OAKLAND — Former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price appeared to use the power of her office as a cudgel last year when she sought extra prison time against a murder defendant, mere hours after the man’s attorney refused to back Price politically, a judge ruled Monday.
Price’s decision to file a 10-year sentencing enhancement against Jamal Thomas in June 2024 appeared problematic on multiple levels, ruled Alameda County Superior Judge Thomas Reardon, who added that “the appearance of unfairness here is too great.” That was particularly true, he said, given the “awkward” actions of Price and her administration in filing the enhancement, as well as “the absence of evidence legitimizing the decision” to pursue the enhancement.
“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 from the bench. “It seems to me to be an ever-present question, an issue, before us, near and far.”
“But this comes down to a situation where this just doesn’t pass the stink test,” added Reardon, a county prosecutor before he became a judge.
Last last year, Assistant Public Defender Kathleen Guneratne filed a motion claiming Price made a rare decision in June 2024 to impose a sentencing enhancement on Thomas. That filing decision was made official the morning after public defender Jennie Otis complained about Price’s handling of the DA’s office — and the case of Otis’ client Thomas in particular — during a Sunday evening phone call she received from Price.
During the call, Price mentioned that she knew Otis had donated to her 2022 campaign and hoped Otis would oppose the recall, Otis wrote in the motion. Voters eventually removed Price from office through a recall in November 2024. Attempts by this newspaper to reach Price on Monday were not immediately successful.
Otis said Price became “defensive” as she voiced more complaints, including that Price’s office was continuing to prosecute cases that were investigated by an allegedly corrupt Oakland police detective who is facing bribery charges.
The next day, Nathan Feldman, a deputy district attorney prosecuting the Thomas case, informed Otis that enhancements had been approved. Feldman has said in court that he tried for months to gain approval by the district attorney’s office’s leaders to file sentencing enhancements in the case.
The allegations cast a spotlight on one of Price’s hallmark policy changes during her two-year tenure.
In a directive issued shortly after she took office in early 2023, Price sought to restrict the use of so-called sentencing enhancements, which are legal charges that can be attached to an underlying count to impose a harsher – or longer – sentence. Price’s new policy required administrative approval for sentencing enhancements, which had the effect of widely scaling back the practice across the county.
There were few exceptions, but Thomas’ case apparently made the cut, and his attorney was informed of that shortly before trial, according to court testimony.
Thomas was convicted in July of murdering a former neighbor, Miles Armstead, on May 1, 2020, in Oakland. The case received extra publicity because Armstead and his family had attempted numerous times to alert police to an ongoing harassment and vandalism campaign against them by Thomas, which culminated with the murder.
On Monday, Judge Reardon expressed dismay at having to toss the enhancement.
“That is – in no offense to Mr. Thomas or Ms. Otis – a disappointment to me, because a jury found this allegation to be true,” Reardon said. “And I jealously guard the work of my juries, and the work I help them to do. And so to have their determination upended by me in this way is unfortunate.”
Thomas is scheduled to be sentenced on March 14. After Reardon’s decision Monday, Thomas now faces a potential prison sentence of 25 years to life behind bars for the 2020 killing.
Check back for updates to this developing story.