Prosecutors in Alameda County death penalty cases may have acted criminally during trials, district attorney says

By Stephanie Becker and Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN

(CNN) — The Alameda County District Attorney’s office said it has uncovered possible criminal conduct committed by prosecutors after it was ordered to review dozens of death penalty cases to determine whether prosecutors intentionally excluded Black and Jewish jurors.

Earlier this year, a federal judge ordered the district attorney’s office to comb through each of the county’s 35 death penalty cases after evidence revealed prosecutors had deliberately prevented Black and Jewish jurors from serving on a 1995 capital murder trial.

Investigators have since identified a “serious pattern of misconduct” involving multiple cases, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price said Tuesday. She declined to provide an exact number of cases, citing the ongoing review.

Her office believes some of the behavior “in addition to violating the Constitution may have been criminal,” Price revealed during a news conference at her office in Oakland.

The alleged misconduct was discovered by an Alameda County deputy district attorney while preparing for the appeal of death row inmate Ernest Dykes, who was convicted in the 1993 murder of 9-year-old Lance Clark.

CNN last week published images of notes believed to be written by prosecutors during Dykes’s trial, which included comments singling out potential jurors who were Black or Jewish. One potential juror in the Dykes case file is described as a “Short, fat troll.” Like other Black potential jurors – and only Black potential jurors – her race is noted. The letters “FB” are written next to her name, apparently noting her gender and race. Another juror has the word “Jewish” underlined on their questionnaire. Farther down, a handwritten note reads: “I liked him better than any other Jew. But no way.”

Ultimately, no Black or Jewish jurors were seated at the trial.

Now, Clark’s family says prosecutors told them Dykes could be released from prison after they uncovered evidence of jury tampering in his case. The district attorney’s office declined to comment.

The death penalty cases under review date from the mid-1980s through 2007. Among those cases are convicted mass shooters, serial killers, rapists and murderers.

Brian Pomerantz, an attorney for Dykes and other capital cases, says he believes the some of those serving death sentences might now be freed. “For some, that may be the solution,” he said. ”And for some that should be the solution.”

Families of victims in the 35 cases must now confront the reality that the people convicted could be released, resentenced or face a new trial. Price said her office is engaged in settlement negotiations with the prisoners’ lawyers and the state attorney general’s office.

The full review of cases will likely last through the end of the year, Price said.

Price faces a recall election in November and members of the Alameda County prosecutors’ union voted “overwhelmingly” to support the recall, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, citing an email sent from the union to its members on Monday.

It is unclear how many prosecutors in the district attorney’s office are represented by the union, nor what percentage of members supported the recall.

When asked about the vote during Tuesday’s news conference, the district attorney said she believes the union’s actions are motivated by her office’s probe into prosecutorial misconduct.

“The whole world is watching and horrified by what we have uncovered as prosecutorial misconduct in this office, and our efforts 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,” Price said.

CNN has sought comment from the prosecutor’s union on the vote.

CNN’s Nick Watt contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.