The Alameda County Board of Supervisors selected Superior Court Judge Ursula Jones Dickson as the county’s new district attorney at the end of a nearly four-hour special meeting this week.
Supervisors hope Dickson can be sworn by Feb. 4, depending on her schedule, to take over for Royl Roberts, who was the right-hand-man to former district attorney Pamela Price, who was ousted in a recall election last November.
“The D.A. has a specific job to do,” Dickson said prior to the vote. “That job at the beginning and at the end, the alpha and omega, is to do what’s right for the community, protect the public, public safety and lift up the victims.”
While Price’s short, roughly two-year tenure has often been criticized for being embroiled in infighting and the demands of a bitter recall election, Dickson said she intends to avoid similar pitfalls.
Dickson, who spent several years as an Alameda County deputy district attorney before being appointed to the Superior Court, said she will “make sure we tamp down all of this political rhetoric about this office. This office was never this political, it should never be.”
Before making their selection, the board took hours of public comment from roughly 100 people, many of whom lobbied for one or more of the seven candidates who had made it to the final round of the selection process.
Many speakers endorsed Dickson and Annie Esposito, currently a Contra Costa County assistant district attorney and a former Alameda County senior assistant district attorney, who said she’d be willing to take a job under Dickson if she herself wasn’t appointed.
Most of those speakers appeared affiliated or allied with the recall organizers, Save Alameda for Everyone, whose leadership painted Price as soft on crime and promised electoral retribution if the supervisors’ selection displeased them.
Many other speakers urged supervisors to select someone who is committed to the county’s own policies that prioritize finding diversion programs and other alternatives to incarceration where appropriate, including for low-level defendants and people struggling with mental illness, addiction or homelessness.
One speaker, Jason Quinn, president of the Alameda County Prosecutors’ Association, didn’t endorse a specific applicant but said the office needs someone who can “realign the hearts and minds of prosecutors.”
“We are defeated, we are underappreciated, we are incredibly behind on the work,” Quinn said, adding that many prosecutors in the office need robust training and mentoring.
“Consider a leader both that knows how to handle proving people guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and protecting constitutional rights,” he said.
A ‘grueling’ process
Supervisors praised all of the candidates, with Supervisor David Haubert saying it was one of the most difficult decisions he’s ever had to make and Supervisor Nate Miley likening it to picking between family members.
Supervisor Lena Tam called the process “grueling” and thanked the applicants for sticking with it while saying she wanted to ensure that the current pressing needs of the county prosecutor’s office are being met.
“Immigrant rights are being threatened, when we clearly need to have a D.A.’s office that understands the needs and concerns of the victims and their families,” Tam said. “We need to have a D.A.’s office that is well-managed, that does get back to basics, that has prosecutorial experience.”
Dickson was selected after three rounds of voting by supervisors Tuesday, winning the job over Yibin Shen, city attorney for the city of Alameda; Latricia Louis, Alameda County’s deputy county counsel and a former Alameda County assistant district attorney; Elgin Lowe, a long time prosecutor and senior deputy district attorney in Alameda County; Jimmie Wilson, a deputy district attorney in Alameda County; Venus Johnson, chief deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice and former chief assistant district attorney in Contra Costa County; and Esposito.
The seven finalists were selected by supervisors out of a field of 15 applicants during a special Jan. 16 meeting, and on Jan. 21 supervisors interviewed all seven during a public hearing.
Now that Dickson is firmly ensconced as the county’s top prosecutor, she will only serve until the next regularly scheduled election in 2026. The winner of that 2026 election will serve the rest of Price’s term, which was extended to 2028 by a recent change in state law.
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