Hundreds of people arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor crimes in one California county, including a person who had a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit when he slammed into three parked cars, will walk free after prosecutors failed to file their charges on time, according to a new report.
Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, who is facing a recall next month, acknowledged a backlog of cases that need review but blamed the problem on the previous administration. Her predecessor, Nancy O’Malley, denied the allegations.
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The suspects in the cases were all issued citations or arrested by police officers who filed their reports on time to the district attorney’s office for review. Price’s office prosecutors had a year to decide whether to file misdemeanor charges. In felony cases, the district attorney’s office is typically given three years.
Since the start of 2023, more than 1,000 misdemeanor criminal cases have fallen through the cracks, expiring without a decision on whether to prosecute, according to records shared with the San Francisco Chronicle. One case involved a woman found in a stolen car with brass knuckles, and another involved a man who tried to use a fake receipt to return close to $800 worth of merchandise from Home Depot he hadn’t purchased.
Price’s office has been criticized for failing to produce regular reports on charging decisions to the public, something she has blamed on a poor case management system that’s been in place.
The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed multiple officials who were granted anonymity. They provided evidence that 360 cases had already been declined for prosecution due to missing their filing deadlines. Of those, 62% were submitted by law enforcement after the start of 2023, when Price was sworn into office. Another 646 cases are still technically pending but almost assuredly will be dropped because the crimes allegedly committed were carried out more than a year ago.
A majority of the cases dropped came from crime-ridden Oakland. The city is in the middle of one of its most turbulent times in decades, fueled by a mayor, Sheng Thao, who is also being recalled by voters frustrated over crime, corruption, and a reluctance to hold lawbreakers accountable.
Thao and Price were voted into office together as part of a progressive wave of officials who have since become problematic for the city.
Sgt. Huy Nguyen, president of the Oakland Police Officers’ Association, called the number of cases dropped troubling.
“The challenge is that when there’s zero consequences, people continue to see how much they can get away with,” Nguyen said.
The Oakland Police Officers’ Association has repeatedly demanded Thao resign from her post, saying the city has become an “international embarrassment” under her leadership.
He also accused Thao of making Oakland “a more dangerous place.”
“For almost two years, we have been waiting and see this ship is not stirring in the right direction,” he added. “The leadership in the city continues to fail again and again, and the citizens on the street are suffering.”
Oakland is the county seat of Alameda.
While the ability to review every single misdemeanor case that crosses a prosecutor’s desk is a tough task, those in Price’s office say the number that has piled up is unacceptable.
Most misdemeanors in the Bay Area do not lead to jail time, but prosecutions set in motion consequences for offenders such as drug and treatment programs, probation, and traffic school.
“If you have enough DUI convictions, it becomes a felony,” said Melissa Dooher, a former Alameda County prosecutor who left the office in 2023. “And of course, in the meantime, if you’re going untreated, if you’re going unpunished, if you’re not on probation, you’re basically a danger to the community if you re-offend.”
Dooher said she can only recall a handful of times when a case was tossed because a decision had not been made within the statute of limitations.
“But if it’s just literally sitting in a pile, whether that’s electronic or a physical file, the only real reason it happens is due to understaffing, and the current charging DA is just literally not having the time and bandwidth to deal with it,” she said.
Other chief prosecutors in the region called Alameda County’s big backlog “highly unusual.”
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San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe said, “You have a deadline. You make your deadline.”
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who took office in July 2022 following the recall of Chesa Boudin, the previous district attorney, said she did not inherit a high volume of uncharged cases and said Alameda County’s problem “is not something I have ever seen in my decade of being a prosecutor.”
