Did The Exclusion of Black and Jewish Jurors Impact Dozens of Death Penalty Cases?
A shocking allegation of racial bias in death penalty cases in Alameda County, California, could have massive implications for dozens of death penalty cases in the northern California county that encompasses Oakland.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria ordered a review of 35 death penalty cases in the county dating back decades after evidence emerged that prosecutors, in prior decades, were excluding Black and Jewish jurors in death penalty cases.
The allegations emerged amid an appeal hearing for Ernest Dykes, a 51-year-old Black man who was sentenced to death in 1995 after being convicted of murdering the 9-year-old grandson of his landlord Bernice Clark, and her attempted murder. Dykes previously won a stay of execution, arguing that he was not given a fair trial. And in 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on executions statewide.
According to Judge Chhabria, jury selection notes written by prosecutors and shared with Dyke’s defense team seemed to show a “pattern” of automatically excluding Black and Jewish jurors in death penalty cases.
“These notes—especially when considered in conjunction with evidence presented in other cases—constitute strong evidence that, in prior decades, prosecutors from the office were engaged in a pattern of serious misconduct, automatically excluding Jewish and African American jurors in death penalty cases,” wrote the judge.
The allegations cast further doubt on a system plagued by racial inequality. Black Americans are significantly overrepresented on death row. And Black Americans whose victims are white, are much more likely to receive the death penalty.
The notes from Dykes trial weren’t the only evidence of misconduct. “We have notes made by prosecutors in some of the cases, which indicates that Jewish jurors were being identified as Jewish and that Black people were being identified as Black and that they did not end up on the jury,” said Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price during a press conference. “And that has occurred in a number of cases.”
Price, who is Black, did not mince words when discussing the alleged wrongdoing of her predecessors.
“When you intentionally exclude people based on their race, their religion, their gender or any protected category, it violates the Constitution,” she said at a press conference last week. “The evidence that we have uncovered suggests plainly that many people did not receive a fair trial in Alameda County.”
