Evidence Appears to Show Cover-Up of Previous Charges of Discrimination Against Jewish and Black Jurors
October 23, 2024
Oakland, CA—Today, DA Pamela Price announced that attorneys assigned to review the office’s death penalty cases found evidence revealing that instead of investigating claims of prosecutorial misconduct—excluding Jewish and Black residents from juries, a former senior Alameda County District Attorney’s Office prosecutor who is now a sitting judge in Alameda County, Morris Jacobson, and a team of investigators appeared to have taken part in covering it up.
During a press conference, DA Price presented a copy of a handwritten note by a former DA office employee who attended a meeting with employees from the office. Deputy DA Morris Jacobson led the meeting in preparation for an evidentiary hearing ordered in the Fred Freeman case. That hearing was ordered after former capital trial prosecutor Jack Quatman, the prosecutor in People v. Freeman, signed a declaration revealing that he and other capital case prosecutors routinely struck Black women and Jewish jurors in death penalty cases.
Deputy DA Morris Jacobson was assigned by former District Attorneys Tom Orloff and Nancy O’Malley to coordinate the ACDAO’s response during the evidentiary hearing. In that capacity, he and others assigned to the capital case team went to great lengths to distract the courts from the substantive legal allegations by besmirching the whistleblower Quatman’s character and credibility—a strategy that succeeded. Key sections of the note include, “left it w/ Morris saying he would give us direction. Wants to find dirt on Quatman,” and “How good are your memories? His point was he doesn’t want any documentation of what we do unless it is agreed upon???”
“This note provides the public some of the missing clues regarding who appeared to be involved during previous administrations in covering up prosecutorial misconduct at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office,” said DA Pamela Price. “The note from this meeting in 2004 gives insight into why prosecutors’ notes containing evidence of discrimination against potential Jewish and Black jurors may not have been subjected to a comprehensive review and were not disclosed to the Court in most of the cases until my office was ordered by Honorable Judge Vince Chhabria to review death penalty cases.
What the public should know is that Prosecutors have special duties as ministers of justice to uphold the Constitution, which guarantees the right to a fair trial and to be judged by a jury of one’s peers, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation.”
United States District Court Judge Chhabria determined earlier this year that there was “strong evidence that, in prior decades, prosecutors from the office were … excluding Jewish and African American jurors in death penalty cases.” He subsequently issued an order directing ACDAO to disclose jury selection files in all Alameda County cases which resulted in a death sentence.
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Contact: damedia@acgov.org
The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office (DAO) is one of California’s largest prosecutors’ offices and is led by Alameda County’s first Black woman District Attorney Pamela Y. Price. Price brings her vision to this office to fairly administer justice in the pursuit of thriving, healthy, and safe communities for every person who steps foot in Alameda County, no matter their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, income, or zip code. Price has been recognized as one of the most progressive prosecutors through her forward-thinking, innovative strategies to interrupt cycles of violence and crime and bring change to a criminal justice system rooted in systemic racism. Follow Madam DA on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and @AlamedaCountyda on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.