OAKLAND — The seven finalists vying to replace recalled Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price are about to get their first and only chance to publicly state their case for becoming the county’s next top prosecutor.
The finalists are expected to be interviewed Tuesday afternoon by the Board of Supervisors, whose five members are tasked with selecting the county’s new district attorney to serve through 2026. No final decision is slated to happen Tuesday. The supervisors plan to select their pick at a meeting on Jan. 28.
The appointment became necessary after voters by a 2-to-1 margin removed Price — a former civil rights attorney and the county’s first Black woman to serve as its top prosecutor — from office less than two years into her first term.
Last week, the Board of Supervisors narrowed the list of candidates from 15 to seven, in a meeting that unexpectedly ended with the supervisors naming two more finalists than the five that were originally planned.
Making the cut were several people with prior prosecutorial experience at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, as well a city attorney whose office has prosecuted numerous criminal cases under a unique arrangement found in only 12 other California municipalities.
The two current Alameda County prosecutors named as finalists — Elgin Lowe and Jimmie Wilson — have each spent decades prosecuting cases in the county.
A county prosecutor since 1996, Lowe now works as a senior deputy district attorney overseeing several high-profile cases, including the prosecution of three people charged with murder in the December 2023 shooting death of Oakland police officer Tuan Le. He has garnered endorsement from many officials in Hayward, and has called serving as a prosecutor in the county “not just a job to me,” but rather his “calling.”
Wilson arrived the office in 2004, and more recently served as one of the key decision-makers in office’s daily task of filing charges against defendants. He ran unsuccessfully for district attorney in 2022, but stayed with the office under Price, first as the head of Rene C. Davidson Courthouse and later as he person in charge of Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse. After Price left office, Wilson was elevated to the role of chief of prosecutions.
The lineup of former Alameda County prosecutors includes four candidates with varied background in criminal justice.
Garnering the highest-level endorsements so far has been Venus D. Johnson, who gained the backing of her boss, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, while serving as his second-in-command. A prosecutor in Alameda County from 2006 through early 2014, Johnson held a vast array of jobs over the past decade, including as Oakland’s director of public safety under former Mayor Libby Schaaf and as Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton’s top lieutenant.
Another candidate away from the office for the past decade is Alameda County Superior Court Judge Ursula Jones Dickson, who served as a county prosecutor from 1998 through 2013, when she was appointed to the bench. She was among the candidates endorsed by the group Save Alameda for Everyone, which led the recall effort against Price.
Also endorsed by recall organizers is Annie Esposito, who worked as an Alameda County prosecutor from 1999 until April 2023, during which she spent time on the executive teams of former District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and Price. From there, she left to work as a Contra Costa County assistant district attorney. Born in Taiwan, her family came to the United States when she was a young child. She left high school at the age of 15 to care for her ailing mother, but earned her GED a year later, before earning her law degree from Golden Gate University School of Law, according to a 2022 podcast interview.
LaTricia D. Louis, who prosecuted cases in Alameda County from 2000 until the first several days of 2023, is another finalist. She did extensive work with the DA office’s mental health unit, ultimately leading it in 2018, before she left to become an Alameda County deputy county counsel shortly after Price took office. Often known simply as L.D., her presence among the list of finalists amounted to a small upset, after Supervisor Nate Miley moved last week to forgo an initial plan of five finalists and add her to the list.
The lone candidate not to have previously worked as a county prosecutor is Yibin Shen, who has spent the past five years as Alameda’s city attorney. His tenure includes the implementation of a rare arrangement that allows city attorneys to criminally prosecute the majority of cases filed in the city of Alameda, including those that can be charged as either a misdemeanor or a felony. Only a dozen other cities across the state — all of which exist in Southern California — operate with similar laws on their books. His name also was unexpectedly added last week at the suggestion of Supervisor Elisa Márquez.
Applicants not selected as finalists were Miiko Anderson, Simona Farrise, Amilcar “Butch” Ford, Kwixuan Maloof, Ocean Mottley, Arvon Perteet, Seth Steward and Scott Tsui.
