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Letters

Jul. 3, 2024

The leadership of Alameda County’s office was complicit in prosecutors’ discriminatory behavior

The California Supreme Court has affirmed a death sentence in People v. Nadey, despite evidence of systemic racial discrimination by Alameda County prosecutors during jury selection in capital trials. It was hateful, ugly racism, antisemitism, and homophobia by multiple prosecutors that could not have flourished in the DA’s office without the knowledge and complicity of the highest levels of the office’s leadership.

Robert Bacon

Robert Bacon, a former prosecutor in another state, now practices law in Oakland. He represents individuals under death sentence, none of them sentenced in Alameda County.

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Last week, Chike Odiwe commented on People v. Nadey, 2024 WL 3016945 (Cal., June 17, 2024), where the California Supreme Court affirmed yet another death sentence, once again turning aside evidence that prosecutors systematically used peremptory challenges to dismiss African-American prospective jurors.

There is more to the story than Odiwe discussed. Nadey is the tip of an iceberg tha...

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