Former Alameda County DA Pamela Price continues her losing streak even after her recall, as one of her rare sentencing enhancements was just tossed by a judge amidst evidence that she charged the enhancement merely as revenge against an attorney.
After Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price was recalled in November, we wondered if she would still stay in the news anyway thanks to the fallout over her alleged attempts to extort campaign donations to fight the recall. People, you are now reading an article where Pamela Price is still in the news for that reason.
The Chronicle reports that Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon has thrown out a sentencing enhancement Price’s office had pushed for in the case of the 2020 murder of an Oakland investment banker. 27-year-old Jamal Thomas was found guilty of the murder in July 2024, and his attorney was Alameda County deputy public defender Jennie Otis.
Otis signed a sworn affidavit saying that Price called her the day before Thomas’s trial started, to ask about a political donation to fight the recall. Otis alleged that Price also just casually mentioned that Thomas could be sentenced to an extra ten years in prison with enhancements Price was in a position to add.
Otis declined to make the political contribution, and Price’s office did indeed add the sentencing enhancement. This is unusual, because Pamela Price’s office was becoming notorious for not pursuing sentencing enhancements.
Judge Reardon seemed to believe that this was something along the lines of an extortion attempt. “I’d say this is what happens when you put folks in charge of things when they don’t know how it works, and they don’t know what the guardrails are,” Reardon said during court proceedings Monday, according to the Bay Area News Group. He added that “the appearance of unfairness here is too great,” and chided Price’s office for “the absence of evidence legitimizing the decision.”
So when Jones is sentenced on March 14, he will face 25 years to life rather than the 35 years to life he would have faced with the sentencing enhancement. Of course, the Alameda County DA’s Office is now being run by Ursula Jones Dickson, who has vowed to increase sentencing enhancements.
As for Pamela Price? The Bay Area News Group has the curious tidbit that she’s launching a podcast called Pamela Price Unfiltered. The podcast is supposedly launching today, and while it is heavily promoted on Price’s Instagram account, the YouTube page for it does not yet appear to be active.
Related: Pamela Price's Phone Records Subpoenaed Over Extortion Allegations Against Her [SFist]
Image: Pamela Y. Price via Facebook
