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OAKLAND — We are encouraged by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ decision today to conduct an open and transparent appointment process to replace outgoing District Attorney Pamela Price — one that will provide meaningful opportunities for community members to have a voice in the process.
This is a critical first step that will help to ensure that the next district attorney truly reflects the values of Alameda County residents who support equal justice under the law and public safety solutions that address the root causes of crime.
Now that the appointment process is officially under way, we urge supervisors to only consider candidates who oppose the death penalty and pledge to never seek a death sentence. Alameda County residents have voted twice to abolish this racist and barbaric practice.
Additionally, D.A. Price exposed the office’s decades-long systemic practice of excluding Black, Jewish and LGBTQ people from death penalty juries. Price’s office had been in the process of reviewing death penalty convictions for racial bias in jury selection. The incoming district attorney must commit to continuing to review those convictions as well as resolving all remaining death sentence cases with reduced sentences.
The next district attorney also must have the courage to hold law enforcement officers accountable when they break the law. Alameda County has a long and shameful history of police violence and abuse of power.
There has been little to no accountability for police officers accused of killing community members and other serious offenses. The entire Oakland Police Department remains under federal oversight for various scandals, which has cost the City of Oakland more than $20 million since 2003.
The district attorney must also commit to never prosecute children as adults. In a criminal justice system infected with racism, Black and Latino youths are far more likely to be incarcerated than white youth. A national study published by the Sentencing Project showed that in 2015, Black youth were 500 percent more likely to be incarcerated than white youth. Latino youth were 65 percent more likely to be incarcerated than their white peers. In 2016, all the youth who were charged as adults in Alameda County were youth of color.
Instead of jail or prison, young people should be placed in rehabilitation programs that provide an alternative to incarceration whenever possible.
We recognize that crime and violence have real impacts on communities.
“Alameda County residents deserve to feel safe in their neighborhoods,” said Yoel Haile, director of the criminal justice program at the ACLU of Northern California. “To achieve that goal, the next Alameda County district attorney must focus on measures that will improve public safety and not fall back on the failed policies of over policing and mass incarceration that disproportionately harm Black, Brown, and poor communities, and have not proven to be a crime deterrent."
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