DA Price re-sentences three death row inmates in Alameda County

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price speaks during a news conference in Oakland on Nov. 7, 2023. (Jane Tyska/ East Bay Times via Getty Images)

(BCN) — Three death row inmates have been resentenced, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price announced Tuesday afternoon. Ernest Dykes, who was convicted of killing a 9-year-old boy in 1993, is expected to be released from prison next year with two years of probation. Keith Thomas, who was sentenced to death in 1997, will receive a prison sentence of 23 to life. However, because he has served 31 years, Thomas will be eligible for parole.

And Gregory Tate, convicted in 1993, will receive a life sentence without parole. In April, a U.S. district judge ordered Price to review all 35 death sentences in Alameda County whose inmates are still alive. Those sentences date back to the late 1970s. The order came after the court, reviewing Dykes’ case, found that prosecutors had excluded blacks and Jews from the jury.

Price said the investigation found a number of instances of prosecutorial misconduct. Thomas’ case, she said, relied on racist imagery and stereotypes used by District Attorney James Anderson that have since been banned by newer California laws such as the Racial Justice Act of 2020. But Price said prosecutors did not admit to wrongdoing in Tate’s case and the overturning of the verdict was based on other factors in its “sentencing structure.”

Seven people close to the district attorney’s office are suspected of misconduct, Price said, including current Assistant District Attorney Michael Nieto. Nieto was nominated by Gov. Gavin Newsom in June to a position on the Contra Costa County Superior Court and has a supervisor who reviews his cases while investigations are ongoing, Price said.

The other six people are no longer employed by the district attorney’s office, but one was an acting judge, Price said. During the two days of hearings in district court, the district attorney’s office reviewed many cases, Price said, but “quite a few” are still open.

But those could be harder to verify because in more than 70% of cases, there are minimal or no notes on jury selection, according to Price. Prosecutors are considering the possibility that previous prosecutors “whitewashed” those records and covered up wrongdoing, Price said.

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

Price, on behalf of the prosecution, apologized to the victims of the Dykes and Thomas cases for the prosecutor’s misconduct and also to the larger black, Jewish and LGBTQ communities for denying them the opportunity to serve as jurors.

“Jurors who are called to jury duty have the right to serve regardless of their religion, their race, their national origin or their sexual orientation,” she said. “And the victims who rely on prosecutors as guardians of the Constitution, as light-bringers of the law, as ministers of justice, have the right to trust that we will do the right thing.”

Price’s investigation comes at a precarious time for her and other Oakland leaders. She and Mayor Sheng Thao face recall elections in November after both have come under fire over the city’s crime rate.

In February, Gov. Gavin Newsom sent prosecutors to help Oakland pursue criminal convictions, but last week he abruptly withdrew his offer, saying Price’s office was uncooperative.

“The people elected me to reform this office. To help reform the criminal justice system that has gone wrong, that has become bad, that has hurt a lot of people,” Price said. “That’s why I’m here, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

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