City Government
Congresswoman Barbara Lee on Feinstein’s Retirement
Senator Dianne Feinstein is a historic figure, a trailblazer, and a tireless advocate for the people of California and our country. Shattering glass ceilings, she served as the first female President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the first female Mayor of San Francisco before being sent to Washington as California’s first woman U.S. Senator in 1992 along with Senator Boxer in the historic Year of the Woman, where she continued to challenge the status quo in Washington.
The following statement is from the office of Rep. Barbara Lee:
Senator Dianne Feinstein is a historic figure, a trailblazer, and a tireless advocate for the people of California and our country. Shattering glass ceilings, she served as the first female President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the first female Mayor of San Francisco before being sent to Washington as California’s first woman U.S. Senator in 1992 along with Senator Boxer in the historic Year of the Woman, where she continued to challenge the status quo in Washington. Senator Feinstein has been a barrier breaker for all of us who have been inspired by her monumental career, myself included.
Her historic Senate career will be marked by her unwavering commitment to passing groundbreaking legislation. A champion for gun control, she passed the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban that banned semi-automatic firearms and continues to be a vocal advocate against gun violence today. A protector of our natural environment, she passed the California Desert Protection Act that safeguarded more than 7 million acres of California desert wilderness. A fighter for women’s and human rights, she pushed the 2022 Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act and passed legislation to combat human trafficking and protect marriage equality.
While I hope we will keep the focus in these coming days on celebrating the Senator and her historic tenure in the Senate, I know there are questions about the Senate race in 2024, which I will address soon.
But for now, let me say I have been honored to serve beside Senator Feinstein in the California Congressional Delegation, and to the Senator, I’d like to say thank you for your enormous service to our state and country.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024
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Bay Area
Evidence Appears to Show Cover-Up of Previous Charges of Discrimination Against Jewish and Black Jurors, D.A. Says
Today, District Attorney 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.
Special to The Post
Today, District Attorney 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, Price presented a copy of a handwritten note by a former DA office employee who attended a meeting with employees from the office.
Jacobson, a deputy district attorney at the time, 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.
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 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,” she said.
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.
The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is the source of this story.
Bay Area
In the City Attorney Race, Ryan Richardson Is Better for Oakland
It’s been two years since negotiations broke down between the City of Oakland and a developer who wants to build a coal terminal here, and the issue has reappeared, quietly, in the upcoming race for Oakland City attorney. Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.
By Margaret Rossoff
Special to The Post
OPINION
It’s been two years since negotiations broke down between the City of Oakland and a developer who wants to build a coal terminal here, and the issue has reappeared, quietly, in the upcoming race for Oakland City attorney.
Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.
Richardson has worked in the Office of the City Attorney since 2014 and is likely to continue current City Attorney Barbara Parker’s policies managing the department. He has committed not to accept campaign contributions from developers who want to store and handle coal at a proposed marine terminal in Oakland.
Retired Judge Harbin-Forte launched and has played a leading role in the campaign to recall Mayor Sheng Thao, which is also on the November ballot. She has stepped back from the recall campaign to focus on her candidacy. The East Bay Times noted, “Harbin-Forte’s decision to lead the recall campaign against a potential future client is … troubling — and is likely to undermine her ability, if she were to win, to work effectively.”
Harbin-Forte has refused to rule out accepting campaign support from coal terminal interests or their agents. Coal terminal lobbyist Greg McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committee “SOS Oakland” is backing her campaign.
In the 2022 mayor’s race, parties hoping to build a coal terminal made $600,000 in contributions to another of McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committees.
In a recent interview, Harbin-Forte said she is open to “listening to both sides” and will be “fair.” However, the City Attorney’s job is not to judge fairly between the City and its legal opponents – it is to represent the City against its opponents.
She thought that the 2022 settlement negotiations ended because the City “rejected a ‘no coal’ settlement.” This is lobbyist McConnell’s narrative, in contrast to the report by City Attorney Barbara Parker. Parker has explained that the City continued to negotiate in good faith for a settlement with no “loopholes” that could have allowed coal to ship through Oakland – until would-be coal developer Phil Tagami broke off negotiations.
One of Harbin-Forte’s main priorities, listed on her website, is “reducing reliance on outside law firms,” and instead use the lawyers working in the City Attorney’s office.
However, sometimes this office doesn’t have the extensive expertise available that outside firms can provide in major litigation. In the ongoing, high stakes coal litigation, the City has benefited from collaborating with experienced, specialized attorneys who could take on the nationally prominent firms representing the City’s opponents.
The City will continue to need this expertise as it pursues an appeal of the judge’s decision that restored the developer’s lease and defends against a billion-dollar lawsuit brought by the hedge fund operator who holds the sublease on the property.
Harbin-Forte’s unwillingness to refuse campaign contributions from coal terminal interests, her opposition to using outside resources when needed, as well as her uncritical repetition of coal lobbyist McConnell’s claim that the City sabotaged the settlement talks of 2022 all raise serious concerns about how well she would represent the best interests of Oakland and Oaklanders if she is elected City Attorney.
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