New Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price arrived at a courtroom last month with a novel idea: Lop nearly a century off the prison sentence of a man who had been convicted of murder as a juvenile.
The request had little precedent in Alameda County: Should a man sentenced to 114 years for his role in the killing a 15-year-old girl be allowed to walk free after just a decade behind bars?
But before a judge could even take the bench, Price found herself in a pitched confrontation with an unexpected courtroom guest — a prosecutor whom she had placed on administrative leave, but who decided to appear anyway, an apparent act of defiance against Price’s new sentencing recommendation. In a remarkable scene, Price ordered the man to leave the gallery — a demand he flatly refused.
The surprise encounter underscored the messy nature of Price’s first four months in office. Facing off against the entrenched interests of the criminal justice system — and occasionally undone by messy management — Price faces the delicate balancing act of delivering on the reform promises she made to voters, while fending off opponents who find the practical application of those reforms uncomfortable.
“When Pamela Price got elected, across the board, while a lot of people did not agree with her politics, they understood she was going to come in with different policies and different ideas,” said Danielle Hilton, a longtime prosecutor who resigned under Price. “We didn’t realize how far afield from prosecution and the core job she was going to go.”
A longtime civil rights attorney, Price was elected on a platform denouncing tough sentencing — and the resulting mass incarceration of criminals — as a racist overreaction to crime, one that has devastated communities of color. A vocal critic of law enforcement, she’s argued for reopening misconduct cases against police and sheriff’s deputies while taking a more empathetic approach to defendants who were charged as juveniles, or who suffer from mental illness.
Since taking office, Price has filed numerous motions in high-level murder and assault cases to significantly reduce prison sentences for murder defendants — most notably seeking just 15 years in prison for a man accused of killing three people. She also mandated that prosecutors gain prior approval from her leadership team before filing sentencing enhancements, like gang and weapons charges, that can add decades to a defendant’s prison term.
The changes have faced intense opposition within the DA’s office. At least 24 prosecutors and investigators have resigned since Price’s election, in which she bested an office insider. At least six other prosecutors — including two assistant district attorneys and four deputy district attorneys — have been placed on leave. The turnover has involved nearly every single leadership position in the office.
Dozens of new hires have filled their place, including the entirety of Price’s senior staff — all but one of whom have no prosecutorial experience.
In a recent interview, Price defended the turnover in the office.
“I want to hire prosecutors who want to save lives and not destroy them,” she said. “That’s the theme of what we’re looking for.”
Of those who have left her office, she said simply: “That’s fine. Have a nice life.”
Voters in Alameda County, she added, gave her a mandate to change how justice is dispensed.
“The people who are raising all these concerns are people who supported my opponent, who were invested in the status quo. And they lost,” Price said. “To me, a lot of it is just people who are sore losers. And the people of Alameda elected me to transform this criminal justice system.”
Still, interviews with current and former members of Price’s staff — including supporters and critics of the new DA — paint a picture of an office divided by infighting and deep philosophical disagreements between longtime prosecutors and the new people brought in by Price.
In a searing resignation letter, one longtime prosecutor, Hilton, criticized Price’s “arbitrary” directives, lamenting that “the focus of the District Attorney’s Office has been taken away from advocating for victims.”
Charly Weissenbach, another prosecutor who resigned under Price, agreed — calling Price’s moves “ill-informed, poorly phrased and poorly effectuated.” Both Weissenbach and Hilton have taken jobs with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.
“I did not feel like I could do my job the way I should be doing it: Ethically, transparently and with at least consideration — if not a focus — on the victims of crime,” Weissenbach said.
Even some of Price’s supporters have left. Former spokesman Ryan LaLonde said he resigned after barely two months on the job – not out of disagreement with the new policies, but rather due to a work environment that had turned toxic. Employees still loyal to former District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, he said, were “sabotaging” the work of newly-hired colleagues.
“It was hurting my mental health, and ultimately that’s why I needed to go,” LaLonde said.
Perhaps nowhere are the stakes for progressive reforms — and the complicated nature of their implementation — as evident as in San Francisco, where voters elevated another criminal justice reformer, Chesa Boudin, into office in 2020, only to recall him two years later. But while that about-face was widely seen as a barometer of voters’ limited appetite for sweeping change, Price carried a surprisingly strong vote into the DA’s office across the Bay the same year San Francisco voters rejected Boudin. Since then, the two district attorneys’ offices on opposite sides of the Bay Bridge have swapped prosecutors like trading cards.
At least eight prosecutors and investigators have fled Alameda County for San Francisco since the November election. Many were drawn to Boudin’s successor, Brooke Jenkins, who has taken a decidedly stricter approach to crime.
“We are fiercely committed to advancing public safety, standing up for victims and fighting for justice in the courtroom,” Jenkins said in a statement. Her office, she said, is looking to restock talent “after years of prosecutorial negligence that resulted in an exodus of experienced and talented attorneys.”
At the same time, at least four former San Francisco prosecutors moved to the East Bay with Price, as she picks up the reform mantle once held by Boudin.
Price and Boudin represent a new wave of district attorneys who are no longer satisfied with low-hanging reforms that are easier to sell to the public, like scaling back prosecutions of lower-level drug offenses, said Jonathan Simon, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law.
“For a lot of people, that’s going to seem out of tune with what they’re used to hearing from, and expecting from, prosecutors,” Simon said. “But it’s not a surprise — it’s what these folks ran on.”
He added that Price’s actions appear largely in line with a growing body of research suggesting that reducing prison sentences could both improve public safety and lower recidivism.
Yet while Alameda County voters may be receptive to Price’s ideas, the new DA must still tread carefully, said Jason McDaniel, associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University.
“That’s often a mistake that politicians will make, especially activist-oriented politicians,” McDaniel said. “Elections are not really policy mandates. They can sometimes be interpreted somewhat in that way, but … it doesn’t mean you get to do all of them all at once.”
Transparency while enacting such reforms will be key, he said, adding that the most successful politicians realize that their election doesn’t equate to a mandate by voters to quickly enact broad changes.
Price’s next test may come Thursday when her team is expected to resume advocating for the early release of a man who’s barely a decade into a 114-year prison sentence.
The man, Lilron Jones, was 17 when prosecutors say he fired a gun during the encounter that left Jubrille Jordan dead on Dec. 30, 2012, during a long-running East Oakland gang war. The 15-year-old girl was on her way to shop for New Year’s Eve outfits with her sister and best friends when she was caught in the crossfire.
Jones’ possible release is upsetting to Jubrille’s brother, Justin Young, who said he felt “pushed into a corner” by Price when the two met in late April. He said Jones was “either going to end up hurting some other people or get some other people hurt.”
