Every death case in Alameda County now in limbo
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — All 35 death penalty cases in Alameda County from the past four decades are in limbo because of potential misconduct committed by prosecutors during jury selection, the district attorney announced.
On Monday, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price told reporters that her office found evidence that prosecutors intentionally excluded Black and Jewish people from the jury of Ernest Edward Dykes.
The DA’s bombshell review of 35 cases began with Dykes, who was sentenced to death in 1995. Dykes murdered his landlord’s nine-year-old grandson in Oakland and shot the landlord in her neck in the summer of 1993, court records show.
The landlord, 70-year-old Bernice Clark, survived the apartment complex shooting. Nine-year-old Lance Clark died from a gunshot wound to his chest.
Dykes is now a 51-year-old condemned inmate appealing his case.
Price had assigned a deputy district attorney to oversee death penalty appellate court proceedings. The staffer found old notes handwritten by prosecutors detailing the strategy of excluding Black and Jewish people from Dykes’ jury pool, according to Price.
The district attorney held a news conference Monday outside the United States District Court courthouse in San Francisco, where U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria is overseeing Dykes’ appeal.
Price said the conduct of some prosecutors likely violated defendants’ right to a fair trial. Price said she is not sure how long reviewing all 35 cases will take. “It will take a long time,” she said. “We are not advocating for Dykes, we are advocating for the people of California,” Price added.
“I’m mandated to root out unethical behavior. This is about ethics. To ensure every person charged with a crime receives a fair trial,” Price told reporters. “It appears that certain prosecutors in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office intentionally excluded Black and Jewish jurors.”
This week, Judge Chhabria lifted an order that had previously kept the prosecutors’ jury selection notes sealed. The DA’s Office released five handwritten notes to the media immediately after the order was lifted.
Dykes is currently incarcerated in California Health Care Facility Stockton, according to state prison inmate records.
Some of the 35 victims’ family members have been notified of the ongoing review, the district attorney said. The review could lead to re-sentencings or retrials for convicted murderers.
Price said, “The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a trial by an impartial jury of one’s peers. Any practice by prosecutors to eliminate potential jurors because of their race betrays that core pillar of the criminal justice system.”
Michael Collins of Color Of Change, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization, told KRON4, “The prosecutors and judges implicated in this scandal engaged in racist and antisemitic practices and sent people to their deaths. For too long, prosecutors have sought to win at all costs, even if it means engaging in constitutional violations, civil rights violations and antisemitic and racially disparate practices. We know of 35 people who will have their cases reviewed, and hopefully overturned, but there are likely many more.”
The District Attorney’s Office said it is still reaching out to victims and survivors in the 35 cases. Anyone who has not been contacted can call Victim Witness Advocates at 510-208-9555 or email shawnmitchell@acgov.org.
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