San Francisco county lets hundreds of misdemeanor suspects off the hook after embarrassing bungle

Hundreds of crime suspects in Alameda County, California, have been released after prosecutors failed to review their cases in time.

Representatives of District Attorney Pamela Price told the newspaper San Francisco Chronicle that there has been a backlog of cases since the embattled official, who is currently fighting a recall attempt, took office in January 2023.

They told the newspaper that Price’s office was struggling to keep up with the pile of cases passed to them by the previous administration when Nancy O’Malley was in power — which she has denied.

Documents reviewed by the Chronicle show that since the beginning of 2023, more than 1,000 misdemeanor criminal cases have exceeded the statute of limitations, allowing them to expire without a decision from the prosecutor.

More than 600 cases have expired in Alameda County alone.

Of the criminals who will now avoid punishment, one is a driver who crashed into three parked cars with a blood alcohol level of 0.22 percent, a man who tried to return about $800 worth of Home Depot items he had not purchased , and a woman found in a stolen car wearing brass knuckles, the outlet reported.

The suspects in the cases involved were issued misdemeanor citations or endorsed by police, who filed reports and sent them to the district attorney’s office for review.

After that, it’s up to prosecutors to determine whether to charge the criminals and for what, but if officials don’t come up with answers to misdemeanor cases within a year, they expire.

Despite staffers reporting that more than a thousand criminals will walk free because of the monumental demise, Price’s office could not officially “confirm or deny” the figures, “or provide their own figures,” the newspaper reported.

Although the Chronicle could not confirm the statistics, the newspaper searched about a dozen reports from a list and found data supporting the prosecutors’ claim.

The reports were filed more than a year ago by Emeryville police or Oakland police, while court records showed no cases filed against named suspects presented to the outlet.

Former staffers who worked under Price revealed that cases began piling up shortly after she became prosecutor.

The unnamed former employees said that when Price took her stand, 360 cases had already been dismissed after missing their deadlines, while another 646 cases are currently pending.

Of the 360 ​​cases, 62 percent were filed by police officers after early last year, when Price was in power, the sources said.

The crimes committed in the current cases have passed the one-year mark and are likely to be dismissed.

One of the affected cases involves two Alameda officers who, if filed in a timely manner, would be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the tragic death of Mario Gonzalez.

Gonzalez, 26, died on April 19, 2021, after three officers pinned him to the ground while responding to multiple police calls.

The two officers facing charges have been fired due to the backlog, while the third officer remains charged, the Chronicle reported.

Despite the officers being fired, Price stated when she took office that she would reopen the case after O’Malley cleared all three of wrongdoing in 2022.

Price previously said she would consider filing charges against the officers and vowed to take “accountability” for their misconduct.

The data provided by the Chronicle represents only police reports of crimes handled by prosecutors at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland.

Under that courthouse are twelve agencies, including the Albany Police Department and the Oakland Police Department.

The outlet clarified that the data does not include reports from smaller courthouses in the county or cases of domestic violence.

Although many Bay Area criminals often avoid prison time, prosecutors typically impose other consequences for people, including counseling, rehabilitation services and driving courses.

Melissa Dooher, who previously worked as a prosecutor in Alameda County, said that during her 23 years there, it was rare for a case to be dismissed because a decision was not discussed or made in a timely manner.

Despite this, she explained why this might have happened, citing “understaffing” and lack of “bandwidth.”

“But if it’s literally sitting in a pile, whether that’s an electronic file or a physical file, the only real reason this is happening is due to understaffing, and the current load DA just literally doesn’t have the time and bandwidth to deal with it to go,” she said.

Dooher added that when cases piled up, prosecutors often came together to address the issue.

As the current cases wind down, Dooher expressed her concern about the people arrested for drunk driving.

“If you have enough DUI convictions, it becomes a misdemeanor. And in the meantime, if you go untreated, if you go unpunished, if you’re not on probation, you are essentially a danger to the community if you offend again,” she told the Chronicle. .

Interim Chief of Prosecutors Evanthia Pappas, who joined Price’s team in June 2024, told the newspaper that the prosecutor was “not given any roadmap or transition when she came in.”

According to Pappas, after assuming her new role, Price immediately appointed an assistant district attorney to help review the entire slate of cases.

“As soon as she found out [about the backlog] She has taken it one branch at a time and is currently working on the backlog at Wiley Manuel,” Pappas said.

Meanwhile, the anonymous former employees told the Chronicle that prosecutors at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse were also unable to keep track of all the cases, leaving about 3,000 untouched in May.

By September, that number had risen to 4,000, staffers told the newspaper. Pappas could not confirm these figures.

In response to Price’s office blaming O’Malley’s previous work, she said she informed Price early on that she would be “available” to brief her on the unreviewed police reports.

‘I deployed a lot of staff just to look at those things [cases]and they were assigned to [work with] different police departments,” O’Malley said.

‘We received reports from the branch heads every two weeks. And no one ever said, “By the way, we need more help because we’re not getting through.”

‘I sent a message on the first day the election results became known [Price] a letter and said, “This is a complicated office. We have many programs, I will make myself available to you. Please bring your staff so we can go over things.” They gave us an hour, and that was it,” she added.

DailyMail.com contacted Price’s office for comment.