Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price has announced that all death penalty cases in the county are under review after evidence was found that prosecutors in a 30-year-old case had excluded Black and Jewish people from the jury pool. Price explained that intentionally excluding individuals based on race, religion, or other protected categories violates the Constitution, and her office was acting under the direction of U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who is hearing an appeal for Ernest Dykes. Dykes was sentenced to death in 1995 but has claimed he did not receive a fair trial.
In reviewing Dykes’ case file, a deputy district attorney found handwritten notes by prosecutors indicating the intentional exclusion of Jewish and Black female jurors from the jury pool. These notes were promptly disclosed to the defense and Chhabria. In an order, Chhabria noted strong evidence of a pattern of serious misconduct in prior decades, automatically excluding Jewish and African American jurors in death penalty cases by prosecutors from the office. As a result, Price has been directed to review all death penalty cases in the county for prosecutorial misconduct, with 35 cases identified and under review.
Price revealed that potential misconduct could go back as far as 1977 and may have involved multiple prosecutors over the decades. She emphasized that notes show Jewish jurors and Black people being identified as such and not ending up on the jury, with transcripts also indicating how some jurors were questioned. While prosecutors and defense lawyers can strike prospective jurors without giving a reason, they are prohibited from doing so based on ethnicity, gender, race, or religion. Price, a former civil rights lawyer, took office in 2023 and pledged not to seek the death penalty as part of her campaign, despite facing a recall election due to accusations of being soft on crime.
Price stressed that the issue is not about politics but ethics, stating that every elected prosecutor has an ethical obligation to ensure that anyone charged with a crime receives a fair trial. The overrepresentation of Black people on death rows across the U.S., as highlighted in a 2020 report by the Death Penalty Information Center, underscores the importance of addressing misconduct and ensuring fair treatment within the criminal justice system. With concerns raised about exclusionary practices in Alameda County’s death penalty cases, the investigation aims to shine a light on potential systemic issues and uphold the principles of justice and fairness in legal proceedings.
