The work undertaken by progressive prosecutors to limit sentences imposed on criminals, or to keep malefactors out of prison entirely if they can, has been underway for years. And even if some of these district attorneys have suffered reverses when their efforts have come to the attention of dismayed voters, they have largely succeeded in reducing the consequences of committing crime.
One less well-noticed aspect of their work, though, is the considerable effort spent on springing those already in prison by supporting their bids for parole.
Whereas a more traditionally-minded prosecutor might consider his or her role at a parole hearing to be remembering the victim to commissioners and properly scrutinizing the prisoner’s record, professed rehabilitation and risk to public safety, a progressive prosecutor views the inmate’s future as the priority and the interests of the victim and the public as an inconvenient impediment to it.
It is an approach embraced by Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price – elected in 2022 on a platform of ‘ethical’ prosecution which downplayed the contribution policing makes to public safety and instead stressed the necessity of dealing with what she termed a ‘mental health crisis’.
One of the ways Price puts her thumb on the scale of parole hearings for those guilty of homicide is to send along one of her team of ex-public defenders to argue in favor of the murderer’s release.
Darrell Shepherd killed 27-year-old James Mladinich during a robbery in Berkeley in October 1995. He approached his victim while he was sitting in a car and shot him in the head. Convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances, he narrowly avoided a death sentence and was instead handed a term of life imprisonment without parole. Mr Mladinich left behind a daughter.
“The facts of the crime, no matter how extreme, cannot alone be the basis of an opposition to parole,” Alameda County assistant district attorney Kwixhuan Maloof told commissioners at Shepherd’s January 4 2024 parole hearing.
Maloof had arrived at the prosecutor’s office 12 months earlier having previously been a public defender across the Bay in San Francisco.
“I should say it is especially commendable that Mr Shepherd did not give up on himself when the government did give up on him and initially sought death and then successfully [obtained] life without the possibility of parole,” he said.
“I’ve reviewed his programming, which is quite extensive. It was extensive enough that the Alameda County District Attorney’s office reduced first degree [murder] to second degree [murder] last June.”
“I’ve reviewed his parole plans, which include going into transitional housing. He has support from his brother and support from other relatives, and a lady friend. With those comments, I support his release on parole,” Maloof concluded.
No relative of the victim was present.
An evidently persuaded panel granted Shepherd parole. He remains in Mule Creek State Prison until California Governor Gavin Newsom decides whether to reverse their decision which he must do by the beginning of June. Shepherd plans to settle in Oakland on his release.
Terrance Varner murdered 18-year-old Clarence Ogden in March 2004 over a trivial argument. He shot Ogden in the back while he was running away and then his accomplice also opened fire. The boy died where he fell on East 22nd Avenue in Oakland in front of dozens of shocked onlookers.
Varner killed his victim four months after being released from a state prison term.
He was given a total sentence of 40 years to life, made up of 15 to life for second degree murder and 25 to life for various firearms enhancements.
At a March 6 2024 parole hearing, Varner was lauded by Alameda County assistant district attorney Dana Drusinsky. Drusinsky previously worked as a San Francisco public defender before becoming a city prosecutor under the tenure of another progressive district attorney – the since-axed Chesa Boudin.
“[I]t was really great to be able to see Mr Varner answer these questions and get to hear some of his experiences directly from him,” Drusinsky said.
“I think he’s done a lot of positive programming, I love hearing which programs affect people the most, so it seems like ‘No More Tears’ had a positive effect on Mr Varner.”
“I told myself before coming here, I would end my closing on a very positive note. First of all…if the commissioners find that Mr Varner is not suitable for parole, I do think he is very close. I think he’s done well in prison and I think it’s really the insight as to the commitment offense and, maybe, a little bit of the remorse he spoke about – I think that could be clarified a bit more. But I think he’s close. I think he’s doing well.”
Persuaded nonetheless by Drusinsky’s advocacy, commissioners promptly granted Varner parole.
He will be freed from San Quentin state prison by early August, again unless Governor Newsom elects to intervene.
In other instances Price has adopted the practice of simply not having her office represented at parole hearings at all. So in cases such as that of Lanny Atkins – convicted of first degree murder after binding and setting fire to 90-year-old Remi Dufau during a 1977 home invasion robbery in Berkeley – no one speaks for the people or the victim. Atkins was granted parole on January 30 2024 with only a parole commissioner, a deputy commissioner and Atkins’ attorney present at the hearing.
Atkins’ is a case that plainly would have benefitted from a prosecutorial presence, featuring as it did an unconvincing and evasive explanation for his crimes which attempted to shift the blame on to an accomplice contrary to the verdict of the courts.
In Atkins’ case the parole board’s chief counsel decided to refer the grant of parole to an ‘en banc’ panel of parole commissioners who this month sent it back for another review.
Should Alameda voters recall Price in November, experience in San Francisco shows that that alone will not necessarily end the practice of prosecutors advocating fulsomely for murderers’ freedom.
16 months after Chesa Boudin was recalled in June 2022 one of the ex-public defenders brought into the San Francisco prosecutors office under his tenure attended a parole hearing. There he argued that the man who strangled to death city school girl Maxina Danner in 2004 should be freed.
Royce Miller secured parole to the enormous distress of Maxina’s family. Their resolute campaigning brought the issue to the attention of new District Attorney Brooke Jenkins who reversed the decision to support Miller’s parole and advised the Governor to reverse the decision which he then did.
That at least some further effort has since been made to right the prosecutorial ship in San Francisco has been shown by the presence of Jenkins’ attorneys at parole hearings and their workmanlike efforts to advocate for the public.
An assistant district attorney, Linda Moore, attended the May 3 2024 parole hearing of three-time killer Clifford Bolden. Bolden stabbed to death San Francisco accountant Henry Pedersen, whose body he went on to mutilate, in 1986. At the time of the murder he had been free four months from a sentence imposed for stabbing to death one of his earlier victims, Cruz Ramirez.
Found guilty and sentenced to death by a San Francisco jury, a resentencing exercise was organized by Chesa Boudin, and he received a new a term of 47 years to life.
“We oppose parole at this time,” Moore told commissioners, “finding him a current and unreasonable risk as he lacks insight into the caus[es] of his violence and its extreme nature, he has no relapse prevention plans for violence and he has no recognition of true triggers.”
Moore pointed to Bolden’s “long” and “exceptionally violent” criminal history and drew the panel’s attention to the unconvincing nature of the inmate’s explanation – in essence, that it was an accident –as to how his victim came to be mutilated.
Parole Commissioners went on to deny Bolden parole.
And in December 2023 a prosecutor argued against granting parole to the man who murdered a three-year-old San Francisco boy in what the city’s medical examiner said was the worst case of child abuse he had ever seen.
Many murderers serving indeterminate sentences will be released. And it may be that this would happen even without prosecutors putting their shoulders to the wheel alongside the convict’s own attorney. But it seems clear that far too many parole cases are being decided without the benefit of a professionally skeptical eye being cast over self-interested protestations of reform and analysis conducted by fallible state corrections officials.
For the time being, residents of Alameda can expect more murderers to benefit from the support of the district attorney and more to be released back into their community.
Readers may also be interested in this story: “Alameda D.A. secures resentencing for ‘life without parole’ pair who kidnapped, raped and murdered 22-year-old Oakland woman”.
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