At a moment when top elected officials in Alameda County and Oakland are fighting allegations of misconduct and mismanagement, and as Oakland recovers from a mass shooting at Lake Merritt, Price defended her administration.
Price said she believed the union’s recall vote was in response to her administration’s review of death penalty convictions.
In April, Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court of Northern California directed Price’s office to review all death penalty convictions for signs of prosecutorial misconduct. The directive came after evidence indicating county prosecutors may have excluded Black and Jewish jurors was found in the case of Ernest Dykes, who sits on death row.
It’s the latest allegation that prosecutors systematically prevented Black and Jewish residents from serving on death penalty juries in the 1980s and 1990s. The rejection was based on the belief that Black and Jewish jurors were more likely to oppose the death penalty. Price was elected in 2022.
“I’m sure that there are people who are leading the prosecutors’ union who have a problem with that. The whole world is watching and horrified by what we have uncovered,” Price said. “Our effort to hold prosecutors accountable for this kind of misconduct and other ethical lapses has been met with resistance from the prosecutors’ union before we arrived and certainly since we’ve been here.”
According to data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, there are currently 37 people on death row who were convicted in Alameda County, including Dykes. Price’s office told KQED it is reviewing 35 cases. The review could lead to resentencing or retrials.
“We are under the mandate to review all of the cases,” Price said. “We’re continuing to meet with Judge Chhabria as well as the California Attorney General’s office, as well as defense counsel in the cases.”
Price announced that Otis Bruce, the chief assistant DA, had resigned. According to reporting in the Berkeley Scanner, Bruce made disparaging remarks about Pacific Islanders to an Asian American prosecutor in 2023 and allegedly fostered an environment of fear when he worked for the Marin County DA, his post, before joining Price’s office.
Price did not elaborate on why Bruce, who was replaced by Evanthia Pappas, resigned.
“As we go through this transition, I think that it will be a great opportunity, as I mentioned, for others who have been longtime prosecutors in this office to prosper,” she said.
The office’s reorganization includes the addition of two new divisions: gender justice and advancing justice.
Oakland and Alameda County have been rocked by a series of incidents recently. Earlier this month, Price and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office disputed a charging decision publicly on Facebook. At the center of the conflict was a federal parole violation hearing.
On June 12, Patricia Lee, a former public information officer for Price, filed a lawsuit against Alameda County and Price, alleging Price made anti-Asian remarks and fired her in retaliation for speaking up about violations of public transparency laws.
On June 19, 14 people were shot near Lake Merritt after a Juneteenth celebration. Price said that there were multiple shooters.
“The investigation of the Juneteenth incident at Lake Merritt is ongoing,” she said. “There are a lot of videos. We need reliable witnesses so that the Oakland Police Department can, in fact, determine what happened and who is accountable.”
The morning after the mass shooting, federal agents raided Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s home, throwing the embattled leader into further turmoil as she faces an upcoming recall election.
Thao’s initial silence began fueling speculation about her future. On Monday, she gave a defiant public statement. A day later, Francis Zamora, her chief spokesperson, resigned. Thao also parted ways with Anthony Brass, a San Francisco-based attorney who represented her. No City Council allies have spoken out in support.
Price declined to comment on the FBI raid.
“I am saddened by what we are experiencing in this season. I know that all of us are traumatized by the events that we have observed, starting with Wednesday night’s mass shooting and then followed by the raid on Thursday morning,” Price said. “I think that we all should reserve judgment until we know the facts, and I think we should all pray for our city.”
