.
But he has since changed his view.
District Attorney Rosen noted his previous support, but said, “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.”
He continued, commented, “I think that in my lifetime, we will look back and say it was not right to execute people.”
As such he filed a brief stating, 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.”
DA Diana Becton of neighboring Contra Costa County said, the death penalty is “a system rooted in slavery, lynchings and racial inequities that persist to this day.”
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.”
She added, “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.”
Groups are calling for an appointment process that is “be open and transparent with meaningful opportunities for public input.”
One group noted, “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.”
The group wrote, “We encourage you to take similar action to ensure the appointment is transparent and includes public input.”
As Hutchison told the Vanguard, “we recognize that there needs to be time for candidates to apply and public input.”
At the same time, they have to fill the office.
“There’s this kind of balancing of all of these interests that they have to do, but we do want to make sure that candidates have a chance to apply, that there’s sufficient time, there’s sufficient time for public input on all those candidates and that they fill the office with some sense of urgency. And those are conflicting kinds of things all going against each other.”
