Entries tagged with “Alameda County, California

Policy Issues

Race

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Jul 24, 2024

New Study Finds Evidence of Racial Bias in California Death Sentences As Resentencings Begin in Cases Tainted by Discriminatory Jury Selection

As Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price seeks to rem­e­dy her office’s his­to­ry of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry jury selec­tion, an study pub­lished in the 2024 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies by Catherine M. Grosso, Jeffrey Fagan, and Michael Laurence finds empir­i­cal evi­dence that the race of the defen­dant and the race of the vic­tim affect the like­li­hood of a death sen­tence being imposed in…

Policy Issues

Official Misconduct

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Race

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Religion

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Apr 26, 2024

Federal Judge Orders Alameda County District Attorney to Review 35 Capital Cases Following Disclosure of Prosecutorial Misconduct in Jury Selection

On April 22, 2024, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price announced that her office was ordered by a fed­er­al judge to review 35 death penal­ty con­vic­tions after the dis­clo­sure of evi­dence that sev­er­al pros­e­cu­tors inten­tion­al­ly exclud­ed Black and Jewish peo­ple from serv­ing on a cap­i­tal mur­der tri­al in 1995. In a press con­fer­ence, DA Price indi­cat­ed that her office dis­cov­ered the hand­writ­ten notes of for­mer pros­e­cu­tors that include dis­crim­i­na­to­ry jury selec­tion tac­tics, suggesting…