Death row inmate in Alameda County to be released next year after comprehensive review of cases for signs of racism

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price speaks to members of the media during a press conference at the district attorney’s office in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, July 11, 20224. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND – A man sentenced to death in 1995 for killing a 9-year-old boy will be released from prison next year instead, amid a sweeping review of death penalty cases that followed concerns that Alameda County prosecutors systematically kept blacks and Jews off juries for years.

Ernest Dykes, 51, was one of several men whose decades-long sentences on death row appear to be coming to an end, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price announced Tuesday. Together, they mark the first tangible impact of an ongoing investigation into decades of alleged racism, anti-Semitism and bigotry among East Bay prosecutors that has rocked Alameda County’s justice system and left dozens of death penalty cases in limbo.

Another man, 51-year-old Keith Thomas, was eligible for immediate parole after Price said her office also found signs of misconduct by the lawyers who prosecuted him in the late 1990s.

“We now follow the law,” Price said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. “And we will not have an office where people are not held accountable when they violate their ethics or engage in prosecutorial misconduct.”

“If we uncover wrongdoing, we will disclose it, we will address it and we will hold people accountable,” Price added.

The announcement follows the high-profile ruling two months ago by U.S. District Judge Vincent Chhabria, who found “strong evidence” that systemic racism and anti-Semitism were on full display. He made the ruling after reviewing prosecutors’ notes found in Dykes’ file by one of Price’s assistant district attorneys.

“These notes – particularly when taken in the context of evidence presented in other cases – constitute strong evidence that prosecutors in this firm repeatedly engaged in serious misconduct in the decades prior by automatically excluding Jewish and African-American jurors in death penalty cases,” Chhabria wrote in his ruling, which lifted a preliminary injunction on the notes in question.

After the judge’s decision in May, Price said she wanted to review the cases of 35 locals still on death row for signs of racism, bigotry or wrongdoing, calling it an “ethical obligation” that goes beyond “left or right or any kind of politics.”

On Tuesday, Price said the review was ongoing. Still, she said her office has so far identified seven prosecutors — five who no longer work for her office, one who is still employed by her and another who currently serves as a judge — whose cases have been subject to further review.

Dykes was convicted in 1995 of murdering 9-year-old Lance Clark, the grandson of a local farmer whom Dykes attempted to rob. In a police interview, he admitted to the attempted robbery but claimed the gun went off accidentally during a struggle, according to court documents he filed in his 2009 appeal.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like this,” Dykes allegedly told police. “I’m not a murderer.” After his conviction, the jury sentenced him to death.

After his release, Dykes will likely have to serve a two-year suspended sentence, Price said Tuesday.

Thomas was sentenced to death in 1998 for the rape and murder of 25-year-old Francia Young. She was abducted near the MacArthur BART station in Oakland and found shot to death in Point Richmond six years earlier. His sentence was reduced to 23 years to life after signs of prosecutorial misconduct emerged in his case, Price said. Because he has already served 31 years, he is now eligible for immediate parole, she said.

Price also said a third person would be removed from death row and instead sentenced to life without parole. She said her office had not admitted wrongdoing in his case and that he was resentenced “due to additional factors.”

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