I just want to share this San Francisco Chronicle article from this morning. It says that Pamela Price “has not yet made the required data available to us, nearly a year after we first asked them for it.”
What data, you ask? The same data we at the Coalition have been trying, unsuccessfully, to obtain: a record of her charging decisions since taking office. Is she—as we suspect—charging fewer and fewer perps with felonies, and instead reducing their charges to mere misdemeanors? Is she—as we suspect—not charging defendants of color? Is she—as we suspect—diverting violent career criminals to treatment instead of sending them where they belong, to jail?
We just don’t know because Pamela Price won’t tell us. Or the Chronicle. Or anyone.
This represents, alleges the Chronicle, “a violation of the California Public Records Act.” The CPRA was passed by the California Legislature in 1968 for government agencies and requires that government records be disclosed to the public, upon request, unless there are privacy and/or public safety exemptions which would prevent doing so. Price, however, has not cited any “privacy” or “public safety exemptions” for not releasing the data, nor could she, since evidently there are none. Her game is pretty obvious: release nothing, trust that the media won’t make a big deal about it, and hope that, even if the media raises holy hell, the public won’t catch on, or care.
This tells us a lot about Madame D.A.’s modus operandi. She prefers to work in secrecy, because she knows that if people really understand what she’s doing, they’d turn against her in droves, thereby ensuring her recall. When a politician refuses to talk about something she’s done, there are good reasons for it: embarrassment and fear are chief among them.
The Chronicle tried to make it easier for Price to provide the required information by limiting their request only to homicide, robbery, narcotics and felony assault cases. The newspaper even offered to pay for the work required to assemble the data. Still, Price refuses to comply.
We, the public, have a legitimate interest in learning what’s going on behind the scenes in the District Attorney’s office. Price has a legal obligation to tell us. That she’s hiding behind a wall of silence is clear. I hope the Chronicle will pursue this with all the resources at their command.
Steve Heimoff