Last month Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price persuaded a court to resentence two men given life without parole for the 1980 home invasion rape, kidnapping and shot-to-the-head execution of a 22-year-old Oakland woman.
Each became immediately eligible for parole and parole hearings were scheduled.
It is the latest in a conveyer belt of such cases masterminded by Alameda prosecutors since Price took office in January 2023, and complements the staunch support Price provides for murderers when they appear before the parole board.
In their anxiety to secure the killers’ freedom Price’s prosecutors falsely told an Alameda judge that San Diego’s top prosecutor endorsed the resentencing. That officeholder dismissed the claim and said she had never resentenced any kidnapper, rapist or special circumstance murderer.
“…a crime that resulted not only in death, but in degradation and humiliation.”
In 1982 Neil Jones and Sterling Jones were sentenced to life without parole after they raped 22-year-old Oakland hairdresser Charlotte Turner in her home, while her husband was held at bay at gunpoint. The pair kidnapped their victims and took them to an isolated road near Oakland Airport where they executed Charlotte with a bullet to the head from a .357 magnum. Her husband survived, with a gunshot wound, after a misfire foiled an attempted coup de grâce.
The crime horrified the city and prosecutors were so appalled that they initially sought the death penalty. The ultimate sentence of ‘life without parole’ for each perpetrator at least afforded the survivor, victims’ family members and the wider community the consolation of not having to worry that they would ever be freed.
If ever there were a pair of convicts less entitled to mercy, these were they.
In their resentencing motion, prosecutors cited what they claimed was each convict’s positive disciplinary record while imprisoned, their participation in some rehabilitative programming, and their age-related infirmities as reasons why they should be resentenced to allow for parole.
Sterling Jones’ rule violations for assaulting a member of staff, manufacturing a weapon, disobeying orders, making alcohol and flooding his cell were well behind him, said prosecutors.
Neil Jones’ recent violations, prosecutors accepted, included disobeying orders, behavior which could lead to violence and failure to turn up to a work assignment.
In an effort to seal the deal, prosecutors cited “statements in support of resentencing” which, they claimed, were from other elected district attorneys from around California. One, attributed to San Diego’s top prosecutor, said:
“We must end long sentences that are not in the interest of justice or public safety. That’s the only way to break the cycle of recidivism and to repair broken communities.”
This came as a surprise to a spokesman for San Diego district attorney Summer Stephan who, charitably describing this as “incorrect,” said she had made no such statement.
In fact, he stressed, Stephan’s office had never resentenced anyone convicted of kidnapping, rape or special circumstances murder, nor any prisoner serving life without parole.
The Alameda district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Much of the motion itself is boilerplate and features the same lengthy chunks of text found in similar motions filed by other progressive prosecutors elsewhere in California.
“It appears that…he represents a severe danger to others.”
At a hearing on September 3 2024 Alameda Superior Court Judge Thomas Stevens set aside the special circumstances found true at trial, threw out the ‘life without parole’ sentences, and instead imposed 35-year-to-life terms for both convicts.
Stevens disregarded the view of trial judge Stanley Golde who, immediately before sentencing, refused point-blank to drop the special circumstances in Sterling Jones’ case.
”The Court finds the nature of the crime peculiarly offensive,” said Golde in 1982. “[Sterling Jones] not only, in this Court’s opinion, deliberately and intentionally aided and abetted in a killing, but he further aided and abetted and participated in a crime that not only resulted in death but in degradation and humiliation.”
“It appears that the defendant’s behavior in this instance was callous and wanton and that he represents a severe danger to others in the community. Incarceration for the maximum period of time allowed by the law appears indicated and such is the recommendation,” wrote probation officer James Blaziek in a report provided to the court prior to sentencing of Neil Jones.
Recall vote looms
On November 5 2024 Price will face voters in a recall election instigated after campaigners collected 70,000+ signatures from residents unhappy with the ‘progressive’ prosecutor’s soft on crime approach.
“We have become the punching bag for those who want to have a political conversation about what justice looks like,” Price complained to a Berkeley Law School audience in March this year.
“And that’s unfortunate. It’s a disservice to our communities when the focus becomes focusing on those of us who have a different lens. And there was no conversation about how unethical prosecution was in Alameda County for the last hundred years. That’s not fair.”
It remains to be seen whether Price is ousted from office. But, if she does go, her successor will have his or her work cut out to undo the damage done to the reputation of the office, the integrity of the justice system and the safety of Bay Area residents.
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