Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is fighting back against what she says is unfair criticism of her office.
Price has claimed her office has been working since August to fix a major backlog in misdemeanor cases after discovering the problem in mid-July.
"When DA Price hired Senior Assistant District Attorney Evanthia Pappas as the new branch head at the Family Justice Center in early 2023, the team discovered significant backlogs in domestic violence cases, which pose the highest risk of lethality if left unaddressed as well as U-Visa applications," the DA office said in a press release. "The new team addressed the problem at the FJC, and since August of this year, the same model used to clear the backlog of these domestic violence cases has been replicated to clear the backlog of misdemeanor cases discovered in July at the Wiley Manuel Courthouse."
Price’s comments come after a whistleblower in her office told the San Francisco Chronicle that more than 1,000 misdemeanor cases passed the statute of limitations without charges being filed. It’s a number Price said that she can’t confirm.
“Absolutely not," she said. "Whoever published that number, someone in this office spent time counting manually versus doing the work."
Price blames the backlog on the prior DA Nancy O’Malley. She said the misdemeanor cases are manually logged and were never properly dated to keep track of the statute of limitations.
“The fact that it has never been emphasized in this office is a problem I’ve walked into. I’ve learned about and I’m now fixing,” she said.
To fix the problem, Price said she has increased staffing from four to six people to manually go through cases and is working to modify the case management system to include necessary dates.
Even with these solutions, Price admits currently there’s no way to identify how large the backlog is or exactly when it will be fixed.
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“I am dealing with a system where the people who have been working here for decades tell me that it is literally impossible to remedy the problem,” she said. “Their recollection is that the problem has always existed.”
The news comes as Price faces a recall vote on the November ballot and a growing number of critics who question her effectiveness.
In an interview with NBC Bay Area’s Raj Mathai on Tuesday, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said she blames Price for compromising public safety across the region.
“What I have seen is a number of very inexperienced prosecutors be hired in that office and be tasked with doing things that are very important. And we are seeing work fall through the cracks,” Jenkins said.
Price responded to San Francisco DA’s comments on Wednesday.
“To my knowledge Ms. Jenkins is not part of our hiring committee and is not previewed to the hiring that we have done,” she said. “I think DA Jenkins would do well to manage her office.”
Price added that she didn't create the issues, is working to fix them and accuses critics of pushing a false narrative.
“People want to use Pamela Price as clickbait and use my name in a headline of salacious, false headline,” she said.
Price's office said in a press release that they will continue to manually track the incident dates of any new reports reviewed. The DA's office added that Price will deploy a team of additional staff to the Wiley Manuel Courthouse unit to fix the problem starting on Monday.
