Ursula Jones Dickson becomes Alameda County's new DA
"The DA's job is to make sure, as the top law enforcement officer in the county, that we are tending to the public safety of the community," she said.
During her first full day on the job, Alameda County's new district attorney, Ursula Jones Dickson, wasted no time in taking action to get "back to business."
That included having Eric Lewis, chief inspector under recalled DA Pamela Price, walked out of the building, office sources told The Scanner. His replacement has yet to be named.
The DA's office did not respond Wednesday to a late-day inquiry about Lewis' current employment status.
But an internal investigation at his prior job found that he committed misconduct when he was deputy chief at Oakland PD and then retired before he could be fired.
Also on Wednesday, Jones Dickson swiftly rescinded some of Price's most sweeping reforms — directives that limited the discretion of charging DAs, including the type of enhancements they could add without cumbersome layers of supervisor approval.
The order to rescind the directives also covered Price's approach to juvenile cases, including a ban on moving them to adult court in all but the most extreme situations.
During Price's tenure as DA, that included leaving defendants facing serious criminal charges in juvenile court — even if they had been nearly 18 at the time of the alleged crimes, had serious criminal histories and were, in at least one case, facing multiple murder charges against innocent victims.
Jones Dickson explained her decision to rescind the Price directives to members of the media during a press conference Tuesday.
"I want to come in and make sure that the charging lawyers have the ability to charge cases the way they see fit," she said. "The charging directives will be removed immediately tomorrow morning — so that people can get back to charging cases the way they need to."
Jones Dickson said she wanted to remove the requirement that "each DA had to go to their supervisor, and their supervisor to another supervisor, to get the OK" to add certain charging enhancements.
"If a case is pending, you have so many hours to charge that case," she said. "They shouldn't have to go through three levels of supervisors to determine whether or not an enhancement should be charged."
Emilie Raguso
Sentencing enhancements and allegations are essentially add-ons to the main criminal charges that increase the penalties in the case of conviction.
They often come into play when guns are used, if victims are particularly old or young, if there is gang involvement or if someone commits a new offense while out on bail.
They can help a judge and jury distinguish, for example, between a robbery involving violence or a gun and those that don't; crimes where a victim was particularly vulnerable; or if a defendant is also facing other criminal charges.
Jones Dickson said she also plans to survey all the prosecutors in the office, including the many hired by Price, to find out about their needs and goals.
"We have a lot of lawyers who have not done DA work before," she said.
That includes many prosecutors who do not know how to do a jury trial or a preliminary hearing, she said.
"The goal is to put together a job questionnaire … so that we know where people are strong and where they need assistance," Jones Dickson said.
Her topmost concern about the office was its "cohesiveness," she said, adding that the DA position itself belonged to no particular individual.
"This is not Tom Orloff's office. It's not Nancy O'Malley's office. It's not Pam Price's office," she said, referencing the last three Alameda County DAs. "It's the Alameda County DA's office. And I just happen to be leading it now."
Another priority will be to ensure that victims and their families get the services they deserve, she said.
"It's our job to make sure they are heard. And, as much as possible, they get the things that they need out of this process," she said.
Jones Dickson said she also wants to rebuild trust and relationships — with not only the court, the broader community and the public defender's office, but also with the press.
"I feel like the DA's office has been very siloed over the last two years," she said.
Emilie Raguso
Before recall, Pamela Price faced increasingly public rebukes
Pamela Price was elected to the Alameda County DA job in November 2022 with 53% of the vote.
Just two years later, voters removed her from office via a recall campaign that won the support of 63% of the electorate.
From the beginning, critics said Pamela Price mismanaged her transition as DA and the DA's office as a whole, was soft on crime and put the rights of defendants over victims.
Dozens of veteran prosecutors left rather than work for her, saying they could not carry out their ethical duties with her in charge.
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Price pledged to overhaul a justice system she said was rife with inequities — as an outsider candidate and a progressive prosecutor.
But many saw her as too closely aligned with the defense, which upset the balance of power in the courtroom, and generally unfamiliar with the role of prosecutor.
Price's tenure also coincided with a crime wave in Oakland that made national headlines, with many people blaming her for not doing enough to address it.
"The DA's role has really no impact on crime," Price insisted during an interview with Betty Yu of CBS News in 2023.
As time went on, Price faced increasingly public setbacks and rebukes, including two lawsuits alleging anti-Asian bias, one of them coming from a former spokeswoman.
Her entire office was also recused from two high-profile cases, including a fatal police shooting, because of her conduct.
The state attorney general's office would go on to drop a case Price had filed against a political critic and a judge later dropped charges against officers in a fatal police shooting case due to "rushed and careless work" by prosecutors hired by Price.
Emilie Raguso
Until the end, her staunchest defenders said Price was blamed for things beyond her control, that the media misrepresented her record, and that racism drove much of the criticism that swirled around her.
Price herself dismissed the criticism she encountered after taking office as Alameda County's first Black female DA as "fundamentally racist."
"From the moment I took office, the media created the impression that there was something wrong with my administration," she said in one public meeting. "That’s racism and I’m calling it for what it is."
Price also singled out The Berkeley Scanner for its coverage and blocked the news outlet from a general press conference, resulting in a massive public outcry and subsequent reversal by Price.
Ursula Jones Dickson: "I'm not a social worker"
On Tuesday, Ursula Jones Dickson promised to do things differently.
She said she'd heard, loud and clear, the broad community concern about public safety in Oakland and Alameda County.
"Clearly that's an issue. That's how we got here," she said. "The DA's job is to make sure, as the top law enforcement officer in the county, that we are tending to the public safety of the community. And, in addition to that, keeping victims at the center of that process."
She said she would also be looking to engage actively with collaborative courts and diversion programs that have long existed in Alameda County.
"But that's not really the job of the DA," she said. "I'm not a social worker. I've said that many times before."
She continued: "It's our job to receive information from the police, evaluate that information to see if there's enough evidence to charge cases or if it's appropriate to charge those cases, and then move forward on those cases, keeping the victim at the center of that process. So that is the job of the DA. From my perspective."
Emilie Raguso
Last month, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors chose Jones Dickson — then a judge in Alameda County Superior Court — from among 15 DA applicants, noting in part that her decision to step down from the bench, and forgo her judge's pension, were strong indicators of her commitment to the job.
County officials said they wanted a district attorney who could stabilize the office, not only now but in the years to come.
That will entail running for office in 2026, for the last two years of the current term, and then again in 2028, and at four-year intervals after that.
Jones Dickson said that is her plan.
"I'll run in 2026. I'll run in 2028 — and I'll run in four years after that, for sure," she said. "I'd like to stay around a little longer, but we'll see how it works out."
Another early order of business, she said Tuesday, would be to hire a forensic auditor to comb through office finances. The hiring process is already in the works, she said.
The resulting findings will largely determine whether layoffs will take place, Jones Dickson said.
"I don't know if we'll be able to, for example, keep every single DA that we've hired, because I don't know that we have funding to do so," she said.
In another clear break with Price — who drew criticism early on for moving her HQ to an East Oakland office tower with limited security — Jones Dickson said she will work out of the main Oakland courthouse by Lake Merritt, in line with past precedent from a long line of DAs before her.
Emilie Raguso
Ursula Jones Dickson: "The right person for the right job at the right time"
Shortly after Tuesday's press conference, Jones Dickson walked across the street to attend the Board of Supervisors meeting so she could be appointed and sworn in.
(The Scanner attended the DA's press conference but reviewed a recording of the board meeting after the fact.)
To kick off the meeting, Board President David Haubert announced the plan to appoint Jones Dickson — and was immediately cut off by nearly 20 seconds of hearty applause.
Haubert joked with attendees that "rowdiness" would not be tolerated, then moved on to comments from his colleagues.
"I think we selected the right person for the right job at the right time," said Supervisor Lena Tam. "It was obviously a very rigorous process and I know the community was very engaged."
Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas described the community expectations for the new DA as "a tall order."
"That includes … making sure that the office restores trust and confidence with the community, administering justice in a fair and equitable way, and also continuing the long history of criminal justice reforms that this office has put forward," she said.
Emilie Raguso
During their remarks, supervisors repeatedly described Jones Dickson's appointment as "historic."
When it was his turn to speak, Haubert observed that former Alameda County DAs Tom Orloff and Nancy O'Malley were in the audience.
They were joined by Lowell Jensen, now in his 90s, who served as the district attorney of Alameda County from 1969 to 1980 before becoming deputy attorney general of the United States.
"I see … people serving in the district attorney's office, the Prosecutors' Association. I see former district attorneys. I see our own staff. I see department heads. I see law enforcement, our sheriff, undersheriff. I see our county assessor and so many others here from the community. Our press," Haubert said, adding: "This is indeed is historic."
After the supervisors voted unanimously to appoint Jones Dickson — Nate Miley had an excused absence due to travel but called in during public comment to mark the "auspicious" occasion — Judge Charles Smiley administered the oath of office to her.
(Smiley was elevated just this week from the Alameda County bench to the First District Court of Appeal.)
"I tell you what: I'm gonna fix it. I'll make that promise to you. I'm gonna fix it."
After taking the oath, Jones Dickson's acceptance speech was brief and direct.
"My heart is full," she said, choking up as she thanked her mentors, former colleagues and family members — including her 90-year-old father and his nearly 80-year-old girlfriend — for being there to support her.
She also thanked SF DA Brooke Jenkins for being present, and said she had been watching Jenkins "like a hawk, because I'm so proud of you — and I'm old so I get to say that. I'm very proud of what you've done for San Francisco," she said, adding, "and trust me, I'm a partner."
"I've had a lot of blessings. And this is one of the greatest ones," she said. "The work that I did in the courts with families is probably some of the most important work I've ever done. And it took a lot to leave that."
Emilie Raguso
"Now I'm going to do work on behalf of everybody," she continued. "So I'm just very blessed and lucky to come back to the office that built me."
Speaking to the press earlier, Jones Dickson had pledged to "get back to business."
"That just means, for me, that we keep the main thing the main thing," she explained. "This is a district attorney's office, so we'll do the work of a district attorney."
"Things are out of whack," she told the board in closing Tuesday afternoon. "But I tell you what: I'm gonna fix it. I'll make that promise to you. I'm gonna fix it."
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