Alameda County prosecutors allegedly excluded Black people and Jews from death penalty juries
A federal judge has ordered District Attorney Pamela Price to review 35 death penalty cases after notes from decades ago showed alleged ‘prosecutorial misconduct.’
In an order issued today, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria said that the hand-written notes of prosecutors from a 31-year-old murder case “constitute strong evidence that, in prior decades, prosecutors from the [Alameda County District Attorney’s] office were engaged in a pattern of serious misconduct, automatically excluding Jewish and African American jurors in death penalty cases.”
The apparent attempts to exclude Black and Jewish people from juries in homicide cases may have been based upon the belief that these groups would be less likely to convict someone if a death sentence was possible. Any exclusion of potential jurors because of their race or religion would have been unconstitutional.
Price said this behavior was not limited to one or two prosecutors but involved “a variety of prosecutors.” Price added that people who were identified in this manner did not end up on juries.
“The evidence suggests plainly that many people did not receive a fair trial in Alameda County and as a result we have to review all of the files to determine what happened,” Price said during a press conference before the San Francisco Federal Building on Monday.
Price’s office is reviewing 35 active death penalty cases, and will potentially review matters dating to 1977. She said the review is starting with death penalty cases but other cases may be implicated.
The DA’s Office is in the process of notifying the families of victims of the people whose death penalty cases will be affected. Price said her office has set up an email address and hotline for anyone who may have been impacted.
